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William Dudley Chipley (June 6, 1840 – December 1, 1897) was an American railroad executive and politician who was instrumental in the building of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad and was a tireless promoter of Pensacola, his adopted city, where he was elected to one term as mayor, and later to a term as Florida state senator.
Following the American Civil War, in 1868 Chipley was one of many men arrested in his hometown of Columbus, Georgia, on suspicion of participation in the murder of Radical Republican judge George W. Ashburn by the local Ku Klux Klan. However, the key witness, American soldier Charles Marshall, who confessed to being a participant at the murder, testified that a man of Chipley's size had been the leader outside but he could not state with certainty it was Chipley and added that he had "not had any acquaintance with Chipley".[1][2]
In October 1868, Chipley along with M.M. Moore, J.S. Pemberton, Frank Gunby, and J. Gunby Jordan established Columbus, Georgia's first fire corporation, The Rescue Hook & Ladder Co.
In 1877, Chipley helped Texas Rangers and Florida law officers subdue and arrest outlaw John Wesley Hardin aboard a train in Pensacola. Hardin was subsequently returned to Texas, convicted on outstanding murder charges, and imprisoned.[3]
- ^ Georgia Journal & Messenger 7 July 1868, p. 4
- ^ Lane, Charles, 1961- (2019). Freedom's detective : the Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan and the man who masterminded America's first war on terror. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pp. 71–79, 87, 91, 276. ISBN 9781335006851. OCLC 1091189008.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Parsons, Chuck; Brown, Norman Wayne (2013). A Lawless Breed: John Wesley Hardin, Texas Reconstruction, and Violence in the Wild West. Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press. ISBN 978-1574415056. Retrieved 20 October 2019.