W. H. Bell

There have been several sensational

murders in Carroll County, and William Henry Bell’s name features prominently in one

which occurred as the Civil War came to an end.

Joseph Shaw was an outspoken supporter of the Confederacy and critic of Abraham

Lincoln in his Westminster newspaper, the Western Maryland Democrat. At the beginning

of the war, he was arrested for his Southern sympathies, but quickly released. As the

war progressed and his rhetoric became more toxic, he grew less and less popular in

town. Nine days before Lincoln was assassinated, Shaw wrote an editorial hinting that

the country would be better off if Lincoln should die.

On the night of 15 April 1865, the day after the assassination, a group of “concerned

citizens” met at the Carroll County Courthouse and decided Shaw should not be

allowed to continue publishing his inflammatory paper. The same night, a mob broke

into Shaw’s office and destroyed his presses. Shaw fled to Baltimore but returned

about nine days later to his room at Zachariah’s Hotel in downtown Westminster. That

was where four men, including W. Henry Bell, opened fire on him as he answered their

knock on his door. Shaw wasn’t hit by the shots fired at him but was stabbed in the

chest and bled to death in the hotel’s tavern.

A trial ensued in Westminster. The attackers, all positively identified, were cleared of

every charge although many people questioned the trial’s fairness at the time. Charles

Webster, a lawyer who admitted being one of Shaw’s enemies, was prosecuting the

case against the attackers, who happened to be some of his closest friends. Regardless,

there was no retrial and Henry Bell, considered the likely murderer, continued running

his brickyard near Green and Church streets in the eastern part of Westminster.

A year later, Bell attacked three men, wounding one so badly that he nearly died. He

was arrested, brought to trial, but once again exonerated. This time, however, riots

broke out when he was released from jail. A second trial took place in Towson…with

the same verdict. Bell apparently managed to stay out of trouble for the rest of his life,

but it is curious that his headstone bears only the initials of his first and middle name.