Officer Memorial

Deputy Sheriff Thomas M. Plummer, Jr.

September 17, 1944

Canton and Madison County were deeply shocked Sunday night by the tragic killing of a brave and deservedly popular deputy sheriff, T. M. (Tom) Plummer, Jr., 37.

Deputy Plummer was shot and almost instantly killed in the roadway in front of his home in South Canton Sunday night at 8:20 o'clock. After being mortally wounded he shot and killed his assailant, Woodrow Wilson McClure, 25, a Madison county raised mulatto, recently returned from Chicago for a visit with his family.

Deputy Plummer and his eleven-year-old son had been out in the country and had just returned home. The boy had gone in the house and his father was backing the car out into the street when a car occupied by McClure almost collided with the deputy's car. The driver of each car got out and the officer is said to have remonstrated with McClure about his reckless driving. McClure fired two or three shots from a .25 calibre automatic pistol and one shot entered Plummer's heart. He lived long enough to kill his assailant, whose body was found four hours later in a ditch across the street from where Deputy Plummer fell.

During the hours that intervened between the time of the shooting and the finding of McClure's body one of the most intensive man hunts ever staged in Madison county was in progress. All roads were carefully guarded and Sheriff Al Hardy, Chief of Police Dan Thompson and their entire forces and most of the State Highway patrolmen within a radius of a hundred miles were directing the search. Bloodhounds were sent for and posses formed. During all of which time the body of the object of the search was lying dead in a narrow grass grown ditch within thirty paces of where he had fired the shot that killed Deputy Plummer. There he was found at 12 o'clock by Mr. Fay Moody and Mr. Allen McBroom, who had been with others guarding a cross roads and had returned to get a report on developments. The negro's wrist watch had been shattered by shotgun pellets and had stopped at 8:20. He had received a shotgun charge in the heart and had a sprinkling of shot wounds in the left side. In his hand was the small automatic with several loaded cartridges still in the magazine. A coroner's inquest returned a verdict Monday morning that he came to his death from gun shot wounds at the hands of Deputy Plummer after the deputy had first been mortally wounded by the deceased.

Following the shooting Deputy Plummer was rushed to the King's Daughters hospital and died soon after reaching there. He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Annie Laurie Sutherland Plummer, three children, Dorothy Anne, 13, Thomas M. Plummer, III, age 11, and Johnnie, age 8. Also surviving are his parents Mr. and Mrs. T. M. Plummer, Sr. of Canton; one brother, Lt. (jg) Fred Plummer, of Atlanta, Ga.; and three sisters, Mrs. Edwin Law of Canton, Mrs. David McSwain of New Augusta, Miss., and Mrs. F. W. Lovelace of Franklin, Tenn.

Deputy Plummer was for eight years a lumber inspector of the Denkmann Lumber Company at Canton. He was for five years with the State Highway Patrol and resigned last year as Captain of the Patrol to run for sheriff of Madison County. Though defeated he made a splendid race an was appointed deputy sheriff by Sheriff Al Hardy and had served in that capacity since.

NOTE: The above article was taken from the September 22, 1944 Madison County Herald.

Sheriff Toby Trowbridge, Jr.