Monday Mystery: First marshal slain after cornering a cornered former preacher

Robert Forsyth might be considered Augusta's first cop.

Born in Scotland, he came to America and fought well in its Revolution. He and his family arrived in Georgia in 1785 and President Washington appointed him the area's U.S. marshal.

Marshals had a variety of duties in this era before municipal police departments, and Forsyth did these jobs well. He was not only the chief law enforcement officer in Augusta, but served as tax assessor and justice of the peace, and he became a trustee of the new Richmond Academy. He also helped construct a jail.

Things looked good for Robert Forsyth, until 1794 when he became something else – the first U.S. marshal to die in the line of duty.

His slayer was a former Methodist preacher named Beverly Allen.

Allen was another early American success story, but also his own mystery.

Described as handsome and articulate, he had enjoyed evangelical acclaim for his preaching in South Carolina and was said to have moved many to faith with his passionate pulpit persuasion. But then something happened.

Exactly what, is unclear, but Allen and the Methodist leadership – particularly Bishop Francis Asbury – had a falling out and Allen moved to Elbert County, north of Augusta, and went into the mercantile business with his brother William.

That business brought them downriver to Augusta in 1794 where one of their transactions became contentious. Two centuries later, it appears to have been minor. Still, an Augusta businessman made a legal complaint to the marshal, and Robert Forsyth went to Mrs. Dixon's boarding house (where George Washington probably stayed three years before) to do his duty.

It is said Forsyth tried to handle the dispute discreetly, but Allen retreated to his room, got a pistol and fatally shot the marshal through the door.

Robert Forsyth was mourned and Beverly Allen went to the newly built jail.

He soon escaped.

Another mystery. We don't know how he got out – persuasion, bribery, faulty jail construction, but Beverly Allen went back to Elbert County and perhaps figured Augusta – now lacking a marshal – wouldn't come after him. He figured wrong.

Augustans raised a $300 reward for his capture and Elbert County Sheriff William Barnett and a posse soon had the Allen house surrounded. When they would not surrender, it was set on fire. William Allen immediately gave up. The blaze was put out and Beverly was found inside. He went to jail again.

And he got out again.

This time a group of some 200 Allen supporters – believing the local boys had been denied justice – broke them out.

For years a variety of Georgia histories reported that the Allens then rode off to Texas, never to be heard from again.

But in 2007 a Tennessee newspaper told a different story – a feature about the first doctor in nearby Logan County, Kentucky. He was a former Methodist preacher named Beverly Allen.

According to the article in the Nashville Tennessean, Allen had come to an area north of Nashville called "Rouges' Harbour" with his brother Billy from Elbert County. Billy eventually went home, but Beverly Allen stayed, earning a reputation as a practicing doctor and "captivating" gentleman.

According to a remembrance recorded years later, a minister named Peter Cartwright visited Allen on his deathbed in 1816 and prayed with him.

Cartwright said Allen confessed shooting a marshal back in Georgia, but said he had warned him before he entered his room.

Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Monday Mystery: Augusta's first cop killed by a wayward preacher