The Macon Telegraph, Georgia
10 May 1891
DECEIVED AND DESERTED
ANOTHER WIFE OF LEWIS AVANT INTERVIEWED
Told Her of His Bigamy After They Were Married -- The Consummate Scoundrel Has Disappeared Again -- Where is He Now?
At different times newspapers have had much to say of the amatory escapades and bigamistic marriage of one Avant, sometimes reported as C. A. Avant and at others C. S. Avant, but correctly as Lewis A. Avant.
According to parties in Macon, where Avant resided a long time and where his record up to a certain age is well known, he was born in Alabama, but was raised in Bibb county, Ga.
When about 18 years of age he left his parents' roof and authority and went to Houston county, Ga., where he married a respectable young girl of that county, much against her father's will.
It was a runaway match, and the ceremony was performed with one of the groom's feet resting on the earth and the other on the step of the buggy containing the bride, both ready to fly in a moment if the ceremony was interrupted by the apearance of the girl's friends.
With this first wife he lived until her death, which occurred very shortly afterward.
A SECOND MARRIAGE
He next married a Miss Copeland of Macon, also a respectable lady, aged some 21 or 22 years. With her he lived till the first and only child of this marriage was born, when he suddenly disappeared, leaving his wife and her child to be cared for by her father.
For some time his movements were unknown, and the next thing heard of him was the betraying of young Miss Delia Adair of Forest Station, who ran away with him without the formality of any marriage license or marriage. For this he was arrested in Birmingham, Ala., on an official telegram from Atlanta. But the girl devotedly clung to her betrayer and stoutly declared that she had not been deceived in anything, that she went with Avant of her own free will, with her eyes wide open to all the
circumstances of the case. On this showing her broken-hearted but sensitively honorable father declined to prosecute the matter, and the girl returned to the care of her parents in Forest Station.
Avant then disappeared from Birmingham, and again was lost to view for some time till, on Friday last, May 8, the TELEGRAPH published a special telegram from Atlanta stating that a young woman had arrived in that city who claimed to have been married to Avant in Memphis this last March.
THE OTHER VICTIM
Yesterday this last victim was seen in Macon by a TELEGRAPH reporter while en route returning to her home, in Mississippi.
Despite the grief and mortification of her unhappy position which have weighed heavily upon her, she is still a very handsome woman of 24 years. She is a brunette of plump figure, rather below the average feminine height, has raven black hair, and black eyes that, before they were dimmed and dulled by sorrow, were very bright.
Although it is plain to see that she is past breaking down under her burden of trouble her rounded cheeks still retain some of the bloom of beauty and one time perfect health. A slight limp in her right foot was explained to be caused by her shoes paining her feet, which are unaccustomed to the solidity of city sidewalks, for she is a country girl.
With painful effort and suppresses sobs she gave the following account of her courtship by Avant, her marriage to him and his subsequent abandonment:
"My name is Mrs. L. A. Avant, I was named Lizzie Freddy."
"Yes, I am a country-born and educated girl. My father is a farmer. We lived on a farm two and one-half miles from Grenada, Miss. My brother first met Mr. Avant at Europa, Miss., where Mr. Avant was selling patent medicines. My brother has been for some time a traveling magician and ventriloquist. Mr. Avant, who was known as Dr. Lonny Yellowstone, employed my brother at a monthly salary of $160 to give free exhibitions so as to draw a crowd and hold them while the doctor sold his medicines."
"Some time previous to this, when brother was showing on his own account, I joined him and traveled out on the road with him."
"While Dr. Yellowstone, who claimed he was own cousin to Yellowstone Kit, and my brother were at Europa, Miss., my brother, Joseph E. Freddy, sent for me to join him at Europa, Miss., and I went there and stayed in the family of some friends."
ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHT
"Dr. Yellowstone was stopping there too. On a Monday night at supper I saw him for the first. I thought he was a nice looking man. Some time after supper he asked me, thinking, I suppose, that I belonged to the family, "Will you please show me which is my room." I told him I did not belong to the house, but would call some member of the family to show him his room. He then asked me to sit down, which I did, and he asked me if I liked to read. I sais I did sometimes. He then handed me a book, "Rube
Burrows," at the same time begging my pardon for handing me such literature, but said that most people would read such books anyhow. He then asked me if I was single and I replied that I was, and he said "I, too, am single."
That was Monday evening, next Saturday we met again in a parlor in Meridian, Miss. He remarked it was nice weather, and it was nice weather for it was December. In the course of conversation, I forget how it came about but he said I never drink; I'm mild."
After that I did not see much of him, but he told my brother that he'd like to get to talk to me in the parlor sometimes. I refused, but brother said Dr. Yellowstone was a nice, sober man and said if I'd go in and talk to the doctor, brother Joe would go in and talk to Miss Fanny, another young lady there.
"Well, that evening the doctor made love to me. I didn't encourage him much and so toward the close of the evening he passed a little slip of paper to me on which he had written, "You don't seem to care for me, I guess I'll forget you."
I found out the doctor carried a testament with him. He used to read it every night, even after we were married. My brother said he was a nice man. But when father came up to see us he said: "He looks like a nice man, but I don't like him. He is one of these go-about medicine men and for what we know may have a wife and children somewhere already."
ANOTHER MARRIAGE
Soon after this papa left us and went home to Grenada, Miss. I went on to Memphis with brother. And finally I found I did like the doctor and I told him I'd marry him. So we were married by a justice of the peace in the court house at Memphis, December 9, 1890. I can't tell you the justice's name because the doctor always kept the records himself.
On the floor standing up to be married of course I was somewhat agitated, but I do remember hearing with astonishment the name Avant given, but I did not hardly know what all that meant at the time.
After the ceremony when we went back to the hotel, I asked the doctor what all that meant. He said his real name was Avant. I then asked him why he had gone under the name of Yellowstone, and he said as he was own cousin to Yellowstone Kit and selling Yellowstone's remedies he thought it best for the sake of trade to call himself Dr. Yellowstone.
From her brother, who accompanied her, it was learned that when she found she was abandoned penniless in Memphis, she became temporarily insane from grief and had to be cared for by the police. He was at home in Grenada, Miss., at the time, and received a dispatch from the chief of police of Memphis, saying, "Your sister is here deserted, wild with grief, needs your presence, come quick." He came and has faithfully sustained his sister in her sore trial ever since.
Mr. Freddy said they were going home and had left their case in competent hands to be settled lawfully.
OPEN CONFESSION
He told me another reason he changed his name was because he had stolen a girl in Atlanta and carried her to Birmingham, Ala., but he paid out of it there and went to Meridian, Miss., and changed his name. I asked him why he had not married that girl. He said he told her he already had a wife and children living. I said: "Why didn't you tell me you had a wife?" He said: "I must tell you now; I have got a wife named Carrie Copeland in Macon, but do not love her; I love you and only you, and I never intend to live with my wife again." Then I nearly cried myself to death.
I saw I was betrayed and I made up my mind to bear all and make the best I could out of what had happened.
He was never unkind to me; he was always kind and gentle. Finally I got sick, very sick, and when I began to recover my hair was falling out and he took me to a barber to have my hair cut to stop it from falling out. I saw the barber was spoiling my hair and called out: "Oh, doctor, do come here and stop him; he is spoiling all my hair."
"But he was gone and I have never seen him since," and here her sobs ended the pitiful story."
NOT THIS AVANT
Mr. C. A. Avant, Clifford Anderson Avant, deputy United States marshal, is very wroth that he should be mistaken for this man accused of bigamy. In Macon he is too well known for such a suspicion to rest on him for a moment, but out in the country where his duties often call him, the similarity of name is embarrassing, thought the accused man's real initials are L. A., and not C. A. He says firmly that he will use every effort to have this other Avant, no kin to him, hunted down and handed over to justice.
[If anyone can tell me how the subject of this article, Lewis A. Avant, fits into the Bibb County, Georgia AVANTs, I would greatly appreciate any information you may be willing to share. I am not related to this family, so I cannot offer any information in return. I am interested in the research, nonetheless. Thanks!]