http://roughton-maas.com/sandersville_shootout.htm

One of the leaders in the post-war temperance movement was my distant cousin Bradford E. Roughton, the son of Zachariah Roughton. B. E. Roughton, as he seems to have been known, was a business man. He operated a drug store and produce business. From 1889 to 1893, he was mayor of Sandersville.

B.E. was married to Lavinia Rawlings. The Rawlings family was also prominent in Washington County. Her brother, Dr. William Rawlings, was a well known surgeon who established a sanitarium in Sandersville that became a sort of southern Mayo Clinic, a place which he had, in fact, visited several times. (To this day, the Rawlings family continues to produce physicians, one of whom also pursues a writing career.) Another brother, Ben T. Rawlings, became a judge of the superior court and a mayor of Sandersville. He plays a minor role in the drama to follow. Lavinia had two other brothers, Fred Rawlings, a principal in this sad story, and C. G. Rawlings, with whom B. E. Roughton had had some business dealings that went bad. Feelings ran high over these deals and contributed to the catastrophe of July 15, 1893.

• The (Sandersville) Mercury, a bright little sheet, was owned and edited by Dr. H.N. Hollifield and Mack Jernigan. It suspended publication about 1881, when Bradford E. Roughton formed a stock company. (Mitchell, Ella. History of Washington County, Georgia," p. 81; see also pp. 28, 169.