It’s time, once again, to venture back to the days of old and peruse the news of The Baldwin Times of yesteryear.

This week in 1896 seemed to be a bit light on the news, except to reiterate issues mentioned in previous weeks.

An example of such repetition is an announcement by the Baldwin County Democratic Party endorsing the use of bimetallism in U.S. currency.

“We hold to the use of both gold and silver as the standard money of the county and to the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination against either metal or change for platform for coinage,” the announcement stated.

The party made its presence known in the Victorian-era publication, as an additional announcement reported the Democratic ticket for the then upcoming election. That list included Capt. Joseph F. Johnston for governonr, C.W. Joseph for county representative, T.A. Booth for sheriff, S.S. White for tax assessor, W.L. Thompson for treasurer, D.C. Byrne for superintendent of education, and for the offices of commissioners, T.D. Smith. R.D. McConnell, J.H. Young and M. Underwood.

The announcement also reported that the county executive committee included W.B. Thomley of Perdido, Walter White of Bay Minette and J.H. Smith of Stockton.

Evidently, the Democratic Party was quite a dominating force in late 19th century Baldwin County, as no other parties made such announcements.

Outside of the political arena, weathered publication did report on one piece of news that would have been of public interest — the near completion of the first sotry of the jail.

Another item of interest that would be hard-pressed to be found in today’s Calendar of Events was the announcement of an upcoming voodoo meeting. Hmm …

That leads to another arguably macabre item found in the yellowed pages of The Times. It seems a human interest piece reported on an oak tree in Calaveras County, Calif., known as the “hangman’s tree.”

According to the article, the tree was just the right height, width and strength for vigilante hangings that were quite familiar to a Baldwin County resident.

“The late Capt. Weber of Stockton was a man who remembered nearly every hanging that took place on the tree in the early (18)50’s and could tell some grim tales of frontier justice,” the article stated.

It seems those old cowboy movies might have some nugget of truth to them, after all.

That’s it for this edition. Check back next week for another glimpse into the news of yesteryear.