John Alexander Yeager received signed notice from a gentleman named Will Purvis who gave Yeager the rights plus $1.00 to write the story of his life. Shall We Hang this Boy Twice? was published and serialized in the New Orleans Item in 1920. It told of the arrest, trial, conviction and death sentence carried out by the State of Mississippi for a crime that Purvis did not commit. But Purvis escaped the gallows without injury. It was the first case in American criminology of its kind.

Now, over 80 years later, Phillip Wolf and PublishAmerica team up to republish Wolf's great-grandfather's manuscript. Wolf researches Yeager's past and the city of Lumberton--a small town in Mississippi with a huge history. Pictures out of the past accompany THE MAN I NEVER MET that may revive the memories of older generations and astonish the younger era. Learn the true story of Will Purvis.

A Road Less Traveled

On their return home late in the afternoon, Will and James Buckley and the Negro had to travel a road that led through a dense forest of underbrush with settlements few and far between. They were riding horseback single file. The road led through a deep cut and crossed a small stream with trees and vines clustering thick on either side. Here a blind had been constructed, probably since they had passed in the morning. Unconscious of danger, they rode and chatted as they had probably done many times before. For one of them, it was his last ride.