This article was originally posted in March 2023 and has since been expanded and re-edited. It was featured in the November 2023 issue of Discover Downtown Brunswick, a publication of The Brunswick News. Josh Dukes is the author of Brunswick Past & Present, available now from Arcadia Publishing.
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The Dunwody Building, early 1900s and now
Photo from private collection |
I’m one of those “ghost stories are good all year” kind of people, so I’m always on the lookout for something haunted or creepy. One story I stumbled on early in my Brunswick days was the story of the notorious 1915 Dunwody Massacre. One website I visited insisted that the Dunwody building at the NW intersection of Newcastle and Gloucester was haunted. Upon further digging, it turns out the current building at that location wasn’t even in place at the time of the 1915 tragedy. This led me on a journey to find out more about Dunwody himself and the others involved that day and – finally – to track down a single photograph of the man behind the tragic story.
The current Dunwody building at the NW corner of Newcastle and Gloucester opened in December of 1928. The Brunswick News hailed it as Brunswick's most modern structure, featuring steam heat and janitorial service along with its offices for rent.
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| Harry Dunwody, circa 1906 |
The new building was constructed after the previous building was destroyed by fire earlier in 1928. While the current building is a masonry structure, the older Dunwody building was a two-story wood structure. It received its name from Henry Franklin "Harry" Dunwody, who purchased the building in 1902. Tragedy struck on March 6, 1915. On that morning, Monroe Phillips entered Dunwody's office upstairs and shot him at point-blank range as he sat in his chair. Phillips murdered Dunwody over $75 and a shipping barge sale. Phillips clearly snapped, as he went on moments later to kill 7 people in addition to Dunwody and injured dozens of others before he himself was shot and killed by Eustace Butts, ending the deadly spree. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting in American History.
Who Was Dunwody?
Henry Franklin "Harry" Dunwody was a local lawyer and former two-term mayor of Brunswick. He moved his practice into the second floor of the building after purchasing it in 1902. The downstairs tenant at the time was Butt's Drug Store. The purchase included a smaller one-story adjoining building on Newcastle, occupied by Brobston, Fendig & Company.
Harry Dunwody was born in Marietta in 1863. Most of his childhood was spent in McIntosh County and he later attended UGA, graduating with the class of 1884. He was admitted to the Georgia Bar in 1885. It was this same year that he began practice in Brunswick. He served as solicitor of Glynn County from 1888-1890, served in the state legislature from 1890-1891 and again for the 1895-1896 session. He was elected Mayor of Brunswick from 1894-1896 and was a loyal and public-spirited citizen. In 1897, he married Scotia Tison Walter of Savannah. Together they had three children; Henry Dunwody who died in infancy, Maria Scotia Dunwody, and McDonald Dunwody. The Mercurial Killer
Monroe Phillips was born and raised at Bullard's Station on the Southern Railway in Twiggs County. He had a sister named Mary Phillips Reed whose family resided in Macon. His brother was J. B. Phillips, a prominent evangelist in the city at the time. Phillips was and was a man of "peculiar traits," as the Macon Telegraph later reported. At 6'5 and 300 lbs, the 50-year-old man with a mercurial temper cut quite an imposing figure.
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Monroe Phillips murdered
Dunwody and 7 others in cold blood |
Early in life, he acquired a considerable timbered property and became engaged in the lumber business, operating a lumber office in Macon. He was rather prominent locally in the industry. A local man who had dealings with him later noted that he came across as intelligent, but seemed to lack backbone.
In 1883, Phillips married Ophelia Rebecca Durden. Together they had a daughter, Ida Belle Phillips, and two sons, William Raburn and Miller Jenkins Taylor Phillips. Phillips killed several bear on his property in Twiggs County and often invited friends to bear hunt with him. In fact, at point he extended the offer to former-President Theodore Roosevelt and other notables to come to Georgia and bear hunt with him. In 1913, Phillips heard a rumor spreading that there were no bear to be found on his property. He became enraged, and shortly afterwards when he killed a bear he had the carcass hauled to the Macon Telegraph's office to prove they did in fact roam his place.
In 1914, Phillips left Macon for Brunswick to further engage in the growing timber industry, and it wasn't long before murmurings spread that he was growing more unstable after he began to lose significant sums from ill-advised investments. He began to suffer from imaginary wrongs inflicted on him by local businessmen. He claimed that Albert Fendig, a wealthy local real estate dealer, owed him $25,000 in commission on a big transaction. He also claimed another local man of means, R. E. Briesenick, owed him vast sums of money.
The straw that broke the camel's back came in early 1915, when he'd failed to secure a big lumber deal in Savannah. The people there wanted a clean deed to the property but Phillips had liens against it. Dunwody and other local attorneys represented the Savannah client. When Phillips found out from his own lawyer D. W. Krauss that Dunwody's group were demanding that the liens be wiped out, Phillips snapped and invited at least one person in Krauss's office to go with him to Dunwody's office where he promised to address the matter in his own way.
The Massacre
Ila Bell Lee was a stenographer for Harry Dunwody. The next day, she recounted her story to The Brunswick News. Real estate dealer Albert Morse Way was in Dunwody's office when Phillips entered and asked Lee if Dunwody was in. She told Phillips that he was, but that he was busy with Mr. Way at the moment. Phillips then went to the folding door, threw it open, leveled his gun and fired. Ila Lee ran to the office library and called Mr. Dunwody's brother, James Dunwody. She believes Phillips left the office for a moment before returning and firing again. Lee came out only when she was sure that Phillips had left the office. She found Albert Way leaning against the door with injuries to his face, asking for help. Ila Lee said she could tell immediately that Mr. Dunwody, slumped in his chair, was dead. Phillips, thinking he'd killed both men, started down the stairs.
In 1915, the drug store downstairs was known as Branch's Drug Store. Patrons in the store heard the gunfire and began to scatter into the street. L. C. Pagett was a former policeman and along with several other men rushed to the open doorway to upstairs offices to see what was happening. Pagett was shot next from the staircase and collapsed into the arms of Eustace C. Butts. Butts was a well-known attorney in town and had served as Mayor of Brunswick 3 years prior. Butts and another man dragged the fatally wounded Padgett into Branch's Drugs before Phillips reached the sidewalk. It was there that he fired on George Asbell, age 59, had also worked for the police but in 1915 was working as a streetcar motorman for the City and Suburban Railway Company. He was shot at point blank range as he stepped off of one of the streetcars right into the fray. Asbell died immediately.
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Eustace C Butts served as mayor from 1911-1912.
He shot Monroe Phillips after the 1915 rampage. |
A large, shocked crowd had gathered across the street, and Phillips leveled his shotgun and fired randomly into the crowd from across the street, injuring many of them. He then turned and entered the drugstore, which was deserted save the dying Pagett. Phillips was firing indiscriminately by now and struck William Arthur Hackett, a 61 year old undertaker. Hackett was born in New York in 1854 and moved to Brunswick in 1869. He was prominent in local secret orders, being a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the Junior Order of the American Mechanics.
Rexford Napoleon "Rex" Deaver was the officer on duty at the time. Rex was only 21 years old and was a newly minted policeman on the Brunswick force. He charged into the store and fired several shots at Phillips, hitting him once. He repositioned and broke a window on the store to get a better shot. It was then that Phillips aimed through the door and shot him point blank, killing him almost instantly.
While Rex Deaver was engaging Phillips, Eustace Butts had left Pagett's side, as he had also been wounded in the spray of buckshot from the staircase. Butts was unarmed and quickly realized that Phillips had his pockets full of ammunition and probably planned to shoot until he was killed. Butts rushed to a nearby hardware store, grabbed a shotgun and two shells, and rushed back to the rear of the drugstore. He came in through the back and found Phillips reloading, ready to shoot the next person who entered the front door. Just as Phillips leveled his gun, Butts shot him at close range. Phillips staggered and collapsed to the floor. As Butts stood over him, Phillips said, "well, you've just about got me, finish me up." Phillips died only moments later, and the awful deed was finally done.
The Aftermath
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| This striking photograph was taken just minutes after the Dunwody massacre ended on March 6, 1915. The chaos in the street is palpable. |
The initial dead were reported as Dunwody, Hackett, Asbell, Officer Deaver, L. C. Padgett, and Phillips.
William Hackett was survived by his widow Elizabeth Parmenta Evans Hackett and two sons, Guy and William Hackett. For young officer Rex Deaver, the city signed a resolution to pay for his funeral expenses and erect a grave monument for him. George Asbell was survived by his widow Marie Naomi Houseman Asbell and children Alverna Pearl, Clarice, Marie Elizabeth, and George Willis Asbell Jr. L. C. Padgett is a bit of a mystery. He was reported to be a former policeman, but not much else is available on him or his final resting place. The Americus Times-Reporter noted that his body was transferred to his home "some distance from the city" of Brunswick for interment.
Gunner Tolnas and Ernest Farrow McDonald survived the initial attack but died days later of their injuries. Tolnas was a 21 year old bank collector and was shot while riding his bike. Ernest McDonald had only recently survived a serious bout with pneumonia and had just walked out of a barber shop when he was hit by Monroe's bullet. He was survived by his widow Mary Eloise Bunkley McDonald and daughters Leighton Royal and Mary Eloise McDonald.
Dunwody's stenographer Ila Belle Lee married Archie Eugene Johnson in 1918. Together they lived in Brunswick and later Miami. She died in 1954 at age 77.
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| Ophelia Rebecca Durden Phillips |
Phillips' widow Ophelia Rebecca Durden Phillips moved with her children to Florida. In 1917, she married Samuel J. Brady. Her wedding announcement noted, "the bride is an excellent woman and has many friends in Brunswick and elsewhere. She is the widow of the late Monroe Phillips, who is well remembered in Brunswick. The groom has been in the mercantile business near Thalman for some time, and is a man of excellent character." Ophelia lived a long life and passed away in 1959 at the age of 92.
After Dunwody's death the property at Newcastle and Gloucester passed to his wife, Scotia Dunwody. After the 1928 fire, the property was surveyed to prepare for the new structure and it was found that the Kress Building, which had stood next door since 1909, actually extended six inches into the Dunwody property. A lawsuit ensued which went to Superior Court but was settled and dismissed when Kress agreed to pay Mrs. Dunwody $200 for the frontage encroachment. Scotia Dunwody never remarried. She moved to Savannah where she died in 1966 at age 89. She is buried beside her beloved Harry at Bonaventure Cemetery.
As for the Dunwody children, Mary Scotia married Dr. Arthur Bingham and resided in New York and later Vermont. Donald Dunwody moved to Santa Fe, California.
The 1928 brick building took over the footprint of both the original Dunwody building and the one-story shop that bordered the Kress property. On The Fly Outfitters occupies the downstairs corner of the building today with Little Zooks nestled in next to The Kress.As a note, Dunwody is often spelled as Dunwoody, but all original sources, plus Dunwody's tombstone and the lettering on the building itself, spell his name with a single "o".
I searched high and low over the years to find a single photograph of Harry Dunwody. While the notorious Monroe Phillips appeared in newspapers across the country, Dunwody’s face was a mystery. He wasn’t even pictured in any readily-available city records of Mayors or statesmen. Finally, luck was on my side as I took once again to the Internet Archive, one of my favorite online libraries of old publications. The photograph of Harry Dunwody included with this story is from the 1906 book “Georgia, Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons Arranged in Cyclopedic Form, Vol 1.” It may be the first time his face has been in print in more than 100 years. Now you’ve seen the man behind the mystery.
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