Biography
George Washington Henson was a 65-year-old union textile worker at Pelzer, South Carolina. During the 1935 textile strike he was first arrested for the murder of striker Gertrude Kelley — a charge dropped when the fatal bullet proved not to be from his shotgun — then indicted with eighteen others for rioting and jailed a week before making bond. Only strikers were jailed; none of those who fired on the strikers were arrested. He was taken to the county jail in Anderson after the September 2, 1935 confrontation.
PDF page 1's Woman Killed in Mill Riot Strike reports G. W. Henson taken to Anderson county jail under a murder warrant after the Monday September 2 Pelzer textile confrontation. It says nine others were jailed for investigation while on picket duty, without naming them, and authorities seized several guns near the mill. This confirms the earlier charging stage, before the separately documented withdrawal of the murder count and later riot indictment. The victim is printed Mrs. Bertha Kelly, twenty-three, differing from Gertrude Kelley in existing evidence; that discrepancy is preserved without inventing a second killing or altering the established profile. The article does not supply an exact arrest day or supersede the later week-to-bond account. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/460d4123-489d-477d-960c-1badf33e6f24/content