Tragedy in Maryland.
A correspondent of the Baltimore American, writing under date of Queenstown, Queen Anne county, March 10th, says:‘ Our community was thrown into a state of intense excitement on Wednesday last by the perpetration in our midst of two most terrible and inexcusable murders, which resulted in the death, instantaneously, of two young men, both quiet and inoffensive citizens. The parties to this sad affair were all members of one of our oldest, and in former years most influential, families.
’ John Paca (second son of the late Edward T. Paca), and Alfred Jones, his maternal uncle, are the victims of this tragedy. From the evidence given to the coroner's jury, it appears that John Paca and Alfred Jones were engaged in making a fence around a lot adjacent to the premises occupied by Mrs. Edward T. Paca, to which Mr. William B. Paca (an uncle of John, and who by virtue of a trusteeship controlled the property of his deceased brother) made an objection on the day previous to the murder, and ordered that the work should be desisted from, (without avail,) at the same time making some threats if his directions were not complied with.
On the following morning the two were progressing with the fence as usual, when Mr. William B. Paca, accompanied by his three eldest sons, all armed with double-barrelled shot guns, drove up. Instantly alighting from the carriage, William B. Paca, with an oath to his nephew, declared that he would show them who was master there. One of the sons then discharged his gun at his cousin, John Paca, who received the load of duck shot in his neck and fell a corpse. The next instant the load from the gun in the hands of Mr. William B. Paca was lodged just behind the left ear of Alfred Jones, tearing and lacerating his throat in a most horrible manner. --He, too, expired instantaneously and without a groan. It appears that Mr. Jones received also a load from a gun in the hands of one of the three sons, as the discharge of three guns and a number of shot entering the neck and from a different direction would indicate.
It was clearly shown at the inquisition, that neither of the young men who were killed had arms of any kind with them, and that they gave no provocation beyond the fact of being engaged in making the fence. Their funeral was largely attended to-day by an indignant and sympathizing community. Mr. William B. Paca and two of his sons are in custody. The fourth party has not been secured and is still at large.
