Freeman was an interesting character. He liked him, but he never told anyone of his past. He came from Canada, was married here, and lived down in the Farnash county east of Hamilton.  He was a skillful boxer and on several occasions demonstrated his ability.

It was about 1890 or a little later when "I was selling whiskey down there where John Mark (his brother) has the hardware store now, that Tom Freeman beat up Charlie Terry, a constable. He came to Mr. Williams and told him, it was on Sunday night, that Terry had been abusing him and he asked Mr. Williams to slip his gun away from him. Mr. Williams said he reached right quickly and pulled Terry’s gun from his scabbard and he hardly ever had seen such a whipping as Freeman gave him. In those days he said such incidents merely taken as a matter of course. On another occasion Bill ______, new as Shive, called him a liar and he just hit him once and knocked him out.

Freeman he said was, however, a bit slow in chipping in his part in paying the fiddler at dances. On one occasion he held out a red coin and said, "I have only this five dollar gold piece and no change." And admitted later that it was only a penny that he held out.

I can remember Freeman myself and recall him as a very large rather swarthy fellow, who moved rather slowly, and didn’t talk much. In those days if a man had been in the "pen" he was generally pointed out and known, and the small boys especially stood in awe.

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