The quarrel between George Anthony and his brother-in-law Charles Nunnelly finally boiled out of control on a cool winter’s afternoon in the outskirts of Lawrenceburg.

It began some years before over a disputed tract of land, and, for reasons that have been lost to us, on that afternoon in 1905, the two men decided to go outside the city limits of Lawrenceburg and settle the argument once and for all.

Anthony was married to Nunnelly’s sister, and in 1900, they lived on a farm on the western edge of town among the city’s sparse Norweigan population.

As tempers began to flare between the brothers-in-law that afternoon, they decided to settle the matter like men. According to the subsequent article describing the event in the Nashville ‘Tennessean,’ “they accordingly chose referees, surrendered their knives, pulled off their coats and went away from town and fought for ten minutes.”

Both men knew that it was illegal to fight in town, so they carefully chose a spot that they thought was outside the jurisdiction of the law.

By the end of the fist-fight, the brothers-in-law were bruised and bloody, but Nunnelly was pinned quickly, and so he cried out first and lost the contest.

However, the two had made one serious miscalculation. They weren’t actually outside of the city limits of Lawrenceburg. After the fight was over, they were greeted by the city marshal, who arrested and fined them both for their crime.

The men did not hold grudges, it seems. The Tennessean reports that “each seemed perfectly satisfied with the settlement.”

About a year later, Anthony’s family sold almost everything they had and moved to Texas, and then eventually to Oklahoma, where Anthony and his wife are buried.