Earliest New York Times Reference to Melungeons

A recent MHS Blog article raised the question of when Melungeons were first mentioned in the New York Times. The 1897 article transcribed below, found and kindly provided by Joanne Pezzullo, appears to be the earliest:

AN INDIAN TO BE HANGED
Georgia Crotan to be Executed Next Month for Murder.

New York Times
February 28, 1897, Wednesday

ATLANTA, Ga., Feb. 27. -- For the first time in fifty years an Indian is under sentence of death in Georgia. He will be hanged in Glynn County next month. Marcellus Lowry, the condemned man, is a Crotan Indian from the celebrated band in North Carolina, many of whom have drifted with the turpentine and timber men into Southern Georgia, where they are called "Melungeons."  Lowery and a white man named Patrick Burns were working in the woods together and Burns went to Lowery's camp and entered his shanty to get something to eat.  The Croatan Indians are a fierce, treacherous and vindictive race and once their anger is aroused they do not hesitate to commit murder.

The witnesses in the case testified on the trial that as Burns left the shanty Lowery shot him in the back, having concealed himself behind a tree.  As to the origin of the difficulty between them very little was brought out, but so far as can be ascertained it was simply the ungovernable temper of the Indian.