Days of Darkness

by John Ed Ed Pearce

  DAYS OF DARKNESS

  DAYS OF DARKNESS

  The Feuds of Eastern Kentucky

  JOHN ED PEARCE

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

  Copyright © 1994 by The University Press of Kentucky

  Paperback edition 2010

  Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

  serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky,

  Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,

  Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University

  All rights reserved.

  Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

  663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

  www.kentuckypress.com

  14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Pearce, John Ed.

  Days of darkness : the feuds of Eastern Kentucky / John Ed Pearce. p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0-8131-1874-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  1. Vendetta—Kentucky—History. 2. Kentucky—Social Conditions.

  HV6452.K4P43 1994

  976.9’104—dc20

  94-2773

  ISBN 978-0-8131-2657-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

  Manufactured in the United States of America.

  Contents

  List of Maps

  What This Is All About

  Harlan County: The Turners Meet the Howards

  Choose Your Outlaw

  The Turners Meet the Howards

  The Trap that Didn’t Spring

  Breathitt County: A Talent for Violence

  Almost a Romantic Journey

  Captain Strong’s Last Ride

  The Last and Bloodiest Feud

  Pike, Perry, and Rowan Counties: Mayhem Everywhere

  No Romeo, No Juliet, No Heroes

  The Woman in the Case

  A Nice Little College Town

  Clay County: The Hundred-Year War

  The Incident at the Courthouse

  Drawing the Lines

  A Legacy of Violence

  The Fatal Clash on Crane Creek

  Trouble on the Burying Ground

  The Best Men in the County

  The Turtle Calls for Bad Tom

  Bloody Time in Frankfort

  The Feuds Wind Down

  Surcease

  Sources

  Index

  Maps

  1. Eastern Kentucky

  2. Manchester, Kentucky, 1920s-1930s

  3. Northern Clay County

  Map 1

  What This Is All About

  The feuds of Eastern Kentucky have always been the stuff of legend and folklore, in part because there is so little substantial evidence on which the writer can depend. Courthouse fires have destroyed many records relating to the feuds. Much of the feud violence never reached the courts, as the feudists, either distrusting the courts or dissatisfied with jury verdicts, preferred to settle matters themselves. In many cases all we have is word of mouth, handed down over the years like folk songs, with the facts bent to reflect the loyalties of the speaker. Probably for this reason, every tale, every account, every magazine article or newspaper story concerning a feud is invariably contrary to, in conflict with, or contradicted by another account. This applies as well to the recollections of the few surviving descendants of the feudists.

  For that reason, I cannot claim that the accounts in this book are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They are as near to the truth as I can find. Generally speaking, the newspaper accounts of the time are almost always sensational and inaccurate. Magazine articles were worse. Courthouse records, when they are available, tend to be incomplete and confusing. Even some accounts of feuds written by reputable authors contain legend for which I can find no supporting evidence. One book states that the Clay County feuds erupted when Dr. Abner Baker called Daniel Bates’s dog a cur. The French-Eversole War is said to have begun over a woman. They are good stories; it is always disappointing to find that they are not true.

  In writing about the feuds, there is always a tendency to fall into stereotypes. The image of the bearded, one-gallus, barefoot mountaineer, sucking his corncob pipe, his jug of moonshine on his shoulder and his trusty rifle ready to deal death to his neighbors, has for more than a century made the mountain people objects of ridicule and contempt. The feuds undoubtedly fed this stereotype. But for the most part the feudists were ordinary Americans, surging across the Appalachian Mountains in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, in which many of them had fought, trying in a harsh, raw land to establish an acceptable society in which to live and rear families.

  As in most frontier regions, few Kentucky mountaineers were of aristocratic background. Most Cumberland settlers were of English or Scotch-Irish descent, farmers or lower middle-class workmen, hoping to better themselves in a rich, new land. Inevitably some were, as author Harry Caudill has described them, the sweepings of the streets of London and Liverpool, or poor people who had earned their passage to America as indentured servants, “temporary slaves.” As might be expected, such people were a flinty, volatile mix. They had escaped the oppression of throne and aristocracy, had found a new way of life in a new land, and did not want anyone, including the law, to infringe upon rights they were willing to defend to the death. This made law enforcement difficult in an area where law was still vaguely defined, precariously established, and haphazardly enforced.

  Furthermore, it was only natural that people with bitter memories of harsh English law and of government that favored the rich and highborn would seek regions remote from government’s heavy hand. Just as western ranchers shot it out with Indians, farmers, and lawmen in order to remain free of fences and legal restrictions, so the mountaineer fought for what he considered justice and hard-won freedom.

  It has become popular among writers to trace the feuds to the clan warfare of “their Scottish ancestors.” An interesting theory—but there were, actually, few pure Scots among the feudists. Most were of Anglo-Saxon, Scotch-Irish ancestry, with some German, French, Portuguese, and Indians (Native Americans) thrown in. Those whose forebears had come from Scotland had married so widely that they were not apt to carry clear memories of old hatreds. The resentments they inherited were usually of crown and gaol and English nobility, not neighbors.

  Most of these people had come westward from North Carolina or Virginia, often when family farmland was divided among too many sons. Some had, over a century or more, drifted down from New England or Pennsylvania, following the Ohio River down to rivers leading to the interior of Kentucky territory. Others struggled through the Pound, Hagan, and Cumberland Gaps. As Kentucky sage Edward Prichard said, the greatest difference between the settlers of Eastern Kentucky and the “bluebloods” of the Bluegrass was that the former stopped sooner.

  It might be well to note here that the term “feud” is used rather loosely in reference to trouble in the hills. Because it is a convenient term for describing violence between families, it has come to be used to describe almost any form of violence, no matter how widespread or of what duration. Puristically, the term feud should be limited to inter-family or clan rivalries persisting over one or more generations and involving armed combat to the death. Both Webster and American
Heritage dictionaries define the feud as a bitter prolonged hostility. People in the areas involved usually referred to their clashes as “wars” or “troubles,” which may be more accurate labels. I have used the term feud because it is familiar to more people.

  The way of life along the mountain frontier offered fertile soil for the violence that led to the feuds. A man living at the head of a remote hollow had little hope of getting the sheriff in time to save his cabin from bushwhackers. He had to depend on his rifle, just as he had become accustomed to doing through the decades of exploration, settlement, and war. He also had to depend on his reputation as a man ready and able to use that rifle.

  On the frontier—whether Kentucky or Texas—toughness, independence, and reliable friends became matters of life and death. Mountain settlers had a rough code that said, in effect: You are my friend or kinsman. Who strikes you, strikes me. If you are in trouble, I will stand by you despite danger. And when I am in trouble I will feel safe calling on you. If you fall afoul of the law, I will not testify against you. If you are a law officer you will not arrest me but send me word to come into court, thus respecting my dignity as a man and attesting my trustworthiness.

  Another view of mountain justice may be gleaned from the following instructions given to the grand jury by a Letcher County circuit judge in 1904. Said the judge:

  If a civil citizen kills another citizen and it is clear in self-defense, don’t indict him. If a civil citizen kills an outlaw, don’t indict him, no matter whether he killed in self-defense or not. If one outlaw kills another outlaw, indict him without questioning the motive for killing. In such a case it would be well to sentence the outlaw for life and so get rid of him as well as his victim. If a civil citizen takes a bag of provisions on his back and pursues an outlaw all week, and then kills him as he would wild game, don’t indict him. If you want to do anything, give him a better gun and more ammunition so that he can get the next outlaw more easily. If you do indict such a man, be sure that I will file the indictment away as soon as I reach it.

  As you can see, it well became a man not to gain a reputation as an outlaw.

  It is not true that mountain people had no use for courts, but many regarded courts as the instruments of limited justice. When brought to trial the mountaineer knew he would probably be tried before a jury of men who would have done as he had done under the same circumstances. And with intermarriage inevitable in remote areas, he knew also that many of the jurymen might well be kin. But the man bringing him into court knew this also and figured that he would have a better chance of justice if he handled the matter himself. In failing to depend on the law of courts, he weakened it so that it was less able to protect him when he needed protection.

  And protection was often needed. For example, Governor Simon B. Buckner on September 8, 1889, received from A.J. Robards, a doctor in Breathitt County, the following, which gives an idea of the state of affairs in the hills:

  Sir, this morning i take a plesher of writin to you to in form you of the conduc of our men in Breathitt, perry and Knot and Lecher. Sir, good men can’t pass up and down our county rodes with out beain shot at from the bresh and it is from the French and Eversole and Johns facts and it is not on a count of political a fares. When one gits soe he can hire a man to kill his neighbor he is redy to doe it see how Rose was murdered and Buck Combs Cornet and others and the partys are running at large with their guns shooting cursen and drinkin and good sciticins are a feared to pass there for we pray to you that some step may be tacen to put this down and there ant noe use of ordern our officers in this part to stop it as they only push it on.

  As i was on my way home from seeing a sick man onley yesterdy a man from the bresh shot at me and come near killen me and I will haft to leave home on less som step is taken and i did not noe of a man in the world that had out a ginst me thoe i think it was done threw a mistake for some one elce. So please excuse me for my long leter i am yours fraternally Dr. A.J. Robards, MD of Medicin.

  Whatever the causes of the feuds, they are elusive. Still, anyone who writes of the feuds is expected to reveal some thread that runs through them, some circumstance, some trait of character that is common to feuds or feudists. I doubt that I can. Historians tend to tie the feuds to the Civil War, and there is a certain validity in their thesis. Men coming home from the war, having fought against each other, suffered defeat and loss, or survived painful battle, undoubtedly nursed grudges. Further, those few who had not known before the war how to use guns had learned, and many had brought their guns home with them, creating an explosive opportunity.

  But take the feuds one by one: In Pike County, nearly all of the Hatfields and McCoys had been Confederates. In Harlan, most of the Howards had been Unionists; the Turners, or most of them, had been Confederates, but several Turner allies had been for the Union. In Clay County, as in Breathitt, nearly everyone had fought for the Union. In the French-Eversole and Martin-Tolliver fights, Civil War status seems to have had little or no influence, as both Rebels and Yankees fought on both sides.

  The feuds have been blamed also on geographic and cultural isolation, remoteness from urban centers, and the degree of difficulty of transportation and communication. These were not, I would guess, major factors in the Rowan County affair, since Morehead enjoyed relatively convenient rail and road access to Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati. Remoteness had a far greater effect, I would judge, on Harlan, Pike, and Perry Counties, and a somewhat lesser effect on Breathitt and Clay.

  The Kentucky feudist has for too long, I feel, been depicted as ignorant and totally lacking in culture, a brush too broad for all the cases. At one end of the spectrum, the Hatfields and McCoys were uneducated; at the other, Fulton French and Joe Eversole were attorneys. The Whites and Garrards of Clay County were college graduates. Jim Howard was quite literate. Many of the Bakers—such as Gardner and Thena—had relatively little formal education but were well read. Most of the major figures in the Breathitt County War were educated—lawyers or businessmen. Boone Logan of the Rowan County War was a fine lawyer and later a remarkably successful businessman. The Turners and Howards of Harlan County had the schooling common to the day, the equivalent of high school. Bad Tom Baker was uneducated but believed deeply in formal education and worked hard for it in Clay County.

  There is no common denominator here, and no common thread.

  Were these feuds clashes of different social and cultural classes? Seldom. Not often was a feeling of social superiority or the resentment felt by inferiors the spark that ignited a war. The Hatfields and McCoys were both common mountain yeomen, though the McCoys, as historian Altina Waller says, may have envied the greater land-holdings and potential wealth of the Hatfields. The Turners of Harlan County seem to have felt superior to the Howards, though both families were of comparable background, and the Howards no doubt resented the Turners’ attitude. This may have been a factor. In Clay County, the Whites and Garrards were equally wealthy and prominent, well known and respected statewide. Their differences were not social. Neither were the differences between the Howards and Bakers, though Jim Howard apparently felt more urbane, polished, and educated than the Bakers, who were a rough lot. Fulton French felt an economic superiority to the Eversoles, and Joe Eversole felt a definite moral superiority to French. But in general it would be inadvisable to place much blame on social or cultural differences between the warring factions.

  Now we get down to more tangible factors—money and politics. Except in the fight between the Bakers and Howards in Clay County, and perhaps the Hatfields and McCoys in Pike, financial rivalry was nearly always a factor. Competition over salt sparked the rivalry between the Whites and the Garrards. Craig Tolliver wanted to control the whiskey and hotel business in Morehead and saw the Logans as threats. Wilson Lewis of Harlan is thought to have wanted to control the whiskey business and saw the Howards as obstacles. George Turner wanted to control the mercantile business, and he too ran into competition from the large Howard
family. The French-Eversole war was, as Allen Watts says, “a business fight.” French was squeezing the small landowner on behalf of the big land companies; Joe Ever-sole was trying to stop him, with the help of Josiah Combs. Jim Hargis, along with Ed Callahan, wanted not only to run but to own Breathitt County.

  Aside from Perry Cline’s political ambitions, political, partisan competition had little role in the Hatfield-McCoy fight. The families lived in different states. Politics was a major factor in Rowan, Harlan, Clay, and Breathitt Counties, a minor factor in Perry.

  So, once again, it is risky to impute to any one of these factors total or major blame for the feuds. None of them constitutes a thread that runs throughout the feud fabric.

  Is it feasible, then, to assess blame? Altina Waller blames the feuds on tensions arising between people who were trying to adjust to the changes that accompanied industrialization and the coming of railroads and mining to the mountains. This may have been true of the Hatfield-McCoy trouble, which she examines in unmatched detail. But the same conditions do not apply in other cases. What specifically caused the Hatfield-McCoy fight? Well, whiskey, for one thing. Circumstances. Times that were bringing changes only faintly understood.

  Changing times were a major source of the trouble that led to the French-Eversole war—the coming of big land companies that led to exploitation of coal and timber and the resulting threat to the mountain way of life. Then, too, there were differences in moral standards, differences in principles.

  The Turner-Howard feud was fueled by Civil War hangovers and resentments, by Turner arrogance, Howard pride, Lewis chicanery. This feud, I believe, may have sprung from conflicts of personality and character more than any of the others save that of Perry County. Mrs. George Turner was symbolic when she declared that Harlan would be ruled by Turners or Howards, but not both.

  One gets the feeling that the Baker-Howard feud in Clay County could have been avoided many times had it not been for peculiar times and circumstances. Then there were the financial rivalries, the hangings of Abner and later William Baker, both of which contained the poisonous seeds of injustice. Abner was crazy and should not have been hanged. William was innocent, apparently protecting his wife. The involvement of Garrards and Whites on opposing sides of these cases cast a dangerous pall over the county. Add to this the violence of the times, the bitterness of politics in Clay, and the abuse of politics to handicap and deny justice to the losing opponent. Whiskey was an exacerbating factor.