Days of Darkness

by John Ed Ed Pearce

  Rose Anna (Rosanna, Roseann) McCoy, the bogus Juliet of the bogus Romeo and Juliet fable concocted by the press in its off-target reporting of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Her life was about as happy as she looks. Courtesy of the West Virginia State Archives.

  Johnse Hatfield, one of Devil Anse’s sons, who took part in the burning of the McCoy home and the killing of Alifair and Calvin McCoy. He courted Rose Anna but later left her and married her cousin Nancy, who gave him a reputation for being henpecked. Courtesy of Leonard McCoy and Jimmy Wolford.

  Randolph (Randall, Old Rannel) McCoy, head of the McCoys and a survivor of the feud with the Hatfields. Courtesy of Leonard McCoy and Jimmy Wolford.

  Frank Phillips, deputy sheriff and freelance gunman who single-handedly went into West Virginia, captured a jailful of Hat-fields, and almost caused a war between Kentucky and West Virginia. He later took up with the wife of Johnse Hatfield and eventually married her. Courtesy of West Virginia State Archives.

  Devil Anse and his wife, Levicy (sometimes spelled Levisa or Louisa), taken in their later years, long after the feud ended. Courtesy of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University Libraries.

  A street scene on Court Day in Hazard, seat of Perry County and center of the vicious French-Eversole feud that almost wiped out the town. Courtesy of The Filson Club Historical Society.

  If there were good guys in the French-Eversole war, they were Joe C. Eversole and his father-in-law, Josiah Combs. Eversole, a Hazard merchant, opposed Fulton French and the big land companies he represented. For his trouble he was killed. Courtesy of Martha Quigley.

  Fulton French, attorney, merchant, and agent for eastern coal and land companies. His heartless dealings with mountain residents embittered Joe Eversole and sparked the feud between them. From the Courier-Journal, Louisville, courtesy of Martha Quigley.

  “Bad Tom” Smith, a gunman hired by French, the confessed killer of Joe Eversole, in a sketch from the Cincinnati Enquirer, 1894. Smith’s hanging in Breathitt County in June 1895 drew throngs. Courtesy of Kentucky Explorer Magazine.

  Craig Tolliver, an elected lawman who at times showed little concern for the niceties of the law. A leader of the Tolliver forces in Rowan County, Craig was killed in a shootout on the streets of Morehead in 1887. From Days of Anger, Days of Tears, courtesy of Juanita Blair and Fred Brown.

  Daniel Boone Logan, young Morehead attorney who put an end to the Martin-Tolliver feud by leading a small army that wiped out most of the Tollivers. He later became a prominent businessman in Bell County. Courtesy of Pauline Asher Logan.

  the American Hotel and Saloon, Morehead. Legend has it that when Craig Tolliver expressed a desire to own the hotel, the owner sold it to him for $250 and left town. Tolliver may be the fourth man from the left wearing, strangely, a white hat. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, courtesy of Morehead State University Special Collections.

  the state militia pitched their tents on the lawn of the Rowan County Courthouse in Morehead in 1886 in another futile effort by Governor Procter Knott to restore order. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly, courtesy of Juanita Blair and Fred Brown.

  the Morehead Normal School, which grew to be Morehead State University. A son of feudist Z. T. Young helped obtain state funds for the fledgling school. Courtesy of Morehead State University Special Collections.

  the state militia on guard in Morehead. When the militia left, the feud resumed. From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. Courtesy of Morehead State University Special Collections.

  with the South Fork of the Kentucky River in flood, a Clay County logger steers his log raft toward a downstream sawmill. It was over such logs that the trouble between the Bakers and the Howards erupted, resulting in the ambush killing of the Howards and the eventual murder of Thomas “Bad Tom” Baker. Courtesy of the Matlack Collection, Photographic Archives, University of Louisville.

  Tom Baker’s home on Crane Creek near Jess Hollow as it looks today. Soon after the Baker-Howard fight on the log raft, someone (possibly Jim Howard) shot at Bad Tom as he sat on his porch. The bullet missed him and lodged in the door frame. Photo by Stanely DeZarn.

  the Clay County Courthouse in Manchester, with the tents of the state militia on its lawn in 1899. The troops were there to guard Tom Baker, who was being tried for the murder of Wilson Howard and Burch Stores. Courtesy of Stanley DeZarn.

  Tom Baker, photographed on the afternoon of June 10,1899, moments before he was shot and killed by a sniper. Much of the fury of the Baker-Howard feud died with him. Photo from the Courier-Journal, Louisville.

  James Ballenger “Big Jim” Howard, a tall, quiet Clay County tax assessor and leader of the Howard clan in its feud with the Bakers. His life was blighted and his reputation stained by two murders, one of which he probably did not commit. From Caleb Powers, My Story.

  Henry E. Youtsey, an emotional and eccentric state employee who was tried and imprisoned, along with Jim Howard and Caleb Powers, for conspiracy to assassinate Governor William Goebel. Governor Augustus Willson, who later pardoned Powers and Howard, said he considered Youtsey the guilty party. From Caleb Powers, My Story.

  The remains of the home of Ballard Howard on Crane Creek, built around 1845, where his sons, including Jim, were born. Originally log, it is now covered with boards. After Bal was shot from ambush by the Bakers, he was brought back home to recuperate. Courtesy of Stanley DeZarn.

  The Reverend John Jay Dickey, a lovable, selfless Methodist minister who founded the first newspaper in Breathitt County and the first school, now Lees College. He went from Breathitt to Clay County, hoping—and failing—to bring peace through religion. Courtesy of Richard Weiss, Archivist, Kentucky Wesleyan College.

  Delia and Esther Davidson, students at Clay County’s Oneida Institute, whose father and brother were killed in the Clay War. Courtesy of the Matlack Collection, Photographic Archives, University of Louisville.

  Captain Strong’s Last Ride

  Big John Aikman was home from the penitentiary in little more than a year, having been given the pardon that seemed routine at the time. Obtaining pardons for men in prison was one of the strongest weapons of state legislators and officials; relatives did not forget at election time the official who had gotten their husband or brother pardoned, and governors were inclined to go along, especially with members of their own parties. As a result, a life sentence was often little more than an extended vacation away from home.

  Captain Bill Strong was still in command of his forces on the North Fork. But as Breathitt County entered the 1880s, peace of a sort reigned, partly because new clan leaders were emerging and a realignment of forces was taking place. The roots of the feud between the Callahan and Deaton families, usually called the Callahan-Strong feud, grew out of the old Civil War rivalry between Captain Bill Strong and Wilson Callahan. Captain Bill, according to legend, had condemned Wilson Callahan to death at one of his courts-martial. Ed Callahan, leader of the Callahan forces, was Wilson’s grandson. The aging Captain Strong, who as he grew older was known almost affectionately as “Uncle Bill,” was allied with James Deaton in opposition to the Callahans. It would prove to be Captain Bill’s last ride.

  Ed Callahan was a tall, heavy-featured man, a shrewd businessman and a ruthless competitor. He had inherited considerable land on the Middle Fork of the Kentucky River containing rich stands of timber and good farmland. Though his family had fought for the Union during the Civil War, Callahan became influential in the Democratic Party in Breathitt. More important, perhaps, he had managed to become the captain or leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and under his leadership the Klan grew to more than a thousand members. Some historians insist that these mountain groups were not klaverns of the real Ku Klux Klan, which had prescribed uniforms or robes, rules, and hierarchy, but can more accurately be termed Regulators, ad hoc informal armies, like the one in Rowan County, that usually operated under a loose leadership in the absence of accepted legal order. But by whatever de
signation, it exerted a strong influence throughout the county. It also helped Ed Callahan accumulate, for his time, considerable wealth. As he approached thirty, he was a man to be reckoned with. Young men volunteered eagerly to serve him. On election days, or when the Democrats were holding a convention, he would often ride into Jackson leading a force of four or five hundred men.

  On the other side of the ledger was James Deaton, Callahan’s rival in business and politics. He also had the support of a small army, most of them enemies of the Callahans and/or former followers of Captain Strong, and on convention days Deaton, like Callahan, rode at the head of several hundred men. Deaton was arrogant and boastful and several times made fun of the younger Callahan when they met at political functions.

  Like the Callahans, the Deatons were a large and powerful family, but not all the Deatons were allied with James Deaton against Ed Callahan, partly because they regarded Captain Strong, Deaton’s chief ally, as their primary enemy and didn’t want anything to do with anyone, even a Deaton, who was in league with him. James Deaton was not very fond of Strong, either, and while he accepted his support, he didn’t invite it and did not often consult with Strong.

  Callahan and Deaton were always on the verge of conflict, partly because they owned adjoining land from which they both cut valuable timber which they rafted or floated from the same sandbar on the Kentucky. Usually a logger would fell his trees, cut them into uniform lengths, and burn or notch his brand into the butt end of each; he would then tie his logs, usually a hundred, into a raft. The raft would be put together on a bar or a flat place along the riverbank where it would be floated when the river rose with spring floods and carried downstream to the sawmill. Sometimes one logger would buy logs from another; he would then “dehorn” or cut off the brand of the original logger, put on his own brand, and incorporate the log into his raft. This could lead to friction because log theives were common along the river. They would snag logs, dehorn them, put on their own brand, and sell them as their own. Both Ed Callahan and James Deaton had accused the other of dehorning logs, and both were rumored to have gone out on moonless nights and cut the lines holding the other’s rafts. Both stationed guards at their rafting sites, and their clashes were the basis for a stream of lawsuits.

  The Callahan-Deaton rivalry burst into open battle one day when Ed Callahan happened to go by the sandbar where both his men and a Deaton crew were rafting logs. Spotting a peavy or canthook, a tool used for turning logs, Callahan walked over, picked it up, and announced that it was his, in effect accusing the Deaton crew of stealing it. Deaton, standing nearby, flew into a rage and, according to the Callahan forces, reached for his rifle. As soon as he touched it, a dozen shots rang out and Deaton fell, dead on the spot.

  In court, the Deaton men swore that Callahan had fired the first shot. The Callahan men swore the opposite and said that they had fired only to save Callahan’s life. Strangely enough, Bob Deaton, a cousin of the dead man but a Callahan employee, admitted that he had fired the fatal shot. The jury was fed a mass of totally conflicting testimony.

  Captain Strong had employed his nephew James B. Marcum, one of the best known and most highly respected attorneys in Kentucky, to prosecute the Callahans, and in the following years this fact turned out to be more important than the outcome of the trial, marking as it did the beginning of the hostility between Marcum and the Callahans.

  As the trial progressed, it began to appear that Marcum was getting the better of the argument and that Callahan would not get off scot free. But one night while the trial was in session, a friendly guard let Callahan out of jail, and he proceeded to the boardinghouse where the jury members were housed. The husband of the woman who ran the boardinghouse was a member of the jury, and Callahan persuaded her (reportedly with a hundred dollars) to let him speak directly to the jury members. The majority of the jury were Ku Kluxers and for acquittal at any rate, but Callahan took no chances. Within an hour he was back in jail and sleeping soundly. The verdict of not guilty is said to have cost him less than $500.

  But then someone, probably Captain Strong, overreached. It was rumored that Hen Kilburn, Strong’s chief gunman, had been waiting for months for a chance to kill William Tharp, a prominent farmer said to have been condemned to death by Strong’s court. Hen’s chance came when he heard that Tharp was riding into Jackson alone. He stationed himself and his rifle, “The Death of Many,” in bushes above the trail and killed Tharp. He soon discovered his error. Tharp was not only a respected citizen but an honored member of the Klan, and within hours Kilburn was arrested and thrown into jail. The same day Ed Callahan sent out word for every member of the Klan and every Callahan follower to report at ten o’clock that night “around the courthouse.”

  Shortly after dark the riders began arriving, and by ten o’clock a ring of hundreds of men encircled the courthouse and jail. Citizens of Jackson kept to their homes, and guards were posted at the door of practically every house in town.

  With Callahan and a few close friends giving the orders, a committee was named to call on Bill Combs, the jailer, and demand the keys to the jail. Combs refused, but since he was a popular and respected man, he was not harmed and was allowed to keep the keys, but was escorted from the jail. Members of the mob then took axes and chopped down the jail door, seized Kilburn, and dragged him, struggling and cursing, toward the noose dangling above the front door of the courthouse. A black man, jailed with Kilburn but guilty of nothing more than having taken food to him while he was in hiding, was dragged out, too. Kilburn had been wounded by an axe blow and was bleeding profusely. The black man screamed and begged. But no word was spoken as the two of them were pulled up. Orders were given—and posted on the courthouse door—that the bodies were to be left hanging until after eight o’clock the next morning. The sight of them dangling there was a fearful message to Captain Strong as well as the people of Jackson.

  Ed Callahan was now the most powerful individual in Breathitt County. Old Captain Strong seemed not only to realize the fact but to accept it. Increasingly he withdrew from active participation in the political life and conflicts of the county. He was called Uncle Bill by most of his neighbors and apparently assumed that the old enmities had been forgotten. He was wrong. One morning he had to go to the store, saddled up his old mule, put his little grandson on behind him, and made a leisurely ride through the familiar countryside.

  At the store, the old captain bought a few things, sat for a while talking, and then began the trip home. He could not know, as he passed up Lick Branch, that Big John Aikman and two of his henchmen were lying in a dense clump of woods above the trail. Big John, released from prison, had vowed for a time that he had found religion and forsworn his violent ways, but in the end the call of the gun was too much. As Captain Strong rode slowly by, Aikman’s rifle barked. The first volley killed the old Union bushwhacker. The second burst killed his mule. His grandson fell to the ground, screaming, as Aikman and his men rushed from hiding and riddled the aged captain with a dozen bullets. They did not harm the boy, who ran home with the dread news.

  The death of Captain Bill Strong marked an end to the feuds growing out of the Civil War, though most of the feuds were not directly attributable to the war, as some historians have charged; practically all of the feudists had fought on the same side. But the bloodiest feud, one that shattered the image and the social fabric of Breathitt County, while it had no connection to the causes or outcome of the Civil War, sprang directly from the Strong-Callahan-Deaton conflicts.

  The Last and Bloodiest Feud

  The worst feud to tear Breathitt County apart has come to be known as the Hargis-Cockrell feud, though it might as easily be called the Hargis-Cockrell-Marcum-Callahan War. It started, not surprisingly, over an election. And it involved friends and close relatives. Scratch a feud and you’ll find tragedy and heartbreak.

  As has happened many times in Breathitt County, the first signs of this trouble appeared in 1898 at a school board election. James
B. Marcum, a prominent Republican attorney, accused James Hargis, a former school superintendent, of trying to vote a minor. Tempers flared and, as usual, pistols were drawn—everyone seemed to carry a pistol—but friends prevented any shooting. Marcum and Hargis had been friends, but after this the relationship became hostile.

  But the real trouble began with the elections of 1902. Hargis was Democratic candidate for county judge and Ed Callahan was candidate for sheriff, but some Democrats were so dissatisfied that they bolted and joined Republicans in a Fusionist ticket. Hargis and Callahan won, but by eighteen votes, and the Fusionists immediately moved to contest the election, charging vote-buying and intimidation, practices not unheard-of in Breathitt.

  James Marcum and O.H. Pollard had been friends for many years and together formed one of the most prestigious law firms in Eastern Kentucky. But they fell out over the elections, and the partnership was dissolved. Pollard favored—and represented—the Democrats; Marcum represented the Republicans or Fusionists.

  The political alignment of Breathitt County at the turn of the century reflected the shifting political currents of the region in the postwar era. Breathitt had been strongly pro-Union during the Civil War, as was most of Eastern Kentucky, and after the war some of the leaders, especially in the Strong camp, became Republican. But by the time the Hargis-Cockrell conflict erupted the county usually voted Democratic. Judge David Red wine of Jackson presided over the Democratic convention of 1899 that selected the controversial William Goebel as Democratic candidate for governor, and in the voting for governor in 1899 Breathitt voted for Goebel.