Days of Darkness
Authors: 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.
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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. VendettaâKentuckyâHistory. 2. KentuckyâSocial Conditions.
HV6452.K4P43 1994
976.9'104âdc20
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
Harlan County: The Turners Meet the Howards
Breathitt County: A Talent for Violence
Pike, Perry, and Rowan Counties: Mayhem Everywhere
No Romeo, No Juliet, No Heroes
Clay County: The Hundred-Year War
The Incident at the Courthouse
The Fatal Clash on Crane Creek
Maps
2. Manchester, Kentucky, 1920s-1930s
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 theoryâbut 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 frontierâwhether Kentucky or Texasâtoughness, 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.
