Virginia, executions recorded in country histories, 1932-1978, Undated

hanged by the neck until he be dead, and the execution of this Judgement
be made and done upon him the said McDaniel Rhea by the Sheriff of
Scott County on Friday, the 25th day of June next, between the hours of
ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon of the same day at the usual
place of execution. And thereupon the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to
jail.

Judge Samuel V. Fulkerson served in the Constitutional Convention of
1851. He was a colonel in the Confederate forces, but had not resigned as
Judge when he was killed in the Battle of Gaines Mill. During his time in
the army, Circuit Court was held by Judge Gideon Camden of Harrison
Co., W. Va. Rufus B. Fugate was sheriff of Scott County 1857-1858.

The Story of The Daniel Dean Case

Perhaps one of the most interesting murder cases ever tried in South-
west Virginia was the case of the Commonwealth against Daniel Dean in
Scott County.

It was on a Monday morning, June 25, 1877, Henry Fugate was shot
in the back while plowing near his home located about midway between
Gate City and Nickelsville. From the wound he received on Monday, Mr.
Fugate died the following Wednesday. Daniel Dean, who lived near the
Fugate place was indicted for the murder at the July term of Court of
Scott County 1877.

The case was tried three times in the Scott County Court. The first two
trials resulted in mistrials, both the juries being unable to reach a
unanimous verdict. A jury was brought from Washington County for the
third trial, which took place at the May term of the Scott County Court,
1878, and the prisoner Daniel Dean was found guilty of murder in the
first degree and sentenced to death by hanging.

There are many unusual and strange occurances in connection with the
trial of the Daniel Dean case. For instance, the witness who received fifty
dollars from his lawyer uncle to swear falsely, and was sentenced to three
years in the penitentiary for perjury. His lawyer uncle jumped out the
window of the courthouse, mounted his horse and made for the Tenn-
essee line, and was not seen in Scott County again for twenty-five years.
Then there is Sheriff J.R.S. Wilhelm, who was one of the jurors at the first
trial of Dean. At this trial Wilhelm had voted for acquittal of the accused.
Wilhelm had not as yet been elected Sheriff of Scott County; however,
prior to the actual hanging of Dean, Wilhelm was elected Sheriff of Scott
County and it became his official duty to execute the prisoner whom he
believed innocent. It is told that Wilhelm offered one of his deputies $300
if he would execute Dean, but the deputy declined. Shortly after the
hanging of Dean, Wilhelm vanished and was never seen again or heard
from by any Scott Countian.

From the Court Records Scott County
September 23, 1878

me,

Virginia:

In the Clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Scott County on the 23rd
day of September 1878. The following is a copy of the Order of the
Supreme Court of Appeals, in the case of the Commonwealth against
Daniel Dean to wit; “Virginia: In the Supreme Court of Appeals, at
Staunton, on Wednesday the 11th day of September 1878. Upon the
petition of Daniel Dean, a writ of error to operate as a supersedeas, but
not to release the petitioner from imprisonment is awarded to a judge-
ment of the Circuit Court for Scott County, rendered on the 27th day of
August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court of said County
rendered on the third day of June 1878, in a prosecution in the name of
the Commonwealth against the said Daniel Dean, indicted for murder, by
which it was considered by the Court that he be hanged by the neck until
he be dead, and the execution of this judgement, be made and upon him,
the said Daniel Dean, by the Sheriff of Scott County, on Friday the 12th
day of July next; between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two of
the afternoon of the same day, at the usual place of execution, the exe-
cution of which judgement was by the said Circuit Court suspended until
the 9th day of October next.

And on the motion of the counsel of the Attorney General, it is
ordered that this case be removed to Richmond, there to be heard and
determined, and that this order be certified to the Clerk of this Court at
Richmond, and also to the said Circuit Court of Scott County.

A copy teste; Joseph A. Waddell, Clerk
A copy teste; W. S. Rhodes, Deputy Clerk.

October 13, 1879
Virginia:

In the Clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Scott County, in Vacation,
on the 13th day of October 1879, the following order was received and
entered to wit;

“Virginia: At a Supreme Court of Appeals held at the Courthouse of
Wythe County in the town of Wytheville, on Thursday, the 31st day of
July A.D. 1879.”

Daniel Dean, Plaintiff in Error, ‘‘against”’ The Commonwealth, defend-
ant in Error. Upon a Writ of Error The Commonwealth Defendant in
Error to a judgement of the Circuit Court of Scott County, rendered on
the 27th day of August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court
Wythe County in the town of Wytheville, on Thursday, the 31st day of
July A.D. 1879.”

Daniel Dean, Plaintiff in Error, “against” the Commonwealth, Defend-
ant in Error. Upon a Writ of Error The Commonwealth Defendant in
Error to a judgement of the Circuit Court of Scott County, rendered on
the 27th day of August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court
of said County, rendered on the 3rd day of June 1878 ina prosecution of
The Commonwealth against the Plaintiff in Error for murder, whereby it
is considered that the said Plaintiff in Error “be hanged by the neck until

-21-

he be dead.”

This day came again as well the Plaintiff in Error by his counsel, as the
Attomey General on behalf of the Commonwealth, and the Court having
maturely considered the transcript of the record of the said judgement
and the arguments of counsel, is of opinion for reasons stated in writing
and filed with the record, that there is no error in the said judgement.
Therefore it is considered that the said judgement of the said Circuit
Court of Scott be affirmed. Which is ordered to be certified to the said
Circuit Court of Scott County.

A copy teste; Joe W. Caldwell, C.C.
A copy teste; W.S. Rhodes, D.C.

The decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Virginia on the
Dean case, according to any number of attorneys, is said to be a classic
and a final word of law on circumstantial evidence. This famous opinion
was written by Judge Christian, at the time a member of the Supreme
Court of Virginia. In the opinion, Judge Christian observes that a line of
circumstantial evidence is sometimes compared to a chain of many links.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link. A more fitting comparison,
declared Judge Christian, would be a rope. A rope is made up of a number
of filaments or strands, which taken singly would not be strong enough to
bear the stress, but when all these filaments or strands are twisted to-
gether the rope has strength more than enough to bear the stress laid
upon it.

So in the Dan Dean case, there are circumstances, which taken alone,
would not bear the wright of conviction, but when taken together, and
considered in their relation to each other, must proclude upon the mind
a moral certainty of the guilt of the accused. So reasoned Judge Christian.

The eminent judge disposes of the case by declaring there was no error
to warrant a new trial, that the judgement of the lower court was affirmed
and that Dean must pay the penalty of his crime: to be hanged by the
neck until dead.

To name a few of the personalities of the Dean case:

Chief counsel for the defense was Patrick Hagan, said to be one of the
best lawyers and one of the finest men ever produced by Scott County.

Commonwealth’s Attorney was Rufus A. Ayers, who later became
Attorney General of Virginia. He was assisted in the prosecution by
Attorney John P. Corns and Attorney Burns.

The County Judge was H.S.K. Morrison, the Circuit Judge John A.
Kelly. At the time of the killing of Henry Fugate, the Sheriff was William
C. Fugate; he was succeeded in office by J.R.S. Wilhelm, whose painful
duty it became to execute Dan Dean.

Wayne Powers and George Gibson pay the supreme penalty by hanging
for the murder of Will Gibson.

The morning of Friday, February 6, 1885, the day appointed for the
execution dawned cool and clear. The night previous, a large number of
citizens had arrived, and the streets of the village of Estillville (now Gate
City) presented a somewhat animated appearance. From early dawn until

-22-

late at night people on horseback and in wagons had been pouring into
town.

At about ten-thirty on the morning of the sixth, the crowd surged
toward the Courthouse, and the cry was taken up that the prisoners
were at the hack that was to carry them to the place of execution. Very
soon afterwards, Sheriff W.C.R. Strong with Wayne Powers and Deputy
Sheriff R.H. Cowden with George Gibson, took their seats in the hack.
The guards were stationed under the direction of J.S. King and Martin
Godsey, and the calvacade took up its solemn march to the place of exe-
cution at the cedars (near where Gate City High School now stands). It
was a sight never before seen in Estillville. The streets were densely
packed with horsemen and people on foot from the village to the grounds.

The place selected for the hanging was a little north of the Cedar
Schoolhouse, in a hollow. As the hack neared the scaffold, the hills
surrounding the spot were covered with faces, all watching with breath-
less interest in the entire proceedings.

The hack reached its destination, and the prisoners, guards, officers,
and a few spectators took their positions inside the guard rope, but out-
side the building in which the scaffold was erected. It was here the con-
demned men were allowed to make their last statements. ‘Within a short
time both men were conducted inside the building and were hanged by
the neck until dead in accordance with the sentence of the Court. Thus
they paid with their lives for their dastardly crime.

Events leading up to the crime are as follows: Wayne and Jonas Powers
two brothers, George and Will Gibson, the latter cousins, had been absent
from Scott County for some months, residing in West Virginia. In the
spring of 1884 they concluded to visit their homes, and in company,
started on their journey. On Saturday evening April 20, 1884, they
stopped at the house of John Ramey and purchased brandy, then started
for Chestnut Ridge, lying close to the Russell line, where a quiet spot was
chosen for the crime.

We here take a portion of the confession and statement of George
Gibson: After telling of his boyhood and other events leading up to his
leaving Scott County and going to West Virginia, he tells of the crime as
follows: “We started for Scott County, Virginia, on April 14, 1884.
Before starting, Wayne and Jonas Powers made known to us their wish to
come with us (George and Will Gibson), but we endeavored to avoid them
as we supposed they would want us to bear their expenses, but they fell in
with us and after a journey of six days, we arrived at John Ramey’s on
Clinch River (near where Dungannon now stands) about dark on the 19th
day of April 1884, and it is here the history of this sad calamity begins.
Leaving Jonas Powers and Will Gibson in Broad Shoal Gap, a short
distance from John Ramey’s, Wayne Powers and I went to John Ramey’s
and bought six pints of brandy, returned to where they were, built up a
fire and being weary and footsore, remained there drinking the liquor and
resting for near three hours. Will Gibson had my pistol and loaded it while
there. Wayne Powers also loaded his pistol.

2°


of information gathered here and there, one cannot help but believe that
the murder for which John Tumns was hanged took place in that area.

Hanging No. 2

According to Court records the second hanging in Scott County was on
Friday, June 25, 1858, and was a man by the name of McDaniel Rhea.

1 have checked with some of the most brilliant historical minds in
Southwest Virginia, and have been unable to find anything pertinent to
this case, other than Court records. The history books written of Scott
County, I have been privileged to read make no mention of a McDaniel
Rhea, however, it can readily be assumed Rhea was executed, since there
is no further order on the books following his sentencing.

In Mr. C. A. Johnson’s book titled Johnson’s History of Wise County,
on Page 266, Chapter 23, there is recorded the hanging of Baxter S. Pate
at Estillville, Virginia, Scott County, on the exact date as that set for the
execution of McDaniel Rhea, and is shown as “‘Scott County’s first public
Hanging”. Pate, it is said, took the life of John Lutterel, in a drunken
brawl over a card game in a hotel at Estillville. Mr. Johnson says further:
“While not an event of Wise County, it however connects with it two of
Wise County’s prominent pioneer citizens--Rev. Reuben Steele, who
spoke the last rites for Pate, and W. D. Nottingham, Scott County jailor,
who was later Gladeville’s beloved Postmaster, whom everyone called
“Uncle Billy”.

Pate was described as being between 30 and 35 years old, of command-
ing appearance and very intelligent. Just prior to his execution he madea
40-minute talk in which he attributed strong drink as to the cause of his
ruin, and urged others to refrain from its use.

Certainly there is no inference intended to in anyway discredit or dis-
prove Mr. Johnson’s article, but it would be next to impossible to prepare
a paper on the hangings in Scott County without mentioning this chapter
in his book. Secondly, it is hoped that someone will be able to clarify the
mystery of two hangings on the same day at Estillville, when only one is
recorded in the Court order books of Scott County, that of McDaniel
Rhea.

With the assistance of the County Court Clerk, the records were
thoroughly searched and there was no one by the name of Pate men-
tioned.

It appears from the article that Mr. Johnson got the details of this
hanging from an old newspaper account, found by a lady, in the bottom
of an old family trunk. And it would seem through some error in passing
the story down through the years, the names of Rhea and Pate have
become confused, and are perhaps one and the same person.

Could this man have been McDaniel Rhea, alias Baxter S. Pate?

The actual Court records follow:

From the Court records of Scott County, Virginia

The Indictment, Trial, and Sentencing of McDaniel Rhea

-18-

Se a

armel tO ACOA

At a Circuit Court, begun and held for Scott County, at the courthouse

thereof on Monday, the 17 day of May 1858.

Present the Honorable Samuel V. Fulkerson Judge

James P. Carter gentleman foreman, William Mitchell, Benjamin B.
Taylor, George W. Powers, Nathan Daugherty, Sr., William B. Spencer,
David McKenny, William F. Templeton, Andrew J. Neil, Nathan Whitaker,
Levi Baker, William C. Barker, James C. Larkey, Andrew France,
Alexander Willis, Green C. Fields, Thomas Williams, John B. Agee,
Andrew Williams, and George H. Kindrick were sworn a grand jury of
inquest for the body of this County, and having received their charge,
were sent to their apartment and after sometime returned into the Court
and presented.

An Indictment against McDaniel Rhea, For Murder, A True Bill

At a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Court-
house thereof on Monday, the 24 day of May 1858.

Present: The same Judge as on Saturday.

McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, Labour, who stands
indicted of murder, was led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of this
County, whereupon came a Jury to sit: Joshua Smith, Reubin Finney,
John M. Kizer, Wilson Evans, George Finney, Charles C. Dickinson,
George Banner, James Kelly, James Artrip, Jessee Fuller, William N. Selle,
and George C. Gose who were elected, tried, and sworn in conformity
with the provisions of the act of assembly for the trial of the said

"McDaniel Rhea upon the indictment aforesaid (the said McDaniel Rhea

having perentonly challenged 8 jurors summoned for the said trial) and
the jury sworn as aforesaid, having fully heard the evidence were with the
consent of the prisoner, committed to the Sheriff of this County, who is

- directed to keep them together without communication with any other

person, and to cause them to appear here tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock
Whereupon an oath was administered to Thomas W. Carter and William D.
Nottingham, Deputy Sheriffs of this County, to the following effect,
“You shall well and truly to the best of your ability, keep this jury, and
neither speak to them yourselves, nor suffer any other person to speak to
them touching any matter relative to this trial, until they return into
court tomorrow. And the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to jail.

At a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Court-

house thereof on Tuesday the 25th day of May 1858;
Present: The same Judge as on yesterday.

McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, Labour, who stands
indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of
indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of
this County, and the jury sworn on yesterday, for his trial were brought
into Court in the custody of the Sheriff of this County, and upon their
oath do say, that the said McDaniel Rhea is guilty of murder in the first
degree, in manner and form as in the indictment against him is alleged.
Whereupon it being demanded of him if anything for himself he had or
knew to say why the Court here to judgement and execution against him
of and upon the premises should not proceed, he said nothing but what
he had before said. Therefore it is considered by the Court that he be

-19-

We then crossed Clinch River in a canoe; Will Gibson fell out into the
river and then handed my pistol back to me. We all travelled along
together until we got near Charles Horn’s at the foot of Chestnut Ridge.
Here Jonas Powers left us and went in the direction of Charles Horn’s.
| saw him no more until I saw him under arrest after the murder. Myself
and the other two went along together until we arrived near the top of
Chestnut Ridge. Wayne Powers and Will Gibson were five steps in advance
of me and were quarreling. Wayne stepped back and shot Gibson in the
back of the head; he ran and cried out “Run here George, your friend
Will Gibson is shot. I (George Gibson) pursued after and fired two shots
at him (Will Gibson), one of them, and I think only one, hit him. He fell
and I sprang upon, and cut him three times, once on the hip, once in the
side, and then cut his throat. Wayne run up at this time, cocked his pistol
and wanted to shoot him again, but I told him not to do that. He asked,
“Has he got enough?” I answered yes, for he was then dead. We then
considered as well as we could in our drunken condition, what we should
do with the body, and decided to burn it. We piled rails on it and Wayne
then pulled sage grass and put under them, and I fired it with a match. We
did not kill him for his money or clothing. But after he was dead we
thought it was useless to destroy his money and clothes, so we divided the
nine dollars and twenty cents between us, which was all he had. | took
his clothing and we burned his satchel and some clothing. We parted
about an hour and a half before day.” (End quote)

The next morning smoke was seen rising from the spot by S.P. Porter
and his wife while on the way to preaching. They investigated the cause
and found portions of the unconsumed body. The news of the murder
spread rapidly, and on Monday, Richard Hager, Ambrose Taylor, and
Alex Austin had the three men (George Gibson, Wayne Powers, and Jonas
Powers) arrested on the charge of having killed Will Gibson. They were
taken to Sinking Creek Church and an examination before Justice Ramey
was held. They were bound over, brought to Scott County and lodged in
jail on Wednesday, April 23, 1884.

They were indicted by the grand jury of the May term of the County
Court. Judge Martin B. Woods presiding, and on being arraigned upon the
indictment of murder, plead not guilty. They all elected to be tried in the
Circuit Court, and were remanded back to prison.

At the August term of the Circuit Court, Judge John A. Kelly
presiding. Jonas Powers was placed on trial. The trial lasted several days,
and the jury, after deliberating for twenty-four hours, failed to agree and
were dismissed.

The cases of Wayne Powers and George Gibson were continued until
the November term of the Circuit Court.

At the November term of the court the three men were tried, each
separately and by a different jury. Jonas H. Powers was first to be tried,
the verdict was murder in the first degree. Wayne Powers was next and the
verdict was the same. Last was George Gibson, whose trial lasted from
Saturday of one week until Friday of the following week; however, the
verdict was the same as the other two. Together, the three trials lasted
almost three weeks. Judge John A. Kelly presided at each. The people

-24.-

oe

were represented by Commonwealth’s Attorney H.W. Holdway, who un-
assisted, labored with a conscientious desire to uphold law and order and
the protection of society. The Power boys were represented and ably
defended by the law firm of Richmond and Duncan. Attorney John P.
Korns, along with Richmond and Duncan, defended George Gibson.

The Sentencing

When asked if either had anything to say before sentence was passed
upon them, Jonas Powers declared he wanted to say he was not guilty.
Wayne Powers said he had nothing to say. Gibson said he did not get
justice. They took their seats and Judge Kelly, with impressiveness and
solemnity, pronounced the following death sentence against them. He
started by first repeating their names: Jonas H. Powers, Wayne Powers,
and George Gibson. ‘‘Such a scene as we now look upon is seldom wit-
nessed in a Courtroom. Under our mild and human laws, a single convict
is rarely at the bar of the court awaiting the sentence of death. In my
service on the bench of this Circuit of more than fourteen years, I have
had only three times to pronounce such a sentence. Now you three stand
before me convicted, each of murder in the first degree, to which the law
affixes the death penalty. It would be useless to review the details of your
crime, if the juries have not been mistaken in their verdicts, that crime is
without parallel. It is shortly this--that for a few dollars and two or three
suits of wearing apparel of the victim, you deliberately killed your asso-
ciate travelling with you in the confidence of friendship, and in the
attempt to conceal the evidence of your guilt, spent hours of the night
in which the deed was done standing around his body, heaping fencing.
rails upon it until it was almost wholly consumed. But the effort at
concealment failed. It is almost always the case that the circumstances
attending the murder press so closely upon the heels of the murderer
that he can not escape them. So the circumstances surrounding this
murder pointed to you and led to your arrest, and you have been brought
to trial. A separate and different jury of twelve honest men have passed
upon each of your cases and have found you guilty. As the evidence is in
most of its features the same in each case, it is the equivalent to the
judgement of thirty-six jurymen. (Here the paper is worn and was unable
to read well enough to copy; RLS.) The Judge continues: Tne three
former occasions in which I have been called to pronounce the death
sentence, though but one unfortunate prisoner was to be doomed, my
heart recoiled from it. I shuddered at the thought. But how much more
trying when I see three unfortunate human faces looking upon me await-
ing their sentences. | hesitate to pronounce them. But an unavoidable
duty, the imperative mandate of the law compels me to do so. But before
I do, I would admonish you to use the time given you to make all possible
preparation for death. Though this Court can see no relief which can be
legally extended to you; though no other human tribunal may be able to
grant you relief, yet so infinite is the mercy of God, that even the darkest
of crimes do not close the door of hope to those who appeal to Him.
Forgiveness and pardon He freely gives to those who are about to perish

-25-

74 Southampton County

bringing on the crisis resulting in secession and civil war four years
later.

Although the test case involving Dred Scott had ominously back-
fired, Dred was purchased and given his freedom later in 1857 by
Peter Blow, Jr., Stephen Blow, and other children of Peter Blow.
Dred took a job as a porter at the Theron Barnum Hotel in Saint
Louis but became ill in the winter and died on September 17, 1858,
of tuberculosis. His funeral expenses were paid by his fellow South-
amptonian, Henry Blow.” By a means as unwitting as Nat Turner’s
had been deliberate, Dred Scott had contributed to the destruction
of the institution of slavery in the United States.

Lies sae
og aoe

; a“
Dred Scott. Under the name Sain Blow,
Scott lived for several years in South-

ee ere -
“s

ampton before moving west and gaining
celebrity as the principal in the faimous
slavery case. (Original in the possession of

the Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis)

Element of Surprise 75

The Omen

On Saturday, August 13, 1831, residents along the entire eastern
seaboard of the United States awoke to a morning sun that seemed
to be in its last stages of extinction. Its pale, silvery light, changing
as the day progressed to an eerie blue, was somewhat like that
accompanying an eclipse, and it was possible to stare directly into
it for any length of time without discomfort. Those who did stare
observed a black spot on the sun’s surface a little to the lower right
of center.” The beamless light was such that it gave “an unusually
ghastly appearance to the countenances of persons,” and “the great
orb of light,” wrote a New York witness, “seemed to have left the
skies, and to hang in our own atmosphere, suspended like a bal-
loon at no very great distance from the earth.””*

At sunset—6:30 p.m.—the western sky began to turn into a “‘cur-
tain of vermilion,” the light increasing for some time after sunset
and remaining visible until around 8 P.M., and, on Manhattan
Island, giving the impression of a huge fire burning in Newark. Phe
moon during the evening gave off a sickly green color, thought one
viewer, “like the inside of a good citron melon.”~

Newspaper editors everywhere commented extensively on the
solar phenomena. The occasion was described by a Charleston,
South Carolina, journalist as providing “the most extraordinary
optical appearances that have ever fallen under our observation.”
In Fredericksburg, Virginia, it was “a spectacle, altogether such as
we have never seen before.’*! Savants and amateur astronomers
offered a wealth of explanations, mostly having to do with an un-
usually large amount of vapor in the atmosphere, but some editors
wondered aloud if it might not be unwise to call so much attention
to the events. “We know our patrons are too much enlightened to
harbor [superstitious| sentiments,” wrote the proprietor of a journal
in Raleigh, North Carolina, “but this paper may fall into the hands
of others for whom we cannot vouch.”

-The note of caution concerned that class of persons who, “‘adher-
ing to the absurd predictions of the ancient Astrologers, view such
events as ominous of some direful catastrophe—think that the
world is coming to an end, or a bloody war” is near. There were
those, another noted, who “take it for granted that war is at hand.”


76 Southampton County —

And, on a remote farm in the southeastern part of Southampton
County, the celestial wonders were observed by a black field hand
who, as he afterwards confessed, saw in them the signal that “de-

termined me not to wait longer.””*

Catalyst

Nat Turner was born'in Southampton County on October 2, 1800,
in the midst of the panic over Gabriel Prosser’s plot and two days
before the Southampton magistrates ordered out the county’s
patrols in response to the Richmond disturbance. Bred to a strongly
religious cast of mind, he had, about the year 1827, undergone an
intense spiritual experience which he shared first with a somewhat
dissolute local white man named Etheldred T. Brantley.” The two
applied together for baptism at a local church, and when this was
refused, Nat gave out that they would publicly baptize themselves.
He was said to have announced that on the appointed day “a dove
would be seen to descend from Heaven and perch on his head.”
Onlookers gathered for the event and watched as the two entered
the water together, where they were “baptized by the Spirit,”
though no cove appeared.”

Long interested in signs and portents, Nat now became a seri-
ous student of such things and became convinced that they held
for him a special and profoundly significant meaning. The solar
eclipse of February 1831 was a signal, he felt, that he “should rise

and prepare” himself. Before that had come a “loud noise in the’

heavens,’ on May 12, 1828, and an admonition from “the Spirit”
that “the time was fast approaching when the first should be last
and the last should be first.”"** From these and other mystical occur-
rences, including personal visitations from “the Spirit,’ Nat came
to feel that he had been chasen by God to take the lead in liberating
the black people from bondage.

In the late summer of 183i, Nat had been for not quite two years
the servant of a rural carriage maker named Joseph Travis, who
owned a small farm a little west of Cross Keys community.” Nat’s
legal owner was a boy named Putnam Moore, a stepson of Travis
who, in October 1829, had married Moore’s mother.” Before that,

Element of Surprise . 77

Nat Turner. This sketch, reputedly executed
by William Ernest Braxton, may have been
copied from the portrait of Nat accom
panving T. R. Gray’s edition of the
Confesstons of Nat Turner in 1831. (The

Associated Publishers, Inc.)

Nat had had three previous owners: Thomas Moore, who died in
1828; Samuel Turner, dead since 1822; and Benjamin Turner, Sam-
uel’s father, whose death had occurred in 1810.* The farms of all
three men were within an area of a few square miles, so that the
various changes of residence had meant for Nat little interruption -
of the relationships he had known since boyhood and probably
little alteration in the round of chores and activities that circum-
scribed his life. He had probably never been more than a few miles
from his birthplace. His labor was hard, but the crops of corn and
cotton that formed the staples of Southampton County probably did
not demand of him the brutal work that hfindreds of thausands of
slaves farther south were forced routinely to endure."

There is no indication from available records that Nat’s masters
were notably cruel to their slaves in general or to him in particular,
though one was reported to have whipped him in 1826 for declaring
that the slaves should be free and one day would be. He had run
away from an overseer, probably shortly after the death of Samuel


78 Southampton County

Turner, but he returned voluntarily after about thirty days.” The
breakup of the slave family of Thomas Moore at the beginning of
1830 may have separated Nat from his wife, but Giles Reese, her
new master, lived near the Travis place and Nat would presumably
have been able to see her often. Hark, a fellow slave whom Nat had
known for many years, was sold at that time to Travis, and Sam,
also a slave of Thomas Moore’s estate, may have been conveyed to
Nathaniel Francis, another nearby farmer. * But Joseph Travis had
come to live at the house of his new wife and Nat was not required
to leave the farm.*

Soon after the eclipse in February, Nat began to make the ar-
rangements that seemed to be demanded of him by the spiritual
powers now directing his thoughts. In the early spring he revealed
his intentions to four of his fellow slaves in whom he placed the
greatest confidence. These were Hark Travis, Nelson Edwards,
Henry Porter, and Sam Francis, all of them slaves on farms in the
immediate vicinity of one another. By about the beginning of the
summer of 1831 the five men had settled upon a plan to launch the
revolt on the Fourth of July.” As the Fourth fell on Monday, there
would be a holiday preceding, on which to make final preparations,
and many of the whites could be expected to be absent from home
for much of the day on Monday, attending local celebrations.”

In the last days before July 4, Nat grew ill from tension and worry
and was forced to postpone the date of the initial assault. But he
had recovered by August 13 when the blue sun with the black spot
on its surface appeared in the heavens and showed him that the

time to strike was now certainly arrived. The plotters fixed upon

Sunday, August 21, as the most suitable day. “ Many white families
were panes to attend a camp meeting in neighboring Gates
County,* and the ‘Travises themselves would be away from home
all day attending religious services. On Saturday, Nat held a con-
ference with Harx and Henry, and the three agreed to prepare a
banquet next day at Cabin Pond, a dank and secluded area near
the Travis home,” for those who would launch the uprising. Once
the conspirators were all assembled, a final plan would be adopted
and put into execution.

Next morning Hark caught and killed a pig, which he carried
to the designated site, and Henry brought some brandy, probably

Element of Surprise | «~ 19

lately distilled by his master, Richard Porter. Sam and Nelson soon
arrived, as did Will Francis, another of Nathaniel Francis’s slaves,
and Jack Reese. Nat, arriving late, as was his policy, was not sur-
prised to find Jack among them, he being “only a tool in the hands
of Hark,” the husband of Jack’s sister. But the leader had not antic-
ipated the presence of Will Francis and asked him how he came to
be there. Will responded that “his life was worth no more than
the others, and his liberty [was] as dear to him” as theirs.*” The plot
would be laid, therefore, by seven men whose loyalty to one another
seemed certain.

The conspirators, lingering for several hours over the fresh brandy
and the roasting pig, resolved that the attack would begin that nicht
at the Travis house. On the question of whether any whites should
be spared once the slaughter began, Nat gave it as his opinion that
both sexes and all ages must be destroyed until their force had grown
large enough and their weapons powerful enough to exercise lenity
toward noncombatants and, perhaps, the slaveless poor. | ,

Having remained at Cabin Pond until “two hours into the night,’
(probably between 10 and 11 p.m.), the seven walked through the
woods together to the Travis home. Travis’s slave Austin and a boy
named Moses grected them there, the former agreeing at once to
take part in the assault. All but Nat went to the cider press to drink,
and the group appears to have passed several hours in and about the
kitchen dependency before finally resolving to get on with the busi-
ness they came for.” The loss of a substantial part of the night,
however, had already denied to them a large measure of the terror
they could hope to generate in the hours ahead. Only Nat’s absolute
conviction that he acted at the behest of a fostering deity gave the
plot substance and the chance of success.

Joseph Travis and his wife Sally, with their infant child, Travis’s
apprentice Joel Westbrook, and Sally’s son Putnam Moore had
been away from home most of the day ang did not return until
after dark. ‘hey are belicved to have gone fourteen miles southeast
to worship services at Barnes’s Meeting House, a Methodist church
near the North Carolina line.™ The sermon they heard was evidently
Preached by Rev. George W. Powell, an uncle of Mrs. Travis, per-
haps assisted by young Richard Whitehead. Powell subsequently
Stated that on August 21 he “preached to many that were after-

72 Southampton County

cheme enjoyed moderate popularity among the whites of the region -

1 the mid-1820s when a chapter of the ACS was established at
earby Murfreesboro, North Carolina, and ACS agents paid sev-
ral visits to the area.” Thirteen Southampton blacks named
‘larke left for Liberia on the schooner Cyrus, from Norfolk, in 1824,
nd fifteen named Brown and Davis on the Hunter in the year
lowing. After a lull of, several years, a total of forty-two more
btained passage in 1830 aboard the Valador and Montgomery.*' But
ne free black population of the county, frequently enlarged by
nanumissions performed by Quaker, Methodist, and other slave
wners, was growing much faster than those of either slaves or
hites. For most, Africa held out little prospect of a better life
nd the ACS created little interest among black people--at least
efore the autumn of 1831.

Among the last to leave for Liberia on the eve of the slave rebel-.

‘on was a free black family named Gardner, which took passage
‘om Norfolk on the Valador on January 11, 1831. Anthony W.
rardner, at that time eleven years old, was to obtain an education
i the schools of Liberia during the 1830s and serve three terms as
.e eighth president of the Republic of Liberia between 1879 and
383. The Southampton native also served for sixteen consecutive
ears in the National Legislature, four years as vice-president of
we republic, and as a member of the convention which drafted
iberia’s constitution in 1846. Prior to his death in 1886 he was the
‘st surviving signer of his nation’s Declaration of Independence.”
The most dramatic and controversial attempt at legal escape from
avery was that made in behalf of a black man named Sam Blow,
slave of Southampton planter Peter Blow. Sam Blow, or, as he was
ter to style himself, Dred Scott, was born near Edom, in the
henandoah Valley, in 1809.% He was reared, however, partly
: Blow’s 860 acres of farmed-out land at Gum Branch, some seven
: eight miles northeast of the locality in which Nat Turner re-
ded.“ Following particularly poor crop years in 1814 and 1815,
eter Blow in 1816 moved with his family and slaves to Huntsville,
Jabama, and, in 1823, to Saint Louis.

While Blow took charge of a boardinghouse, Sam was hired out
»a house servant and his brothers Luke and William as stevedores.
1829 Sam was married to a young woman belonging to a neigh-

Element of Surprise 73

bor of the Blows, but she was sold away to Arkansas a few months
later. Sam ran away not long after this, but he was caught, whipped
and returned to his owner. It was about that time that he began
to use the name of Dred Scott in place of the name he had carried
since birth.

Peter Blow soon died, and Dred was sold to an ill-tempered army
surgeon named John Emerson, who took his servant along with him
to various army posts, including Fort Snelling, near Minneapolis.
Although he was now living on free soil, no issue was raised about
Dred’s status, and he was married around 1836 to Harriet, a girl
of fifteen, who belonged to Major Louis Talifiaro. Their first child,
Eliza, was born on a Mississippi riverboat in 1838 as Emerson, hav-
ing purchased Harriet, was en route back to Saint Louis.

Not long after returning to Saint Louis, Dred Scott propos: d to
Dr. Emerson that he be permitted to purchase his freedom along
with that of his wife and child. The doctor refused and hired out
Dred instead to an army captain who carried him to Texas where he
remained until Dred contracted malaria in 1845 and was returned
to Saint Louis. Upon recovering, Dred petitioned the Circuit Court
of Saint Louis for his freedom, citing that he had lived for several
years in the state of Illinois and the Minnesota Territory, neither
of which recognized slavery. While the case pended, his second
daughter, Lizzie, was born in 1846. The court granted Dred’s
petition, but the matter was appealed to the Missouri Supreme
Court where the decision was overturned.”

Five of Peter Blow’s children, all of them opponents of any further
extension of slavery, joined with Dred in helping to bring his case
before the United States Supreme Court. To the amazement of”
slavery’s opponents north and south, the high court, in its ruling
in 1857, held not only that Dred was not free by virtue of having
lived in free territory but that the Missour: Comproinise of 1820
had been unconstitutional. It was the position of Chief Justice Roger
B. Taney that slaves were no different from any other property pro-
tected by the “due process” clause of the Federal Constitution. Laws
aimed at restricting the extension of slavery into free states and
territories all seemed to be in jeopardy. The Dred Scott decision
had the effect of rousing abolitionist tenipers to «shite heat and

100 Southampton County

freesboro at midday on Tuesday and detailed a hundred men to
march to Cross Keys. The cavalry contingent, led by Col. Charles
Spiers, reached Cross Keys at sunset, but Ens. S. Jordan Wheeler’s
infantry arrived only on Wednesday morning. The handful of
houses making up the settlement were packed to the rafters with
between 1,500 and 2,000 women and children, with some 200 men
on guard."' Despite the acute distress of the citizens, a Southampton
militia officer assured the Carolinians that the danger was past, all
but five or six of the rebels having been killed or captured. ‘* Bui the
arrival of the infantry next morning, followed by a parade intended
for the restoration of tranquillity, prompted suggestions that a joint
foray proceed into the surrounding country in search of Nat Turner,
Will Artis, and others. The party that set out, continually enlarged
by volunteers, was soon split into two groups, one of which appears
to have had an uneventful tour. The activities of the second, how-
ever, would remain a sore point of controversy for many weeks.
The second party, commanded by Col. Elisha H. Sharpe of Hert-
ford, and including four Southampton men, encountered Richard
Porter, apparently on his way to Cross Keys with three Negroes who
had confessed to him their complicity in the revolt. These three—
Jacob, Moses, and Aaron—were taken into custody by the patrol
along with an unidentified boy, perhaps Daniel Porter. When they
reached Whitehead’s the patrol viewed a grotesque panorama of
bodies lying about the yard “chopped to pieces” and “trees, fences
and house tops covered with buzzards preying on the carcases.”’
While the men contemplated the spectacle, a Negro of Mrs. White-
head’s (said to have been a preacher) appeared and began to tell
of his impressment and harsh treatment by the insurgents. But the
Southampton men in the group, including Drew Bittle, Clifton
Harrison, and Charles Fuller, identified him as having been among
the rebels at Parker’s field on Monday, whereupon, according to
later reports, the whole company emptied their guns into him. It
was probably this unfortunate individual whom-O. M. Smith had
in mind when he described how a rebel, ‘‘a Methodist minister
among his black brethren,” had been aaa to death. “They
burnt him with red hot irons—cut off his ears and nose- stabbed
him, cut his hamstrings, stuck him like a hog, and at last cut off his
head, and spiked it on the whipping post for a spectacle and a

warning to other negroes!!!!™

The Southampton Rebellion ; 1O1 .

The enraged whites now elected to execute the three Negro men
of Porter’s without further ceremony. The three were marched into a
field and shot, having first been relieved of $23 in cash and a gold
watch. Colonel Sharpe, observing that the party “might as well be
paid for their trouble as not,” proposed a division of the spoils, coun-
selling that nothing should be said about it to the rest of the Hert-
ford militia. The division of the property, rather than its return to
white owners, was publicly castigated by fifteen of the troopers when
it became known some weeks later. The Negro boy was delivered to
authorities at Cross Keys.“

Other militia and vigilante units acted with equal disregard of
technical niceties. A North Carolina paper reported the case of three
slaves who were recruited into the revolt at a Southampton farm
on Monday, returned to enroll others on Tuesday, and were “seized
by the balance of the Negroes, tied and delivered over to the militia,
and by them instantly dispatched.” On Monday afternoon, the
party under Captain Pecte ran down Alfred Waller, a thirty-year-_
old blacksmith of Levi Waller. Because the captors did not have,
in Peete’s words, “an opportunity to secure him otherwise he was
disabled by cutting the larger tendon just above the heel in each
leg.” When Alfred was found next day by a:troop of Greensville
Dragoons, he was near death and considered unlikely to live long
enough to stand trial. The whites thereupon tied him to a tree and
shot him “as a beneficial example to other Insurgents.” An incident
reported by O. M. Smith concerned a slave who was sent on an
errand to a neighbor’s, was seen by militia who supposed him to be
“an enemy fleeing,” and was shot dead, as was the horse he was
riding.”

The mop-up of fugitive rebels continued for several days. Reports
that an insurgent leader, taken on ‘Tuesday evening, had made a
full confession and then been “publicly shot and his head hoisted
on a pole,” probably concerned the fate, of Henry Porter, one of
Nat’s original conspirators. A similar fate awaited Nelson Edwards,
who was spotted on Wednesday in the orchard at his master’s farm,
escaped, but was shot next day. It was reported from Cross Keys
on August 26 that “Gen. Nelson’s” head was on display there and
that a doctor assigned to the militia was to bring the trophy to
Norfolk. Joseph Joiner, one of Nelson’s assassins, paid the dead
man the compliment of saying that he “was about thirty five year:


oer eee . SRS Cain a en et

98 Southampton County

and dropped dead when he heard it. There were reports of two other
deaths nearby from the same cause. A Murfreesboro witness told
of “fear ...in every face, women pale and terror-stricken, children
crying for protection, men fearful and full of foreboding.”®

At a farmhouse in the Gumberry section of Northampton, a few
miles south of Cross Keys, a thirteen-year-old boy later recalled
how “all the women and children were put into the largest room. . ..
The door was securely fastened by putting chairs against the back
on the inside. The gun I loaded myself putting in a double charge
of powder and shot so as to kill several at one fire. .. . Besides this we
had an axe in the room... . We had a boy stationed out as a sort of
picket with a horn to blow in case he heard any noise, so that we
might be ready for the fight.”

Authorities at Halifax, North Carolina, called out all able-bodied
white men and converted the courthouse into a depot for arms and
ammunition. At Belfield, in Greensville County, a company of
guards and an artillery piece were in position at the Meherrin River
by dusk on Monday. A nearly indecipherable note from Col. James
Trezevant at Jerusalem alerted Petersburg officials at midnight
Monday although failing to cite the locality of the trouble or the
number of Negroes thought to be involved. Governor John Floyd
received the same note at dawn on Tuesday.”

Militia companies poured into Southampton during Tuesday
and Wednesday, including the Richmond Dragoons and Lafay-
ette Artillery, three companies of infantry and some sailors from
Norfolk, volunteer cavalry from Portsmouth, a troop of horse from
Prince George, and others. The Halifax Blues, a company of twenty-
five cavalry, arrived too late to see any important action but con-
trived to suffer two casualties before reaching the Virginia line. Ata
bivouac on Wednesday night at Absalom P. Smith’s in Northamp-
ton County, the clatter of an approaching express rider caused a
brief panic among the Blues. One of the company awoke in the
midst of the confusion, glimpsed a man “with his right hand raised
as 1f in the act of stabbing one of the Blues,” and fired his musket.
Militiaman Shepherd Lee, a native Virginian, was wounded in the
leg by the blast and D. Turner in the shoulder. Lee unwisely ac-
companied the unit to Cross Keys and died from loss of blood at
Jackson, North Carolina, while returning on Thursday.*

A

A al Salm ARE 8? ci OE eR i i OO a RB iis Ra aE AEM Peat eat ltr

¢ «

The Southampton Rebellion 99

A busy center of militia activity was Richard Darden’s tavern,
located midway between Jerusalem and Cross Keys. Sixty or seventy
North Carolinians, evidently from Northampton and commanded
by one Sherrod, spent a night at Darden’s and helped to drink off
some of the “3 Barrels of Spirits,” including some “very old brandy
& Wine,” for which Darden later billed the Genéral Assembly.
Another sixty to eighty Norfolk troopers stopped at Darden’s en
route to and from Cross Keys and reduced his stock by ten to twenty
pounds of chewing tobacco, bread, several large middlings of bacon,
and liquor, which the proprietor “had no time to measure . . . as it
was Catch as you could until They got it.” Since “Richd. Dar-
den’s,” in the words of the proud innkeeper, “was the place to stop to
git some Refreshments,” a continual stream of smaller parties also
made free with his provisions during the period of the disturbance.”
Some measure of the excesses of the militia, no less than those of the
blacks, may perhaps be set down to the influence of alcoholic drink.

The Avengers

“It has been nothing but kill, kill! murder, murder! .. . | never sup-
posed human beings could be capable of such barbarity, much less
did I ever expect to be in the midst of, and to witness such scenes!”
O. M. Smith was a young man from New Hampshire who was living
at William Harrison’s in Littletown, Sussex County, some nine
miles from the scenes of violence, when he described the revolt for
his parents on August 29. By this time, the last fugitives had been
trapped within a wooded area where the militia “have been for four
days and four nights hunting them out and killing them, like so
many wolves!” Some twenty blacks had been killed by this time
and twenty-three or twenty-four others taken captive, “of whom 10
or 12 have been tantalized to death, in trying to make them divulge
the plot, but not one word of informatior can be extorted from any
of them, they will stand with a red hot iron burning their flesh until
they die!!”” .

While Smith’s account is probably somewhat overdrawn, the
mop-up of fugitives was unquestionably accompanied by scenes
of shocking brutality. Hertford County’s militia mustered at Mur-

ae

> ars ee ee el ee en ae oe it a
SS aint P ots eRe SE

102 Southampton County

of age, was uncommonly likely, and worth at least $400, and had
he been mine, I would not have taken $500 for him.” Jim, another
of Peter Edwards’s Negroes, was brought by his master to Cross Keys
and turned over to the same Captain Joiner with a request that he
be kept until he could be tried. Joiner tied him “and placed him
against the side of the house, when a party rushed up and shot him—
he fell dead at my feet.” A party visiting Edwards’s house on Wed-
nesday came upon Austin Edwards “standing in the yard by himself
perfectly defenseless” and instantly shot him down.”

Still other rebels were relentlessly sought out in the days follow-
ing. Sam Edwards was taken on Tuesday night when a patrol found
him hiding under a house at his master’s farm. Davy Waller was
captured on Thursday night, and Dred Francis surrendered to his
master on Saturday. Billy Artis, reported to have been wounded four
days earlier, was found dead on September 2, believed to have taken
his own life.” Marmaduke, reputed slayer of Miss Vaughan, evi-
dently died in Jerusalem jail before the trials began; editor John
Hampden Pleasants of the Richmond Whig, who saw him there
on August 26, commented that Marmaduke “might have been a
hero, judging from the magnanimity with which he bore his suffer-
ings.” A rebel named Tom, said to have made a confession though
“desperately wounded and about to die,” was another whose death
inay have cheated the gallows.“

Stories of massive homicide by white patrols, multiplying for
weeks after the uprising, were often no less exaggerated than early
rumors of the scope of the rebellion. A letter from Belfield on August
24 spoke of only three or four blacks killéd in skirmishes in South-
ampton on Tuesday and a message from Cross Keys next day raised
the toll to but “10 to 15.”* General Richard Eppes, writing from
Jerusalem on Thursday, gave the number so far killed as fifteen,
and a Norfolk man, who left Jerusalem on Saturday, reported
thirty-eight killed up to that time. Next day a directive from Jeru-
salem “headquarters” forbade any further killing of blacks lest
important evidence and valuable property be squandered. A week
later Postmaster Trezevant cited only twenty-two as having been
slain “without law,” probably not counting those killed in skir-
mishes. The Richmond Whig on September 3 complained of in-
stances in which some had been killed without trial and “under

The Southampton Rebellion 103

circumstances of great barbarity.”” Editor Pleasants had heard in
Southampton of between twenty-five and forty such deaths and had
spoken to one individual who claimed credit for ten to fifteen of
them."

Rumors, perhaps in part designed for the intimidation of blacks
everywhere, continually increased the figures. A Northampton
preacher heard that “many negroes are killed every day,” and a
Halifax merchant spoke darkly of “Negroes . .. taken in different
directions, and executed” daily. The Washington, D.C. Globe was
told that “about 50 or 100 negroes had been killed and still the com-
panies are in pursuit of the remainder.” A North Carolina paper
set the number of dead Negroes at 270.* But the total of blacks
killed in suppressing the revolt in all likelihood fell below 50. Uhere
were, in addition, isolated instances of Negroes killed in adjoin-
ing counties. A slave from the Ahoskie section of Hertford County,

coming through Murfreesboro on August 24 with a pass from his’

master, was shot in the street, after which his head was severed and
placed on a pole at the corner by William Rea’s store.” Benjamin
W. Britt, of nearby Riddicksville, North Carolina related to a Con-
necticut acquaintance later that he “shot a black on that occasion,
for the crime of disobeying Mr. Britt’s imperative ‘Stop!’ ”’™
Roving patrols were able on Tuesday and Wednesday to trim
down the more frenetic stories of carrage among the whites. Clar-
inda Jones, after spending a night alone in a swamp at Waller’s was
found safe on Tuesday by a white party visiting the farm,” Members
of this or another group also found among the corpses at Waller’s a
small child not yet dead: She was placed in some shade as the patrol’
left in hot pursuit of rebels but, apparently receiving no further
attention for some hours, died next day.” Lavinia Francis, who had
been hidden by her slaves, and Mrs. Barrow, were also soon located.
At Whitehead’s, where Harriet Whitehead had saved herself by
hiding between a bed and mat in the same room where one of her
sisters was killed, a slave named Hubbard led her to a Hiding place
in the woods.” An overseer by the name of Balmer, or Barham, may
have been found alive at Piety Reése’s after having been attacked by
the rebels there and left for dead.“ Mr. and Mrs. James Story, two
daughters of Francis Felts, Mrs. Trajan Doyel and child, and Jacob
Williams were others who were found after initially having been

get:

96 . Southampton County

second occasion at a distance, flourishing his hat and shouting that
“he would cut his way, he would kill and cripple as he went.” Haith-
cock and four boys were said to have come by Peter Edwards’s farm
on Tuesday morning and told the Negroes there that “Gen’l Nat
would be there on Wednesday or Fhursday and Mr. Edwards had 4
likely boys that he would take with them.”®* Nat, they stated,
had had a fight with the whites at Parker’s and was on his way to
Belfield.

The second rebel force still in the field after Nat went into hiding
consisted of the remnant of the men who were with him after leav-
ing Dr. Blunt’s. Will Francis and perhaps others had been killed in
the encounter at Newit Harris’s, but enough remained to talk boldly
among themselves about returning to Blunt’s on Tuesday night and
seeking revenge for the ambush they had suffered there. ‘This group
seems to have split up by nightfall but not before creating fresh
alarms in the vicinity of Dr. Blunt’s farm.

Late in the afternoon on Tuesday a Negro boy belonging to
Thomas Ridley reported to the garrison at Blunt’s that he “had seen
the banditti after they had been repulsed ..., that they told him
whilst he was in company with them that they . .. would return
there . . . (Tuesday) evening and . . . see whether [Blunt] and his
company could keep them out of his house.” Upon receipt of the
report, Drew Fitzhugh immediately sent an express to Jerusalem
for help and organized the Blunt defenders for resistance to renewed
assault. Captain Peete arrived some hours later from Jerusalem with
ten men and remained until daylight brought to the embattled
plantation a sense of greater security. An unfortunate accident,
however, marred the otherwise successful reinforcement of the Blunt
farm.

The Blunt and Fitzhugh slaves had been entrusted during the
night with arms and stationed near the front door of the house. Just
before dawn broke on Wednesday morning, an alarm was raised,
and in the confusion of the moment, a trooper of Peete’s named
Harris shot and killed a Negro belonging to Mrs. Thomas Fitzhugh.
The dead man, considered to be “likely . .. and of good character,”
had been visiting his wife at Blunt’s when the rebellion broke out.
A petition for compensation from the state for his life noted that
“alarms of this nature were frequent at Dr. Blunt’s and at other
places during the excitement . . . produced in the neighborhood.”™

Ke)
~

The Southampton Rebellion
Pandemic

News of the insurrection crept outward from the fiery center during
Monday and Tuesday at an astonishingly feeble pace. At Murfrees-
boro, a village within fourteen miles of the outbreak, no warning
seems to have come until around midday on Monday, some ten
hours after the first attack and four hours after the earliest alarm.”
At Halifax, North Carolina, within thirty miles of the Travis farm,
the first warning arrived in late afternoon. Richmond was sixty
miles away but heard nothing until 3 a.m. on Tuesday.” Suffolk,
Norfolk, Edenton, and other places within forty to sixty miles knew
nothing of the revolt before daybreak or later on Tuesday. In no
direction does the news appear to have progressed at a rate exceed-
ing about three miles per hour from 8 o’clock Monday morning.
The slow pace may have reflected the tendency of each community
to look first to its own safety before broadcasting the alarm.
Virtually every community within a hundred miles was thrown
into paroxysms of panic by the report. A group of whites already
assembled for mutual protection at a Hertford County farmhouse
a few miles south of Cross Keys learned from a “well-dressed and
sober” man, riding up at great speed in the rain, that the rebels were
approaching from Boon’s Bridge, a mile and Half away. In the thirty
minutes it took to contradict the report, a witness later recalled the
‘immediate cries of the women, as to what they should do,” and the
“frantic distress depicted on every face.” At Jerusalem, where four
hundred women and children had gone for safety, a harried writer

told a Richmond newspaper that “every house, room and corner . . .*

is full of women and children, driven from home, who had to take 'to
the woods, until they could get to this place. We are worn out with
fatigue.” From a farm five miles east, a woman wrote relatives in
Richmond that some two hundred women, mostly from west of the
Nottoway River, had been packed into Vick’s Tavern and Bivins’s
at Jerusalem, her own family having slept out “in a thick cluster of
pines, with a blanket each, and a pallet for the children.”™

At Murfreesboro an express from Northampton, characterized by
a resident as “a lily-livered boy,” brought news that the rebels were
within eight miles of town. A patrol promptly went out and found
the report false, but farmer Thomas Weston, an elderly resident of
the town, came out on his porch to learn the cause of the excitement

?

112 Southampton County

black spirits engaged in battle,” the critical phase of his psycho-
logical preparation began on May 12, 1828, when he was told that
Christ had now “laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of
men” and that Nat must “take it on and fight against the Serpent,
for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and
the last should be first.” Commanded to await “the first sign”
before taking any action, Nat interpreted an eclipse in February
1831 as the warning to prepare himself and the solar phenomenon
of August 13 as the signal to strike.”

Thomas R. Gray, in a fury of expository zeal, dashed off his final
draft of the document, added a preface, made a copy for the court,
and was conferring with printers in Richmond within four days of
his last meeting with Nat Turner. After finding on November 7
that the presses in Richmond “were so occupied with other matters”
that the first edition he wanted—‘‘about 50,000 copies’”—could not
be handled there, he sped on to Washington for a copyright (issued
on November 10) and within ten days had his first copies run off
by a printer in Baltimore.* They were on sale at Washington, D.C.,
by November 22 at twenty-five cents a copy, representing a poten-
tial gross of $12,500 and a handsome royalty for the author. Nat
Turner, condemned by the Southampton court on November 5,
had been hanged at Jerusalem on November 11.”

Even though Gray’s preface promises that Nat’s confession 1s
offered “without comment,” the publication contains various per-
sonal asides and remarks that bear overtly upon his own estimation
of the rebel general. The introduction treats of “a gloomy fanatic”
with a “dark, bewildered, and overwrought mind . .. endeavoring to
grapple with things beyond its reach.” But Gray’s concluding
impressions, subtended to Nat’s statement, describe in moving terms
a subject with “a mind capable of attaining any thing,” one who,
“for natural intelligence and quickness of apprehension, is surpassed
by few men I have ever seen,” The same passage defends Nat almost
indignantly from the charge that he was “ignorant and cowardly,”
that his object was to steal “money to make his escape.” Besides an
incident showing “the decision of his character,” Gray was led to
relate that “it is notorious, that he was never known to have a dollar
in his life; to swear on oath, or drink a drop of spirits.”

The portrait, then, betrays a kind of chilling admiration for the

— ——————————— tl = . > a ee ee a a re
Kanes O55 x Perse eS Ts be a a4 a oe ie alee an
« «
Requiem for a God-fearing Man - 113

rebel Negro, a blend of horror and furtive esteem that raises the
narrative well above that of any other contemporary account.
Gray’s parting glimpse of the prisoner ascends, indeed, to an exalted
poignancy as we read of the “calm composure with which he spoke
of his late deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face
when excited by enthusiasm, still bearing the stains of helpless
innocense about him: clothed in rags and covered with chains; vet
daring to raise his manacled hands to heaven, with a spirit soaring
above the attributes of man; I looked on him and my blood curdled
in my veins.”**!

Eight hundred miles to the north, William Llovd Garrison read
those words and called sardonically for “Grand Juries in the several
slave states to indict Mr. Gray and the printers of the pamphlet
forthwith,” even as they had lately indicted the fiery abolitionist
editor and his journal, the Liberator. “Let Southern legislatures,”
he counseled, “offer a large reward for their apprehension,” for the
Confesstons niust “only serve to rouse up other leaders and cause other
insurrections, by creating among the blacks admiration for the char-
acter of Nat, and a deep, undying sympathy for his cause.” 7

Garrison had seen what few other whites had allowed themselves
to see in the pamphlet, the quality of sublime ‘dignitygin the im-
penitent rebel leader. The source, moreover, of the pathos and
grandeur of the portrait of Nat seemed unmistakable: on the face

of the defiant black prophet, Thomas Ruffin Gray had read the

mirror image of his own ravaged soul. Born in the same county and
in the same year as Nat Turner, Gray must have understood only
too well the sources of the turbulent emotions in the breast of the
enigmatic black man. The same blind destiny that cast Nat into
a life of slavery had robbed Gray of his patrimony, his wife, the
affection of his father, his standing in the community. As with the
narrator, so with the recorder, might the pattern of regulatory
beliefs and devices of white dominion havg appeared more as an

- enemy than an ally. Unwilling to acknowledge his affinity with the

rebel, yet unable to escape it, the young attorney seems to have

found in the recesses of his own heart a chord that responded vi-
2 2 ;

brantly and in unison with the savage confessions of the slave.

118 Southampton County

to two of her brothers. Nathaniel Francis died of pneumonia in 1849,
bequeathing his own respectable estate to his wife and children.™

There were others for whom the psychological stress of the rebel-
lion was severe, though probably less permanent than in the case of
Harriet Whitehead. Levi Waller’s temporary derangement has been
noted previously. At Littletown, O. M. Smith had written on
August 29, 1831, of “[o]ne young Lady and two men to my knowl-
edge,” who were “frightened out of their senses, so that they have
been perfectly deranged for four days!” “I must tell you,” Smith
added, “that one of the three is no other than Mr. William Harrison,
my patron.” Harrison was “very dangerously sick, perfectly crazy,
and growing worse very fast, unless he is better very soon, my next
to you will announce his death!” Benjamin Harrison, brother of
William, was ill before the rebellion began, “and it cured him
immediately.”

Southampton slaveholders who petitioned the General Assembly
at the close of 1831 for compensation for slaves killed in the uprising
were all disappointed in their hopes. Applications by Richard
Porter, the Elizabeth Turner and Fitzhugh heirs, Peter Edwards,
and Levi Waller, though ‘citing legislative precedents going back
to 1691, were all rejected. Nor did the legislators see fit to recom-
pense the innkeepers whose fare, for good and ill, had nourished the
men and horses engaged in suppressing the revolt.

-\ less enduring injury was the one sustained by those who looked
for an early revival of religion in Southampton. Baptist Elder
Robert [T. Daniel wrote glumly to a church newspaper in early
September of the effect of the revolt on churchgoing: “The con-
fusion produced by the outrage of the blacks in this county, has
given a vital stab to our blessed cause in this section, as well as to
the tranquillities of every family. When all things are to become
sull and harmony prevail, I know not. We had some hopeful appear-
ances in a few of the churches here before the insurrection took
place.” Because: some Southampton residents had been attending
a Camp meeting in neighboring Gates County, North Carolina, on
the day of the revolt, a local historian in 1900 professed to find that
“camp-meetings were not so frequent in this section after this.”

Within a short time, however, the scene had brightened enough
for James Delk, whose ministry included a portion of Southampton,

Requiem for a God-fearing Man 119

to write that he was now “much encouraged” for the future. During
the period of panic, he conceded, “it would be impossible for me
to describe . . ha effects which it produced.” He had “tried to
preach a few times” but without effect until September 9. when
he baptized nine people at one service.” There appeared to be some
hope that the aftereffects of the rebellion might even include a
greater earnestness about religion than before.

But the insurrection, of course, had not affected adversely every
individual touched by it, even in the period of greatest terror. Ben-
jamin Phipps had reaped his small fortune from the arrest of the
fugitive leader. Another whose prospects were greatly improved
was Simon Frazer Blunt, fifteen-year-old son of Dr. Blunt and a
hero of the defense of his father’s farm against Nat Turner’s final
assault. Commodore Eliot of Nortolk, reporting directly to President
Andrew Jackson on September 8 in regard to the navy’s role in the
affair, gave him “fa minute account” of the revolt and the conduct
of young Blunt. The president thereupon authorized Blunt’s ap-
pointment to the Naval Academy, opening for the youth:ul ap-
pointee a career of more than twenty years as a naval officer. He
was a member of the Wilkes exploring expedition of 1838-42 which
circumnavigated the globe.” He was married to Ellen Key, a

daughter of Francis Scott Key.

Gray’s Elegy

Thomas R. Gray knew no better fortune in the wake of the slave
rebellion than he had before. Although the Confessions pamphlet
is said to have sold well enough to require a second printing in
1832,"° proceeds from it did not measurably alleviate the author's
financial distress. He appears to have acquired no real estate during
the rest of his life, though he was able to purchase a gig in 1834,
which, with his horse, constituted the whele of his taxable property
during his rernaining years in Southampton County. His daughter
Ellen Douglas became the ward of Gray’s fellow attorney William
C. Parker in July 1832." .

Gray’s meager role in public affairs reflected his worldly poverty.
‘He had served briefly as a justice of the peace before his resignation


1 tc tg ee ake: a ll ie asi

116 Southampton County

five Artises who embarked on the Roanoke in December 1832 appar-
ently represented the end of the flight occasioned by the insurrection
panic. * Still others, of course, had fled west or north in search, if not
of true freedom, then at least of relief from the life of insecurity and
harassment that Southampton County meant for them. For slavery
and race relations in the South had now entered upon a critical and
dangerous new phase, one that would culminate in tearing the
nation apart.

For those free Negroes who chose to remain in Southampton, the
holocaust of the uprising continued to haunt them through the
winter of 1831-32 while the fate of the four free black suspects
remained undecided. Ben Blunt, last of the slave suspects, was
hanged on December 20, 1831, but the cases of Thomas Haithcock.
Berry Newsom, Exum Artis, and Isham Turner were not decided
until the following spring.“ Haithcock, miraculously surviving
adverse testimony given in the fall by his wife and stepdaughter,
was released and was registered on the county’s roll of free Negroes
on June 13, 1832, as a forty-year-old freeborn man.* The case
against Exum Artis, apparently consisting of testimony by a slave
named Burwell Vick that Artis had flourished a pistol on August 23
and boasted of the whites he might kill, ended with the defendant’s
release.*” Isham Turner was also released, but Berry Newsom,
accused of having expressed to some fellow blacks his intention of

joining the rebels (evidently not carried out), was convicted and, on -

May 11, hanged.“ This brought the number of people convicted
to thirty, nineteen of whom were hanged and the rest transported. *

Scar Tissue

Shock waves from the slave rebellion continued to reverberate
through Southampton for many years after the event. The forms
taken by these tremors included a legacy. of recriminations among
some of the principals in the affair, perhaps ‘an inevitable conse-
quence of personalities maimed and distorted in the crucible of
panic and retribution. Among the first to feel such an aftereffect of
the rebellion was Jerusalem’s innkeeper, Henry B. Vaughan, whose
unhappy fate it was to be castigated publicly about the quality of
his services to the Richmond troops during the insurrection.

Requiem for a God-fearing Man 117

Vaughan, whose sister-in-law Rebecca was among the victims of
the uprising, was described by the Richmond Waig in early Sep-
tember as one whose “‘base and sordid love of pelf’ led him to fur-
nish the troops “with the commonest of stinking fare” and then
submit to the siate an outrageous bill of over $800." At an enter-
tainment given in Petersburg for the Richmond Dragoons shortly
afterward, editor Pleasants ‘of the Whig went so far as to propose
a toast to “Henry B. Vaughan—the publican, who speculated upon
the bones of his kindred, which the dragoons went to bury and
avenge.”””

A more serious injury was that incurred by Harriet Whitehead,
who had survived though her sister was killed in the room in which
Harriet was hiding. Years afterward she would have occasion ‘o tell
a Southampton court that “the fright and alarm” she experienced
during the uprising had left on her a “powerful and overwhelming
effect.” As a result, she often “‘became depressed in spirits weak in
body and mind, hysterical and easily excited and in such a state
of mind has resorted to stimulating medicines and the like. °

The reason for these disclosures was a lawsuit brought by Miss
Whitehead in 1848 against Nathaniel Francis. The suit alleged that
Francis, “seeing that she was hopeful of a consjderable estate, and
that in consequence of her unfortunate state of mind, was a fit sub-
ject for him to defraud . ., accordingly set about to obtain it from
her.”

It appears that in 1843 Branels, characterized by Harriet as
“notorious for his love of money” had come into possession of sev-
eral small notes of debt owed by Harriet to other persons. With-«.
these, it was alleged, Francis set out to force her to deed all of her
property to him. Failing to wear her down by frequent visits.and by
pressure applied through female intermediaries, it was charged,
Francis resorted to having warrants issued against her. He also
threatened to expose her to the congregation at Clarksbury Metho-
dist Church, where both had for many yeafs been members.» Har-
niet, unable to hold out against such tactics, agreed in November
1843 to sign over her property to Francis, the consideration to be a
payment of $800 (never made) and a promise to take care of her
for the rest of her life (never honored). Harriet was able to get the
court to void the deed; when she died in 1852 she left her property

114 Southampton County
Diaspora

The panic that seized hold of the white community in Southampton
and surrounding counties in the fall of 1831 found its chief expres-
sion in a wave of repression égainst the black population, especially
against the free Negroes. A young free black woman of Halifax
County, North Carolina, would recall in later years that “the white
people who owned no slaves” would have killed many Negroes had
not masters put their slaves in jail to protect them. No such secu-
rity however, was available to the free blacks. “They came to my
mothers,” she related, ‘“‘and threatened us—they searched for guns
and ammunition. ... One of them put his pistol to my breast, and
said, ‘if you open your head, I'll kill you in a minute!’ I had told my
mother to hush, as she was inquiring what their conduct meant.”™

A Quaker in Perquimans County complained to the head of the
American Colonization Society in early September that blacks in
his neighborhood were “‘so severely punished they had rather go
any where than to stay here where they are persecuted for inno-
cency.” A Pasquotank County observer in the same month noted
that “there is no safety for free people of Colour.’’ One had lately
been killed in his own house there by two drunken white men, and
“the mere imprisonment” of the killers had generated much re-

sentment “among our non slave holding population.” John W.

McPhail, Colonization Society agent in Norfolk, learned that the
free Negroes of Southampton were “suffering severely . . . altho
confessed by all to be inoscent inofending people ... they have
been obliged to leave their houses and take refuge in the houses
{of} benevolent white men” such as Joseph C. Lewis and Dr. Carr
Bowers.” |

Apprised by Henry Lenow, a fifty-seven-year-old German shoe-
maker of Southampton, that the whites hoped “every one” of
the free blacks might “leave this part, as they can be well spared,
and great advantage to themselves,”* the Colonization Society
sought to turn the situation to the advantage of itself as well as the
oppressed Negroes. Free blacks from Southampton and elsewhere
had already started arriving in Norfolk in early September when
the society began making preparations to send a ship to Liberia.
Fifty applied to Henry Lenow for assistance in arranging transporta-

Requiem for a God-fearing Man 115

tion to Africa, and Thomas Pretlow emancipated three slaves for
the same purpose. Joseph C. Lewis, arriving in Norfolk on Septem-
ber 23, announced to McPhail that 200 were ready to leave South--
ampton “immediately,” all of them ‘honest industrious people.”’
By October 20 the list had grown to 249; or nearly one-sixth of the
free black population of the county.

These and other Negroes from other ies were taken aboard the

schooner James Perkins at Norfolk at the end of mow ember, and the

vessel embarked on December 5 for Africa. They comprised
probably the ablest and most talented of Southampton’s free Ne-
groes, including James and Peggy Ben, “a celebrated Black Doctor
and Doctress,”* brickmakers Charles Hamblin and George Artis.
blacksmiths Willy Brown and Willy Jordan, cooper Henry Bowlin,
house carpenter James Cotton, and shoemakers Joshua Gardner,
Isaac and Simeon Overton, Willis Scott, Andrew Turner, and
Hamilton Tann.* Mostly in families of from three to eight people,*
they included many named Brown, Butler, Duncan. Jones, Ricks.
Scott, Turner, Vines, and Williams. They ranged in age from: some
two dozen infants in arms to seventy-five-year old George Liberty,
whose memory spanned the ages since before George III had
become king of England. No doubt few had been landowners in
Southampton, but James Cotton and Hamilton Tann were among
those who had to sell their property at whatever price they could
get in order to make the voyage to Africa."

The James Perkins reached Liberia in thirty-five days from Nor-
folk, all of its passengers bearing certificates, according to agent
McPhail, “of good Character from gentlemen known to me to be--
of the first character themselves.” After visiting for a few days in
the town of Cauldwell, they indicated to the captain of the James
Perkins their satisfaction with “the general appearance of the Coun-
try & Lown, their prospects of gaining a livelihood &c. .. ., and
thought they could with industry get a good living there, and be
their own master to boot.”®

Others from Southampton County followed as rapidly as trans-
portation could be arranged. Fourteen Whiteheads (one was named
Colegate) and sixteen Whitefields departed on the Jupiter from Nor-
folk in May 1832, eleven more on the American in July of that year,
and twenty others on the Jupiter in the following November. The


NOTH: The Order Book of the Court of Oyer & Terminer for the
years 1754-1801 notes that the following felony cases
were referred to @ higher court, to-wit:

1755. John Turner, murder General Court, Williamsburg

1756 Seymour Mahany, horse

theft General Court, :

1759 Jacob Brown of Lunen-
burg County, counterfeit-

ing Va. 5 Pound Note General Court, "
1763 John Garland, horse theft General Court, "

1770 Charles Dyal, alias Jones
of Warwick County, "a

felony" General Court, "

1770 John Kerney, theft of
watch, etc., belonging
to Peter Lovall of

Warwick County General Court, "

1783 Ann Porch, "feloniously
~ concealing the Birth
and Death of a Child

basely born of her Body" General Court, Richmond
1798 John Cyprus, horse theft District Court, Peters-

burg
1800 Green Jackson, horse theft District Court, Peters-
burg
13. David Mason's Bob murder (of The County Court
: David Mason) Orders for the
(Source: Will Book K, p. 140, years 1794-1824
Executor's account, are missing, but
1821) records pertaining

to. Bob's trial: are
known to have been
extant in the Clerk’:

Office since 1940;

information may be
in Minute Books at
State Library which
were removed from
Sussex in 1972.

71). Charles Stuart's Ned

15. Nancy Sorsby's Solomon

sedition

16. Hannah Williamson's Nicholas (in conjunction

with the Nat

17. Ann Key's Shadrack Turner Slave

Revolt in

18. William Peters' Boson . neighboring

Southampton County)

(Ironically, in 1835, the Court recommended Boson
to the Governor "for pardon and transportation".
at the same time it sentenced him to be hanged.)

Friday
hanging, September
23, 1831 :
Boson escaped
custody and was
subsequently
sentenced to be
hanged on March
27, 1835 (Friday)

aia J =)

19. William Peters! Frank

Frid
20. Samuel A. Raines! Booker sedition hanging, Septembe? 23,

1831

el. George Goodwin's Squire

(Source: County Court Order Book, 1827-1835, pgs. 248-256, 460.)

ee. Robert Curtis! Jim burglary hanging, Friday,September
4%, 1853
(Source: Pei; pi372) |
e3¢ Bob, alias Béb Hill, .a rape (of hanging, Friday, June 9,
"free negro" Martha R. Moseley, 1843

a "white female"

(Source: Law Order Book 2, p. 171; Circuit Superior Court of Law
and Chancery, now the Circuit Court) :

24. John M. Wynn's Willis murder (of hanging, Friday, July
infant ‘ehid of 30, 2847
Miss Elmira Wynn}

(Source: County Court Order Book, 1843-1852, pages unnumbered:
June Court, 1847)

25. George Bailey's Harrison attempted rape hanging, Friday,

(of Rebecca W. Spain, February 9, 1849
wife of Wyatt Spain) :

(Source: Ibid, January Court, 1849)

26. Mary Raines' Barker, alias arson (burning hanging, Friday,
Lucy Barker dwelling house April:).11, 1851

of said Mary (but ironically

Raines) "recommended to

clemency of the
Governor")

(Source: Ibid, March Court, 1851)

27. Charles B. Champion's Molly malicious eeeses hanging, Friday,

Ay (of John R. Magee September 10, 1852
with intent to kill

(Source: County Court Order Book, 1852-1864, pages unnumbered;
August Court, 1852)

28. Frank Baker murder hanging, December

19, 1879
(Source: Law Order. Book 3, p- 340; Circuit Court)

29. Herbert Caple robbery - electrocution; April

SO), 81915
(Source: Law Order Book 5, pgs. 425, 430; Circuit Court)

The foregoing list of felons sentenced to death is by no
means complete. While the records of Sussex County are
virtually complete from its beginning in 1754, there are
Significant gaps in the Order Books. Most of the Minute
Books, however, have survived. These contain a rough
transcription of the information that was subsequently
recorded.in the Order Books, but they contain no indices,
of course, and , as is the case with the Order Books,
information regarding capital punishment can be disclosed
only after long and tedious research--by perusing the books
page by page. There are no Minute Books or Order Books
extant for the years 1782, 1783 and 1785. It is quite possi-
ble that acditional information will come to Li eoG. 1. Bie
indexing of the Loose Court Papers of Sussex County, 175L-
1870, &@ project that will be completed no earlier than
1985. Although the testimony of witnesses was occasionally
transcribed in the Order Books, this was the exception,
rather than the rule; the Loose Papers almost invariably
would contain this information.

sie ale sly I sf, we slp slp Ne sie ale
Me. ee ote oh shel ele” te wits Ri slens stg

As a matter of information, the following gaps exist among
the Order Books of Sussex County, to-wit:

County Court Order Books : 1)May Court, 1782-December
(1754-1901) Court, 1785
2)September Court, 1794-
July Court, 1824

(Orders pertaining to 3)April Court, 1826-April

the Court of Over & Court, 1827

Terminer transcribed 4 )May Court, 1835-December

in the County Court Court, 1842 (the index

Order Books after has survived, but is
1801) of little value)

5) June Court, 1864-November
Court, 1867

Circuit Superior Court

of Law and Chancery : 1) Law Order Book 2, 1831-1866,
pgs. 210-277;
(1811-present) October Court, 1846- April

Court, 1852 (damaged and
partially destroyed by
Union troops in Sussex,

1861, )

List compiled and sent to me by Gary M. Williams,
Clerk of Sussex County Court


38

_len (above) five were hanged

WISE COUNTY, VIRGINIA, EXECUTIONS.

During term of Sheriff | Kil-.’

When a man was sentenced to the gallows in Wise Chats ee

| WAS literally born into law enforcement. My father was a constable

in Scott County, Virginia, at the time of my birth—August 24th, 1873.
A few years later he moved to Wise County, and soon thereafter was
elected a magistrate in Gladeville District, in which office he remained

until the day of his death.

My first memory is of sheriffs and sheriffs’ deputies trooping in and out
of our house, where father held his courts, some of them with prisoners
handcuffed to their arms. So, I guess, it was but natural that I gravitated

in that direction.

While yet in school, I would often accompany a constable or deputy
sheriff when he went to arrest some fellow for whom father had issued a
warrant. And, I guess, I felt the importance of such excursions. But it
was not until I was nineteen, and married, that I was clothed with au-
thority to wear a badge and pack a ‘en, and had my first experience in

the hanging of a man.

In the late ’80’s three railroads bored!
into Wise County, and almost overnight
the region became a beehive of indus-
try. Coal mines were opened .up and
camps were built from one end of the

county to the other, and lawlessness |

flourished both in the towns and in the
backwoods, where moonshine stills were

running full blast to keep the miners and.
‘railroaders supplied with whiskey.

In the summer of 1892 the people of
Wise County were excited as they had
never been excited before. And no won-
der! The county was going to have its
first hanging. And the principal in the
affair was to be none other than Talton
Hall, the notorious Kentucky gunman,
who, tradition said, had killed ninety-
nine men.

The specific crime for which Hall was
to pay the extreme penalty was the mur-
der of Enos Hylton, Norton town ser-
geant, who was shot to death when he

went to serve a warrant on one of Hall’s.

friends.

After he had: killed Sergeant Hylton,
Hall fled into the wilds of Stone Moun-
tain, south of Norton, where he lay con-
cealed for several days before making
his way west into Tennessee. He was
finally arrested in Memphis; returned in
irons to Wise County by Dr. Marshall

B. Taylor, a deputy United States
marshal, whose son, Sylvan N. Taylor,
was a brother-in-law to the slain town
sergeant.

The case was appealed and, while
awaiting the supreme court’s decision,
Hall was transferred to the Lynchburg
city jail, because our little jail was con-
sidered insufficient to hold so notorious
a prisoner.

The verdict of the lower court was
upheld by the higher, and officers Sam
Wax and Bent Kilbourne were dis-

‘patched to Lynchburg to return Hall to

Wise County.

Before leaving Lynchburg, Wax sent.

me a telegram asking that I meet him,

. Kilbourne, and their prisoner at Tacoma
-- with three horses.

Hylton’s friends might save the county

the cost of an execution if they should

get off the train with Hall at Norton.
When the train pulled in at Tacoma

~and they got off, Hall was drunk—very

drunk. He was already handcuffed and,
before we started on the seven miles to
Wise, the officers tied his feet together
under the horse’s belly. He would have
been in a bad fix had the horse run
away.

Just before we reached town, Hall
called for another drink. Kilbourne

. the jail or gallows.

They feared that

handed him a quart bottle about one-
fourth full of whiskey. He clasped it
with manacled hands, threw back his
head, drained it to the last drop, then

crashed the empty bottle by the side of

the road.

As we were leading Hall down the
jail corridor and past the cell of Dr.
Marshall. B. Taylor, the man who had
brought him from Memphis chained
hand and foot, and who was then, him-
self, awaiting trial for the robbery mur-
der of the Ira Mullins family, Taylor

‘shoved his hand between the bars.

“How’re you, Talt?” he greeted him.
“Glad to see you.”

“I don’t shake hands with murderers,”
Hall shot back, ignoring Taylor’s out-
stretched hand. “I’ve killed some people,
but I did it in self-defense. I’ve never
killed any women or children or men
for their money.”

Without another word, Taylor alowly
pulled in his hand.

With Hall back in the little Wise
County jail, rumors began flying thick
and fast. One was that Devil John
Wright, another Kentucky gunman, was
planning to march across the mountains
with an armed band and take Hall from

that Wright and Hall had been very good
friends. Also that Wright was one of
the most reckless characters along the
Virginia-Kentucky border; that he had

killed several. men; and that he had a

large and loyal following.
Excitement increased with every hour.
Judge Morrison ordered Captain Josh

‘Bullett, a young lawyer from the Blue-

grass section of Kentucky, to organize
a guard of fifty men to be stationed in
the jail, about the building, and along
all approaches to the town. And I was
among the first to volunteer.

Orders were to challenge all comers,
and, if anyone refused to give an ac-
count of himself; we were to fire off
our gun and report back to the jail as
soon as possible.

It was well known -

BY CHABLES W. RENFRO aus JAMES TAYLOR ADAMS

SOR ms aegltigien sem = edeeaiatlieiaiatg tial oe pti -eat8

Fox wrote: “Through mountain and Valley, humanity had talked of
nothing else for weeks, and before dawn of the fatal day, humanity started
in converging lines from all other counties for the county seat of Wise — from
Scott and from Lee; from wild Dickenson and Buchanan, where one may find
white men who have never looked upon a white man’s face; from the Pound
which harbors the desperados of two sister states whose skirts are there
stitched together with pine and pin-oak along the crest of the Cumberland;
and, further on, even from the faraway Kentucky hills, mountain humanity
had started at dawn of the day before. A stranger would have thought that a
county fair, a camp meeting, or a circus was the goal. Men and women, boys
and girls, children and babes in arms: each in his Sunday best — the men in
jeans, slouch hats and high boots; the women in gay ribbons and brilliant
homespun; in wagons and on foot, on horses and mules, carrying man and
man, man and boy, lover and sweetheart, or husband and wife and child —
all moved through the crisp September air, past woods of russet and crimson
and along brown dirt roads to a little straggling mountain town where mid-
way of the one long street and shut in by a tall board fence was a courthouse,
with the front door closed and barred, and port holes cut though its brick
walls and looking to the rear; and in the rear a jail; and to one side of the jail
a tall wooden box with a projecting cross beam in full sight, from the center
of which a rope swung to and fro, when the wind moved.

Never had a criminal met death at the hands of the law in that region,
and it was not sure that the law was going to take its course now, for the con-
demned man was a Kentucky feudsman, and his clan was there to rescue him
from the gallows, and some of his enemies were on hand to see that he died a
just death by a bullet, if he should escape the noose. And the guard, whose
grim dream of law and order seemed to be coming true, was there from the
Gap, twenty miles away, to see that the noose did its ordained work.

On the outskirts of town, and along every road, boyish policemen were
halting and disarming every man who carried a weapon in sight. At the back
window of the courthouse and at the threatening little port holes were more
youngsters manning Winchesters. At the windows of the jailer’s house, which
was of frame and which joined and fronted the jail, were more still, on guard,
and around the jail was a line of them, heavily armed to keep the crowd back
on the other side of the jail yard fence.

The crowd had been waiting for hours. The neighboring hills were
blocked with people waiting. The house tops were blocked with men and
boys, waiting.

Now the fatal noon was hardly an hour away, and a big man with a red
face appeared at one of the jailer’s windows; and then the sheriff, who began
to take out a sash. At once a hush came over the crowd and then a rustling
and a murmur. It was the prisoner’s lawyer and something was going to
happen. Faces and gun muzzles thickened at the port holes and the court-
house windows. The line of guards in the jail yard wheeled and stood with
their faces upturned to the windows.

36

mn There in the sashless window stood a man with black hair — Talton
all.

He was going to confess — that was the rumor. His lawyers wanted him
to confess. The preacher who had been singing hymns with him wanted him
i confess. The man himself wanted to confess, and now he was going to con-

ess.

What deadly mysteries he might clear up if he would. His best friends
put the list of his victims no lower than thirteen — his enemies no lower than
thirty. And there looking up at him, were three women who he had widowed
or orphaned, and one corner of the jail yard still another, a little woman in
black — the widow of the Norton Constable whom Hall had shot to death
only a year before.

Now Hall’s lips opened and closed, and opened and closed again. Then
he took hold of the site of the window and looked behind him. The sheriff
brought him a chair and he sat down.

At last Hall asked that he might give his sister a secret message. The
Judge who was also on guard felt obliged to deny the request and then Hall
haltingly asked aloud that his sister bring a white handkerchief and tie it a-
round his throat — afterwards — to hide the red mark of the rope. Tears well-
ed in the Judge’s eyes. He pulled out his own handkerchief and pressed it into
the woman’s hands.

But would Talt confess to all the murders he had committed? He had
shot Harry Maggard, an uncle. He had killed two brothers-in-law. He had kill-
ed Henry Monk, Mack Hall. Through cunning he had escaped punishment.
Now he could clear up these cases and many more, if he would.

But he didn’t admit any of his crimes. He rose and went out with a firm
step. | was one of those assigned to do duty inside the hanging box.

Hall stood as motionless as the trunk of an oak. The sheriff was a very
tenderhearted man and a very nervous one, and the arrangements for the ex-
ecution were awkward. Two upright beams had to be knocked from under
the trap door, so that it would rest on the short rope noose that had to be cut
before the door would fall. As each of these was knocked out the door sank
an inch, and the suspense was horrible. The poor wretch must have thought
that each stroke was the one that was to send him to eternity but not a
muscle moved. All was ready at last and the sheriff cried in a loud voice,
“May God have mercy on this poor man’s soul!” and struck the rope with a
hatchet. The black-capped apparation shot down, and the sheriff ran,
weeping, out of the door of the box.”

Now let’s go back to Charles Renfro’s few last words about Talt Hall.
He said, ‘| put the black hood over Talt’s head, and dropped the noose over
his head. After he was dead | felt terrible although | knew Talt was a bad
man. | sort of hoped | wouldn’t have to help hang another one. But destiny

didn’t let me escape.
37

So a ee pee Ce ee ee) es OS

THE RED FOX SAID HE WOULD RISE ON THE THIRD DAY

The second man to be hanged at Wise courthouse while | was yet a
member of the court guard.” Charles Renfro continued, ‘was Dr. M. B.
Taylor, better known as the Red Fox. It was Doctor Taylor, officiating as U.
S. Marshal along with his work as doctor and minister, who trailed Tait Hall
from Wise County to Memphis, Tennessee and helped bring him back to
justice.

While Hall was yet being guarded in the little jail house Dr. Taylor stole
away into the mountains and massacred five people out of a crowd of seven
who were crossing Pine Mountain at Pound Gap.”

John Fox, Jr. who wrote about Dr. Taylor called him the Red Fox, and
here’s what he said about him in Bluegrass and Rhododendron: ‘The Red
Fox of the mountains was going to be hanged. Being a preacher, a herb
doctor, revenue officer, detective, crook, and assassin, he was going to preach
his own funeral sermon on the Sunday before the day set for his passing,
which was October 27, 1893. He was going to wear a suit of white and a
death cap of white, both made by his little old wife. Moreover, he would have
his body kept unburied for three days, saying that, or. the third day, he
would arise and go about preaching.

On Sundays the Red Fox preached the Word; on other days he was &
walking arsenal, with a huge 50X75 Winchester over one shoulder, two belts
of gleaming cartridges about his waist, and a great pistol swung to either hip.
In the woods he’d wear moccasins with the heels forward, so that no man
could tell which way he had gone.

Sometimes he would carry a huge spy-glass, five feet long, with which
he watched his enemies from the mountain tops.

One of his enemies was Ira Mullins, a paralytic who lived at Pound. Ira
made moonshine liquor and peddled it from a two-horse wagon bed filled
with straw. The Red Fox, while a U. S. Marshal, had engaged Ira in a gun-
battle. Soon afterwards the word got around that Ira would kill the Red Fox
on sight.

So, the crafty Red Fox decided to beat him to it. While guarding Talt
Hall, he had heard that on May 14, 1892, Old Ira would bring a load of liquor
from Kentucky through Pound Gap.

With two confederates, Henan and Cal Fleming, the Red Fox lay in
wait at a small cliff beside the road just south of the Gap.

Ere long the wagon came into sight. A man by the name of John
Chappel was in the driver’s seat and beside him sat Ira’s wife, Louranza. Ona
pile of straw lay Old Man Mullins, partially propped up. Behind the wagon
walked Ira‘s 14 year old son, John, and a boy named Greenberry Harris. Mrs.
Jane Mullins rode horseback. Her husband, Wilson Mullins, walked in front of

the wagon.(1)
38

When the wagon rattled within close range of the small cliff, the Red
Fox and his confederates opened fire, killing all in the caravan except Jane
Mullins, riding horseback, and Ira’s son John who was walking beside her.(2)

The assassins fled into the woods. Mrs. Jane Mullins rode on into Wise
some 18 miles distant, and reported the massacre to Sheriff John Miller.(3)
The sheriff organized a posse of 22 men and a manhunt was begun that lasted
several days and nights. The Flemings fled to West Virginia and were not ap-
prehended until two years later.(4) The Red Fox returned to his own home in
Wise and hid in his attic. Then one night his son Sylvan, a respected busi-
nessman and surveyor living in Norton, five miles from Wise, took his father
to his home.(5) The son insisted his father leave the mountains and go to
ree ‘eg the son testified in court that his father wanted to stay and
stand trial.

The Red Fox decided to take his son‘’s advice and, outfitted in new
clothes, mounted an empty boxcar standing in the yard at Norton and rode
to Bluefield, West Virginia, from which place he intended to hobo another
train going south. But somehow the Wise County Commonwealth Attorney,
Robert Bruce, heard the Red Fox’s being in a boxcar bound for Bluefield and
wired the Baldwin Detective Agency to apprehend him when he left the train.
They did and the fugitive was returned to Wise for trial.

Considerable evidence in the trial concerned the Red Fox’s Winchester.
It had been known that his rifle used rim-fire cartridges. Rim-fire shells had
been found at the murder scene. But when the jury examined the gun they
found it to be a center-fire. However, upon close scrutiny they saw that the
plunger had been cleverly changed to strike the center of a cartridge instead
of a They then decided this clever man had tampered with the firing
pin.”

Now let’s go back to John Fox, Jr.’s account of the Red Fox’s last
hours on earth.

“The Red Fox preached his own funeral sermon on a Sunday before
the day set for execution and a curious crowd gathered to hear him. He was
led from the jail. He stood on the jailer’s porch with a little table in front of
him; on it lay a Bible. On the other side of the table sat a little palefaced old
woman in black, with a black sunbonnet drawn close to her face. By the side
of the Bible lay a few pieces of bread. It was the Fox's last communion — a
communion which he administered to himself and in which there was no
other soul on earth to join him, except the little old woman in black.

It was pathetic beyond words when the old fellow lifted the bread and
asked the crowd to come forward to partake with him in the last sacrament.
Not a soul moved, only the little old woman who had been ill-treated,
deserted by the old fellow for many years; only she of all the crowd gave any
answer, and she turned her face for an instant timidly toward him. With a
churlish gesture the old man pushed the bread over toward her, and with hesi-
tating, trembling fingers she reached for it.

39

Hae eee ears BE. a aay
Tha Seats Be ES, SE PSS Pe ete

fn? @

because, since this text states that Jeremiah was married at the time of the
migration, it is doubtful that a period of sixteen years would have elapsed be-
fore his first child was born. Also, Mrs. Margie Bolling Riddle, great-grand-
daughter of Jeremiah and granddaughter of Jessee, gives the date of
Jeremiah’s birth as February 7, 1782. Obviously, an eight-year-old boy would
not be married. A more probable date would be 1800 to 1804, and then the
other statements would be more logical.

***Mirs. Margie Bolling Riddle, mentioned above, of RFD Pound,
Virginia, gives these dates for the births of: Jonathan, 1806; Jeremiah II,
1810; and Polly 1831. She also adds the eleventh child, Edmond, born in
1828.

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te og

THE HANGINGS AT GLADEVILLE
(Now Wise)
By L. F. Addington

No one knew better the gruesome tales of the hangings at Gladeville
than the late Charles Renfro, whom the writer interviewed.

Charles Renfro said:

“When | was made a member of the Wise County Vigilanties back there
in 1892, | little dreamed that | was to become the scaffold maker or noose
knot tier for all the six men who were to die on the gallows in my country.
But it was that way.

The Vigilanties had been organized in Big Stone Gap, Virginia by Josh
Bullitt as a protection against the bad men of the hills when the first coal
boom came. John Fox, Jr., the author of the Trail of the Lonesome Pine,
was a member of the guard, | recollect.

THE HANGING OF TALT HALL

And when it was norated” around that the desperado Talt Hall, a native
Kentuckian, who had been committing crime on the Virginia side of the line
for some time, had been jailed for the wanton killing of Enos Hylton, Cheif
of Police of Norton, and that his buddies in Kentucky were going to storm
the jail and remove him, the volunteer county guard was increased to more
than one hundred members.

Josh Bullitt came up from Big Stone and drilled us fellows at the
county seat every day. A part would stand guard while the others were dril-
ling. | was made a member of the guard although | was then in my teens.

Talt Hall was tried and sentenced to hang by the neck until he was
dead. Then it was that a message came from Kentucky to the effect that
some of Talt’s friends intended to storm the jail and take him out.

The old jail was none too secure and the judge ordered that Hall be
taken to Lynchburg for safe keeping while the higher courts were examining
the motion for a retrial on the grounds of a writ of error.

But the higher courts sustained the county court and Hall was sent back
to be hanged. His execution date was fixed to be September 2, 1892.”

And what a day in the county seat town of Gladeville that was! In
order to get the full color the occasion afforded, we herewith leave the nar-
rative of jailer Renfro and switch to an account by John Fox, Jr. in his book
“Bluegrass and Rhododendron”, page 239.

*Local corruption of ‘’Narrated’’.

35

Z SIM

Ace V-O FD


The sermon that followed was rambling, denunciatory, and unforgiving.
Never did he admit guilt.

On the last day the Red Fox appeared in his white suit. The little old
woman in black had even made the cap which was to be drawn over his face
at the last moment — and she had made that white too.

He walked firmly to the scaffold steps, and stood there for one moment
blinking in the sunlight, his head just visible above the rude box.”

Now, for the ending of this gruesome story we switch back to Charles
Renfro, who said, “For a moment he stood viewing the rude gallows, and,
seeming to believe it would do the job, he suffered his hands to be tied be-
hind him with a white handkerchief. One of the guards spread newspapers on
the gallows steps and platform so that not a speck of dirt might touch his
shoes.

Once on the platform the doctor requested the privilege of reading a
passage of scripture and praying. Down on his knees he prayed in a voice so
soft and low that only those very close to him could understand.

Sheriff Charles L. Hughes slipped the white hood over his head and the
noose was adjusted about his neck. Jeff Hunsucker, a deputy sheriff, excited
because of the curcial moment, jolted the trap in a clumsy effort to cut the
trap rope and the doctor crumpled to the floor.

The deputy waited until the doomed man could straighten up again and
then he tried his ax a second time.

The trap dropped and the doctor went down with it, a mass of white
whirling around and around. The rope twisted tight and then unwound,
which kept the struggling man whirling for some time.

When the twisting of the rope stopped the body was left to hang for 19
minutes when Dr. H. M. Miles and Dr. T. M. Cherry examined the body, pro-
nounced it dead, and ordered it delivered to the family.

As was his request, the body was kept up for three days. Some people
believed that the doctor would rise again; but on the third day all hopes van-
ished and the body was interred on a hill above the courthouse square where
it now lies without markers.”

FIRST BLACK MAN HANGED

“The first black man to be hanged here was Bob Foy, who killed a com-
missary clerk at Toms Creek. Foy’s wife was away from home and Foy, want-
ing her return, borrowed enough money from the clerk to purchase train
tickets.

40

The wife, however, decided not to come home and then Foy asked the
store clerk to take the tickets as pay for the loan of money. The clerk re-
fused. A fiadht ensued. The two men tangled on the floor and while they
were down Foy shot the clerk.

A speedy trial followed and Foy was sentenced to be hanged July 1,
1902. But before the day of execution arrived Foy broke jail. He’d been kept
in the new jail. (Now in 1971 being razed)

Along about this time we had a terrible time at the jail because of an
epidemic of smallpox. | was by this time jailer. | was appointed when the
regular jailer died of smallpox. It was very much up to me to decide what
ought to be done.

| had Foy to hunt and | had to wrestle with the epidemic. We had
thirty cases of the disease among the inmates. These we got away to a temp-
orary building some three miles out of town. The rest we moved to the Scott
County jail.

Now Foy, although at large, didn’t go far. We found him one day down
Indian Creek sitting under a tree, waiting for someone to bring him back to
jail.

He said he wasn’t afraid of smallpox; and he’d rather be hanged than
sleep out at night with snakes crawling around. He escaped smallpox but he
didn’t escape the noose. It caught him July 1, 1902. And he seemed to be
glad to get it over with.

GEORGE ROBINSON HANGED TWICE

Exactly one month from Foy’s execution, George Robinson, another
black man, was to meet his death by the noose. His execution was set to take
place between ten and three o’clock August 1, 1902.

‘| was still jailer,” Renfro went on, ‘it was again my job to inspect the
gallows and get the rope ready. Wib didn’t like to release the trap but the job
had to be done and he did it.’

That big Negro, as muscular as a prize fighter, calmly stood and without
protest allowed the hood to be put over his head and the noose to be drawn
about his neck.

But when the trap fell, Robinson went all the way down to the ground.
His neck was so tough that the rope broke instead, and the doomed man
crumpled upon the ground and still showed no sign of emotion.

The sheriff said he’d get a stronger rope and while he went to get it
Robinson walked back up the steps and waited for the second tieing.

By that time all of the officials were more nervous about the gruesome
affair than the victim, it seemed. It was a terrible thing to go through with to
41


adjoining states to see this once in a lifetime event. Officers had to clear
the way as the wagon bearing Arch sitting atop his coffin wended its way
from the jail to the hanging site. It is said that Arch puffed on a long

black cigar as he made his triumphant entry into the hollow that was to
bear his name everafter.

Exactly at high noon of that fateful day, the trap was sprung and Arch
fell through the trapdoor, his neck broken, his debt to society paid. As the
trap was sprung, the story goes, a small Negro boy standing on top of the
hill fainted and tumbled end over end to the bottom, where he quickly re-
covered at the foot of the scaffold and scampered back into the crowd.

It is not known just where Arch was buried. The older citizens of
Lebanon say they recall the scaffold standing for many years afterwards—
perhaps as Arch’s only tombstone. The scaffold is gone, the story almost
forgotten. The hillside amphitheater remains — only a few minutes walk
from the business section of Lebanon. It has been almost one hundred
years since Russell County’s last and perhaps only legal hanging.

Compiled by: Roy L. Sturgill

(Information from old newspaper accounts, and Circuit Court Records
of Russell County)

“HANGIN’S IN SCOTT COUNTY”
By Roy L. Sturgill

Introduction

One could spend an entire lifetime writing and compiling the more
pleasant historical records and events of the people of Southwest Vir-
ginia. However, we, as well as people in all parts of the world had dark
and gloomy times; and today they are forever imprinted in the record
books of the Courts, and on the pages of history, as solemn reminders
that the past was not always as pure and undefiled as we would like.
These unsavory happenings have therefore become a part of our history,

Certainly, we are not sadists in our curiousity as to how the Courts
dealt with the criminal element in the pioneer days. In Southwest
Virginia we had on the benches of our Courts, and at the Bar, some of the
most brilliant legal minds in the entire United States. It is indeed un-
fortunate that some of the criminals hold a more prominent place in
history than does these judges, lawyers, and other law enforcement
officers.

In the early days hanging was the method most widely adopted for
the infliction of the death penalty upon those convicted of first-degree
murder. It was at one time considered necessary to have executions
public in order to impress evildoers. The time and place was fixed within
limits by sentence of the Court, between specified hours, on a certain day.
Friday was customarily the day set because of its association with the
Crucifixion of Christ.

Hanging the condemned was the responsibility of the County Sheriff,
who in most cases was not a skilled executioner, and there were instances
when the job was horribly botched. Nevertheless, he was compelled by
law to perform the distasteful task to the best of his ability.

It was not until the 1908 General Assembly the Legislators became
alarmed by the spectacle of public hangings, and proposed that execu-
tions be performed in “quiet dignity”, with only those required by law as
witnesses to be in attendance, and that all public hangings in the
Commonwealth should cease.

In this-article we turn back the pages of time, to a period many years
prior to the General Assembly of 1908, and reflect on the Court records
of hangings that took place in Scott County, as follows:

THE FIRST WAS JOHN TUMNS or TUMMS (For murder)
The Indictment April 9, 1832

At a Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery held for Scott
County at the Courthouse thereof, on Monday, the 9th day of April 1832:
Present Benjamin Estill, esq. Judge. Isaac C. Anderson Foreman,
Zechariah Hensley, James Bevins, John Wolfe, Cornelias Fugate, Henry
Wood, Sr., Abraham Lane, George Wineyard, James Jett, William Agee,
Isaac Hickam, William Smith, Reuben Pendleton, William Ervin, Samuel

me ie A

schetelpaing ORR a OBL BRI


Estep, John Strong, John Powers, Joseph Salling, John Pendleton,
Zehariah Fugate, Nimrod Taylor, Jr., James Donalson, and John Harris
were sworn a Grand Jury of Inquest for the body of the County, and
having received their charge, withdrew, and after some time returned into
Court and presented:

An Indictment against John Tumms and George Wright for murder, a
true bill.

(Called as Witnesses)

Stark Jett, Elizabeth Jett, Julia Ann Jett, George Vineyard, Paschal
Jones, Goldman Davison, and John Pearson were sworn in Court to give
evidence to the Grand Jury upon a bill of Indictment against John Tumms,
and George Wright ,for murder and sent to them.

(On the same day) “Arraigned

John Tumms and George Wright both late of the County of Scott
labourers, who stand indicted of murder, were led to the bar in custody
of the jailor of this Court, thereof arraigned, and severally pleaded not
guilty of the indictment. Whereupon, on the motion of the said John
Tumms and George Wright, and for reasons appearing to the Court, this
trial is postponed till the next Term. And the said John Tumms and
George Wright are remanded to jail.

(Appearance bonds given by the following)

Stark Jett, George Vineyard, Paschal Jones, Goldman Davison, and
John Pearson came into Court and acknowledged themselves to be
severally indebted to John Floyd, Esq., Governor or Chief Magistrate of
this Commonwealth in the sum of one-hundred dollars each, of their
respective lands and tenement goods and chattels to be levied, and to the
said Governor and his successors for the use of the Commonwealth
rendered, yet upon this condition, that if the said Stark Jett, George
Vineyard, Goldman Davison, Paschal Jones, and John Pearson shall
severally make their personal appearance before the Judge of this Court
on the first day of September Court next, to give evidence on behalf of
the Commonwealth against John Tumns and George Wright, and shall not
depart thence without leave of the said Judge, then this recognizance shall
be void.

(Appearance bonds)

Stark Jett as the next friend of his wife Elizabeth and daughter Julia
Ann (an infant) came into Court and acknowledged himself to be
indebted to John Floyd, Esq., Governor or Chicf Magistrate of this
Commonwealth in the sum of two-hundred dollars, of his lands and
tenement goods and chattels to be levied, and to the said Governor and
his successors for the use of the Commonwealth rendered; yet upon this
condition that the said Elizabeth Jett and Julia Ann Jett shall severally
make their personal appearance before the Judge of this Court on the
first day of September next, to give evidence on behalf of the Common-
wealth against John Tumms and George Wright, and shall not depart
thence without leave of the said Judge, then this recognizance is to be
void.

-14-

(This one did not appear for the arraignment)

David Wright who stands bound by two recognizances entered into
before the Court of Scott County, in the penalty of one-hundred dollars
each, to appear here this day to give evidence on behalf of the Common-
wealth against John Tumms and George Wright, was solemnly called and
came not, which default was ordered to be entered on the records.

The Trial September 10, 1832

At a Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery, held for Scott
County thereof on Monday, the tenth day of September, 1832.

Present: Benjamin Estill Esquire, Judge.

John Tumms late of the County of Scott, who stands indicted for
murder, and was heretofore arraigned thereof and pleaded not guilty to
the indictment, was again led to the bar in custody of the jailor of this
Court, and thereupon came a Jury to wit: David Wininger; William
Hensley; William Haynes; Stephen Epperson; Amos Templeton; Edward
Pace; William Slone; Burgess McKinzie; William Harris; Martin Shelton;
John Conn and Joseph Lane, who being elected, tried and sworn the truth
of and upon the premises to speak, and having heard the evidence, upon
their oath do say, that the said John Tumms is guilty of murder in the
first degree in manner and form as in the indictment against him is
alleged. And thereupon he is remanded to jail.

The Trial September 11, 1832

Benjamin Estill; Judge presiding.

George Wright late of the County of Scott who stands indicted for
murder and was heretofore arraigned thereof and pleaded not guilty to
the indictment, was again led to the bar in custody of the jailor of this
Court, and thereupon came a jury to wit: John R. Carter; Oliver Powers;
William Bond; Henry Frazier; John Easterling; Peter Dennison; James
Moore; David Nelson; Abraham Phipps; Nimrod Elam; John Proons, and
William Allen, who being elected, tried, and sworn the truth of and upon
the premises to speak, and having heard the evidence, upon their oath do
say, that the said George Wright is guilty of murder in the second degree
and not guilty of murder in the first degree, and they do ascertain the
term of his imprisonment in the public jail and penitentiary house to be
seven years. And thereupon he is remanded to jail.

The Sentence (The Story of John Tumims)

From the Clerk’s Office, Scott County, Virginia dated, September 13,
1832.

John Tumms (Tumns) late of the County of Scott, who stands con-
victed of murder in the first degree, was again led to the bar in custody of
the jailor of this Court, and thereupon it being demanded of him if any-
thing for himself he had or knew to say, why the Court here to judgement
and execution against him, of and upon the premises, should not proceed
he said he had nothing but what he had before said; therefore it is con-
sidered by the Court, that he be hanged by the neck until he be dead. And

-15-

ee RINE ete eR EERIE:

ee ee

HANGING IN RUSSELL COUNTY
By Roy L. Sturgill

THE YEAR WAS 1873, THE PLACE LEBANON, RUSSELL COUNTY,
VIRGINIA

John Hurt was missing from his home near Lebanon, and had been for
several days. It now seemed certain he had met with foul play. Arch
Johnson, a six-foot four-inch negro farm worker, was suspected of having
killed him, but no evidence actually existed that he had done the killing.

It is related that a group of men searching for the body asked Arch to
assist in finding Hurt in the hope that he would in some way reveal his
guilt. The story as told over the years, is that the group or posse stopped
on a hillside to scan the distant terrain. While there, Arch is said to have
exclaimed, “There he is behind that log on yon hillside.” It was the mis-
take the searchers were hoping Arch would make. The distance was so
great, it was impossible to have seen an object the size of a man’s body,
and neither could they see behind the log. A closer search revealed Hurt’s
body behind the log, where only the killer himself could have known
it was hidden.

According to court records, John Hurt was slain in the month of Jan-
uary 1872. Arch Johnson was brought to trial the 29th day of April,1873.
Russell County’s first courthouse was destroyed by fire earlier in the year
1873 and Arch’s trial was held in the Lebanon Methodist Church. Below
is the exact transcript of the second day of the trial as taken from the
court records of Russell County.

April 30, 1873 — At a Circuit Court continued and held for Russell
County at the Courthouse thereof on the 30th day of April, 1873.

Present, Same Judge as on yesterday — Archy Johnson who stands in-
dicted of a murder by him committed in this County and within the
Jurisdiction of this Court in this that on the... day of January 1872 in
and upon the body of John Hurt in the piece of the Commonwealth, then
and there being feloniously willfully of his malice aforethought did make
an assault, and the said Archy Johnson a certain gun of the value of $5.00
then and there charged with gunpowder and leaded bullet which said gun
he then and there in both hands, then and there had and held, then and
there feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought did discharge
and shoot off to against and upon the body of the said John Hurt; and
that the said Archy Johnson with the leaden bullet aforesaid out of the
gun by him discharged and shot off as aforesaid then and there felon-
iously, willfully and of his malice aforethought did strike, puncture and
wound him the said John Hurt in and upon his body, giving to him the
said John Hurt then and there with the leaden bullet aforesaid so as
aforesaid discharged and shot out of the gun aforesaid by the said Archy
Johnson in and upon the body of the said John Hurt one mortal wound
of which said mortal wound he then and there instantly died. And further
that the said Archy Johnson him the said John Hurt in the manner and by

10

the means aforesaid feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought
did kill and murder. Was this day again set to the bar in custody of the
Sheriff and thereupon came the Jury sworn in the case on yesterday pur-
suant to their adjournment to wit: Abram Salyer; Richard L. Smith;
Elijah Rasnake ,Sr.; Nelson H. Fraley; Samuel Burk; William Litton;
Thomas M. Gibson; Samuel B. Owens; James M. Lark; Aaron Cumbow;
William H. Mead; and Martin P. Barrett, and after having heard all the
evidence and arguements of counsel, withdrew from the bar to consult
upon their verdict and after some time returned into court, and upon
their oaths do say, “We the Jury find the prisoner Archy Johnson guilty
of murder in the first degree.”” Whereupon the prisoner by his counsel
moved the court to set aside the verdict of the Jury and grant him a new
trial, which motion was opposed by the Attorney for the Commonwealth
and the Court took time until tomorrow morning to consider the motion
aforesaid, and thereupon the Jury was discharged and the said Archy
Johnson was remanded to jail.

John A. Kelly, Judge

The following day exactly as recorded on court records Russell County.

May 1, 1873 — Archy Johnson who stands convicted of murder in the
first degree was this day again set to the bar in custody of the Sheriff, and
the Court having maturely considered the motion made yesterday to set
aside the verdict of the Jury and grant the prisoner a new trial is of the
opinion that the verdict of the Jury is sustained by the testimony, the
motion is therefore overruled. And thereupon it being demanded of the
prisoner if anything for himself he had or knew to say why the Court
should not now proceed to pronounce judgement and execution against
him according to law, and nothing being offered or alleged in delay of
judgement, it is considered by the Court that the said Archy Johnson be
taken to the jail of this County and from thense to the place of execution;
on Friday the 13th day of June between the hours of 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.
and there be hanged by the neck until he be dead. And thereupon the said
Archy Johnson was remanded to Jail.

On motion of James J. Henritze, jailor of Russell County and it appear-
ing to the Court that it is necessary for the safekeeping of Archy Johnson
who is now confined in jail under sentence of death, that a good and suf-
ficient guard be kept at said jail. The said jailor is therefore ordered to
summons and keep at said jail a good and substantial guard until the
day of execution.

Signed: John A Kelly, Judge

The hanging took place as ordered on Friday the 13th day, June 1873.
The scene was a hastily erected scaffold just north of Lebanon, in a small
valley resembling an amphitheater. More than 5,000 men, women and
children (white and colored) were said to have jammed the crowded hill-
side overlooking the place of execution from dawn that day until the trap
was sprung on the huge Negro.

The streets of this small southwest Virginia town were crowded with
the curious who had come for miles from other counties of Virginia and

2%;

Be

STO Eee eS, ee ee SORE es a en wer

i a “aM

he be dead.”

This day came again as well the Plaintiff in Error by his counsel, as the
Attomey General on behalf of the Commonwealth, and the Court having
maturely considered the transcript of the record of the said judgement
and the arguments of counsel, is of opinion for reasons stated in writing
and filed with the record, that there is no error in the said judgement.
Therefore it is considered that the said judgement of the said Circuit
Court of Scott be affirmed. Which is ordered to be certified to the said
Circuit Court of Scott County.

A copy teste; Joe W. Caldwell, C.C.
A copy teste; W.S. Rhodes, D.C.

The decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Virginia on the
Dean case, according to any number of attorneys, is said to be a classic
and a final word of law on circumstantial evidence. This famous opinion
was written by Judge Christian, at the time a member of the Supreme
Court of Virginia. In the opinion, Judge Christian observes that a line of
circumstantial evidence is sometimes compared to a chain of many links.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link. A more fitting comparison,
declared Judge Christian, would be a rope. A rope is made up of a number
of filaments or strands, which taken singly would not be strong enough to
bear the stress, but when all these filaments or strands are twisted to-
gether the rope has strength more than enough to bear the stress laid
upon it.

So in the Dan Dean case, there are circumstances, which taken alone,
would not bear the wright of conviction, but when taken together, and
considered in their relation to each other, must proclude upon the mind
a moral certainty of the guilt of the accused. So reasoned Judge Christian.

The eminent judge disposes of the case by declaring there was no error
to warrant a new trial, that the judgement of the lower court was affirmed
and that Dean must pay the penalty of his crime: to be hanged by the
neck until dead.

To name a few of the personalities of the Dean case:

Chief counsel for the defense was Patrick Hagan, said to be one of the
best lawyers and one of the finest men ever produced by Scott County.

Commonwealth’s Attorney was Rufus A. Ayers, who later became
Attorney General of Virginia. He was assisted in the prosecution by
Attorney John P. Corns and Attorney Burns.

The County Judge was H.S.K. Morrison, the Circuit Judge John A.
Kelly. At the time of the killing of Henry Fugate, the Sheriff was William
C. Fugate; he was succeeded in office by J.R.S. Wilhelm, whose painful
duty it became to execute Dan Dean.

Wayne Powers and George Gibson pay the supreme penalty by hanging
for the murder of Will Gibson,

The morning of Friday, February 6, 1885, the day appointed for the
execution dawned cool and clear. The night previous, a large number of
citizens had arrived, and the streets of the village of Estillville (now Gate
City) presented a somewhat animated appearance. From early dawn until

ey

late at night people on horseback and in wagons had been pouring into
town.

At about ten-thirty on the morning of the sixth, the crowd surged
toward the Courthouse, and. the cry was taken up that the prisoners
were at the hack that was to carry them to the place of execution. Very
soon afterwards, Sheriff W.C.R. Strong with Wayne Powers and Deputy
Sheriff R.H. Cowden with George Gibson, took their seats in the hack.
The guards were stationed under the direction of J.S. King and Martin
Godsey, and the calvacade took up its solemn march to the place of exe-
cution at the cedars (near where Gate City High School now stands). It
was a sight never before seen in Estillville. The streets were densely
packed with horsemen and people on foot from the village to the grounds.

The place selected for the hanging was a little north of the Cedar
Schoolhouse, in a hollow. As the hack neared the scaffold, the hills
surrounding the spot were covered with faces, all watching with breath-
less interest in the entire proceedings.

The hack reached its destination, and the prisoners, guards, officers,
and a few spectators took their positions inside the guard rope, but out-
side the building in which the scaffold Was erected. It was here the con-
demned men were allowed to make their last statements. ‘Within a short
time both men were conducted inside the building and were hanged by
the neck until dead in accordance with the sentence of the Court. Thus
they paid with their lives for their dastardly crime. ;

Events leading up to the crime are as follows: Wayne and Jonas Powers
two brothers, George and Will Gibson, the latter cousins, had been absent
from Scott County for some months, residing in West Virginia. In the
spring of 1884 they concluded to visit their homes, and in company,
started on their journey. On Saturday evening April 20, 1884, they
stopped at the house of John Ramey and purchased brandy, then started
for Chestnut Ridge, lying close to the Russell line, where a quiet spot was
chosen for the crime. ‘

We here take a portion of the confession and statement of George
Gibson: After telling of his boyhood and other events leading up to his
leaving Scott County and going to West Virginia, he tells of the crime as
follows: ‘“‘We started for Scott County, Virginia, on April 14, 1884.
Before starting, Wayne and Jonas Powers made known to us their wish to
come with us (George and Will Gibson), but we endeavored to avoid them

.as we supposed they would want us to bear'their expenses, but they fell in

with us and after a journey of six days, we arrived at John Ramey’s on
Clinch River (near where Dungannon now stands) about dark on the 19th
day of April 1884, and it is here the history of this sad calamity begins.
Leaving Jonas Powers and Will Gibson in Broad Shoal Gap, a short
distance from John Ramey’s, Wayne Powers and I went to John Ramey’s
and bought six pints of brandy, returned to where they were, built up a
fire and being weary and footsore, remained there drinking the liquor and
resting for near three hours. Will Gibson had my pistol and loaded it while
there. Wayne Powers also loaded his pistol.

Se ON ON NIE I IRR eS

sepance vie


execution of this judgement be made and done upon him the said John
Tumns by the Sheriff of Scott County, on Friday the ninth day of
November next, between noon an@ three o’clock in the afternoon of the
same day, at the usual place of execution or some convenient place for
execution. And thereupon the said John Tumns is remanded to jail.

The Sentence (George Wright implicated in the same case as Tumns)

George Wright, late of the County of Scott, who stands convicted of
murder in the second degree, was again led to the bar in custody of the
jailor of this Court, and thereupon it being demanded of him, if any-
thing for himself he had or knew to say, why the Court here should not
proceed to pronounce judgement against him according to law, and
nothing being offered or alleged in delay of Judgement, it is considered
by the Court that the said George Wright be imprisoned in the Public
Jail and Penitentiary house of this Commonwealth, for the term of seven
years, the period by the jurors in their verdict ascertained, and that he be
kept in a solitary cell in the said jail and Penitentiary house, on low and
coarse diet, for the space of one-twelfth part of the said term. And it is
ordered that the Sheriff of Scott County do, as soon as possible after the
adjournment of this Court, remove and safely convey the said George
Wright from the jail of this Court to the said Public Jail and Penitentiary
house, therein to be kept imprisoned, and treated in manner directed by
law. And the Court doth order it to be certified to the director of the
Public Jail and Penitentiary. That George Wright indicted as principal in
the second degree, of the murder of John Wright, was tried and convicted
of murder in the second degree and sentenced to confinement in the
Penitentiary for seven years. Tumns the principal in the first degree
having been previously convicted of murder in the first degree and
sentenced to be executed. (The Judge continues)

The principal circumstances attending the case are as follows: The
prisoner came to the still house of Stark Jett in Scott County inquiring
for Tumns, John and David Wright (who were his cousins, Tumns by
marriage and the others by blood). That Tumns, John and David Wright
shortly afterwards came to the still house aforesaid, Tumns carrying a
rifle gun which he set down near the still house, which they entered and
procured brandy and cider and drank until the prisoner was intoxicated,
and the others considerably excited with liquor, that they frequently
went out of the still house appearing to consult together, and came back
Tumns with a butcher knife in his hand repouring with it, and saying
what he could do with it, could kill people with it, etc. The prisoner also
boasted of having formerly dirked a man, saying he could whip, throw
down and outrun any person present, could whip a nation of hell cats,
etc. Stark Jett became alarmed at their conduct and threats, supposing
them aimed at him and left the still house going about 60 yards to his
dwelling house. Tumns and the prisoner were soon afterwards seen to fall
on John Wright prostrate and beat him, David, the brother of John, who
was sitting on the fence apart from the others, immediately interfered

-16-

and tried to pull Tumns off his brother, but not succeeding, seized an
axe and struck Tumns several blows, perhaps three or four with the pole
and side of the axe on the shoulders, which knocked Tumns off his
brother, Tumns and the prisoner instantly ran from David who pursued
Tumns with the axe, and not overtaking him threw it at him, but did not
hit him. Tumns called to the prisoner to shoot him (meaning David as is
supposed). The prisoner asked where the gun was. Tumns made no answer
but seized the gun himself. David said: “Run John or he will kill one of
us.” John and David Wright immediately ran from Tumns and the pri-
soner, pursued by them. The prisoner asked Tumns to give him the gun
and he would shoot, saying ‘“‘you are too bad hurt to shoot him”. Tumns
said no; “You are too drunk. I will shoot him myself.” They accordingly
pursued John and David Wright about eighty yards, the prisoner and
Tumns running side by side, when John who was considerably intoxi-
cated finding Tumns likely to overtake him, leaped a fence and turned
around, Tumns laid the gun on the fence about three steps distance from
John Wright who threw up his hands and said: ‘Oh John! Don’t shoot!”
He instantly fired and John Wright fell mortally wounded, and died soon
afterwards, The prisoner, who was standing at Tumns’ elbow when the
gun fired, immediately ran on the course he had been running, and pass-
ing through the gap of the mountain about a half a mile along the main
road, was soon afterwards found eighty yards from the road in a state of
beastly intoxication, brought to town and committed for trial. The body
of John Wright, on a post-mortem examination, exhibited bruises and
scratches in the face inflicted, as is believed, by the prisoner and Tumns
when they first prostrated him at the still house. No evidence of the
prisoner’s character was introduced at the trial, nor did it appear what
character he bears, other than is to be inferred from the foregoing facts,
which show all the aid, counsel, or advice he gave Tumns to perpetrate the
murder. It did not appear nor is it known or believed that the prisoner has
heretofore been convicted of any felony or other infamous offense. And
thereupon the said George Wright is remanded to jail.

Benjamin Estill--Judge (Circuit Court)

George McConnell, Sr., was sheriff 1831-1832 and was the man who
hanged John Tumns. John D. Sharpe was Commonwealth's Attorney
from 1829 to 1853.

It must here be noted that the Jett family was in no way involved in
the murder of John Wright, but the crime was committed in their

presence and they were called as witnesses. Nor was Stark Jett engaged in

illegal activities in the operation of a distillery. At that period the manu-
facture of alcoholic beverages was legitimate enterprise. Breweries, distil-
leries, and saloons were numerous throughout the country. No attempt is
made here to discuss the moral, social, economic and scientific aspects of
the use and restriction of alcaholic beverages, but it is thought since the
Jett family is mentioned so prominently, in this case, it is only fair they
be placed in proper perspective. The Jetts had large land holdings along
the north fork of Holston River near the juncture of the Washington and
Scott County lines, not far from where Mendota now stands. From bits

«42.


of information gathered here and there, one cannot help but believe that
the murder for which John Tumns was hanged took place in that area.

Hanging No. 2

According to Court records the second hanging in Scott County was on
Friday, June 25, 1858, and was a man by the name of McDaniel Rhea.

I have checked with some of the most brilliant historical minds in
Southwest Virginia, and have been unable to find anything pertinent to
this case, other than Court records. The history books written of Scott
County, | have been privileged to read make no mention of a McDaniel
Rhea, however, it can readily be assumed Rhea was executed, since there
is no further order on the books following his sentencing.

In Mr. C. A. Johnson’s book titled Johnson’s History of Wise County,
on Page 266, Chapter 23, there is recorded the hanging of Baxter S. Pate
at Estillville, Virginia, Scott County, on the exact date as that set for the
execution of McDaniel Rhea, and is shown as “Scott County’s first public
Hanging”. Pate, it is said, took the life of John Lutterel, in a drunken
brawl over a card game in a hotel at Estillville. Mr. Johnson says further:
“While not an event of Wise County, it however connects with it two of
Wise County’s prominent pioneer citizens--Rev. Reuben Steele, who
spoke the last rites for Pate, and W. D. Nottingham, Scott County jailor,
who was later Gladeville’s beloved Postmaster, whom everyone called
“Uncle Billy”.

Pate was described as being between 30 and 35 years old, of command-
ing appearance and very intelligent. Just prior to his execution he madea
40-minute talk in which he attributed strong drink as to the cause of his
ruin, and urged others to refrain from its use.

Certainly there is no inference intended to in anyway discredit or dis-
prove Mr. Johnson’s article, but it would be next to impossible to prepare
a paper on the hangings in Scott County without mentioning this chapter
in his book. Secondly, it is hoped that someone will be able to clarify the
mystery of two hangings on the same day at Estillville, when only one is
recorded in the Court order books of Scott County, that of McDaniel
Rhea.

With the assistance of the County Court Clerk, the records were
thoroughly searched and there was no one by the name of Pate men-
tioned,

It appears from the article that Mr. Johnson got the details of this
hanging from an old newspaper account, found by a lady, in the bottom
of an old family trunk. And it would seem through some error in passing
the story down through the years, the names of Rhea and Pate have
become confused, and are perhaps one and the same person.

Could this man have been McDaniel Rhea, alias Baxter S. Pate?

The actual Court records follow:

From the Court records of Scott County, Virginia

The Indictment, Trial, and Sentencing of McDaniel Rhea

18.

At a Circuit Court, begun and held for Scott County, at the courthouse

thereof on Monday, the 17 day of May 1858.

Present the Honorable Samuel V. Fulkerson Judge

James P. Carter gentleman: foreman, William Mitchell, Benjamin B.
Taylor, George W. Powers, Nathan Daugherty, Sr., William B. Spencer,
David McKenny, William F. Templeton, Andrew J. Neil, Nathan Whitaker,
Levi Baker, William C. Barker, James C. Larkey, Andrew France,
Alexander Willis, Green C. Fields, Thomas Williams, John B. Agee,
Andrew Williams, and George H. Kindrick were sworn a grand jury of
inquest for the body of this County, and having received their charge,
were sent to their apartment and after sometime returned into the Court
and presented.

An Indictment against McDaniel Rhea, For Murder, A True Bill

At a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Court-
house thereof on Monday, the 24 day of May 1858.

Present: The same Judge as on Saturday.

McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, Labour, who stands
indicted of murder, was led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of this
County, whereupon came a Jury to sit: Joshua Smith, Reubin Finney,
John M. Kizer, Wilson Evans, George Finney, Charles C. Dickinson,
George Banner, James Kelly, James Artrip, Jessee Fuller, William N. Selle,
and George C. Gose who were elected, tried, and sworn in conformity
with the provisions of the act of assembly for the trial of the said
McDaniel Rhea upon the indictment aforesaid (the said McDaniel Rhea
having perentonly challenged 8 jurors summoned for the said trial) and
the jury sworn as aforesaid, having fully heard the evidence were with the
consent of the prisoner, committed to the Sheriff of this County, who is
directed to keep them together without communication with any other
person, and to cause them to appear here tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock
Whereupon an oath was administered to Thomas W. Carter and William D.
Nottingham, Deputy Sheriffs of this County, to the following effect,
“You shall well and truly to the best of your ability, keep this jury, and
neither speak to them yourselves, nor suffer any other person to speak to
them touching any matter relative to this trial, until they return into
court tomorrow. And the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to jail.

At a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Court-
house thereof on Tuesday the 25th day of May 1858;

Present: The same Judge as on yesterday.
McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, Labour, who stands

indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of

indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of

this County, and the jury sworn on yesterday, for his trial were brought

into Court in the custody of the Sheriff of this County, and upon their
oath do say, that the said McDaniel Rhea is guilty of murder in the first
degree, in manner and form as in the indictment against him is alleged.
Whereupon it being demanded of him if anything for himself he had or
knew to say why the Court here to judgement and execution against him
of and upon the premises should not proceed, he said nothing but what
he had before said. Therefore it is considered by the Court that he be


‘hanged by the neck until he be dead, and the execution of this Judgement
be made and done upon him the said McDaniel Rhea by the Sheriff of
Scott County on Friday, the 25th day of June next, between the hours of
ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon of the same day at the usual
place of execution. And thereupon the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to
jail.

Judge Samuel V. Fulkerson served in the Constitutional Convention of
1851. He was a colonel in the Confederate forces, but had not resigned as
Judge when he was killed in the Battle of Gaines Mill. During his time in
the army, Circuit Court was held by Judge Gideon Camden of Harrison
Co., W. Va. Rufus B. Fugate was sheriff of Scott County 1857-1858.

The Story of The Daniel Dean Case

Perhaps one of the most interesting murder cases ever tried in South-
west Virginia was the case of the Commonwealth against Daniel Dean in
Scott County.

It was ona Monday morning, June 25, 1877, Henry Fugate was shot
in the back while plowing near his home located about midway between
Gate City and Nickelsville. From the wound he received on Monday, Mr.
Fugate died the following Wednesday. Daniel Dean, who lived near the
Fugate place was indicted for the murder at the July term of Court of
Scott County 1877.

The case was tried three times in the Scott County Court. The first two
trials resulted in mistrials, both the juries being unable to reach a
unanimous verdict. A jury was brought from Washington County for the
third trial, which took place at the May term of the Scott County Court,
1878, and the prisoner Daniel Dean was found guilty of murder in the
first degree and sentenced to death by hanging.

There are many unusual and strange occurances in connection with the
trial of the Daniel Dean case. For instance, the witness who received fifty
dollars from his lawyer uncle to swear falsely, and was sentenced to three
years in the penitentiary for perjury. His lawyer uncle jumped out the
window of the courthouse, mounted his horse and made for the Tenn-
essee line, and was not seen in Scott County again for twenty-five years.
Then there is Sheriff J.R.S. Wilhelm, who was one of the jurors at the first
trial of Dean. At this trial Wilhelm had voted for acquittal of the accused.
Wilhelm had not as yet been elected Sheriff of Scott County; however,
prior to the actual hanging of Dean, Wilhelm was elected Sheriff of Scott
County and it became his official duty to execute the prisoner whom he
believed innocent. It is told that Wilhelm offered one of his deputies $300
if he would execute Dean, but the deputy declined. Shortly after the
hanging of Dean, Wilhelm vanished and was never seen again or heard
from by any Scott Countian.

From the Court Records Scott County
September 23, 1878

Virginia:

In the Clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Scott County on the 23rd
day of September 1878. The following is a copy of the Order of the
Supreme Court of Appeals, in the case of the Commonwealth against
Daniel Dean to wit; “Virginia: In the Supreme Court of Appeals, at
Staunton, on Wednesday the 11th day of September 1878. Upon the
petition of Daniel Dean, a writ of error to operate as a supersedeas, but
not to-release the petitioner from imprisonment is awarded to a judge-
ment of the Circuit Court for Scott County, rendered on the 27th day of
August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court of said County
rendered on the third day of June 1878, in a prosecution in the name of
the Commonwealth against the said Daniel Dean, indicted for murder, by
which it was considered by the Court that he be hanged by the neck until
he be dead, and the execution of this judgement, be made and upon him,
the said Daniel Dean, by the Sheriff of Scott County, on Friday the 12th
day of July next; between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two of
the afternoon of the same day, at the usual place of execution, the exe-
cution of which judgement was by the said Circuit Court suspended until
the 9th day of October next.

And on the motion of the counsel of the Attorney General, it is
ordered that this case be removed to Richmond, there to be heard and
determined, and that this order be certified to the Clerk of this Court at
Richmond, and also to the said Circuit Court of Scott County.

A copy teste; Joseph A. Waddell, Clerk

A copy teste; W. S. Rhodes, Deputy Clerk.

October 13, 1879
Virginia:

In the Clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Scott County, in Vacation,
on the 13th day of October 1879, the following order was received and
entered to wit;

“Virginia: At a Supreme Court of Appeals held at the Courthouse of
Wythe County in the town of Wytheville, on Thursday, the 31st day of
July A.D, 1879.”

Daniel Dean, Plaintiff in Error, “against” The Commonwealth, defend-
ant in Error. Upon a Writ of Error The Commonwealth Defendant in
Error to a judgement of the Circuit Court of Scott County, rendered on
the 27th day of August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court
Wythe County in the town of Wytheville, on Thursday, the 31st day of
July A.D. 1879.”

Daniel Dean, Plaintiff in Error, “against” the Commonwealth, Defend-
ant in Error. Upon a Writ of Error The Commonwealth Defendant in
Error to a judgement of the Circuit Court of Scott County, rendered on
the 27th day of August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court
of said County, rendered on the 3rd day of June 1878 in a prosecution of
The Commonwealth against the Plaintiff in Error for murder, whereby it
is considered that the said Plaintiff in Error ‘tbe hanged by the neck until

-21-

ee

saaaciainenene tetera: + nae


adjoining states to see this once in a lifetime event. Officers had to clear
the way as the wagon bearing Arch sitting atop his collin wended its way
from the jail to the hanging site. It is said that Arch puffed on a long
black cigar as he made his triumphant entry into the hollow that was to
bear his name everafter.

Exactly at high noon of that fateful day, the trap was sprung and Arch
fell through the trapdoor, his neck broken, his debt co society paid. As the
trap was sprung, the story goes, a small Negro boy standing on top of the
hill fainted and cumbled end over end to the bottom, where he quickly re-
covered at the foot of the scaffold and scampered back into the crowd.

It is not known just where Arch was buried. The older citizens of
Lebanon say they recall the scaffold standing for many years afterwards—
perhaps as Arch’s only tombstone. The scatfold is gone, the story almost
forgotten. The hillside amphitheater remains — only a few minutes walk
trom the business section of Lebanon. It has been almost one hundred
years since Russell County’s last and perhaps only legal hanging.

Compiled by: Roy L. Sturgill

(Information from old newspaper accounts, and Circuit Court Records

of Russell County )

“HANGIN’S IN SCOTT COUNTY”
By Roy L. Sturgill

Introduction

One could spend an entire lifetime writing and compiling the more
pleasant historical records and events of the people of Southwest Vir-
ginia. However, we, as well as people in all parts of the world had dark
and gloomy times; and today they are forever imprinted in the record
books of the Courts, and on the pages of history, as solemn reminders
that the past was not always as pure and undefiled as we would like.
These unsavory happenings have therefore become a part of our history.

Certainly, we are not sadists in our curiousity as to how the Courts
dealt with the criminal element in the pioneer days. In Southwest
Virginia we had on the benches of our Courts, and at the Bar, some of the
most brilliant legal minds in the entire United States. ft is indeed -un-
fortunate that some of ‘the criminals hold a more prominent place in
history than does these judges, lawyers, and other law entorcement
officers.

In the early days hanging was the method most widely adopted for
the infliction of the death penalty upon those convicted of first-degree
murder. It was at one time considered necessary to have executions
public in order to impress evildoers. The time and place was fined within
limits by sentence of the Court, between specified hours, on a certain day.
Friday was customarily the day set because of its association with the
Crucifixion of Christ.

Hanging the condemned was the responsibility of the County Sheriff,
who in most cases was not a skilled executioner, and there were instances
when the job was horribly botched. Nevertheless, he was compelled by
law to perform the distasteful task to the best of his ability.

It was not until che 1908 General Assembly the Legislators became
alarmed by the spectacle of public hangings, and proposed that execu-
tions be performed in “quiet dignity”, with only those required by law as
witnesses to be in attendance, and that all public hangings in the
Commonwealth should cease. .

In this-article we turn back the pages of time, to a period many years
prior to the General Assembly of 1908, and reflect on the Court records
of hangings that took place in Scott County, as follows:

THE FIRST WAS JOHN TUMNS or TUMMS (For murder)

The Indictment April 9, 1832

At a Circuic Superior Court of Law and Chancery held for Score
County at the Courthouse thereof, on Monday, the 9th day of April 1832:
Present Benjamin Estill, esq. Judge. fsaac C. Anderson Foreman,
Zechariah Hensley, James Bevins, John Wolfe, Cornelias Puyate, Henry
Wood, Sr., Abraham Lane, George Wineyard, James Jett, William Agee,
Isaac Hickam, William Smith, Reuben Pendleton, William Ervin, Samuel


We then crossed Clinch River in a canoe; Will Gibson fell out into the
river and then handed my pistol back to me. We all travelled along
together until we got near Charles Horn’s at the foot of Chestnut Ridge.
Here Jonas Powers left us and went in the direction of Charles Horn’s.
1 saw him no more until | saw him under arrest after the murder. Myself
and the other two went along together until we arrived near the top of
Chestnut Ridge. Wayne Powers and Will Gibson were five steps in advance
of me and were quarreling. Wayne stepped back and shot Gibson in the
back of the head; he ran and cried out “Run here George, your friend
Will Gibson is shot, I (George Gibson) pursued after and fired two shots
at him (Will Gibson), one of them, and I think only one, hit him. He fell
and | sprang upon, and cut him three times, once on the hip, once in the
side, and then cut his throat. Wayne run up at this time, cocked his pistol
and wanted to shoot him again, but I told him not to do that. He asked,
“Has he got enough?” I answered yes, for he was then dead. We then
considered as well as we could in our drunken condition, what we should
do with the body, and decided to burn it. We piled rails on it and Wayne
then pulled sage grass and put under them, and I fired it with a match. We
did not kill him for his money or clothing. But after he was dead we
thought it was useless to destroy his money and clothes, so we divided the
nine dollars and twenty cents between us, which was all he had. I took
his clothing and we burned his satchel and some clothing. We parted
about an hour and a half before day.” (End quote)

The next morning smoke was seen rising from the spot by S.P. Porter
and his wife while on the way to preaching. They investigated the cause
and found portions of the unconsumed body. The news of the murder
spread rapidly, and on Monday, Richard Hager, Ambrose Taylor, and
Alex Austin had the three men (George Gibson, Wayne Powers, and Jonas
Powers) arrested on the charge of having killed Will Gibson. They were
taken to Sinking Creek Church and an examination before Justice Ramey
was held. They were bound over, brought to Scott County and lodged in
jail on Wednesday, April 23, 1884.

They were indicted by the grand jury of the May term of the County
Court. Judge Martin B. Woods presiding, and on being arraigned upon the
indictment of murder, plead not guilty. They all elected to be tried in the
Circuit Court, and were remanded back to prison.

At the August term of the Circuit Court, Judge John A. Kelly
presiding. Jonas Powers was placed on trial. The trial lasted several days,
and the jury, after deliberating for twenty-four hours, failed to agree and
were dismissed.

The cases of Wayne Powers and George Gibson were continued until
the November term of the Circuit Court.

At the November term of the court the three men were tried, each
separately and by a different jury. Jonas H. Powers was first to be tried,
the verdict was murder in the first degree. Wayne Powers was next and the
verdict was the same. Last was George Gibson, whose trial lasted from
Saturday of one week until Friday of the following week; however, the
verdict was the same as the other two. Together, the three trials lasted
almost three weeks. Judge John A. Kelly presided at each, The people

Bye

were represented by Commonwealth’s Attorney H.W. Holdway, who un-
assisted, labored with a conscientious desire to uphold law and order and
the protection of society. The Power boys were represented and ably
defended by the law firm of Richmond and Duncan. Attorney John P,
Korns, along with Richmond and Duncan, defended George Gibson,

The Sentencing

When asked if either had anything to say before sentence was passed
upon them, Jonas Powers declared he wanted to say he was not guilty,
Wayne Powers said he had nothing to say. Gibson said he did not get
justice. They took their seats and Judge Kelly, with impressiveness and
solemnity, pronounced the following death sentence against them. He
started by first repeating their names: Jonas H. Powers, Wayne Powers,
and George Gibson. ‘Such a scene as we now look upon is seldom wit-
nessed in a Courtroom. Under our mild and human laws, a single convict
is rarely at the bar of the court awaiting the sentence of death. In my
service on the bench of this Circuit of more than fourteen years, I have
had only three times to pronounce such a sentence. Now you three stand
before me convicted, each of murder in the first degree, to whicli the law
affixes the death penalty. It would be useless to review the details of your
crime, if the juries have not been mistaken in their verdicts, that crime is
without parallel. It is shortly this--that for a few dollars and two or three
suits of wearing apparel of the victim, you deliberately killed your asso-
ciate travelling with you in the confidence of friendship, and in the
attempt to conceal the evidence of your guilt, spent hours of the night
in which the deed was done standing around his body, heaping fencing.
rails upon it until it was almost wholly consumed. But the effort at
concealment failed. It is almost always the case that the circumstances
attending the murder press so closely upon the heels of the murderer
that he can not escape them. So the circumstances surrounding this
murder pointed to you and led to your arrest, and you have been brought
to trial. A separate and different jury of twelve honest men have passed
upon each of your cases and have found you guilty. As the evidence is in
most of its features the same in each case, it is the equivalent to the
judgement of thirty-six jurymen. (Here the paper is worn and was unable
to read well enough to copy; RLS.) The Judge continues: The three
former occasions in which I have been called to pronounce the death
sentence, though but one unfortunate prisoner was to be doomed, my
heart recoiled from it. I shuddered at the thought. But how much more

‘trying when I see three unfortunate human faces looking upon me await-

ing their sentences. I hesitate to pronounce them. But an unavoidable
duty, the imperative mandate of the law compels me to do so. But before
I do, | would admonish you to use the time given you to make all possible
preparation for death. Though this Court can see no relief which can be
legally extended to you; though no other human tribunal may be able to
grant you relief, yet so infinite is the mercy of God, that even the darkest
of crimes do not close the door of hope to those who appeal to Him.
Forgiveness and pardon He freely gives to those who are about to perish

-25-


on account of crime, if they approach Him in true contrition and repent-
ance. And with most profound regret that so terrible a duty devolves on
me, I must pronounce upon you each the judgement of law, which that
each of you be taken to the jail of the county from whence you came,
and from thence to the place of execution, on Friday the 6th day of
February next (1885), and there be hanged by the neck till you are dead,
and may God have mercy on your souls.

(The three men were sentenced November 28, 1884. Judge Kelly’s
lengthy discourse is not incorporated in its entirety in the court records
of Scott County. The above sentencing was carried in The Progressive
Age, a newspaper printed at Estillville, Scott Virginia, of December 4,
1884, and reprinted in the February 5, 1885 issue of the same paper, a
copy of which is owned by Mr. S.D. Bledsoe, Superintendant of Natural
Tunnel, and to whom I am grateful for his assistance in helping me on
this article on Gibson and Powers). (The entire court proceedings of this
case may be found in Law Book Number 3 of the Circuit Court of Scott
County).

During the passing of sentence and the discourse of Judge Kelly in his
delivery of the judgement, Jonas Powers chewed his tobacco without
visible emotion. Wayne fixed his gaze upon the floor and remained un-
moved to the close. Gibson was nervous and pale, and occasionally looked
at the Judge.

Counsels for Jonas Powers made a motion to set aside the sentence in
his case and grant him a new trial. The Court, in a feeling manner, denied
the motion and ordered the proceedings to be spread upon the Court
records. The counsel for Jonas carried his case to the Governor, who,
after hearing the statement of counsel, granted a stay of execution for
thirty days.

In addition to the confession and statement of George Gibson, made
previous to the day of execution, he also addressed the huge crowd
gathered for the hanging for some 20 minutes, Near the end he said, “I
acknowledge the crime. I killed Will Gibson. Wayne shot him first, and I
shot and killed him. I then helped to burn his body. I had nothing against
him! It was not for the nine dollars and twenty cents and his clothing that
I did the deed, but it was because I was drunk and didn’t know what I was
doing, until it was too late. | want to say that Jonas Powers was not with
us when we did the killing. He knew nothing of it, and is as innocent of
that crime as any man or woman I see before me, and in God’s name I ask
you all to assist in setting Jonas Powers at liberty, for he is an innocent
man.” Gibson further states, “Society would do well to banish forever
liquor from its midst. I who have been decoyed to my ruin by it, might
with some show of just reproach turn upon that people whose laws license
this most deadly and dangerous of all agents and say, ‘‘shake not thy gory
locks at me.”

Wayne Powers also made a statement from the gallows exculpating his
brother Jonas, and said that there were none on the ground at the time of
the murder except the two Gibsons and himself.

So the hideous nightmare of the Gibson and Powers case that started

26.

the night of April 19, 1884, ended on that cold clear day of Friday,
February 6, 1885, on the gallows near the Cedars schoolhouse.

These old stories are to some better to be forgotten, yet violence has
always played a part in man’s survival, and as we preserve the good things
in life, we must also hold on to the unsavory events that went to make the
good things come to pass. And so it is with historians to hold on to the
past, fragmentary though some stories may be, they will always be
preserved in the archives of our country.

I am indebted to Court Clerk Mr. Harry Penley, Scott County, Virginia,
and his efficient staff for their interest and assistance. The items of public
record were filed in such a manner that the information needed was
immediately available. I appreciate the discussions and correspondence
with a number of historians and old timers, such as: Mr. Roy V. Wolfe,
Sr., of Gate City, Mr. Luther F. Addington of Wise, M. Earl Broadwater
of Salem, Mr. Emory Hamilton of Wise, Rev. Hampton Osborne of
Clintwood, and many others.

HANGING IN RUSSELL COUNTY
By Roy L. Sturgill

THE YEAR WAS 1873, THE PLACE LEBANON, RUSSELL COUNTY,
VIRGINIA

John Hurt was missing from his home near Lebanon, and had been for
several days. It now seemed certain he had met with foul play. Arch
Johnson, a six-foot four-inch negro farm worker, was suspected of having
killed him, but no evidence actually existed chat he had done the killing.

It is related chat a group of men searching for the body asked Arch to
assist in finding Hure in che hope chat he would in some way reveal his
guilt. The story as told over the years, is chat the group OF posse stopped
on a hillside to scan the distant terrain. While there,Arch is said to have
exclaimed, “There he is behind that log on yon hillside.” fe was the mis-
take the searchers were hoping Arch would make. The distance was so
great, it was impossible to have scen an object the size of a man’s body,
and neither could they see behind the log. A closer search revealed Hurt’s
body behind the log, where only the killer himself could have known
it was hidden.

According to court records, John Hurt was slain in che month of Jan:
uary 1872. Arch Johnson was broughe to trial the 29th day of April,1873.
Russell County’s first courthouse was destroyed by fire earlier in the year
1873 and Arch’s crial was held in the Lebanon Methodise Church. Below
is the exact transcript of the second day of the trialas taken from the
court records of Russell County.

April 30, 1873 — At a Circuit Court continued and held for Russell
County at the Courthouse thereof on the 30th day of April, 1873.

Present, Same Judge as on yesterday — Archy Johnson who stands in-
dicted of a murder by him committed in this County and within the
Jurisdiction of this Court in this chat on the... day of January 1872 in
and upon the body of John ture in the piece of the Commonwealth, then
and there being feloniously willfully of his malice aforethought did make
an assault, and the said Archy Johnson a certain gun of the value of $5.00
then and there charged with gunpowder and leaded bullet which said gun
he then and there in both hands, then and there had and held, chen and
there feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethoughe did discharge
and shoot off to against and upon the body of the said John Hurt; and
that the said Archy Johnson with the leaden bullet aforesaid ouc of the
gun by him discharged and shoe off as aforesaid then and there felon-
iously, willfully and of his malice aforethoughe did strike, puncture and
wound him the said John Hurt in and upon his body, giving to him the
said John Hurt then and there with the leaden bullet aforesaid so as
aforesaid discharged and shoe out of the gun aforesaid by the said Archy
Johnson in and upon the body of the said John Hurt one mortal wound
ot which said mortal wound he then and there instantly died. And further
that the said Archy Johnson him the said Jolin Hurt in the manner and by

{Oo

the means aforesaid feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought
did kill and murder. Was this day again set to the bar in custody of the

Sheriff and thereupon came the Jury sworn in the case on yesterday pur-
suant to their adjournment to wit: Abram Salyer; Richard L. Smith;
Elijah Rasnake , Sr.; Nelson H. Fraley; Samuel Burk; William Litton;
Thomas M. Gibson; Samuel B. Owens; James M. Lark; Aaron Cumbow;
William H. Mead; and Martin P. Barrett, and after having heard all the
evidence and arguements of counsel, withdrew from the bar to consult
upon their verdict and after some time returned into court, and upon
their oaths do say, “We the Jury find the prisoner Archy Johnson guilty
of murder in the first degree.” Whereupon the prisoner by his counsel
moved the court to set aside the verdict of the Jury and grant him a new
trial, which motion was opposed by the Attorney for the Commonwealth
and the Court took time until tomorrow morning to consider the motion
aforesaid, and thereupon the Jury was discharged and the said Archy
Johnson was remanded to jail.

John A. Kelly, Jucge

The following day exactly as recorded on court records Russell County.

May 1, 1873 — Archy Johnson who stands convicted of murder in the
first degree was this day again set to the bar in custody of the Sheriff, and
the Court having maturely considered the motion made yesterday to set
aside the verdict of the Jury and grant the prisoner a new trial is of the
opinion that the verdict of the Jury is sustained by the testimony, the
motion is therefore overruled. And thereupon it being demanded of the
prisoner if anything for himself he had or knew to say why che Court
should not now proceed to pronounce judgement and execution against
him according to law, and nothing being offered or alleged in delay of
judgement, it is considered by the Court that the said Archy Johnson be
taken to the jail of this County and from thense to the place of execution;
on Friday the 13th day of June between the hours of 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.
and there be hanged by the neck uncil he be dead. And thereupon the said
Archy Johnson was remanded to Jail.

On motion of James J. Henritze, jailor of Russell County and it appear-
ing to the Court that it is necessary for the safekeeping of Archy Johnson
who is now confined in jail under sentence of deach, that a good and suf-
ficient guard be kept at said jail. The said jailor is therefore ordered to
summons and keep at said jail a good and substantial guard until the

day of execution.
Signed: Jolm A Kelly, Jucve

The hanging took place as ordered on Friday the 13th day, June 1873.
The scene was a hastily erected scatfold just north of Lebanon, in a small
valley resembling an amphitheater. More than 5,000 men, women and
children (white and colored) were said to have jammed the crowded hill: |
side overlooking the place of execution from dawn that day unul the trap
was sprung on the huge Negro.

The streets of this small southwest Virginia town were crowded with
the curious who had come for miles from other counties of Virginia and

/f


5
a Misting of Legal Erecuthins th Kusstl/
and Scelf Counties, Vigra

Southwest Vibydas Pstorite! Society
Fubliahin Ne. 14. 1977

he be dead.”

This day came again as well the Plaintiff in Error by his counsel, as the
Attomey General on behalf of the Commonwealth, and the Court having
maturely considered the transcript of the record of the said judgement
and the arguments of counsel, is of Opinion for reasons stated in writing
and filed with the record, that there is no error in the said judgement.
Therefore it is considered that the said judgement of the said Circuit
Court of Scott be affirmed. Which is ordered to be certified to the said
Circuit Court of Scott County.

A copy teste; Joe W. Caldwell, C.C.
A copy teste; W.S. Rhodes, D.C.

The decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Virginia on the
Dean case, according to any number of attorneys, is said to be a classic
and a final word of law on circumstantial evidence. This famous opinion
was written by Judge Christian, at the time a member of the Supreme
Court of Virginia. In the opinion, Judge Christian observes chat a line of
circumstantial evidence is sometimes compared to a chain of many links.
A chain is no stronger than its weakest link. A more fitting comparison,
declared Judge Christian, would be a rope. A rope is made up of a number
of tiluments or strands, which taken singly would not be strong enough co
bear the stress, but when all these filaments or strands are twisted to-
gether the rope has strength more than enough to bear the stress laid
upon it.

So in the Dan Dean case, there are circumstances, which taken alone,
would not bear the wright of conviction, but when taken together, and
considered in their relation to each other, must proclude upon the mind
a moral certainty of the guilt of the accused. So reasoned Judge Christian.

The eminence judge disposes of the case by declaring there was no error
to warrant a new trial, that che judgemene of the lower court was affirined
and chat Dean must pay the penalty of his crime: to be hanged by the
neck until dead.

‘To name a few of the personalities of the Dean case:

Chiet counsel for the defense was Patrick Hagan, said to be one of the
bese lawyers and one of the finest men ever produced by Score County.

Commonwealch’s Attorney was Rufus A. Ayers, who later became
Attorney General of Virginia. He was assisted in the prosecution by
Attorney John P. Corns and Attorney Burns.

The County Judge was H.S.K. Morrison, the Circuit Judge John A.
Kelly. Ac the time of the killing of Henry Fugate, the Sheriff was William
C. Puyate; he was succeeded in office by J.R.S. Wilhelm, whose painful
duty it became to execute Dan Dean.

Wayne Powers and George Gibson pay the supreme penalty by hanging
for the murder of Will Gibson,

The morning of Friday, February 6, 1885, the day appointed for the
execution dawned cool and clear. The night previous, a large number of
citizens had arrived, and the streets of the village of Estillville (now Gate
City) presented a somewhat animated appearance. From early dawn until

=

late at night people on horseback and in wagons had been pouring into
town.

At about ten-thirty on the morning of the sixth, the crowd surged
toward the Courthouse, and the cry was taken up that the prisoners
were at the hack that was to carry them to the place of execution. Very
soon afterwards, Sheriff W.C.R. Strong with Wayne Powers and Deputy
Sheriff R.H. Cowden with George Gibson, took their seats in the hack.
The guards were stationed under the direction of J.S. King and Martin
Godsey, and the calvacade took up its solemn march to the place of exe-
cution at the cedars (near where Gate City High School now stands). fe
was a sight never before seen in Estillville. The screets were densely
packed with horsemen and people on foot from the village to the grounds.

The place selected for the hanging was a lietle north of the Cedar
Schoolhouse, in a hollow. As the hack neared the scaffold, the hills
surrounding the spot were covered with faces, all watching with breath-
less interest in the entire proceedings.

The hack reached its destination, and the prisoners, guards, officers,
and a few spectators took their positions inside the guard rope, but out-
side the building in which the scaffold was erected. It was here the con-
demned men were allowed to make their last statements. ‘Within a short
time both men were conducted inside the building and were hanged by
the neck until dead in accordance with the sentence of the Court. Thus
they paid with their lives for their dastardly crime.

Events leading up to the crime are as follows: Wayne and Jonas Powers
two brothers, George and Will Gibson, the lateer cousins, had been absent
from Scott County for some months, residing in West Virginia. In the
spring of 1884 they concluded to visie their homes, and in company,
started on their journey. On Saturday evening April 20, 1884, they
stopped at the house of John Ramey and purchased brandy, then started
for Chestnut Ridge, lying close to the Russell line, where a quiet spot was
chosen for the crime.

We here take a portion of the confession and statement of George
Gibson: After telling of his boyhood and other events leading up to his
leaving Scott County and going to West Virginia, he cells of the crime as
follows: “We started for Scott County, Virginia, on April 14, 1884.
Before starting, Wayne and Jonas Powers made known to us their wish to
come with us (George and Will Gibson), but we endeavored to avoid them

_as we supposed they would want us to bear their expenses, but they fell in

with us and after a journey of six days, we arrived at John Ramey’s on
Clinch River (near where Dungannon now stands) about dark on the 19th
day of April 1884, and it is here the history of this sad calamity begins.
Leaving Jonas Powers and Will Gibson in Broad Shoal Gap, a short
distance from John Ramey’s, Wayne Powers and I went to John Ramey’s
and bought six pints of brandy, returned to where they were, built up a
fire and being weary and footsore, remained there drinking the liquor and
resting for near three hours. Will Gibson had my pistol and loaded it while
there. Wayne Powers also loaded his pistol.

es


on account of crime, if they approach Him in true contrition and repenc-
ance. And with most profound regret that so terrible a duty devolves on
me, I must pronounce upon you each the judgement of law, which that
each of you be taken to the jail of the county from whence you came,
and from thence to the place of execution, on Friday the 6th day of
February next (1885), and there be hanged by the neck till you are dead,
and may God have mercy on your souls.

(The three men were sentenced November 28, 1884. Judge Kelly’s
lengthy discourse is not incorporated in its entirety in the court records
of Scott County. The above sentencing was carried in The Progressive
Age, a newspaper printed at Estillville, Scott Virginia, of December 4,
188+, and reprinted in the February 5, 1885 issue of the same Paper, a
copy of which is owned by Mr. S.D. Bledsoe, Superintendant of Natural
Tunnel, and to whom I am grateful for his assistance in helping me on
this article on Gibson and Powers). (The entire court proceedings of this
case may be found in Law Book Number 3 of the Circuit Court of Scott
County).

During the passing of sentence and the discourse of Judge Kelly in his
delivery of the judgement, Jonas Powers chewed his tobacco without
visible emotion. Wayne fixed his gaze upon the floor and remained un-
moved co the close. Gibson was nervous and pale, and occasionally looked
at the Judge.

Counsels for Jonas Powers made a motion to set aside the sentence in

his case and grant him a new trial. The Court, in a feeling manner, denied
the motion and ordered the proceedings to be spread upon the Court
tecords. The counsel for Jonas carried his case to the Governor, who,
after hearing the statement of counsel, granted a stay of execution for
thirty days. .

In addition to the confession and statement of George Gibson, made
previous to the day of execution, he also addressed the huge crowd
gathered for the hanging for some 20 minutes. Near the end he said, ‘I
acknowledge the crime. I killed Will Gibson. Wayne shot him first, and |
shoe and killed him. I then helped to burn his body. I had nothing against
hima! ft was noc for the nine dollars and twenty cents and his clothing that
I did the deed, but it was because I was drunk and didn’t know what | Was
doing, until it was too late. I want to say that Jonas Powers was not with
us when we did the killing. He knew nothing of it, and is as innocent of
that crime as any man or woman I see before me, and in God’s name I ask
you all to assist in setting Jonas Powers at liberty, for he is an innocent
man.” Gibson further states, “Society would do well to banish forever
liquor from its midst. [ who have been decoyed to my ruin by it, might
wich some show of just reproach turn upon that people whose laws license
this most deadly and dangerous of all agents and say, “shake not thy gory
locks at me.”

Wayne Powers also made a statement from the gallows exculpating his
brother Jonas, and said that there were none on the ground at the time of
the murder except the two Gibsons and himself,

So the hideous nightmare of the Gibson and Powers case that starced

6G

the night of April 19, 1884, ended on that cold clear day of Friday,
February 6, 1885, on the gallows near the Cedars schoolhouse,

These old stories are to some better co be forgotten, yet violence has
always played a part in iman’s survival, and as we preserve the good things
in life, we must also hold on to the unsavory events that went to make the
good things come to pass. And so it is with historians co hold on to the
past, fragmentary though some stories may be, they will always be
preserved in the archives of our country.

1 am indebred to Court Clerk Mr. Harry Penley, Scott County, Virginia,
and his efficient scaff for their interest and assistance. The items of public
record were filed in such a manner that the information needed was
immediately available. 1 appreciate the discussions and correspondence
with a number of historians and old timers, such as: Mr. Roy V. Wolte,
Sr., of Gate City, Mr. Luther E. Addington of Wise, M. Earl Broadwater
of Salem, Mr. Emory Hamilton of Wise, Rev. Hampton Osborne of
Clintwood, and many others.

We then crossed Clinch River in a canoe; Will Gibson fell out into the
river and then handed my pistol back to me. We all travelled along
together until we got near Charles Horn’s at the foot of Chestnut Ridge.
Here Jonas Powers left us and went in the direction of Charles Horn’s.
I saw him no more until | saw him under arrest after the murder. Myself
and the other two went along together until we arrived near the top of
Chestnut Ridge. Wayne Powers and Will Gibson were five steps in advance
of me and were quarreling. Wayne stepped back and shot Gibson in the
back of the head; he ran and cried out “Run here George, your friend
Will Gibson is shot. | (George Gibson) pursued after and fired two shots
at him (Will Gibson), one of them, and 1 think only one, hit him. He fell
and | sprang upon, and cut him three times, once on the hip, once in the
side, and then cuc his throac. Wayne run up at this time, cocked his pistol
and wanted to shoot him again, but | told him not to do that. He asked,
“Has he yot enough?” T answered yes, for he was then dead. We chen
considered as well as we could in our drunken condition, what we should
do with the body, and decided to burn it. We piled rails on it and Wayne
then pulled sage grass and put under them, and I fired ic with a match. We
did not kill him for his money or clothing. But after he was dead we
thought it was useless to destroy his money and clothes, so we divided the
nine dollars and twenty cents between us, which was all he had. | took
his cloching and we burned his satchel and some clothing. We parted
about an hour and a half before day.” (End quote)

The next morning smoke was seen rising from the spot by S.P. Porter
and his wife while on the way cto preaching. They investigated the cause
and found portions of the unconsumed body. The news of che murder
spread rapidly, and on Monday, Richard Hager, Ambrose Taylor, and
Alex Austin had the three men (George Gibson, Wayne Powers, and Jonas
Powers) arrested on the charge of having killed Will Gibson, They were
taken to Sinking Creek Church and an examination before Justice Ramey
was held. They were bound over, brought to Scott County and lodged in
jail on Wednesday, April 23, 188-4.

They were indicted by the grand jury of the May term of the County
Court. Judge Martin B. Woods presiding, and on being arraigned upon the
indicttnent of murder, plead not guilty. They all elected to be tried in the
Circuit Court, and were remanded back to prison.

At the “August term of the Circuit Court, Judge John A. Kelly
presiding. Jonas Powers was placed on trial. The trial lasted several days,
and the jury, after deliberating for twenty-four hours, failed to agree and
were disinissed.

The cases of Wayne Powers and George Gibson were continued until
the November term of the Circuit Court.

At the November teri of the court the three men were tried, cach
separately and by a different jury. Jonas H. Powers was first to be tried,
the verdict was murder in the first degree. Wayne Powers was next and the
verdict was the same. Last was George Gibson, whose trial lasted from
Saturday of one weck until Priday of the following week; however, the
‘verdict was the same as the other two. Together, the three trials lasted
almost three weeks. Judge Jolin A. Kelly presided at each. The people

zY

were represented by Commonwealth's Attorney H.W. Holdway, who un-
assisted, labored with a conscientious desire to uphold law and order and

the protection of society. The Power boys were represented and ably
defended by the law firm of Richmond and Duncan. Attorney John P.
Korns, along with Richmond and Duncan, defended George Gibson,

The Sentencing

When asked if either had anything co say before sentence was passed
upon them, Jonas Powers declared he wanted ‘to say he was noc guilty.
Wayne Powers said he had nothing to say. Gibson said he did not get
justice. They took their seats and Judge Kelly, with lunpressiveness and
solemnity, pronounced the following death sentence against them. He
started by first repeating their names: Jonas H. Powers, Wayne Powers,
and George Gibson. “Such a scene as we now look upon is seldom wit-
nessed in a Courtroom. Under our mild and human laws, a single convict
is rarely at the bar of the court awaiting the sentence of death. In ny
service on the bench of this Circuit of more than fourteen years, | have
had only three times to pronounce such a sentence. Now you three stand
before me convicted, each of murder in the first degree, to which the law
affixes the death penalty. It would be useless to review the details of your
crime, if the juries have not been mistaken in their verdicts, that crime is
without parallel. It is shortly this--chac for a few dollars and two or three
suits of wearing apparel of the victim, you deliberately killed your asso-
ciate travelling with you in the confidence of friendship, and in che
attempt to conceal the evidence of your guilt, spent hours of the night
in which the deed was done standing around his body, heaping fencing
rails upon it until it was almose wholly consumed. But the effort at
concealment failed. Ie is almost always the case that the circumstances
attending the murder press so closely upon the heels of the murderer
that he can not escape them. So the circumstances surrounding this
murder pointed to you and led to your arrest, and you have been brought
to trial. A separate and different jury of twelve honest men have passed
upon each of your cases and have found you guilty. As the evidence is in
most of its features the same in each case, it is the equivalent to the
judgement of thirty-six jurymen. (Here the paper is worn and was unable
to read well enough to copy; RLS.) The Judye continues: The chree
former occasions in which | have been called to pronounce the death
sentence, though but one unfortunate prisoner was to be doomed, my
heart recoiled from it. | shuddered at the thought. But how much more
trying when I see chree unfortunace human faces looking upon me await-
ing their sentences. I hesitate to pronounce them. But an unavoidable
duty, the imperative mandate of the law compels me to do so. But before
I do, | would admonish you to use the time given you to make all possible
preparation for death. Though this Courc can see no relief which can be
legally extended to you; though no other human tribunal may be able to
grant you relief, yet so infinite is the mercy of God, that even the darkest
of crimes do not close the door of hope to those who appeal to Him.
Forgiveness and pardon He freely gives to those who are about to perish

25

on account of crime, if they approach Him in true contrition and repent-
ance. And with most profound regret that so terrible a duty devolves on
me, I must pronounce upon you each the judgement of law, which that
each of you be taken to the jail of the county from whence you came,
and from thence to the place of execution, on Friday the 6th day of
February next (1885), and there be hanged by the neck till you are dead,
and may God have mercy on your souls.

(The three men were sentenced November 28, 1884. Judge Kelly’s
lengthy discourse is not incorporated in its entirety in the court records
of Scott County. The above sentencing was carried in The Progressive
Age, a newspaper printed at Estillville, Scott Virginia, of December 4,
1884, and reprinted in the February 5, 1885 issue of the same paper, a
copy of which is owned by Mr. S.D. Bledsoe, Superintendant of Natural
Tunnel, and to whom I am grateful for his assistance in helping me on
this article on Gibson and Powers). (The entire court proceedings of this
case may be found in Law Book Number 3 of the Circuit Court of Scott
County).

During the passing of sentence and the discourse of Judge Kelly in his
delivery of the judgement, Jonas Powers chewed his tobacco without
visible emotion. Wayne fixed his gaze upon the floor and remained un-
moved to the close. Gibson was nervous and pale, and occasionally looked
at the Judge.

Counsels for Jonas Powers made a motion to set aside the sentence in
his case and grant him a new trial. The Court, in a feeling manner, denied
the motion and ordered the proceedings to be spread upon the Court
records. The counsel for Jonas carried his case to the Governor, who,
after hearing the statement of counsel, granted a stay of execution for
thirty days.

In addition to the confession and statement of George Gibson, made
previous to the day of execution, he also addressed the huge crowd
gathered for the hanging for some 20 minutes. Near the end he said, “‘I
acknowledge the crime. I killed Will Gibson. Wayne shot him first, and I
shot and killed him. I then helped to burn his body. I had nothing against
him! It was not for the nine dollars and twenty cents and his clothing that
I did the deed, but it was because I was drunk and didn’t know what I was
doing, until it was too late. I want to say that Jonas Powers was not with
us when we did the killing. He knew nothing of it, and is as innocent of
that crime as any man or woman I see before me, and in God’s name I ask
you all to assist in setting Jonas Powers at liberty, for he is an innocent
man.” Gibson further states, “Society would do well to banish forever
liquor from its midst. | who have been decoyed to my ruin by it, might
with some show of just reproach turn upon that people whose laws license
this most deadly and dangerous of all agents and say, ‘‘shake not thy gory
locks at me.”’

Wayne Powers also made a statement from the gallows exculpating his
brother Jonas, and said that there were none on the ground at the time of
the murder except the two Gibsons and himself.

So the hideous nightmare of the Gibson and Powers case that started

-26-

the night of April 19, 1884, ended on that cold clear day of Friday,
February 6, 1885, on the gallows near the Cedars schoolhouse.

These old stories are to some better to be forgotten, yet violence has
always played a part in man’s survival, and as we preserve the good things
in life, we must also hold on to the unsavory events that went to make the
good things come to pass. And so it is with historians to hold on to the
past, fragmentary though some stories may be, they will always be
preserved in the archives of our country. ——

I am indebted to Court Clerk Mr. Harry Penley, Scott County, Virginia,
and his efficient staff for their interest and assistance. The items of public
record were filed in such a manner that the information needed was
immediately available. I appreciate the discussions and correspondence
with a number of historians and old timers, such as: Mr. Roy V. Wolfe,
Sr., of Gate City, Mr. Luther F. Addington of Wise, M. Earl Broadwater
of Salem, Mr. Emory Hamilton of Wise, Rev. Hampton Osborne of
Clintwood, and many others.

ae.


GEORGE McCONNELL, SR.

T THE close of the War of the Revolution, George McConnell, Sr.,

accompanied by a brother and a sister, came from Ireland to this

country. They landed at the Port of Philadelphia and located in the
State of Pennsylvania. Soon after his arrival, George entered the employ of a
German gentleman named Snavely, who was engaged in a wholesale mer-
cantile business in Philadelphia. Snavely had one child, a daughter, named
Susana, whom George married. His father-in-law then gave him an in-
terest in the mercantile business. On the death of Susana’s parents the en-
tire business passed to George and his wife. In the course of time, however,
George McConnell had large sums of security money to pay, which so crippled
his business that he determined to seek a new country in which business
could be done on less capital than in Philadelphia. ‘With the remnant of his
fortune, he set out to find a new country and settled within the present
limits of Russell County, Virginia. Here he again engaged in the mercantile
business. Failing to profit by his Philadelphia experience, he again became
involved in security debts, with the result that he closed out his business
and moved within the present limits of Scott County, where he bought a
farm and became a farmer. Here he was pursued by debt and forced to sell
his farm. It was purchased by his son, George McConnell, Jr., who per-
mitted his parents to remain in their old home until so enfeebled by age it
was thought unsafe for them to be left alone.

George McConnell, Sr., was commissioned a justice of the peace for Scott
by the Governor of Virginia, upon the recommendation of the court that he
was a suitable person to hold such office. The oldest justice in a county be-
came sheriff, according to statutory provisions. George McConnell held the
office until he became the oldest justice and therefore became sheriff of the

county. In the performance of his duties as sheriff, he hanged John Tumns,
“ ~ Brag cae ot occa cence
the first man executed for murder in Scott :

The children of George, Sr., and Susana McConnell were: George, Jr.,
Kate, Thomas, Price, Elizabeth, Henry S., Joab Watson, Priscilla, William G.,
Samuel R. and Susan.

296

“i ae Hs Aah ae “9 x Wilby se ; hs by '

PORN

FAYETTE McMULLEN

AYETTE McMULLEN was born and reared in Scott County, Virginia.
He was fortunate enough to secure a good common school education

for his day. He earned a livelihood by driving a stage coach.
Entering the field of politics early in life, political honors came to him in
rapid succession until his later days, when his political good fortune seemed
to desert him. In September, 1826, he was appointed commissioner of the

revenue for the South Side of Scott County, and he qualified for the office’

at the next term of court. He was also made captain of the One Hundred
Twenty-fourth Militia Regiment in the same year. In February, 1832, he
became a member of the county court. He discharged the duties of these
smaller offices in such way as to attain a large measure of local popularity.

In 1838, he was elected to the Senate of Virginia, an office to which he was
re-elected each succeeding térm until 1849. In 1849, he was elected to Con-
gress, in which body he served four consecutive terms, from 1849 to 1857. In
1857, he was appointed Governor of Washington Territory for a term of
four years. He was also a member of the Confederate Congress and served
in that body from February 22, 1864, until the capture of Richmond.

After the Civil War, he sought re-election to Congress, but was defeated
each time.

He met death in a railroad accident near Marion, Virginia, in 1881.

297


340 HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

On April 27, 1876, he took charge of the Scott Banner as editor and proprie-
tor. In this same year Mr. Ayers prepared a charter for a railroad between
Bristol and Big Stone Gap, Virginia, and organized a company for its con-
struction. In 1881, he assisted in the organization of the Virginia Coal and
Iron Company. He organized the Bank of ‘Gate City in 1889; the Inter-
State Finance Company and the Wise County Bank in 1001 and 1902; the
Tazewell Coal and Land Corporation in 1904.

In 1880, he was Supervisor of the Census for the Fifth District of Virginia
by appointment. of President Hayes. In 1885, he was elected Attorney
General of Virginia. He was given a vote of thanks by the General As-
sembly of Virginia for the course he took while Attorney General in refer-
ence to the State debt.

‘He represented the counties of Buchanan, Dickenson, and Wise in the
Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901,

He was a member of the Masonic fraternity and served as the Master
of.a Lodge.

On June 8, 1870, he married Victoria L. Morison. Three children of this
marriage survive: Kate Lewis Ayers Pettit, Harry J. Ayers, and James B.
Ayers.

He is buried in Estill Cemetery, Gate City, Virginia.

ge Sal tips 6

PANS,

x MS Ie oh Mest ety PY

wae

ibe i ee ee

“RN eS

H. S. K. MORISON

ENRY SOLON KANE MORISON was born in Estillville, Scott

County, Virginia, June 12, 1846, and died there November 9, 1890,

Two of his ancestors, Peter Morison and Jonathan Wood, fought
at the battle of King’s Mountain under Col. Isaac Shelby.

He was the son of Henry A. Morison and Louise Elizabeth Kane.

His early education was obtained in Estillville Academy. In 1863, he en-
tered the Virginia Military Institute as a cadet where he continued until that
institution was destroyed by fire in Hunter's raid. He was prevented by ill-
ness from participation in the battle of New Market, where the Cadet Corps
so signally distinguished itself. However, he took part in all other military
enterprises in which the Cadet Corps engaged.

At the close of the war, he began the study of law in the office of his
uncle, Henry S. Kane. In 1866, he entered the law school of the University
of Virginia, of which John B. Minor was then a distinguished instructor, He
was admitted to the bar in 1867, and commenced to practice in Scott and Lee
counties. Within the period of his early practice, he formed a partnership
with Colonel James W. Humes, of Abingdon, then one of the leading members
of the bar in southwest Virginia. At the expiration of five years, this partner-
ship was brought to an end by the premature death of Humes,

341


R. M. Apprncro
The Author

SS
“\

ae
.

ee

@ “HISTORY OF scc#T

COUN PY, VIRGINIA

By
ROBERT M. ADDINGTON

\)

PRIVATELY PRINTED
59352

64 Southampton Counts

It was the fifth paragraph on page 41 of the pamphlet that might
have commanded the attention of those who could not be swayed
by exegeses of the Scriptures. “Upon the whole,” Barrow wrote,

“I do most sincerely pity (as well as blame) those poor Christians,
and others, who are involved in the fashionable sin of holding slav es,
who must feel at times the scourges of conscience on the occasion,
and foresee the bitter consequences which do, auc will in future
attend it: yet will plead for, and hug the evil.”

As it was with David Barrow’s ringing indictment of slavery in
1808, the Bible was to serve as the text for a still more notable oppo-
nent of slavery, also professing a Baptist ministry, who would de-
liver his blow against the institution in the summer of 1831. At Black
Creek Church, the congregation would gather for regular services
on the fourth Sunday in September of that year and the entry for
the day in the minute book would be a model of pious circumspec-
tion: “It is agreed,” wrote the secretary, “that the sacrament be Post-
poned in consequence of the unple easant feeling the white brethren
have towards the black brethren.’’*! The occasion, in fact, for the
postponement of the sacrament was the murder nearby of more
than a hundred human beings, white and black.

is:

Element of Surprise

3
4

The Precursers

The Negro revolt of October 1799 came, as usual, as a shocking sur-
prise. People recalled, of course, the plot uncovered at Richmond
in the summer of 1793 and the conspiracy in Petersburg a month
later and the threats from the Negroes in Norfolk and Portsmouth
that fall and the poison murders by slaves in neighboring Hertford
County in 1794.' But these things always seemed to catch the whites
off their guard and to come at places and times when they were least
expected. And it was certainly possible to persuade oneself that
the trouble in 1799 would never have occurred if the slave buyers
had not unluckily chosen to direct their course through Southamp-
ton County instead of some other way.

This latest outbreak among the Negroes had taken place on the
evening of October 15 on the high road from Broadwater to Jerusa-
lem. Slave dealers Joshua Butte and Harris Spears had just pur-
chased from William Boykin and Ben Drew some likely looking
Negroes and added them to the slave gang they were driving toward
Georgia. According to the testimony of Jeffry and Lydia, two mem-
bers of the slave coffle, Butte and Spears had been set upon by sev-
eral of the slaves armed “with sticks knives and pistols.” Both white
men had been killed and then robbed of $30 in silver by their assail-
ants. ‘The culprits were identified as Hatter Isaac, Old Sam, Jerry.
Isaac, and Young Sam. The court, after weighing the testimony,
handed down convictions against the first four, all of whom were
sentenced to hang on November 25, and against Young Sam, wh«
pleading benefit of clergy because of his youth, was given thirty- -nine
lashes, branded on the hand, and released.’

In the late summer of 1800 all of Virginia was thrown into a frenzy
of bewilderment when word leaked out that Gabriel Prosser, a Hen
rico County black, had been prevented from leading an army of
hundreds of slaves in storming Richmond, seizing the arsenal, and
burning the city. A network of agents had reportedly enlisted large


66 Southampton County

numbers of slaves from as far away as Petersburg. They were found
to have planned to kill all the whites with the exception of Quakers,
Methodists, and Frenchmen and to crown Prosser as king of Vir-
ginia when their victory was complete.* Southampton magistrates
sent out patrols to “visit all Negro quarters and places suspected
of entertaining unlawful assemblies &c.,’* but no evidence of
sinister designs could be found among the county’s black inhabit-
ants.

Despite mysterious, reports of unrest among the blacks around
Petersburg in November 1801, followed by the discovery of slave
conspiraciesin Nottoway, York, Accomack, and Powhatan counties,”
Southampton whites were again startled to learn in early February
1802 that the serpent of rebellion was now coiled within their own
jurisdiction. The news came in the form of a terrifying message said
to have been found lying in the road near Barrow’s Store and de-
tailing a conspiracy which was “that precisely by which they suc-
ceeded in St. Domingo and enveloped that whole colony in flami~s
in an hour on the same night, and murdered thousands of whites.”
The message was signed “J.L.”’ and addressed to “the Representa-
tive of the lower Company.” It spoke menacingly of “intelligence
from all parts that our intentions have successfully spread ... and
meets with unanimous approval among our fellow sufferers.”’ The
writer boasted that “we shall certainly succeed without difficulty
if our scheme is not betrayed before hand as there is but one in a
family to know of it until the time is actually arrived, I do not appre-
hend much danger of that, & as [for] the poor sort that has no blacks
if any such should escape I doubt not but the general conflagra-
tion of Horses, fodder stacks &c. will strike such a damp on their
spirits that they will not only be willing to acknowledge liberty &
equality but [be] glad to purchase their lives at any price.”

A postscript reference to the “Representative of the Roanoke
Company” appeared to indicate that the plot might extend well
into the Roanoke River valley in Virginia and North Carolina.
There was little doubt that the note exposed “a plan now on foot,”’
as one slave owner saw it, “by the blacks for the execution of the
whites.”"* The suspicion gathered strength from the simultaneous
detection of a plot in Brunswick County® and then a great rash of
reports of the same kind from Nelson, Orange, Augusta," and sev-

Element of Surprise - 67

eral North Carolina counties. No. one seems to have been charged
with responsibility for the Southampton letter, but the murder of
William Summerell by slaves in early February created much con-
sternation over whether the crime might be only the protruding tip
of a massive conspiracy.

Testimony in the Summerell murder case showed hat the victim,
overseer on James Wilkinson’s Meherrin River farm, was so thor-
oughly despised by his Negroes that some had talked among them-
selves about poisoning him--a few, indeed, were “raving for it.” In
the spring of 1801 a slave named Goons had proposed a subscrip-
tion to purchase some poison, and a quarter dollar each was con-
tributed by Hercules, Henry, and Big Anthony. With this, George
procured some scorpions’ heads, but the plan miscarried when
George’s wife, fearing they were meant for her, destroyed them.

A new plan was concocted and took effect on Monday, February
8, 1802, as Summerell was crossing the Meherrin in a boat from the
Greensville side to Southampton. He was within about fifteen fect
of the Southampton shore when Hercules fired a gun at him from
the brush, the charge striking Summerell in the breast. Assisted by
a fellow slave named Aaron, Hercules scrambled out to the boat.
and the two Negroes pounded the overseer with large sticks until
they were sure he was dead. Then they buried the corpse under some
logs in a mud flat and left to help themselves to meat and brandy
stored in Wilkinson’s cellar and smokehouse.

The county court convicted Henry, George, and Hercules. all
of whom were hanged. Evidence suggested it had been an isolated
incident, but the murder of three whites and the execution of six”
slaves in a space of less than eighteen months had frayed the nerves
of Southampton’s citizenry. In July, Dick Claud was brought to
trial for the attempted murder of his master, Joshua Claud. The
evidence of witnesses was conclusive, and Dick was swung off on
Friday, August 13. Five wees later, two more were hanged for the
rivalled of a fellow slave.!

The late spring of 1802 had, in the meantime, been a mournful
period of insurrection panics, trials, convictions, and executions
throughout Virginia and easiern North Carolina. In April there
was a wave of terror in Halifax, Amelia, and Charlotte counties,
the discovery of an alleged Negro plot to burn Norfolk, and spates


ee en ee sme a

68 Southampton County

of alarm in Hanover, Middlesex, Pittsylvania, Lunenburg,” Camp-
bell, and King and Queen counties. * Early May brought the revela-
tion of still another plot to burn Richmond and then a catastrophic
outburst in all the North Carolina counties bordering the Virginia
Tidewater." At least thirty alleged conspirators were executed in
the two states before the crisis ended in late June.”

_ A Nansemond County resident, writing in June to Governor
Monroe, confessed his dismay over the latest disturbances, coming,
as they did, “just as the citizens of this county .. . were in some
measure relieved from apprehension of danger.” The whole thing,
it seems, had burst upon the whites as a baffling and demoralizing
surprise.

The ‘Blue Lizard”

Through the eyes of a black boy growing up as a slave on a South-
ampton County farm in the early nineteenth century, the institution
of slavery was less a matter of corporal brutality (though there was
that, too) than of acute personal insecurity and physical squalor.
Fed Moore would remember in later years old lady Betty Moore,
his owner, as a bespectacled and snuff-sniffing crone who carried

about with her a blue-painted cowhide, “dangling at her side like’

[English] ladies . .. wear their scissors.’ The instrument was known
among the slaves as the “blue lizard.”"

Fed’s mother Nancy belonged to old Widow Moore, but Joe, his
father, lived with a planter named Binford in Northampton County,
North Carolina. Joe was the son of an Ebo who was “stolen from
Africa,” and although Fed never remembered seeing his father but
once, he recalled that he was “very black.” Later, when Binford
moved farther away from Southampton, Nancy abandoned hope
of ever seeing him again and took another husband. This was Lamb
Collier, a slave on a plantation adjoining the widow’s. To the three
children she had by Joe were now to be added three more by Lamb,
all of whom, with Nancy’s niece Annikie and at least three of her
children, lived in Nancy’s cabin.

The living quarters of the ten or more people comprising Nancy’s
family was a two-room log structure with a mud floor, thatched roof,

7)

Element of Surprise 69

and walls of wattle and daub. “Our sleeping place,” the only furni-
ture, Fed remembered as having been “tmade by driving a forked
stake into the floor, which served to support a cross-piece of wood,
one end of it resting in the crotch, the other against the shingle that
formed the wall. A plank or two across, over the top, completed the
bed-room arrangements, with the exception of another plank on
which we laid straw or cotton-pickings, and over that a blanket.”’

Every morning old lady Moore would call the black children
up to the “big house” and have each of them take a dose of garlic
and rue “to keep us ‘wholesome’. . . and make us ‘grow likely for
market.’ When the draught was swallowed, each child had to run
around the big sycamore in the yard, making, if possible, a progress
rapid enough to keep the “blue lizard” securely in its case. “She
liked to see her people constantly employed,” Fed related, “and
would make us all set to work at night, after our day’s labour was
over, picking the seed out of cotton.”

Fed’s own responsibility as a small boy was mainly that of keeping
watch over his younger brother during the day while his mother
worked in the fields. Until they reached the age of twelve or thirteen,
all of the slave children went naked, with sometimes an «'d shirt
to wear in case they were called up to the big house or sent on an
errand by the widow. At puberty, boys began receiving their yearly
allotment of two pairs of thin cotton pants and two cotton shirts, the
girls receiving two petticoats and a shirt similar to those of the boys.
Such clothing, “made of the lowest quality material,” according
to Fed, was almost always ragged and useless within a short time,
“even for the purpose of the barest decency.”

A traumatic event for Fed and his family in these early years came
one autumn (probably around 1805) when, the last of Widow
Moore’s daughters having married, it came time to divide the estate
according to directions in her late husband’s will. All the slaves were
collected under the great sycamore and parceled out by the execu-
tors among the widow and daughters, Fed and his mother being
assigned to James Davis, a son-in-law who lived in Northampton
County. “It was a heart-rending scene,” as Fed recalled; “there
was so much crying and wailing,” as Nancy’s other children were
delivered to new owners. “I really thought my mother would

0 Southampton County

cave died of grief at being obliged to leave her .. . children, her
nother, and relations behind.”

Next morning Fed, his mother, and other Negroes belonging to
Javis’s portion set out on foot along the road to Northampton
‘ounty, forty-five miles distant. Along the way they subsisted on
hhnnycake, hoecake, and water, camping that night by a woods and
eeping in the wagons or on piles of leaves around a campfire.
rged on at times by Davis’s whip or, alternatively, by a promise
* black-eyed peas, bacon rinds, and hard cider at journey’s end,
.e coffle reached Davis’s farm next afternoon. Here Fed fell quickly
1to the eighteen-hour-a-day regimen of hard work that was to be
is lot for the next year and a half. Sold away from his mother at
1e age of ten to a Georgia slave buyer, he spent many years in the
stton fields of the deep South before finally escaping to freedom.
fe was living in London in 1855 when he related the memoirs that
ecame a book entitled Slave’ Life in Georgia, a stinging indictment
‘the slave system and those who supported it.

Not many found permanent escape possible from this squalid
<istence, but many tried it and by a variety of means, legal as well
; illegal. The most enterprising of the runaways, even if they failed
» reach free territory and remain, sometimes managed to exist for
ears at a stretch by hiding out in woods and swamps and stealing
od from orchards and smokehouses. A notable example was Bob
-icks, a slave of a Southampton farmer, who in 1824 helped form
notorious gang of fugitives that raided along the Carolina-Vir-
nia border.

It appears that Ricks and a fellow fugitive recruited their own
utlaw band by contriving to rescue seventeen slaves from a coffle
issing through North Carolina en route to Georgia. For months
terward the gang plundered farms in Southampton, Sussex, Gates,
nd Nansemond and were accused of the murder in Gates County
© Elisha Cross. In June 1824 four of Bob’s confederates made their
ay to Petersburg, procured forged papers identifying them as free
-egroes, and attempted to secure passage northward on board a
up. The captain became suspicious and had them arrested by
‘etersburg police, but Bob Ricks, presumably, was able to con-
nue his fugitive existence along the backways of the Tidewater

Element of Surprise 71

*e.

Anthony W. Gardne: This Southampton
native became president of the Republic
of Liberia, 1879-83. He was also vice-
president, legislator, and signer of Liberia’s
Declaration of Independence. (Reprinted,
by permission of Fountainhead Publishers,
Inc., from C. Abayomi Cassell, Liherza:
History of the First African Republic)

country. Mr. Womble’s Tom was another Southampton runaway
whose exploits became a topic of editorial complaint in the 1820s."

By Virginia law any slave manumitted by his owner was required
to leave the state after a certain period of months, a rule that some-
times worked hardships on those affected by it. Anthony Blunt,
freed by the will of his master, Benjamin Blunt, Sr., in 1826, ap-
pealed to the legislature for the right to remain in Southampton,

om * . , .
citing the fact that he was past sixty years of age and, evidently,

rapidly approaching a time when he would no longer be able to fend
for himself. The petition was rejected.”

Others, mostly members of Southampton’s free Negro commu-
nity, were able to secure the sponsorship of the American Coloniza-
tion Society (ACS) in seeking emigration to Africa. The colonization

sf Southampton County

was anxious to move quickly along to Jerusalem, but some of his
men insisted that they could raise able recruits from among Parker’s
Negroes. While Nat and several others kept lookout at the gate,
the main force headed across a cornfield toward the house, half a
mile distant. It was this untimely division of the rebel force that
would bring the rebellion to premature collapse.

Nat fidgeted for some minutes at the gate, grew impatient of the
delay, and rode off alone toward the house to spur his men along.
He had collected them and started back toward the road when a
party of whites was seen approaching from that direction, where
they had just surprised and routed the group left at the gate. Nat
ordered his men to halt and began forming them in a horizontal
line for a charge. The critical moment of the rebellion was at hand.

The white patrol had ridden out from Jerusalem late in the morn-
ing, shortly after receiving an express from the afflicted area. Notice
had been forwarded to militiamen throughout the county, “but such
was the confusion and delay,” as one report described it, that it
would be Tuesday evening before an effective muster could be held
at Jerusalem. The whites picked up the trail of the insurgents at
Waller’s and, led by Captains Alexander Peete and James Bryant,
continued in pursuit of the rebels. On catching sight of Nat’s main
force, Peete ordered the eighteen men to hold their fire until the
blacks were within thirty paces. * Both sides were armed mostly with
“fowling pieces,” and this, with the showers that wet some of their
powder, ® meant that shots exchanged at any greater distance must
necessarily be futile.

A more decisive battle at Parker’s appears to have been prevented
by one of those accidents of war that mock the ingenuity of the finest
tacticians. One of Peete’s troopers was a young attorney from Jeru-
salem named James Strange French, who is said to have experl-
enced some difficulty in procuring a mount on which to join the
party. The others had already left town when innkeeper Henry B.
Vaughan offered: French the use of a colt that had not been broken.
Saddling the unruly animal, French soon caught up with the patrol.
‘As the two sides faced one another across the no-man’s-land at
Parker’s field, the neighing of the horses caused the colt to start,
accidentally discharging its rider’s gun. The colt bolted teward the
rebels, carrying the startled French headlong toward Nat Turner’s

The Southhampton Rebellion 93

line for some distance before he could bring the animal under con-
trol and wheel about.”

The disturbance created by French’s colt sent about half of
Peete’s company into disordered retreat. Nat Turner, noting the dis-
integration of the enemy line, ordered his own force to charge and
was within fifty yards of those whites still holding their ground when
they, too, firing once, joined the retreat. In the next hectic seconds
several whites were overrun and struck from their horses (including
one Pope, who was injured), the rest galloping across the top of a
small hill and momentarily out of sight on the far side. Reaching the
crest of the hill himself, Nat found that the whites had unwittingly
rushed into the midst of a second patrol, which had just arrived from
Jerusalem. In that instant the scale of advantage tilted sharply from
the black side to the white.

The unexpected sight of the first white party pausing to reload
and being bolstered by a second threw Nat’s recruits into a fatal
disorder. Several of the foremost rebels, plunging into the fusillade
of the whites, were injured, and Hark Travis’s horse was shot trom
beneath him. Nat managed to grab the reins of another horse and
hold it until Hark ran up, but the rebel cavalry was now hopelessly
scattered. Summoning those within earshot, Nat ordered a retreat
and turned away from the advancing whites. *

Eclipse

With no more than twenty of his men, Nat outdistanced his pur-..
suers and made his way into a little-used private road. Calculating
that the whites would expect him to reappear at some point along
the highway, he hoped to pass undetected to Cypress Bridge. three
miles below Jerusalem, and strike at the town from that direction.
He also hoped to pick up some of his stragglers from Parker’s field,
but two of his men who caught up with hifn informed him that the
remainder of the force had simply disappeared. Most would prob-
ably return to the farms from which they came and try to persuade
skeptical masters that they had been dragooned into marching with
the rebels.

Reviewing his predicament, Nat concluded that his only chance


FO BOE SES. HE

‘ ‘

94 Southampton County

of success lay in rebuilding his band before making another attempt
on Jerusalem. But reinforcements could probably be found only in
the vicinity where he had influence, and this meant that he must
make a further foray through the area west of Cross Keys. In the
waning hope of some miracle of divine intervention, Nat wearily
led his followers back toward his old neighborhood.”

Weakened and demoralized, the rebels lurched forward from one
deserted farm to the next, drafting a few additional recruits but
finding little else of value. The abandoned farms of Jacob Williams.
Mrs. John Thomas, Spencer, and others stood eerily silent in the
twilight, gloomy reminders of lost opportunities during the day.™
Crossing the Barrow road in early evening, Nat made his way a short
distance along the Belfield road before seeking rest at Buckhorn, a
farm owned by Maj. Thomas Ridley. The proprietor lived.a little
way to the east, but several of his Negroes were here, and Nat was
able to persuade four to join him, bringing his strength back up to
nearly forty. Two of these, Curtis and Stephen Ridley, agreed to set
out on mules for Newsom’s and Allen’s quarters near Monroe to
enlist more men.” After posting sentinels, Nat lay down for his
first rest in many hours.

But even rest was to elude the dejected rebels. Nat had been asleep
but a brief time when he was roused by shouts and commotion

among his men. One of his sentinels had mistakenly given an alarm’

that they were about to be attacked and some were already mounted
for resistance or flight. After considerable difficulty, order was re-
stored and Nat sent scouts to reconnoiter the area. No enemy was
found, but the scouts, returning at a noisy gallop, generated new
panic among the uneasy rebels and scattered them irretrievably
into the surrounding darkness. When calm returned, Nat found that
half his force had deserted. More in despair than hope, he gave up
thought of further rest and led his remaining men toward Dr. Simon
Blunt’s, a mile distant, the nearest place offering the prospect of
reinforcement.™ - ,

It was the grayest moments of early dawn when the rebels broke
open the gate at the head of Blunt’s lane and started for the house,
about eighty yards away. Shadrach Futrell, Blunt’s overseer, was
standing beside the porch when he saw the rebels coming through
the gate. Signaling their approach, Futrell ducked into the house

14)

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The Southampton Rebellion 95

and took his position in the ambush awaiting the rebels. Crouched
behind window sills and doors were gouty old Dr. Blunt, his fifteen-
year-old son Simon, neighbor Drewry W. Fitzhugh, two other white
youths, and some of Blunt’s and Fitzhugh’s Negroes. They were
armed with several guns and a variety of less formidab!e weapons.”

As the insurgents raced down the lane, Mrs. Blunt thrust her
youngest child into the arms of Mary, her servant girl, and told her
to try to escape. In company with several other slave women, Mary
started across the garden with the child, but Moses Barrow, first of
the raiders to reach the yard, caught sight of them. Flinging down
his gun and dismounting, Moses yelped, “Oh God damn you have
I got you,” and, despite a game leg, leaped the garden fence in
ardent pursuit of the women. He had gone only a few steps when
Hark Travis, firing a gun to determine whether anyone was in the
house, was answered by a musket ball. Hark and several others were
shot from their mounts in the succession of blasts that followed, and
Nat, whirling his horse about, fled back up the lane with the rem-
nant of his cavalry. The wounded Hark was taken prisoner. along
with Moses Barrow, who was found a little later hiding in the gar-
den. One of the rebels lay dead near the house.”

In company with Will Francis and others, Nat doubled back
toward Newit Harris’s, raided the day before, but arrived there to
find a group of armed white men. Amid a hail of fire, the rebels
scattered for cover, Nat and two of his men taking shelter in a woods
to await darkness. Believing that he had been deserted by the rest
of his band, the rebel general now gave up any idea of quick recovery
and turned his thoughts to a plan for reclaiming fugitive cohorts,

It was unfortunate for Nat that he was unable to make contact
later in the day with one or both of two groups still carrying the
banner of rebellion across the Southampton countryside. One of
these was a small force that appears to have emerged independently
under the leadership of William “Billy” Artis, a tall, light-skinned
free Negro.’ Artis, with his wife Cherry arfd two boys, had appeared
around noon on Tuesday at the farm of the late Benjamin Biunt and
solicited slaves Ben and Luke Blunt to join him in revolt. Luke
declined, but Ben joined and was still with them in midafternoon
when they passed the place again in company with Thomas Haith-
cock and a third boy. Luke later testified that he saw Artis on the

88 Southampton County

house where he had gone to warn Mrs. Francis and was shot dead
in his tracks. **

Servants reported that Nathaniel Francis had gone to the Travis
place, to which he had been followed by his mother, and the appar-
ent escape of Lavinia Francis, his nineteen-year-old wife. But
Lavinia, some eight months pregnant, had been hidden by her
servant Nelson as the insurgents burst in. Several of the rebels
entered the closet where she was hiding, but a hurried search failed
to detect her under a pile of blankets and clothes. The farm, how-
ever, yielded more guns and horses, and three. of Francis’s slaves—
Nathan, Tom, and Davy—were lined up and marched away in the
train of the flying vanguard.* Dred, another of Francis’s Negroes,
needed no such coercion before casting his lot with the fate of the
rebellion. *

Racing northeastward, the first detachment struck the Peter
Edwards farm, where again the whites had received enough notice
‘Oo escape. Several new recruits, including Sam, Austin, and Jim
dwards,” were enrolled as the detachment remounted rapidly and
moved off toward J. Thomas Barrow’s. Their haste this time was
-ewarded, for Barrow, though apprized of the danger, had refused
‘o believe it and thus “fell a victim to his own incredulity.”

The raid on Barrow’s gave rise to a scene of martyrdom that
vould be enshrined in white legend down through the years. Bar-
ow fired his musket through a window at the first rider to approach
he house and then rushed to an adjacent room for his rifle. As the
ebels broke down the front door, Barrow ordered his wife to flee
und cracked the stock of his gun over the first assailant to reach
um.” While her husband struggled, Mrs. Barrow ran out, only to
»e caught and held by her servant girl Lucy. But another slave
voman came to her aid, and Mrs. Barrow somehow made good her
scape. Her husband was killed, but his stout resistance was ee to
iave led the rebels to declare that they hoped they would neet “no
nore Tom Barrows” in the cpurse of their march.” A few moments
ater they killed George Vaughan, Mrs. Barrow’s brother, whom
hey inet as he returned to the Barrow farm from a morning fox
iunt,’

The rebels left Barrow’s only minutes ahead of Nat Turner who,
crambling forward with his first detachment, bypassed the Francis

ce

The Southhampton Rebellion &9

farm and arrived too late at Peter Edwards’s. When he finally over-
took the first group at Capt. Newit Harris’s a little past 10 a.M.,
he was informed that here again the white family had escaped
injury due to advance warning.”

Nat rode into the Harris yard amid a chorus of shouts and huz-
zahs from his elated ranks, now amounting to some: forty men.™
But the rebel chieftain probably shared little of the high spirit of
his followers. Even his charging vanguard had not been able to over-
take the spreading alarm. The flames of terror and disorder among
the whites could be kept raging only by the fuel of indiscriminate
slaughter. Without the disorder, the hundreds of black recruits
needed for victory would not find the heart to trust their lives to the
cause. As Nat evaluated his situation at Harris’s, he may have
recognized that the offensive phase of his campaign had failed to
attain the momentum necessary to sustain it. It remained to find
some stronghold where he might fight off the enemies soon to attack
him and seek to rally the uncommitted slaves of the countryside
to support the rebellion.

Directing his army eastward from Harris’s along the Barrow road,
Nat struck off toward the intersection of that route with the road
from Cross Keys to Jerusalem. A dramatic descent on the county
seat, with the seizure of sizable stores of munitions, food, and other
supplies, would sustain the morale of his troops and give to all blacks
who heard of it a surge of hope that deliverance was possible at last.
Or so it may have seemed in the desperation born of Nat Turner’s
growing awareness of the disaster that loomed ahead.

Perihelion

Three miles west of Newit Harris’s, Nat’s flying advanced guard

swooped down on the farm of Levi Waller, which was to be the scene
of the most devastating raid of the uprising. Waller was at work at
his still around 10 a.m. when information was brought to him that
the rebels were nearby.* The erratic behavior of the man in the
next half hour forms a bizarre footnote to a day of astonishing

events.
A quarter mile distant from Waller’s still was a boarding school

90 Southampton County

Where the teacher, William Crocker, was apparently supervising
a recess period. Waller, whose own youngest children were at the
school, sent his son Thomas to summon teacher and pupils to the
dwelling for protection. Crocker arrived with the children to find
Waller busily engaged at the still and was advised by him to pro-
ceed to the house and load the guns. When Crocker rushed back a
short time later to report that the rebels were in sight, he found
Waller still engrossed in the brandy works. Both men, however oe
sought whatever safety they could find, Waller falling among siate
weeds in a corner of ‘the garden. His flight was observed by Dred
Francis and other rebel horsemen who, coming near the fence. failed
to detect him in his concealment. Waller subsequently attributed
his luck to the rebels’ attention being diverted by another, who
proved to be his Negro blacksmith, Alfred.*

While the slaughter at his house progressed, Waller was able to
make his way from the garden to a swamp some distance farther
away, but he had now become severely unhinged. After a brief inter-
val he returned to a spot among some currant bushes within sixty
yards of the house. Here, a bemused spectator, Waller was cee
enough to identify Daniel and Aaron Porter and Sam Francis as
they entered the house where his wife was killed and emerged with
Sam carrying Mrs. Waller’s scissors. ** He saw his own Nesro Davy
Waller, appear on the scene, change into clean clothes em with:
the raiders, and ride off with them “in great glee,” ead was later
able to recount the role of Nelson Edwards in knocking out the
brains of a member of the Waller family with a musket. “This man,”
it was reported a week later, “is now raving distracted—he er
about saying how they killed them!! and then shakes his sides and
laughs!!!?*"

Waller’s derangement, however, was only temporary. As an in-
valuable witness in the insurrection trials, he testified that he re-
turned to the house after the rebels left and found the bodies of his
wife and the ten schoolchiJdren stacked in.agrisly pile inside. He
was evidently too distracted, however, to notice that one of the chil-
dren, though gravely wounded, was not dead.* He also overlooked
twelve-year-old Clarinda Jones, who had taken refuge in the dirt
chimney of a log-house dependency while her sister Lucinda was
being killed. Some hours later, Waller was to confirm the doleful
tidings of rebellion at the town of Murfreesboro.

ws

The Southhampton Rebellion 91

From Waller’s the insurgents pressed eastward to the Wilhlam
Williams farm three miles farther along the route to Jerusalem.
Here they fell upon Williams and two boys, Miles and Henry John-
son, at work in a fodder field.” Mrs. Williams witnessed the execu-
tion of these three from the house and managed to run some distance
before being caught by one of the rebels, who placed her behind
him on his horse and brought her back to the point where her hus-
band’s body lay. She was ordered to lie down beside the corpse
and, when she did so, was shot to death.

‘Shortly before noon the insurgents reached the farm of Jacob
Williams, uncle of William Williams, a short distance farther east.
Williams had gone to the woods to measure some timber, but Edwin
Drewry, overseer on a nearby farm, had arrived a few minutes
earlier and was loading corn with the help of a Negro slave when
he glanced up and exclaimed: “Lord, who is that coming?’’*! Mo-
ments later he was run down and shot while other rebels went to
the dwelling and killed his wife and three children. At overseer Cas-
well Worrell’s house nearby, Mrs. Worrell and her child were also
killed.

A quarter mile northwest the raiders, joined by Jacob Williams’s
slave Nelson,* struck the home of Mrs. Rebecca Vaughan. Mrs.
Vaughan, standing on her porch, saw the “great dust in the dis-
tance” and asked a female servant what it could mean. She ran
inside the house when she recognized the danger, but the rebels
dismounted in her yard and surrounded the house, aiming their
guns at the doors and windows. The frightened woman appeared
at a window pleading to purchase her life with all of her possessions
but was immediately shot. Ann Eliza Vaughan, eighteen-year-old |
niece of Mrs. Vaughan, rushed from upstairs to be met and slain
by Marmaduke, a stalwart rebel.“ Arthur, Mrs. Vaughan’s fifteen-

year-old son, believed to have thought his brother had returned
from Jerusalem, ran up from the stillhouse to investigate and was
shot as he came over the fence. Moses Barrow, a slave of Tom Bar-
row, was recruited near the Vaughan farm, to which he had been
sent, as he later testified, “to see what the news was

Reaching the intersection of the Cross Keys—Jerusalem highway,
Nat wheeled his hurtling column to the northeast in the direction
of the county seat, four miles distant. Half a mile farther along, the
insurgents came to the lane gate of James W. Parker’s farm. Nat

240 Notes

3. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 104; Southampton County Minute Book
1811-1816, p. 142, microfilm copy in VSL; Robert Arnold, The Dismal Swamp aut
Lake Drummond (Norfolk: Evening Telegram, 1888; rept. Murfreesboro, N.C.:
Johnson Publishing Co., 1969), p. 52.
"4. The Intelligencer (Petersburg, Va.), May 11, 1804; American Beacon (Norfolk)
Oct. 7, 1830; American Turf Regtster and Sporting Magazine 2. (Sept. 1830): 46.

5. Lewis, “Nineteenth Century Horses and Horsemen,” pp. 4, 2.

6. North Carolina Chronicle (Murfreesboro, N.C.), April 21, 1827. The marriage
was performed in Murfreesboro.

7. Barrow, Circular Letter, p. 11.

8. Ibid., -p.. 4.

9. Ibid., pp. 8, 13, 5.

10. Edenton Gazette (Edenton, N.C.), Dec. 9, 1830.

11. “Historical Sketch,” p. 71, typescript in Edgar A. Jackson Papers, South-
ampton County Historical Society, Boykins, Va. oo

12. Petitions no. 6939 (Clements Rochelle, Dec. 3, 1817), no. 7214 (Clements
Rochelle and Benjamin W. Johnson, Dec. 14, 1818), Legislative Petitions, VSL.

13. Virginius Cornick Hall, Jr., “Virginia Post Offices, 1798-1859,” Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography 81 (Jan. 1973): 77; Southampton County Minute
Book. 1810-1624, deed of Tyler Edwards to John Marchant, p. 513, Southampton
Courty Court Records, Clerk's Office, Courtland, Va.

14. Nelson M. Blake, William Mahone of Virginia, Soldier and Political Insurgent
(Richmond: Garrett & Massie, 1935), passim; Diary of Dr. Thomas O’Dwyer, Jan.
97, 1825, Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill, N.C.

15. “Another Congressman Named Gray,” typescript in Edgar B. Jackson
Papers, Southampton County Historical Society, Boykins, Va. The account is
based on the Biographical Directory of the American Congress. ; .

16. See, e.g., Beth G. Crabtree, North Carolina Governors, 1585-1968 (Raleigh:
Department of Archives and History, 1968), pp. 59-60, 66-67, and Samuel A.
Ashe and others, eds., Biographical History of North Carolina (8 vols., Greensboro,
N.C.: Charles L. Van Noppen, 1906), 3: 412-14. . .

17. Douglas Summers Brown, Historical and Biographical Sketches of Greensville
County, Virginia, 1650-1967 (Richmond: Whittet and Shepperson, 1968), pp.
120-23.

8. Ibid., p. 126.

a “First School Commissioners, 1818,” typescript in Edgar B. Jackson Fapers;
Southampton Co. Hist. Soc.; “Report of the School Commissioners, 1831, sci
Dec. 27, 1831, Judgments, Box 28 (L-W), Southampton County Court Recor s,
VSL. Teachers listed for the Year were, besides ‘those mentioned in the text,
Josiah Joyner, Nathan Walker, Joseph Pretlow, William Blow, Richa rd oo
William Stephens, Samuel Drake, George G. Gurley, Jere. Stephenson, oa
Harris, Miles Spivey, Thomas Harris, Samuel H. Holmes, Thomas J. Brister,
Eliza Lightfoot, and Lewis W. Cobb. die

20. Fidenate News (Franklin, Va.), Dec. 30, 1949. Denegre’s letter was written
from St. Paul, Minn., in 1895.

be
at

be

- eemmanamanamnie |
pote heey S

lh 0 ih ie hms ip ertatpmranbcha

1 PR hn sy

Notes oa 24]

21. Journal of Elliott L. Story, vol. 1 (1838-1840), in possession of F. Story
Cutchin, Franklin, Va.; see summary for year 1832 in opening pages of this volume.
John Timothee Trezevant, The Trezevant Family in the United States (Columbia,
S.C.: State Company, 1914), p. 25.

22. Story Journal, vol. 1, Dec. 14, 1838, vol. 3. Feb. 22, 1842:

23. Ibid. vol. 5, April 9, 1847.

24. Ibid., Vol. 3, March 16, 1843, vol. 5, Jan. 27, 1848.

25. Minutes, Virginia Portsmouth Association. for 1791, 1797, 1801, 1810, 1820.
and 1831, Xerox copies in possession of Prof. Donald G. Mathews, University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Joshua Leigh, Meherrin Circuit Steward’s Book
(1839-1881), pp. 110-18, MS in possession of Southampton County Hist. Soc.
Courtland, Va.; Durward 17. Stokes and William T. Scott, 4 History of the Christian
Church in the South (Burlington, N.C.: United Church of Christ, 1975). 31; “Hebron
Baptist Church,” pp. 5-6; Tidewater News (Franklin, Va.), April 29, 1926.

26. “The Church at Black Creek in Southampton County, Minute Book, 1783-
1804,” typescript in possession of Prof. Donald G. Mathews, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill; Black Creek Church Minute Book (1818-1882), entry for
Sept. 22, 1820, Virginia Bapust Historical Society, Richmond.

27. Black Creek Church Minute Book (1818-1882), entry for fourth Sunday in
December, 1825

28. Ibid., entry for fourth Sunday in December, 1827. |

29. David Barrow, Involuntan, Unmerited, Perpetual, Absolute, Heredity Slazery,
Examined, on the Principles of Nature, Reason, Justice, Policy, and Scripture (Lexington,
Ky., 1808), pp. 43-44.

30. Ibid., p. 41. .

31. Black Creek Church Minute Book (1818-1882), entry for fourth Sunday
in September, 1831.

Chapter 5: Element of Surprise

1. Palmer, Calendar of Virginia’ State Papers 6: 452-53, 488-89, 524, 571-72; North
Carolina Journal (Halifax, N.C.), Sept. 17, Oct. 30, Dec. 22, 1794.

2. Southampton County Minute Book, 1799-1803. entries for Oct. 25, Nov.
20, 1799, microfilm copy in VSL. Whether the executions actually took place is
not certain. Following the convictions, a lengthy jurisdictional issue arose between
authorities in Virginia and Maryland. Defendant Sam died in jail during this
period. See H. W. Flournoy, ed., Calendar of Virginia*State Papers and Other Manu-
scripts from Janvary 1, 1799 to December 31, 1807; Preserved in the Capitol at Richmond
(11 vols., Richmond: James E. Goode, 1890), 9: 51, 52.

3. Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York: Internationa!
Publishers, 1943), pp. 219-26.

+ Southampton County Court Judgments, Box A-2, 1797-1830, entry for Oct.
4, 1800, Southampton County Court Records, VSL.

242 Note:

5. Columbian Centinel (Boston), Dec. 8, 1801; Virginia Argus (Richmond), Jan. 15,
(802; James Monroe to Virginia Assembly. Jan. 16, 1802, Frank Carn to Monroe
Jan. 19, 1802, Thomas M. Bayley to Monroe, Jan. 19, 1802, Executive Papers,
VSL; Monroe to John Harris, Jan. 23, 1802, Executive Letter Book, Oct. 5, 1800-
Oct. 18, 1803, p. 247, microfilm copy in VSL-

6. James Gee to William Amis, Feb. 1802, William R. Davie to Gov. Benjamin
Withams, Feb. 4, 1802, Governor's Letter Book, 14 (1799-1802): 64-68, Division of
Archives and History, Raleigh.

7. “J.L.” to “the Representative of the lower Company,” enclosure in William
R. Davie to Gov. Williams, Feb. +, 1802, ibid.

8. William R. Davie to Gov. Williams, Feb. 1802, ibid.

9. Flournoy, Calendar of State Papers 9: 279-80.

10. Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), Feb. 22, 1802.

11. Minute Book, 1799-1803, entries for May 18, July 30, Aug. 10, 1802.

12. Court Orders, Halifax County, April 23, April 26, 1802, microfilm copy in
VSL; Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), May 19, 1802; Commonwealth
‘. Paul Thilman’s Glasgow and Tom, May 5, 1802, Thomas Roane to James
\fonroe, April 12, 1802, John B. Scott to Monroe, April 30, 1802, Executive
Papers; The Intelligencer (Petersburg, Va.), July 6, 1802.

13. John B. Scott to James Monroe, April 21, 1802, Richard Corbin to Monroe,
\pril 23, 1802, Executive Papers.

14. Commonwealth vy, William Farrer’s Arthur, May 17, 1802, ibid.: Thomas C,
?arramore, “The Great Slave Conspiracy,” The State 39 (Aug. 15, 1971): 7-10, 19.

15. Those executed in Virginia included two in Nottoway, five in Halifax, two
n Brunswick, and one in Norfolk. There were unconfirmed reports of others killed
vr executed in Orange and elsewhere. The North Carolina executions included
leven in Bertie, one in Hertford, two in Currituck, four in Camden, one in Perqui
aans, one in Halifax, and two in Martin. There were also reports of executions in
Vashington, Edgecomb, and elsewhere.

16. Flournoy, Calendar of Virginia State Pzpers 9: 307-8.

17. F. Nash Boney, “The Blue Lizard: Another View of Nat Turner's Country
n the Eve of the Rebellion.” Pylon 31 (Winter 1970): 353-55.

18. North Carolina Free Press (Halifax, N.C.), Mav .7, 1824; Norfolk and Portsmouth
‘feraid (Norfolk), June 14, 1824; The Minerva (Halifax, N.C.), May 7, 1824.

19. Petition of Anthony (Dec. 20, 1826), Legislative Petitions, VSL.

20, Eighth Annual Report of the American Society for Colunizing the Free People of Colour
| the United States (1825), p. 32. The chapter was formed in August 1824 by William
VicKenney.

21. Emigration Register (Cyrus, 1824), microfilm copy in Records of the
\merican Colonization Society, sef. V1, vol. 15, Library of Congress, Washington,
‘J.C. See also registers for the Hunter (1825) and Valador (1830). :

22. Sixty-second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society with the Ad mnules
‘the Annual Meeting and of the Board of Directors, January 21 and 22, 1879 (Washington,
).C., 1879), p. 11; Sexty-ninth Annual Report of the American Colonization Society, p. 6.

23. Charles Morrow Wilson, The Dred Scott Decision (Philadelphia: Auerback
*ublishers, 1973), pp. 3-4.

ot tal

Notes | . | 24 3

24. Peter Blow and wife Elizabeth to Robert Nicholson, Oct. 20, 1818, South-
ampton Couity Deed Book. 21: 154, Clerk’s Office, Courtland, Va. This 860-
acre tract was adjacent the head of Gum Branch and bounded by lands of Thomas
Ridley, Mary Jarrell, Samuel! Blunt, Edwin Reese, Nathaniel Simmons, -and
Benjamin Lewis.

25. Wilson, Dred Scott Decision pp. 5-14.

26. Ibid., pp. 18-90; Bruce Catton, “Black Pawn on a Field of Peril,” American
Heritage 15 (Dec. 1963): 90.

27. The Courter (Charleston, S.C.), Aug. 16, 1831; Benjamin Hollowell, “The
Solar Phenomenon,” Christian Advocate 9 (Sept. 1831): 489-90.

28. Quoted in Afimers’ and Farmers’ Journal (Charlotte, N.C), Aug. 31, 1831.

29. The Courter (Charleston, S.C.), Aug. 16, 1831; quoted in Miners’ and Farmers’
Journal (Charlotte, N.C.), Aug. 31, Aug. 21, 1831.

30. The Courter (Charleston, S.C.), Aug. 16, 1831.

31. Quoted in Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, Ohio), Sept. 7, 1831.

32. Star, and North Carolina Gazette (Raleigh, N.C.), Aug. 18, 1831.

33. Ibid.; Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, Ohio), Sept. 7, 1831.

34. Thomas R. Gray, “The Confessions of Nat Turner . .. In Henry Irving
Tragle, The Southampton Slave Revolt (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,
1971), p. 310,

35. Ibid., p. 306; see n. 4 above. Nat refers in his confession to his grandmother:
and his first owner, Benjamin ‘Turner, as key religious influences in his early life,
besides “other religious persons who visited the house, and whom I often saw at
prayers.”

36. Richmond Enquirer, Sept. 30, 1831. According to this source, Nat’s baptism
had occurred “more than four years ago.” Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner.”
p. 310.

37. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 310.

38. Drewry, The Southampton Insurrection, frontispiece map.

39. Southampton County Marnage Register, 2: 402, Southampton County
Court Records, Clerk's Office, Courtland, Va. The marriage bond is dated Oct.
5, 1829. See also F. Roy Johnson, The Nat Turner Story (Murfreesboro, N.C.: Johnson
Publishing Co., 1970), p. 67.

+0. Johnson, Nat Turner Story, pp. 67, 54, 45; Southampton County Will Book,
9:254, Southampton County Court Records, Clerk’s Office, Courtland, Va.

41. Religious Herald (Richmond), Sept. 2, 1831. This is a letter from Jerusalem,
dated Aug. 27, 1831. “It is an aggravation of the crime perpetrated,” says the
writer, “that the owners of slaves in the county are distinguished for lenity and
humanity. Cotton and corn are the staples here, and tle labor of attendjng then:
is trifling compared with what is necessary in other parts of the state.”

42. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Sept. :26, 1831: Gray, “Confessions of Nat
Turner,” p. 308.

43. Samuc! Warner, “Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical
Seene..,” in tragle, Southampton Siave Revolt, p. 240. Warner’s authorities included
newspaper sources and at least one correspondent from the afflicted area. His
source for stating that Nat’s wife belonged to “Mr. Reese” is not cited. This woman

Se RW a le elt de a

120 Southampton County

at the end of 1830, but he was not to hold so consequential an office
again. He occupied for a time the positions of overseer of the poor
and commissioner of Indian lands in Southampton,” but both were
offices to which he was appointed before his financial collapse in
1830 and 1831.

In the fall of 1839 Gray moved to Portsmouth,” and there, in the
summer of 1845, he fell mortally ill with bilious (or congestive) fever.
He was heralded to the grave by an anonymous eulogist who
acknowledged “the impetuosity of his temper” and conceded that
the deceased had been “a scoffer at religion.” The obituary, strik-
ingly out of character with the panegyrics customary on such occa-
sions, drew a harsh sketch of its subject. “Whatever were his faults,”
the writer began, “there was in the character of the deceased much
to admire and much that was worthy of esteem.” After directing
attention to Gray’s lack of malice or “vindictive passion,” the writer
made a gallant effort to praise the “independence and fearlessness
of {his] mind, which disdained alike concealment and restraint—
what he tho’t on any subject. as of any individual, that he said,

whether in or out of his presence.” The latter trait, unhappily, was:

sometimes “misdirected,” and it was a “reflection deeply painful
to his friends, that he invaded with unhallowed lips the sanctuary of
religion,”

His last day on earth was Saturday, August 23, 1845—fourteen
vears and a day since Nat Turner had swung the hatchet that gave
the institution of slavery its mightiest jolt. Like the black prophet
whose confessions he had broadcast to the world, Thomas R. Gray
had been a rebel. But confrontation with death had drawn a sharp
distinction between the rebel against an earthly master and the rebel
against the divine. Nat Turner, boldly owning the full scope of his
leadership in the revolt, spurning an opportunity to offer words of
contrition at the gallows, had “in a firm voice” “hurried his execu-
tioner in the performance of his duty” and entered eternity “with
the utmost composure”—“not a limb nor a muscle was observed to
move.” _ ° , :

But Gray, summoning in his final hours Rev. Mr. Eskridge of the
Episcopal church, had chosen to offer what his eulogist deemed a
“contrition .. . as sincere as its evidences were impressive”: “I have
been (said he to the Rev. Pastor) the vilest of sinners and nothing

“

Requiem jor a God-fearing Man 121

could have awakened me to a knowledge of my lost condition, but
a blow like that which struck Saul of Tarsus to the earth. O, that I
could be permitted to go abroad but for an hour. I would cover my-
self with dust and ashes and cry aloud to sinners to repent and flee

the wrath to come!”

The souls of saint and sinner flew forth to face the judgment of a
righteous God, who alone in all creation was certain which was
which. But there had been a period of a few days in the autumn of
1831 when Nat Turner and Thomas R. Gray conspired to create the
most compelling document in the history of black resistance to
slavery. Despite the stilted prose in which Nat’s confession was
clothed by the young attorney, it was the vein of compassion and
identity he felt that gave the account its enduring power and haunt-
ing validity. Nat’s literary legacy to unborn generations was made
possible by the chance that brought to his prison cell perhaps the
only educated man in Southampton County who was prepared to
appreciate the prophet’s calm assurance that what he had done
was what had to be. If the Confesstons may be said to have sounded
the death knell of American slavery, it was Nat who swung the gong
and Gray whose resonant metal rent the air.


244 Notes

has been tentatively identified by F. Roy Johnson, Nat Turner Story, p. 54, as Cherry,
who belonged first to Samuel Turner’s estate and afterward to that of Giles
Reese. On this question, see Southampton County Accounts, 1819-1831 (I-O),
Box 41, Southampton County Court Records, VSL. A document pertaining to the
estate of Thomas Moore cites money owing to the estate for the purchase of slaves
Hark, Sam, “girl Charry,” and “Mariah and child.” The present writer supposes
that Mariah and child are as readily identifiable as Nat’s wife (and child) as
Cherry, and perhaps more so since Cherry was still a girl in 1830. Hark, in this list,
is evidently Hark Travis, while Sam may be identical with Sam Francis.

44. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 310; Johnson, Nat Turner Story, p. 67.

45. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 310.

46. American Beacon (Norfolk), July 19, 1831. A sizable gathering of celebrants
congregated at Buckhorn Chapel in Hertford County. They included S. Jordan
Wheeler, Solon Borland, and others who would assist in quelling the revolt seven
weeks later. Presumably there were similar gatherings throughout the area.

47. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 310.

48. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 75; The Globe (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 27,
1831.

49, Johnson, Nat Turner Story, p. 85

3). Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 310. It was Nat’s habit to hold him-
self somewhat apart from fellow slaves in order to enhance his impression of a
special mission in life.

51. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 8, 1831, “Verbatim Record of the Trials,” in Tragle,
Southampton Slave Revolt, p. 195.

32. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 311; “Record of Trials,” pp. 220, 196.
Moses Travis testified that Jack came to the Travis house Sunday night com-
plaining of illness, “was in the kitchen when the witness went to sleep—and when
the witness awoke a few hours after the prisoner was in the yard sick.”

53. Johnson, Nat Turner Story, p. 90.

54. Christian Advocate and Journal and Zion’s Herald (New York), Sept. 9, 1831. Rev.
Mr. Powell stated that his own “niece and nephew” were the first two families
attacked. He evidently was referring to Mrs. Joseph Travis and her brother,
Salathiel Francis. Drewry, Southampion Insurrection, pp. 42-43.

55. David Walker, Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; .. . Written in Boston, State of

Massachusetts, Sept. 28, 1829 (Boston, 1830).
56. The Liberator (Boston), Jan. 15, 1831.

Chapter 6: The Southampton Rebellion

1. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 311.
2 [bid. See also Constitutional Ware | Richmond), Sept. 26, 1831, which says that
“one blow seems to have sufficed for the two little boys, who were sleeping © clos:

one blow nearly severed each neck.”

sg sar as) Aelia aaa tc A RENE SY sein Sine rc ibi R om

Notes 845

3. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 311. Nat told Gray that they found
four guns that would shoot, besides “several old muskets, with a pound or two
of powder.”

4. “Record of Trials,” p. 220. Moses testified that he was “compelled to go with
the insurgents.” A further military gesture was the apparent designation of titles
of rank for leaders of the company. Nat is said to have used the names “Gen. Jack-
son” (Raleigh Register and North-Carolina Gazette, Sept. 18, 1831) or “Gen. Cargill”
(Richmond Compiler, Sept. 3, 1831). Hark Travis became “Capt. Moore,” adopting
the surname of his former master (Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 30, 1831), while Henry
Porter (the “paymaster” of the rebels) and Nelson Edwards became, respectively,
“Gen. Porter” and “Gen. Nelson” (American Beacon [Norfolk], Aug. 29, 1831)
Evidence showed that Davy Waller was known to fellow rebels as “brother
Clements” (“Record of Trials,” p. 19-4). “Their banner was a red-cross in a white
field.” wrote one source. “Some of the wretches wore red caps, and others had
their hats ornamented with red bands of various materials” (Constitutional Whig
[Richmond], Sept. 8, 1851).

5. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 311. Francis is cited as brother-in-law
of Mrs. Travis by Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 38.

6. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 311. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection,
p. 38, alleges that the letter was supposed to be from Nathaniel Francis.

7. Federal Census, 1830, Southampton County, p. 260. microfilm cops. ai
Division of Archives and History, Raleigh. Postmaster Theodore Trezevant
reported on Sept. 5 that the rebels “recruited their force at Francis’s” (letter in
Raleigh Register, Sept. +, 1831).

8. Petition no. 9915-D (Piety Reese, Dec. 29, 1831), Legislative Petitions, VSL.

3. Court Notes in trial of Moses Barrow, Southampton County Judgments,
Box 28, 1820-1841, Southampton County Court Records, VSL (hereafter cited as
Court Notes). These rough notes represent the summaries of statements made to
officers of the court by both witnesses and participants in the rebellion. Some were
entered verbatim into the court minute book, some in slightly altered form, and
some were not entered. In this instance the statement asserts that#*Mrs. New-
some . . . was sister of [Hark’s] master.” See also Southampton County Minute
Book, 1830-1835, p. 121, Clerk’s Office, Courtland, Va., for reference to Mrs.”
Newsome (or Newsom) as widow of James B. Newsom(e).

10. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 311.

11. “Record of Trials,” p. 185. Moses Travis testified that Davy was at Mrs.
Turner’s when the rebels arrived there and that Davy was told “that if he did not
join them he would die there.” See Court Notes for allegation against Jack and
Shadrack, slaves of Elizabeth Turner, that on Aug. 30 they gave aid to Sam Turner
and received {rom him a gold watch and “a large sum of money” which he had
“received by robbery during the insurrection” and tried to use to insure his “own
escape and safety.” See Petition no. 9915-—E (distributees of Elizabeth Turner, Dec.
9G, 1831), Legislative Petitions, for reference to Jordan Turner having “united
himself with the Insurgents.”


246 Notes

12. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 312; Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 30, 1831;
Vorfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Aug. 26, 1831. For identification of Bry-
ant’s wife’s name as Sally, see Minute Book, 1830-1835, p. 113.

13. “Record of Trials,” p. 207. Nat was initially listed as a slave of Edwin
Lurner’s estate, but the entry was corrected in Minute Book, 1830-1835, p..153.

l4. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Aug. 26, 1831. For identification
of Mrs. Williams's name as Louisa, see Minute Book, 1830-1835, p. 104.

15. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 45. Drewry’s account, though based on
oral tradition, would explain Francis’s absence from home.

16. “Record of Trials,” pp. 196-97. Jack was at first identified as belonging to
William Reese, but the error was corrected to read Joseph William Reese in
Minute Book, 1830-1835, p. 127.

17. Court Notes, concerning trials of Jack and Andrew Whitehead. This docu-
ment summarizes Tom Whitehead’s account of his own flight from and return to

the farm.

18. Ibid , concerning trial of Thomas Haithcock. A white witness mentioned
visiting Haithcock’s house on Aug. 26 and finding two blankets which were
identified by Mrs. Haithcock as having been left there by Andrew and Jack,
who “rode on them the Monday morning after the insurrection.” See also “Record
of Trials,” p. 182.

19. “Record of Trials.” pp. 180, 181.

20. Gray, “Confessions of Nat turner.” p. 313. Decapitations and other forms of

,=

afl,

Srutality were widely reported from the scenes of slaughter. In addition, O. M.
smith, writing from Sussex County, a few miles from the scene of disturbance,
10 the New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Sept. 14, 1831, reported that “in the course
4 the murders, one negro singled out a father, & requested of the others the
orivilege of killing him tn his own way. He took him and then threw him down,
put his knee upon his breast. and stuck him like a pig. The negro after being
taken was stuck in the same way.”

21. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner.” p. 312; “Record of Trials,” p. 207. Doyel’s
iame is often rendered Doyle, but see his signature in Petition no. 8402, Legislative
Petitions.

22. Petition no. 9803 (Richard Porter, Dec. 12, 1831), Legislative Petitions.
Porter states that Jacob was aged 22 and Moses 19. See also “Record of Trials,”
pp. 177-79, for trial of Daniel.

23. Southampton County Minute Book, 1824-1830 (Sept. 21, 1829), Clerk’s
Office, Courtland, Va., contains a record of Nathaniel Francis’s appointment as
guardian to Samuel and John L. Brown. See also Drewry, Southampton Insur-
rection, p. 47, for the purported ages of the boys. They were orphans of Thomas D.
Brown.

24. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. +7. Contemporary lists of victims agice
in including Francis’s overseer, but I know none that gives the man’s name.

25. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 318; “Record of Trials,” pp. 200 201.
[he three were said to be “not more than 15” years old.

26. “Record of Trials,” pp. 198-99.

Ae

ore ve Res ears iba Oe MEE A AA Ae Ba Mheniins pol oss alga

Notes 247

27. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” pp. 312-13; Petition no. 9804-A (Peter
Edwards, Dec. 12, 1831), Legislative Petitions. Edwards gives Austin’s age as 19,
Jim’s as 22. For the role of Sam Edwards, see “Record of Trials,” pp. 217-19.

28: Carolina Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.), Sept. 17, 1831.

29. Samuel Warner, “An Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragica!
Scene ...,” in Tragle, Southampton Slave Revolt, pp. 283-84. This account was pub-
lished in New York in 1831. :

30. “Record of Trials,” p. 208; Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Sept. 26, 1831.

31. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Aug. 29, 1831; Drewry, Southampton Insur-
rection, pp. 51-52. 3

32. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 313.

33. Ibid. ee

34. “Record of Trials.” p. 221. Waller testified that it was “between 9 and 10
o’clock” when he “heard that the negroes had risen.”

35. Court Notes, statement by Levi Waller.

36. [bid., in case of Daniel Porter. Waller’s testimony was that Daniel “caine ou:
of the house with the Scissors of his wife.”

37. “Record of Trials,” pp. 194, 232: Waller, witness in Davy’s trial, asserted
that Davy was called “brother Clements” by the other rebels. Petition no. 9804-A
(Peter Edwards, Dec. 12, 1831), Legislative Petitions; see Waller’s affirmation
accompanying this petition; New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Scpt 4. 1825

38. “Record ot Trials,” p. 178. In Daniel Porter’s trial, Waller test:'Sed thos ne
returned to the house and “found his wife and the small girl murdered as weli as
many other members of his family and an infant child mortally wounded who Jied
Wednesday evening following.” The Constitutional Whig (Richmond), on Aug. 29,
reported that a child at Waller’s had been “cruelly wounded’and left for dead, and
probably will not survive.” It does not appear that Waller sought aid for the child.

39. Constituttonal Whig (Richmond), Aug. 26, 1831 ; John Hill Wheeler, Hisiorical
Sketches of North Carolina, from 1584 to 1851 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Granbo and
Co., 1851), p. 210. Wheeler, a Murfreesboro attorney in 1831, stated: “Well does
the writer recollect Levi Waller ruaning into town, and describing with painful
effort that his wife and ten children (one at the breast) were murdered.”

40. Gray, “Confessions of Nat,Turner,” p. 313; Drewry, Southgmpton Insurrection,
p. 99.

41. “Record of Trials,” pp. 193-94.

42. Ibid., p. 194. Nelson Williains, executed for his role in the revolt, has bern
incorrectly identified by historians with Nelson Edwards, one of Nat's origina!
conspirators. An examination of the trial record of Nelson Williams indicates
the strong likelihood that he had nothing to do with the rebellion before the
rebels reached his master’s farm. See also Petition no. 9804-A (Peter Edwards, Dec.
12, 1831), Legislative Petitions, where Nelson Edwards is described in terms more
nearly compatible with the original conspirator.

43. The Liberator (Boston), Sept. 17, 1831; Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Sept.
3, Aug. 29, 1851. Miss Vaughan may have been the ‘“‘young lady of 17 years of age,

who... was to have been the day following united in marriage to a young gentle-


'50 Notes

80. Petersburg Intelligencer, Aug. 26, 1831; Harper, Mason, and (Cummings? to
‘ov. Stokes, Aug. 29, 1831, Governor’s Letter Book, 30 (June 1-Oct. 31, 1831).
81. Richmond Compiler, Aug. 27, 1831; American Beacon (Norfolk), Aug. 29, 1831,
inchburg Virginian, Sept. 8, 1831; Ralergh Register, Sept. 5, 1831; Constitutional Whig

tichmond), Sept. 3, 1831.

82. Christian Advocate and Zion’s Heraid (New York.), Sept. 9, 1831; R. S. Parke:
» Mrs. Maney, Aug. 29, 1831, John Kimberly Papers, Southern Hist. Collection;
he Globe (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 9, 1831; North Carolina Free Press (Tarboro),
vag. 30, 1831.

83. Borland to Gov. Stokes, Sept. 18, 1831, Governor's Letter Book, 30 (1830-31);
..S. Parker to Mrs. Maney, Aug. 29, 1831, John Kimberly Papers, Southern Hist.
‘ollection.

84. American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (New York: Amer-
an Anti-slavery Society, 1839), p. 91.

85. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Aug. 29, 1831.

86. See n. 38 above.

87. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 318; Drewry, Southampton Insurrection,
9. 43-44. . .

88. The only source to mention any other casualty at Piety Reese’s besides her-
lf and son William is the Religious Heraid (Richmond), Sept. 2, 1831, which lists
ie name “Barham” there. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 40, tells of one James

umer (or Balmer?), overseer for Mrs. Reese, who was attacked and left for dead

y the rebels, but later recovered. Barham and Barmer may be the same.

89. American Beacon (Norfolk), Aug. 30, 1831. The list of victims here includes
ie Felts girls, who may have been among the pupils killed at Levi Waller’s. Tins
tin the Religwus Heracd (Richmond . Sept. 2, 1831, includes Mrs. Dovel and
wob Williams.

), Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Nortolk’. Aug. 31, 1831.

91. See n. 43, chap. 5, above.

92. Constitutional Whrg (Richmond), Sept. 26, 1831; Richmond Enquirer, Sept. 2,
3

1.
5

93. New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Sept. 14, 1831,

Chapter 7: Requiem for a God-fearing Man

1. Will of Thomas Gray, Sept. 6, 1831 (probated Sept. 18, 1831), Southampton
‘ounty Will Book, 10: 343, Clerk's Office, Courtland, Va. The estate was Icft in
jual shares to Gray’s son Edwin, daughter Ann, and granddaughter Ellen
jouglas Gray, daughter of Thomas Ruffin Gray. The testatur willed that if any
f these three should die intestate and without issue, the “Survivors of these three
tall inherit the, rights and emoluments of the other.” In regard to slaves left to
ihomas Gray’s children, by Joseph Ruffin, should any claim be made on their
-count. “or on any account of any nature or kind whatsoever, .. .1n that case I give
cnd bequeath to such one Either or All to each the sum of one dollar, as .. . his,

.er-or their full portion.” With reference to a joint security with Thomas R. Gray

Base

« *¢ @

~

Notes 25]

to Louis W. Kaifer of Portsmouth, the testator relinquished claim against his son
and made the estate liable for full payment of the debt.

2. See Southampton County Minute Book, 1824-1830, microfilm copy in VSL.
Gray is here allowed $10 each for defending Davy Turner, Sam Francis, and Jack
Reese. No reference is nade to payment for other cases, but it may be supposed
that he also received similar compensation for defending Moses Travis and for
assisting in the defense of Nathan, Tom, and Davy Francis, who were tried, to-
gether.

3. Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion (New York:
Harper & Row, 1975), p. 124.

4. “Record of Trials,” pp. 177-97.

5. Ibid., pp. 197-221. Of the Negroes on trial, evidence indicates that the follow-
ing joined in the rebellion as members of Nat’s raiding party: Hark Travis, Sam
Francis, Jack Reese, Moses Moore, Davy Turner, Joe Turner, Daniel Porter, Moses
Barrow, Nathan Blunt, Davy Waller, Nelson Williams, James and Elizabeth
Turner’s Nat, Dred Francis, and Sam Edwards. Other evidence adduced ti. chap.
6 above indicates the participation in the same party of Henry Porter; Nelson
Edwards; Will Francis; Austin Travis; Jordan Turner; Jacob, Moses, and Aaron
Porter; Nathan, Tom, and Davy Francis; Austin and Jim Edwards; Alfred Waller;
one of the Whitchead slaves; and slaves named Tom and Marmaduke. In addition,
Stephen and Curtis Ridley went on a recruiting mission for Nat.and Lucy boris
tried to give assistance to the rebels. Finally, William Artis, Ben Blunt, Cnerry
Artis, and Tom Haithcock were accused of forming a separate rebel party. [hese
names appear to leave some 20 rebels unidentified. For identification of Moses
as a slave of Putnam Moore rather than Joseph Travis, see Southampton County
Minute Book, 1830-1835, p. 142, Clerk’s Office, Courtland, Va.

6. The fate of Thomas R. Gray’s wife is speculative, based on absence ot reter-
ence to her in Thomas Gray’s will and on the guardianship appointed for Ellen
Douglas Gray in 1832 (see n. 61 below). I have found no reference to Gray's wife
in records so far consulted. As the child was an infant in 1832, her mother must
have died not long previous to that time.

7. Southampton County Land Tax, 1829, 1830-31, 1832, and Southampton |

County Personal Property Tax, 1829, 1827-31, and 1832, VSL.

8. Minute Book, 1824-30, entry for Oct. 18, 1830, certification that Gray “wishes
to obtain a license to practice as an Attorney in the courts of the Commonwealth.”
See also entry for Dec. 20, 1830: “Thomas R. Gray qualified atto: at Law in this
court.”

9. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 4, 1831; The Liberator (Boston),
Nov. 19, 1831; Henry Irving Tragle, “Styron and Hs Sources,” Massachusetis Re-
view 11 (Winter 1970): 143. ;

10. Virginia Herald (Fredericksburg), Sept. 71831; Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald
(Norfolk), Sept. 28, 1831; Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 315.

11. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 315. This hiding place was said to be
on the Travis farm (Natronal Intelligencer |Washington, D.C.], Nov. 2, 1831)

12. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” pp. 315-16.

13. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Nov. 7, 1831.

Sees SS? PANNE hn tI ak 0 eT ca he OE NE NR hc A ei Py Ne ae)

248 Notes

man of North Carolina, and who left home on the fatal night preceding with the
dleasing expectation of conveying there the succeeding day,’ mentioned by
Warner, “Authentic Narrative,” p. 287.

44. The Liberator (Boston), Sept. 17, 1831; Constttutional Whig (Richmond), Sept.
_ 1831; “Record of Trials,” p. 183.

45. Natwonal Gazette (Philadelphia), Aug. 29, 1831; Drewry, Southampton Insur-

tion, p. 65; Richmond Compiler, Sept. 3, 1831.

46. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 65.

47. The Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), Nov. 3, 1877. This account was related by one
‘N.” of Sanford, N.C., who said that he had it many years before from “Dr. C.”
lhe writer thought that he recalled French as a law student at Fayetteville, N.C
a 1830, “Dr. C.” is identified as “probably ... Dr. William C. Caruthers, 1802-
(846," in the Tidewater News (Franklin, Va.), “Golden Anniversary Historical
dition,” 1955.

48. North Carolina Free Press (Tarboro), Sept. 13, 1831. Pope was initially reported

> have been killed. The Richmond Compiler, Sept. 3, 1831, states that one of the

satrol at Parker’s field was “knocked from his horse” and “about to be dispatched
»y the banditti” when the second party of w hites rode up to preven it.

49. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 314.

50. Ibid., p. 315.

31. Ibid., pp. 314-15. Nat mentions visiting Thoinas’s and Spencer's after the
-arker’s field fight. Jacob Williams, testifying against his slave Nelson, noted
hat the rebels also came to his farm a second time, on Monday evening (“Record
if Trials.” p. 193).

52. “Record of Trials,” pp. 186-88. Curtis and Stephen were apprehended by
fohn C. Turner between 8 and 9 aM. on Tuesday and handed over to authorities
it Cross Keys.

33. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 315.

t. “Record of Trials,” p. 182; Connstttutional Whig (Richmond), Sept. 3, 1831.
/he rebels at this time were said to number “from 15 to 20.” See also Petition no.
‘915-F (legatecs of Thos. Fitzhugh, Dec. 29, 1831), Legislative Petitions, for the
ole of Fitzhugh’s Negroes at Blunt’s.

5. “Record of Trials,” pp. 182-83, Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Sept. 3,
83h.

35. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 315.

97. Register of Free Negroes, entry no. 1589 (Aug. 26, 1826), Southampton
‘ounty Court Records, WSL. Artis is described as aged 29, “rather light complex-
mn, 6 feet 1 Inch High,” and with various scars. He was freeborn.

38. “Record of Trials;” pp. 203%4, 227 °

59. Petition no. 9915-F (legatees of Thos. Fitzhugh), Dec. 29, 1831, Legislative
“euuons.

nO. Tbid.

51. The time of the arrival of the first alarm in Murfreesboro is uncertain. A
‘port from there states that it “was late in the day” before news could be trans-
aitted from there to those white men of the community who had left that morning

Notes 249

for court at Winton, 12 miles south (Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald [Norfolk], Aug.
29, 1831).

62. Roanoke Advocate (Halifax, N.C.), Sept. 8, 1831; Richmond Compiler, Aug. 24,
1831.

63, Dr. Thomas Borland to Gov. Montford Stokes, Murfreesboro, Sept. 18, 1851,
Governor’s Letter Book, 30 (June 1 Oct. 1, 1831), Division of Arc hives and His.
tory, Raleigh.

64. Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 30, 1831. A thousand women were reported to have
found refuge at Halifax and as many more at Murfreesboro (Robert S. Parker
to Mrs. Rebecca Maney, Enfield, N.C., Aug. 29, 1831, John Kimberly Papers,
Southern Historical Collection, Chapel Hill, N.C.).

65. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Sept. 3, 1831; Borland to Gov. Stokes,
Sept. 18, 1831, Governor’s Letter Book, 30 (June 1-Oct. 1, 1831); Wheeler, Hrs-
torical Sketches, p. 210.

66. “Carlton” (Col. D. H. Hardee], in Patron and Gleaner (Lasker, N.C), Aug.
29, 1895. The identification of “Carlton” as Hardee is based on Drewrv, South-
ampton Insurrection, p. 80, who quotes from the same letter.

67. Roanoke Advocate (Halifax, N.C.), Sept. 1, 1831; Petersburg Intelligencer, Aug.
26, 1831; Richmond Compiler, Aug. 24, 1831; “Governor Floyd’s Diary and Corre-
spondence,” in Tragle, Southampton Slave Revolt, p. 252.

68. Tragle, Southampton Slave Revolt, pp. 16-21; Herbert Aptheker, Nat ficrer’s
Slave Rebellion (New York: Grove Press, 1966), p. 50; Roanoke Advocate (Hai:fax,
N.C.), Sept. 8, 1831.

69. Petition no. 10110-A (Richard Darden, Dec. 10, 1831), 1 culate Petitions.

70. New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Sept. 14, 1831.

71. The Globe (Washington, D.C.), Sept. 9,1831; Roanoke Advocate (Halifax, N.C.).
Sept. 9, 1831.

72. Thomas J. Harper, Littlebury Mason, and [G. D. Cummings} to Gov.
Montford Stokes, Cross Keys, Va., Aug. 25, 1831, Governor’s Letter Book, 30
(June 1-Oct. 1, 1831).

73. Petition no. 9803 (Richard Porter, Dec. 1, 1831), Legislative Petitions; North
Carolina Free Press (Varboro), Sept. 6, 1831. a
74. Roanoke Advocate (Halifax, N.C.), Oct. 13, 1831; Niles’ Weekly Register (Balti-

more), Sept. 3, 1831; New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Sept. 14, 1831.

75. Roanoke Advocate (Halifax, N.C.), Oct. 13, 1831; “Petition of Levi Walle:
for Reimbursement for Loss of a Negro,” in Tragle, Southaritpton Slave Revolt, pp.
462-64. Drewry, Southampton Insurrection, p. 64, credits the act of hamstringing. to
Samson C. Reese: New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Sept. 14, 1831.

76. North Carolina Free Press (Tarboro), Sept, 8, 183f; Petition no.-9804-A (Peter

_ Edwards, Dec. 6, 1831), Legislative Petitions; American Beacon (Norfolk), Aug.

29,1831.
77. Petition no. 7804-A (Peter Edwards, Dec. 8, 1831), Legislative Petitions.
78. “Record of Trials,” pp. 218, 194; Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Sept. 3
1831; Richmond Compiler, Sept. 3, 1831; American Beacon (Norfolk), Sept. 9,:1831.
79. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Aug. 29, 1831.


252 Notes

| 14. The Liberator (Boston), Nov. 5, 1831. This source carries a letter dated: from
Petersburg, Va., on Oct. 31 and stating that a slave named Nelson brought to
Jerusalem on Oct. 15 information that he had seen Nat “in the woods” that dav
was hailed by Nat, but, noting that the fugitive was armed, ran away. The aa
with forty-one notches was reported in the Constitutional Whig (Richmond). Nov.

aes : ~ ae : er
7, 1831. If the assumption is correct that this was Nat’s mode of keeping track of

time spent in this hideout, he must have been there from Sept. 5 to Oct. 15 and
some other place between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5.

15. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Nov. 7, 1831; Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 15
1831. The site is identified as being on the Francis farm by the Natronal Intellige nicer
(Washington, D.C.), Nov. 9, 1831. ‘i

16. Star, and North Carolina Gazette (Raleigh), Nov. 10, 1831.

17. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 4, 1831; Constitutional Whig
(Richmond), Nov. 7, Nov. 11, 1831. :

18. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 4, 1831; Petershurg Intelligencer
Nov. 4, 1831; American Beacon (Norfolk), Nov. 2, 1831; Star, and North Chestina
Gazette (Raleigh), Nov. 10, 1831.

19. “Report about the Jail 1831 June,” Southampton County Judgments, Box
28 (I-M), Southampton County Court Records, WSL; Constitutional Whig (Rich-
mend), Aug. 29, 1831. General Eppes is quoted as stating that there were 48
prisoners on Aug. 28. .

20. “Record of Trials,” pp. 182-228.

21. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 8, 1831.

22. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 4, 1831.

23. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Nov. 7, 1831; Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald
(Norfolk), Nov. 4, 1831.

24. Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 8, 1831.

25. Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Nov. 7, 1831.

26. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” p. 307.

27. Ibid., p. 310.

28. American Beacon (Norfolk), Nov. 14, 1831; Tragle, “Styron and His Sources,”
p. I41. .

29. The Globe (Washington, D.C.), Nov. 22, 1831 (see ad of Coale & Co.); American
a (Norfolk), Nov. 24, 1831; Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 14,

30. Gray, “Confessions of Nat Turner,” pp. 304-5, 316-17.

31. Ibid., p. 317.

32. The Liberator (Boston), Dec. 17, 1831.

33. Robin W. Winks and others, Four Fugttive Slave Narratives (Redding. Mass.:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1968), p. 232. |

34. Caleb White to R. R. Gurley, Sept. 7, 1831, John C. Ehringhaus to Gurley,
Sept. 27, 1831, John W. McPhail to Gurley, Sept. 23, 1831, Incoming Letters;
Domestic, ser. IA, Records of the American Colonization Society isfivies of
Congress. .

35. Tidewater News (Franklin, Va.), Aug. 20, 1909; Henry Lenow to RK. R. Gurley,

fe

Notes 253

Sept. 9, 1831, Incoming Letters, Domestic, ser. I-A, Records of the American
Colonization Society.

36. John W. McPhail to R. R. Gurley, Sept. 22, 1831, Oct. 30, 1831, Incoming
Letters, Domestic, ser. LA, Records of the American Colonization Society.

37. American Beacon (Norfolk), Dec. 6, 1831.

38. John W. McPhail to R.R_ Gurley, Nov. 27, 1831, Incoming Letters, Domes-
tic, ser. I-A, Records of the American Colonization Society.

39, Emigration Register, James Perkins, ser. VI, vol. 15, ibid.

40. John W. McPhail to R. R. Gurley, Nov. 10, 1831, Incoming Letters, Do-
mestic, ser. I-A, ibid.

41. Emigration Register, james Perkins, ser. VI, vol. 15, ibid. For James Cotton
and Hamilton Tann as Southampton landowners, see “List of Free Negroes and
Mulattoes with the District of Benj. Griffin .. ” (1826), Judgments, Box 27, Polls.

42. Seth Crowell to R. R. Gurley, March 25, 1832, John W. McPhail to Gurley,
Nov. 27, 1831, Incoming Letters, Domestic, ser. I-A, Records of the American
Colonization Society.

43. Emigration Register, Jupiter and Roanoke, ser. V1, vol. 15, ibid.

44. “Record of Trials,” p. 227; Johnson, Nat Turner Story, p. 176.

45. Registry of Free Negroes, no. 2002 (June 13, 1832), Southampton County
Court Records, VSL. Haithcock is here described as ft 614 in. tall, with scars
near the corner of his left eye and left side of Ins forehead. His good te tune tn
escaping conviction probably may be accounted for, in part, by Virginia legisla-
tion making the testimony of a slave or free Negro insufficient for conviction un-
less “pregnant circumstances” supported the testimony. See Richmond Enqutrer,
Sept. 30, 1831. .

46. Court Notes, statement by Burwell Vick, slave of William Vick. Burwell
Vick stated that he was ordered by Bolling S. B. Barrett on Tuesday, Aug. 23, to
go to the houses of Lemuel and James Story and William Vick and get them to
come to Mrs. Gurley’s with their families. He was delivering the message to Lemuel
Story when Artis came up and interrupted him. Later, as Burwell was arriving at
Mrs. Gurley’s, Artis appeared with a pistol, making “considerable noise.” Artis was
told that if he kept this up the whites would come and shoot him, whereupon he
was said to have replied to the effect cited in the text. Burwell’s statement was
corroborated by Ben, another of William Vick’s slaves.

47. Ibid., staternent by Henry. This witness testified that on Monday morning,
Aug. 22, he found Newsom at his master’s new ground and asked if he had seen his
master. Newsom replied that “yes he had seen the D~—rascal & would have him
before night.” On Wednesday, Henry heard Newsom say “that if Capt Nat came
on he would join him.” . ° :

48, Some newspaper reports mention twé or three others hanged on the same day
as Nat Turner, but court records contain no reference to them. Sce, e.g., Vorfolk and
Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 9, 1831. .

+) Constiutional Whig (Richmond). Sept. 3, 1831.

50. Niles’ Register (Baltimore), Sept. 10, 1831.

51. Harriet Whitehead “to the Honorable Judge of the Circuit Superior


One night I, with Framk Davidson,
William Carter.and Shake Ross, was on’
duty inside the jail, when a rifle barked
somewhere outside, and Bullett hurtled
himself through the door.

“They’re coming!” he shouted.

There was no electricity in the jail
at the time, so we lighted two oil lamps
and placed them, one at either end, on
the lower step of the flight of stairs lead- ©
ing to the second floor where Hall’s cell
was located. Then Davidson and I lay
down flat on our stomachs, heads ex-
tended so that we could see the first
floor and only outside door, with our.
guns shoved forward, ready for instant
use. Carter and Ross were hunkered be-
hind us, their hands full of ammunition,
ready to feed it to us as needed.

Hall’s- cell was just off the passage
to our left. He kept up a running talk,
telling us that it was a false alarm.

‘“Nobody’s coming to release me to-
night nor any other night,” he said. And
he was right. The alarm had been set’
off by one of the outside guards acci-
dentally discharging his gun,

A few days after that incident, Hall
was called before the court. Judge Skeen
commanded him to stand up, and asked
him if he had anything to say before sen-
tence was passed upon him. At that
moment he looked the character with
which mothers frightened their children ~
to obedience. Leaning forward, he rested
both hands on the table before him, and
looked Judge Skeen straight in the eye.

“I’ve a lot to say,” he replied, “but
it won’t do me any good to say it nor
you any good to hear it. So go ahead
and sentence me.” ao

Devil John Wright came—alone and
unarmed. He came late one afternoon,
a few days before the time appointed
for Hall’s execution, riding a big black
‘horse, and with a red handkerchief
knotted around his neck. I was one of
the two guards assigned to accompany
him to Hall’s cell. They greeted each
other with much affection and talked,
the allotted hour, not of Hall’s approach-
ing end, but of their boyhood days and
mutual friends, and then said a last and
sorrowful good-by. ; rs

WEEK before the day set for the
execution, people had begun arriving
in Wise. They came from as far away as
North Carolina and Tennessee. Some
had walked fifty, seventy-five, a hun-
dred miles. By noon of September 2nd,
1892, the largest crowd ever to assemble
“in Wise, before or since, was milling
about the courthouse and in the streets.
~- Another rumor had been hatched and.
circulated. Devil John Wright, it was
said, was determined that his friend
Hall should not suffer the ignominy of the
gallows, and that he would shoot. him
to death from a distant hill when he
appeared in the open’to address the
crowd. Wright, we knew, was an expert
marksman and had a nerve of steel. But
in spite of that and the rumor, we led
Hall from his cell to a window facing
the north promptly at noon.

It was a tense moment. Hall had
heard the rumor. Did he believe it?
His demeanor said yes. Bracing his
knees against the sill, he leaned through
the open window; threw back his head;

‘On execution day, Taylor spoke
from the courthouse balcony

“ILLUSTRATION BY DICK PRIEST
39

biog on ae anon, I a call a ae


86

Si

(Continued from page 41)

three days and nights that he was at liberty
he never advanced farther than five miles
from the county jail.

“Why didn’t you try to get out of the
country, Bob?” I asked, when Holbrook
brought him in.

“Everything was so strange to me,” he
said, “and I was afraid of the dark. I stood
under a locust tree, and it was so lonely
out there in the night.”

There was nothing spectacular about the
hanging of Foy, save that as he was about
to mount the scaffold the superintendent
of the Toms Creek mine edged close to his
side and handed him some money, the exact
amount in dollars and cents which he had
contended was due him.

Evans Hopson was hanged for the murder
of John Salyer, but his only crime, as re-
vealed by a subsequent confession, was that
of loaning another fellow his gun and steal-
ing Salyer’s chickens.

At the time of the murder, Hopson was
foreman on a construction job at the min-
ing camp of Glamorgan. It was Christmas
Eve and Hopson, according to his own con-
fession, suggested to two of his men that
the three of them go over to the Salyer
place on Greasy Branch and steal some of
the old farmer’s chickens for a Christmas
dinner.

The other fellows were agreeable to the
suggestion of their boss, and the trio arrived
at the Salyer farm around midnight, having
first visited Norton where they bought
some whiskey.

Hopson and one of the men entered the
chicken house, while the other, armed with
Hopson’s revolver, stood guard at the door.

Fearing to strike a match, Hopson and
his companion began feeling about in the
dark for the chickens. A hen squawked.
John Salyer ran out into the yard and fired
off his shotgun. Then Hopson’s pistol, in
the hands of the man at the chicken house
door, barked several times. And the aged
farmer cried out and. went staggering back

. into the house, wounded unto death.

The man who had stood guard and who
had murdered Salyer went on the witness
stand and swore that he did not have Hop-
son’s gun when Salyer was killed. That
statement, a lie, was believed by the jury
and it doomed Hopson. And for that the
murderer was let off with a prison sentence.
But long years after Hopson was hanged,
and the guilty man had completed his sen-
tence, he confessed to the shooting. “It was
his life or mine,’ he said, “and life is
sweet.”

Interest in the Hopson hanging was more
widespread than it had been on any other
like occasion in Wise County, save the exe-
cution of Talton Hall. One reason for that,
I guess, was a rumor which gained con-
siderable circulation immediately follow-
ing the trial. It was said that the man who
turned state’s evidence against Hopson was
a half-brother to the Commonwealth’s At-
torney. He was an illegitimate child. But
as to the truth of the rumor, I cannot say.
I do know that the hanging of Evans Hop-
son blasted the political prospects of the
Commonwealth’s Attorney, who, previous
to that time, had been one of the most
popular men in the county.

Hopson read the Bible constantly in his
cell. He claimed to have been converted
and wanted to be baptized. I asked Judge
Matthew’s permission and he refused, say-
ing that if he wanted to be baptized that
a large tub could be used in the jail. How-
ever, I shouldered the responsibility and

took him down to the creek where he was
immersed by Elder John Hopkins. As he
stood in the water he looked out over the
crowd and recognized John Salyer’s boys.
“Boys,” he said, “I never harmed your
father in my life.”

At noon, on the day of the execution,
Hopson stood on the courthouse balcony and
addressed the throng. He spoke for an hour,
warning his listeners against the evils of
bad company, and declaring that he never
harmed a hair on John Salyer’s head.

Once, while he was speaking, somebody
let a gun go off in the crowd. Naturally,
there was a lot of excitement. But Hopson
seemed calm. “A gun in the hands of a fool
is a dangerous thing,” he said significantly,
and went on with his speech.

“Sheriff Killen does not want to hang
me,” he told the throng, near the end of his
discourse, “because we’ve been friends and
neighbors all my life. He held me on his
knee when I was a baby. So I’m going to
ask Jailer Charlie Renfro to hang me in his
stead...” —

I was standing right behind him. I
reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Tell them,” I said, ‘‘that I decline.”

I knew that Sheriff Killen did not want
to hang him. He had told me as much. He
did not believe that he should be hanged.
He and I roomed together the night before
the execution, and he walked the room
till the break of day and never closed his
eyes in sleep.

YOU can nese
KEEP PRICES DOWN

BUY only what you need—make

the things you have, do.

PAY no more than ceiling prices.

BUY and hold as many War Bonds

as you can afford,

PAY willingly any taxes your coun-

try needs.

Hopson finished his speech and stood
silent a moment, looking out over the crowd.

“Now,” he called out, “I want all who be-
lieve I’m not guilty to raise their hand!”

Instantly, hands were lifted all through the
throng. Then Hopson, without the slightest
tremor, turned, walked to the scaffold, and
stood silently on the trapdoor while I
slipped the noose around his neck.

As Sheriff Killen reached for the lever,
I looked at him and he looked at me. His

face was terrible to see.

Hopson dropped, but his-neck failed to
break. He worked his hands loose, tore the
cap from his face, and tried to pull himself
up the rope. He literally choked to death.

Clifton Branham, the last man to be
hanged in Wise County, was, like Talton
Hall, the first, the bad-man type. He had
killed several men, most of them in Ken-
tucky, but it was for the murder of his
divorced wife that he was hanged.

For one of the Kentucky killings he had
been sentenced to life in prison: But he
was not there long until he professed re-
ligion and began preaching to the. other
prisoners. His religious activities were
brought to the attention of the Governor
who pardoned him with the remark: “A
man like him can do more good purside
prison than in.’

Branham returned to the Virginia-Ken-
tucky borderland, and soon thereafter he
killed his wife. Then, escaping across the
state line, he soon killed another man in
Kentucky, and was again sent up for life. It
was then that Sheriff Killen, hearing of his
whereabouts, sent me to Frankfort to make
requisition on the Governor of Kentucky
and return him to Wise County.

Tried at the next term of court, Branham

‘was found guilty of murder in the first

degree.

When the clerk had read the jury’s ver-
dict, Judge W. S. Matthews ordered the
prisoner to stand, and I never heard another
such berating as he gave the man. Beginning
with his youthful escapades, he reminded
him of his many crimes.

“You're not fit to live in decent society,”
he said. “You’re unworthy of the mercy
of this court,” he went on, reaching for a
calendar, “and I sentence you to be hanged
by the neck until dead, dead, dead! And
may the Lord have mercy on your soul!”

Branham stood there with a smile on his
face. He showed no concern for his fate,
either at his trial or at any time thereafter.

Some Salvation Army people visited the
jail about a week before he was to be
hanged. They played and sang for the
prisoners. When they had finished, Clifton
said, “Hand me that guitar in here!” They
complied, and he played and sang several
songs. They left with tears in their eyes
and declaring that his was the most beauti-
ful music they had ever heard.

After he and his first wife were divorced,
Branham had married again. The evening
before he was to be hanged, his last wife
came to the jail and asked me to let her go
in and spend the night with him. At first
I refused, but, because of the pleadings of
E. M. Swindall, a jail guard, and boyhood
friend of Branham, I finally agreed.

His execution was set for between the
hours of 12:00 and 2:00. My wife had
cooked him a good dinner and I took it to
him at 11:00. I had no idea that he would
eat it. But he ate as hearty a meal as I ever
saw any man eat, and he seemed to enjoy
it immensely.

He wanted to make a talk and play and
sing to the people who had congregated to
see him hanged. His demeanor had been
of such a bravado nature that I had decided
not to allow him to show himself to the
public, fearing that he had formed some
secret plan of escape. But a minister, who
had visited him in the jail, pleaded so hard
that I had a window removed on the second
floor and let him talk and sing and play
the guitar from there.

He told how he had killed his wife, and
why, after which he asked the people if
they thought he was justified. Several
hands were lifted.

He walked boldly to the scaffold, mounted
the steps and stood on the trapdoor.

I was in the act of dropping the noose
around his neck when... A rifle cracked.
Somebody screamed. And blood spattered
at my feet.

I dropped the rope and rushed to the
door, forgetting Branham for the moment.
Then I looked around and he was standing
on the other side of the door peering around
the corner.

Somebody had let a gun go off in the
lookout above and shot Lenny.Bruce, a
guard, through the leg.

Having found out the cause for the ex-
citement, I turned back to the business at
hand. Clifton turned and walked by my
side. He stepped back on the trapdoor,
and I reached for the rope. I guess my
hands were trembling a little, and he
noticed it.

He reached over and patted my shoulder.

“You’re nervous, Charlie,” he said, his
voice strong and steady, “but I’m _ not
nervous a bit.” And that was the last words
he ever spoke.

¢

Re NE MET ae


‘0

Sat

This is Devil John Wright who came

to visit the prisoner, Talton Hall -

fumbled with the bosom of his shirt,
baring his chest; and gazed, for fully
five minutes, not at the crowd below him,
but far away across the hills to the north
in the direction of his native Kentucky.
Then, without uttering a single word,
he slumped into a chair.

Had he hoped and been disappointed?
I don’t know. Be that as it may, he
had recovered all his bravado by the
time he reached the scaffold, and, stood
there on the trapdoor as strong as an oak
while the cap and rope were adjusted
and Sheriff Wilson Holbrook made. the
first stroke with his hatchet; the second;
and the third—that arepne him into
eternity.

Sheriff Holbrook was.an old man, and
the ordeal of hanging Hall so upset him
that a doctor had to be summoned, and

they thought he would die before

morning. 7
Dr. Taylor’ 's crime was one of the most

_ brutal in the annals of Wise County. A

graduate of a famed medical college, he
was a trusted physician. As a minister,
he had the confidence and veneration of
the people. In his capacity of deputy
United States marshal, he was respected
by all. But he betrayed trust, confidence
and respect, and planned and carried into
execution a most heinous mass murder.

Together with two young men, broth-
ers, named Fleming, Dr. Taylor lay in
wait for Ira Mullins, a hopeless cripple,
and his family, on Pine Mountain, mur-
dering Mullins, his wife, and a young
man of the party, and wounding another
man and a young woman. Then they
mutilated the bodies.

This crime was committed shortly
after Dr. Taylor had returned Talton
Hall to Wise County, and while Hall was
on trial for the murder of Enos Hylton.

The Flemings fled to West Virginia
where, a few months later, one was
killed and the other was wounded in a
battle with Wise County deputies who

~ had gone there on a tip to arrest them. ~

At the same time they killed one of the
officers and wounded another.

Dr. Taylor, who, it seems, leaned to-
ward the dramatic, had himself shipped
by freight, in a dry-goods box, to Cin-
cinnati. At Bluefield, West Virginia,

freight-handlers became suspicious of the

box, notified a railroad detective, who
pried off the lid and arrested the very
surprised doctor.

‘Returned to Wise County, Taylor was

quickly tried, found guilty of murder in

the first degree, and sentenced to hang.

“The prisoner will stand,” said Judge
Morrison, when Deputy Clerk Charles

‘A. Johnson had read the jury’s verdict. -
Taylor got slowly to his feet, his gaze .

‘on the table in front of him, as if he
was searching for something.

“Dr. Taylor,” the Judge continued, “do
| you have anything to say before sentence
is passed upon you?”

The doctor fumbled in his coat pocket:

“T have nothing to say for myself,” he
' said, barely above a whisper, “but I’ve
a friend: here who will speak a few words
for me.” And he opened a little well-
thumbed New Testament and began
reading of the trial and crucifixion of
Jesus.

You could have heard a pin dropped,
as his voice droned on through thirty

minutes. That was the quietest half-hour -

- I ever stood through in my life.

Finally, Judge Morrison cleared his
throat.

“If that is all you have to offer, Dr.
Taylor,” he said, “then I’ll have to ask
you to stop!” Taylor closed the book,
sighed, and leaned heavily on his chair.

Promptly at noon, on the day of the
execution, Dr. Taylor walked onto the
second-story balcony of the courthouse.

~He wore a long white robe. His wife
was by his side. She was dressed in
black. Surveying the throng in the street
below, he said: “You’re here. today to
hear me confess my sins. There is noth-
ing that stirs the human emotion more
than one man confessing his shortcom-
ings to another. But I’m not going to con-
fess my sins to you. I’ve already con-

. fessed them to God.”

Then he sang a hymn, read a text, and.

preached for a full hour. I believe that
he was lost in time and place.

He declared that ‘he had been per-
secuted after the manner of the persecu-

but faithful wife.

tion of Jesus; and that he, like Jess
was not subject to death. —

“They’re going to hang me within te
hour,” he shouted, concluding his dis
course, “but I, like my Saviour, will rise
again!” ;

“Amen!” cried the voice of his frail

His sermon delivered, Taylor tuna
walked through the courthouse, ang
mounted the scaffold beyond.

Sheriff Holbrook and two of his dea

ties, John Miller and Jeff Hunsuck aa

drew straws to see which would cut the
rope. ‘Hunsucker pulled the short straw
As he tapped out the first of the tw
warning blows with his hatchet, Taylor
collapsed on the trapdoor. Two guards”

seized his arms, lifted him up, and re- . rg

leased .their holds only as the trapdoo:
swung downward:
Mrs. Taylor insisted that ner husband -

would rise from the dead. She would) *»

not give her consent to interment: In--

stead, she had the body removed to the ™ ©

home of a friend in Wise, and there she. ~

kept constant vigil through three days &

-and nights. But finally, on the fourth ~~

day, when her husband showed no signs” |

of resurrection, she permitted the body |

to be buried, and went sorrowfully back
to her lonely Pine Mountain cabin.

John Fuqua was the first of five men.

to be hanged at Wise during the four-
year. term of Sheriff Wilburn Killen,
1901-1904. And he was one of the three
negroes to be hanged in Wise County. ©
I was Wise County jailer during
Killen’s term as Sheriff, and was respon-
sible for the safekeeping of all the con-
demned men. And I tied the knots and
put the ropes around their necks. For
one of the five I made two nooses. But

_of that later.

Fuqua was hanged in the fall of 1901.

’ There was nothing about either his crime

or execution of a dramatic nature. He

a ee ee


had killed a one-armed negro in a card

* game at Bondtown. It was shown by

. testimony that he held his victim by the

stump of his arm and shot him. —
Fuqua did not talk much, and he went

_ to his death without making any state-
= ment. He mounted the scaffold with-

» out assistance and stepped boldly onto
- the trapdoor as if he. was anxious to

get it over with.
-The gallows which we built for Talton

 Hall’s execution, and on which Dr. Tay- _
lor was hanged, had been torn down

before Fuqua was sentenced. Hearing
that they had a gallows with a lever

a release trapdoor at Pikeville, Kentucky,
_ Thad gone over there and looked it over.
“ I liked it, and employed John Clay, the

man who had constructed it, to come over

: and build us one.

On the day that we hanged Fuqua,

"Dr. H. M. Miles, the county physician, '

came to me and said that the negro

- was the most perfect physical specimen
he had ever seen; that he had examined ~

him from head to foot and that there

} was not a trace of disease in his body;

and that it was his opinion that the State

be Medical Board would like to have the

body for dissecting.

Acting on Dr. Miles’ suggestion, I dis-
patched a telegram to the proper authori-
ties in Richmond. . While awaiting a
reply, I had Fuqua’s body carried into
the jailer’s residence section of the jail
building and laid out.

Sometime the following day I received
a message from Richmond. They could
not use the body, they said, and advised
me to proceed to inter it, providing rela-
tives or friends did not claim it.

Nobody claimed the body, so I buried
it on the Poor Farm.

People may forget the hanging of Hall
and Taylor, dramatic as their crimes and

» executions were. But no one who wit-.
nessed the hanging of George Robinson,

G4 Leaning from the window, Hall
seemed to await deliverance

ni i a? ,

Rive

Gunman Talton Hall (above) who was
said to have killed ninety-nine men

or has even heard about it, will ever for-
get that hour, because of a tragic incident
connected with the execution.
Robinson had’ killed his wife. at Big
Stone Gap on the day we hanged John
Fuqua. It was proved that he ran her
down, caught her in the middle of a

stream, and cut her throat with a razor.

They were negroes..
Soon after Robinson was lodged in

jail, smallpox broke out among the pris-

oners. We established a pesthouse at the
Poor Farm for the ones who had been

_ exposed, and removed the others to the

Scott County jail at Gate City. Ex-

- sheriff Wilson Holbrook, then a very old

man, but a deputy, was living in the jail
at the time. He contacted the disease
and died. Everybody was afraid to come

near the jail. Holbrook’s body lay there
-unburied for. several days. Finally, I

requisitioned four negro prisoners, who
had been exposed to the disease, and we
carried him up on the hill and buried
him at midnight. Rev. G. W. Kilgore, who
had had smallpox while a soldier in the
War Between the States, accompanied
us and made a brief talk at the grave.

George Robinson was one of the eight-
een prisoners we transferred to Scott
County. Jim Bradley and I went over
there to return them to Wise County,
and as we came back Robinson told us

that he killed his wife because she called
But the evidesee showed.

him a name.
that he was jealous.

Robinson was nota big man. My guess
would be that he weighed around a hun-
dred and sixty-five. But, at the sugges-
tion of the county physician, I had made
a further excavation under the gallows
so as to give him a longer drop. The
result was the rope broke, and thus
began the most nerve-racking experi-
ences of my. life.

When Sheriff Killen pulled the lever,
the trapdoor swung downward and Rob-
inson plunged through. Snap! It sounded
like the sharp crack of a whip. For the
instant I thought it was his neck snapped,
but when the frazzled end of the rope
recoiled, I knew what had happened.

W. W. (Yannie) Killen, son of the
Sheriff, and several other guards, who
were below, told me later that when

Robinson struck the ground he rolled -
- over against the wall and cried.

- While young Killen and two or three
other deputies got him to his feet and
walked him back up the steps, and

.

Sheriff Killen was resetting the trapdoor,
Bill Fields went on a run across the’
street to Flanary’s store for another rope.

Back on the scaffold, the poor wretch
crouched down in a corner and watched
me fashion another noose for him. Blood
was oozing from his nose and mouth,

‘and it seemed as if he was trying to press.
‘his body through the wall.

When the noose was finished, I looked
at. him,. inclined my head toward : the
trapdoor, and said, “all right!”

“Let me live just as long as possible!”

‘he begged, and to my dying day I'll
‘never forget the look that he gave me.

“Time’s up!” I told him, fingering the
rope. It was a terrible business, and I
wanted to get it over and done with.

He took all the time he could in get-
ting up. Then he walked over and stepped
onto the trapdoor for the second time.
He never uttered another word.

With hurried hands I slipped the cap
over his head, secured his legs and arms,
and adjusted the noose. And that time
the rope did not break. I had doubled it.

We had thought we were going to
have a double hanging on the day we
hanged George Robinson, and had made
a second trapdoor for the occasion. But
the Governor intervened by granting a

thirty-day stay in the case of Bob Foy,

because Foy was sick.

Foy, a negro, had been employed by
the Virginia Iron, Coal & Coke Company
at its Toms Creek mines. One payday
he claimed that he had not been paid
all the wages due him. An altercation
arose between him and Dayton Miller,
the payroll clerk. The two men grappled
and fell to the floor, Miller on top. From
that position Foy fired the shot that
killed the clerk.

Foy had neither the money nor the
moneyed friends to employ counsel. But
the court appointed Judge William H.
Bond and Senator R. P. Bruce, the two
outstanding criminal lawyers in South-
western Virginia, to defend him.

It was one of the hardest fought cases
in the history of Wise County.

The first trial resulted in a hung jury.

. Eleven men were for a first-degree mur-

der verdict, but Drury Gilliam ‘would
not agree to it.

In addition to being jailer, I was wait-
ing on the court at the time in the
absence of Sheriff Killen. Judge Mat-
thews sent the jury back to its room
several times to try to reach a verdict.
But when it became apparent that
Gilliam would never consent to a verdict
that would mean death for Foy, he mo-
tioned to me,

“’m issuing another venire facias,” he
said. “This case will be tried again this
term. It’s a pity a fool like that was on
the jury.”

The second jury found Foy guilty of
murder in the first degree, and Judge
Matthews sentenced him to hang. —

Not long after he was sentenced, Foy
broke jail. He wandered about in the
woods, near Wise, for three days and

. nights, and then went in to Preacher

Daniel Riner’s place on Indian Creek.
Somebody notified the Sheriff’s office,
and. Wilson Holbrook, a deputy, went
over there and brought him back, un-
resisting, to Wise.

During the (Continued on page 86)


Estep, John Strong, John Powers, Joseph Salling, John Pendleton,
Zehariah Fugate, Nimrod Taylor, Jr., James Donalson, and John Harris
were sworn a Grand Jury of Inquest for the body of the County, and
having received their charge, withdrew, and after some time returned into
Court and presented:

An Indictment against John Tumms and George Wright for murder, a
true bill.

(Called as Witnesses)

Stark Jett, Elizabeth Jett, Julia Ann Jett, George Vineyard, Paschal
Jones, Goldman Davison, and John Pearson were sworn in Court to give
evidence to the Grand Jury upon a bill of Indictment against John Tummis,
and George Wright for murder and sent to them.

(On the same day) Arraigned

John Tumms and George Wright both late of the County of Scott
labourers, who stand indicted of murder, were led to the bar in custody
uf the jailor of this Court, thereof arraigned, and severally pleaded not
guilty of the indictment. Whereupon, on the motion of the said John
Tumms and George Wright, and for reasons appearing co the Court, this
trial is postponed cill che next Term. And the said John Tumms and
George Wright are remanded to jail.

(Appearance bonds given by the following)

Stark Jett, George Vineyard, Paschal Jones, Goldinan Davison, and
John Pearson came into Court and acknowledged themselves to be
severally indebted to John Floyd, Esq., Governor or Chief Magistrate of
this Commonwealth in the sum of one-hundred dollars each, of their
respective lands and tenement goods and chattels to be levied, and to the
said Governor and his successors for the use of the Commonwealth
rendered, yet upon this condition, that if the said Stark Jett, George
Vineyard, Goldman Davison, Paschal. Jones, and John Pearson. shall
severally make their personal appearance before the Judge of this Court
on the first day of September Court next, to give evidence on behalf of
the Commonwealth against John Tumns and George Wright, and shall not
depart thence without leave of the said Judge, then this recognizance shall
be void.

(Appearance bonds)

Stark Jett as the nexe friend of his wife Elizabeth and daughter Julia
Ann (an infant) came into Court and acknowledged himself to be
indebted to John Floyd, Esq., Governor or Chicf Magistrate of this
Commonwealth in the sum of two-hundted. dollars, of his lands and
tenement goods and chattels to be levied, and to the said Governor and
his successors for the use of the Commonwealth rendered; yee upon this
condition that the said Elizabeth Jett and Julia Ann Jett shall severally
make their personal appearance before the Judge of this Court on the
first day of September neat, to give evidence on behalf of the Common-
wealth ayainst John ‘Tumis and George Wright, and shall not depart
thence without leave of the said Judge, then this recognizance is to be

void.

(This one did not appear for the arraignment)

David Wright who stands bound by two recognizances entered into
before the Court of Scott County, in the penalty of one-hundred dollars
each, to appear here this day to give evidence on behalf of the Common-
wealth against John Tumms and George Wright, was solemnly called aid
came not, which default was ordered to be entered on the records.

The Trial September 10, 1832

At a Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery, held for Scott
County thereof on Monday, the tenth day of September, 1832.

Present: Benjamin Estill Esquire, Judge.

John Tumms late of the County of Scott, who ‘stands indicted for
murder, and was heretofore arraigned thereof and pleaded not guilty to
the indictment, was again led to the bar in custody of the jailor of this
Court, and thereupon came a Jury to wit: David Wininger; William
Hensley; William Haynes; Stephen Epperson; Amos Templeton; Edward
Pace; William Slone; Burgess McKinzie; William Harris; Martin Shelton;
John Conn and Joseph Lane, who being elected, tried and sworn the truth

of and upon the premises to speak, and having heard the evidence, upon
their oath do say, that the said John Tumms is guilty of murder in the
first degree in manner and form as in the indictment against him is
alleged. And thereupon he is remanded to jail.

The Trial September 11, 1832

Benjamin Estill; Judge presiding.

George Wright late of the County of Scott who stands indicted for
murder and was heretofore arraigned thereof and pleaded not guilty co
the indictment, was again led to the bar in custody of che jailor of this
Court, and thereupon came a jury to wit: John R. Carter; Oliver Powers;
William Bond; Henry Frazier; John Easterling; Peter Dennison; James
Moore; David Nelson; Abraham Phipps; Nimrod Elam; John Proons, and
William Allen, who being elected, cried, and sworn the truth of and upon
the premises to speak, and having heard the evidence, upon their oath do
say, that the said George Wright is guilty of murder in the second degree
and not guilty of murder in the first degree, and they do ascertain the
term of his imprisonment in the public jail and penitentiary house to be
seven years. And thereupon he is remanded to jail.

The Sentence (The Story of John Tumms)

From the Clerk’s Office, Scott County, Virginia dated, September 13,
1832.

John Tumins (Tumns): late of the County of Scott, who stands con-
victed of murder in che first degree, was again led to the bar in custody of
the jailor of this Court, and thereupon it being demanded of him if any-
thing for himself he had or knew to say, why the Court here to judyement
and execution againse him, of and upon the premises, should not proceed
he said he had nothing but what he had before said; therefore it is con-
sidered by the Court, that he be hanged by the neck until he be dead. And

nee NER i a aa eee as i re ae SES iti —— — _ viiaiepiisteipsncinaieiiigl

of information gathered here and there, one cannot help but believe that
the murder for which John Tumns was hanged took place in that area.

Hanging No. 2

According to Court records the second hanging in Scott County was on
Friday, June 25, 1858, and was a man by the name of McDaniel Rhea.

1 have checked with some of the most brilliant historical minds in
Southwest Virginia, and have been unable to find anything pertinent to
this case, other than Court records. The history books written of Scott
County, I have been privileged to read make no mention of a McDaniel
Rhea, however, it can readily be assumed Rhea was executed, since there
is no further order on the books following his sentencing,

In Mr. C. A. Johnson’s book titled Johnson’s History of Wise County,
on Page 266, Chapter 23, there is recorded the hanging of Baxter S. Pate
at Estillville, Virginia, Scote County, on the exact dace as that set for the
execution of McDaniel Rhea, and is shown as “Scott County’s first public

Hanging’. Pace, it is said, took the life of John Lutterel, in a drunken
brawl over a card game in a hotel at Estillville. Mr. Johnson says further:
“While noc an event of Wise County, i¢ however connects with it two of
Wise County’s prominent pioneer citizens--Rev. Reuben Steele, who
spoke the last rites for Pate, and W. D. Nottingham, Scott County jailor,
who was later Gladeville’s beloved Postmaster, whom everyone called
“Uncle Billy’’.

Pate was described as being between 30 and 35 years old, of command-
ing appearance and very intelligent. Just prior to his execution he madea
40-minute talk in which he-attributed strong drink as to the cause of his
ruin, and urged others to refrain from its use.

Certainly there is no inference intended to in anyway discredit or dis-
prove Mr. Johuson’s article, but it would be next to impossible to prepare
a paper on the hangings in Scott County without mentioning this chapter
in his book. Secondly, it is hoped that someone will be able to clarify the
mystery of two hangings on the same day at Estillville, when only one is
recorded in the Court order books of Scott County, that of McDaniel
Rhea.

With the assistance of the County Court Clerk, the records were
thoroughly searched and there was no one by the name of Pate men-
tioned.

It appears from the article that Mr. Johnson got the details of chis
hanging from an old newspaper account, found by a lady, in the bottom
of an old family trunk. And it would scem through some error in passing
the story down through the years, the names of Rhea and Pate have
become confused, and are perhaps one and the same person.

Could this man have been McDaniel Rhea, alias Baxter S. Pate?

The actual Court records follow:

From the Court records of Scott County, Virginia

The Indictment, Trial, and Scntencing’of McDanicl Rhea

f f

At a Circuit Court, begun and held for Scott County, at the courthouse
thereof on Monday, the 17 day of May 1858.
Present the Honorable Samuel V. Fulkerson Judge
James P. Carter gentleman foreman, William Mitchell, Benjamin B.
Taylor, George W. Powers, Nathan Daugherty, Sr., William B. Spencer,
David McKenny, Willian F. Templeton, Andrew J. Neil, Nathan Whitaker,

Levi Baker, William C. Barker, James C. Larkey, Andrew France,

Alexander: Willis, Green C. Fields, Thomas Williams, John B. Agee,
Andrew Williams, and George H. Kindrick were sworn a grand jury of
inquest for the body of this County, and having received their charge,
were sent to their apartment and after sometime returned into the Court
and presented,

An Indictment against McDaniel Rhea, For Murder, A True Bill

Ac a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Court-
house thereof on Monday, the 24 day of May 1858.

Present: The same Judge as on Saturday.

McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, Labour, who stands
indicted of murder, was led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of this
County, whereupon came a Jury to sit: Joshua Sinith, Reubin Finney,
John M. Kizer, Wilson Evans, George Finney, Charles C. Dickinson,
George Banner, James Kelly, James Artrip, Jessee Fuller, William N. Selle,
and George C. Gose who were elected, tried, and sworn in conformity
with the provisions of the act of assembly for the crial of the said
McDaniel Rhea upon the indictment aforesaid (the said McDaniel Rhea
having perentonly challenged 8 jurors summoned for the said trial) and
the jury sworn as aforesaid, having fully heard the evidence were with the
consent of the prisoner, committed to the Sheriff of this County, who is
directed to keep them together without communication with any other
person, and to cause them to appear here tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock
Whereupon an oath was administered to Thomas W. Carter and William D.
Nottingham, Deputy Sheritts of this County, to the following effect,
“You shall well and truly co the best of your ability, keep this jury, and
neither speak to them yourselves, nor suffer any other person to speak to
them touching any matter relative to this trial, until they return into
court tomorrow. And the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to jail.

Ac a Circuit Court continued and held for Scott County at the Court-
house thereof on Tuesday the 25th day of May 1858;

Present: The same Judge as on yesterday.

McDaniel Rhea, late of the County of Scott, Labour, who stands
indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of
indicted of murder was again led to the bar in custody of the Sheriff of
this County, and the jury sworn on yesterday, for his trial were brought
into Court in the custody of the Sheriff of this County, and upon their
oath do say, that the said McDaniel Rhea is guilty of murder in the first
degree, in manner and form as in the indictment against him is alleged.
Whereupon it being demanded of him if anything for himself he had or
knew to say why the Court here to judgement and execution against him
of and upon the premises should not proceed, he said nothing but what
he had before said. Therefore it is considered by the Court that he be

Aad

‘hanged by the neck until he be dead, and the execution of this Judgement
be made and done upon him the said McDaniel Rhea by the Sheriff of
Scott County on Friday, the 25th day of June next, between the hours of
ten in the forenoon and two in the afternoon of the same day at the usual
place of execution. And thereupon the said McDaniel Rhea is remanded to
jail.

Judge Samuel V. Fulkerson served in the Constitutional Convention of
1851. He was a colonel in the Confederate forces, but had not resigned as
Judge when he was killed in the Battle of Gaines Mill. During his time in
the army, Circuit Court was held by Judge Gideon Camden of Harrison
Co., W. Va. Rufus B. Fugate was sheriff of Scote County 1857-1858.

The Story of The Daniel Dean Case

Perhaps one of the most interesting murder cases ever tried in South-
west Virginia was the case of the Commonwealth againse Daniel Dean in
Scott County.

It was on a Monday morning, June 25, 1877, Henry FPugate was shot
in the back while plowing near his home located about midway between
Gate City and Nickelsville. From the wound he received on Monday, Mr.
Fugate died the following Wednesday. Daniel Dean, who lived near the
Fugate place was indicted for the murder at the July term of Court of

Scott County 1877.

The case was tried three times in the Scott County Court. The first two
trialy resulted in mistrials, both the juries: being unable to reach a
unanimous verdict. A jury was brought from Washington County for the
third trial, which took place at the May term of the Scott County Court,
1878, and the prisoner Daniel Dean was found guilty of murder in the
first degree and sentenced to death by hanging.

There are many unusual and strange occurances in connection with the
trial of the Daniel Dean case. For instance, the witness who received tifty
dollars from his lawyer uncle to swear falsely, and was sentenced cto three
years in the penitentiary for perjury. His lawyer uncle jumped out the
window of the courthouse, mounted his horse and made for the ‘Penn-
essee line, and was not seen in Scote County again for twenty-five years.
Then there is Sheriff J.R.S. Wilhelm, who was one of the jurors at the first
trial of Dean. Ac this erial Wilhelm had voted for acquittal of the accused.
Wilhelm had not as yet been elected Sheriff of Scott County; however,
prior to the actual hanging of Dean, Wilhelm was elected Sheriff of Scott
County and it became his official duty to execute the prisoner whom he
believed innocent. [t is told that Wilhelin offered one of his deputies $300
if he would execute Dean, buc the deputy declined. Shortly after the
hanging of Dean, Wilhelin vanished and was never seen again or heard

trom by any Scott Countian.

From the Court Records Scott County
September 23, 1878

2°

a ac URS IRE a ne a ee ee

Virginia:

In the Clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Scott County on the 23rd
day of September 1878. The following is a copy of the Order of the
Supreme Court of Appeals, in the case of the Commonwealth against
Daniel Dean to wit; “Virginia: In the Supreme Court of Appeals, at
Staunton, on Wednesday the 11th day of September 1878. Upon the
petition of Daniel Dean, a writ of error to Operate as a supersedeas, but

not to-release the petitioner from imprisonment is awarded to a judge-
ment of the Circuit Court for Scott County, rendered on the 27th day of
August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court of said County
rendered on the third day of June 1878, in a prosecution in the name of
the Commonwealth against the said Daniel Dean, indicted for murder, by
which it was considered by the Court that he be hanged by che neck until
he be dead, and the execution of this judgement, be made and upon him,
the said Daniel Dean, by the Sheriff of Scott County, on Friday the 12th
day of July next; between the hours of ten in the forenoon and two of
the afternoon of the same day, at the usual place of execution, the exe-
cution of which judgement was by the said Circuit Court suspended until
the 9th day of October nexc.

And on the motion of the counsel of the Attorney General, it is
ordered that this case be removed to Richmond, there to be heard and
determined, and that this order be certified to the Clerk of this Court at
Richmond, and also to the said Circuit Court of Scott Country.

A copy teste; Joseph A. Waddell, Clerk
A copy teste; W. S. Rhodes, Deputy Clerk.

October 13, 1879
Virginia:

In the Clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Scott County, in Vacation,
on the 13th day of October 1879, the following order was received and
entered to wit;

“Virginia: At a Supreme Court of Appeals held at the Courthouse of
Wythe County in the town of Wytheville, on Thursday, the 31st day of
July A.D. 1879.”

Daniel Dean, Plaintiff in Error, “against”? The Commonwealth, defend-
ant in Error. Upon a Writ of Error The Commonwealth Defendanc in
Error to a judgement of the Circuit Court of Scott County, rendered on
the 27th day of August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court
Wythe County in the town of Wytheville, on Thursday, the 31st day of
July A.D. 1879.” .

Daniel Dean, Plaintiff in Error, “against” the Commonwealth, Defend-
ant in Error. Upon a Writ of Error The Commonwealth Defendant in
Error to a judgement of the Circuit Court of Scott County, rendered on
the 27th day of August 1878, affirming a judgement of the County Court
of said County, rendered on the 3rd day of June 1878 in a prosecution of
The Commonwealth against the Plaintiff in Error for murder, whereby it
is considered that the said Plainciff in Error ‘tbe hanged by che neck until

2./


execution of this judgement be made and done upon him the said John
Tumns by the Sheriff of Scott County, on Friday the ninth day of
November next, between noon and three o’clock in the afternoon of the
same day, at the usual place of execution or some convenient place for
execution. And thereupon the said John Tumns is remanded to jail.

The Sentence (George Wright implicated in the same case as Tumns)

George Wright, late of the County of Scott, who stands convicted of
murder in the second degree, was again led to the bar in custody of the
jailor of this Court, and thereupon it being demanded of him, if any-
thing for himself he had or knew to say, why the Court here should not
proceed to pronounce judgement against him according to law, and
nothing being offered or alleged in delay of Judgement, it is considered
by the Court that the said George Wright be imprisoned in the Public
Jail and Penitentiary house of this Commonwealth, for the term of seven
years, the period by the jurors in their verdict ascertained, and that he be
kept in a solitary cell in the said jail and Penitentiary house, on low and
coarse diet, for the space of one-cwelfth part of the said term. And it is
ordered that the Sheriff of Scott County do, as soon as possible after the
adjournment of this Court, remove and safely convey the said George
Wright from the jail of this Court to the said Public Jail and Penitentiary
house, therein co be kept imprisoned, and treated in manner directed by
law. And the Court doth order it to be certified to the director of the
Public Jail and Penitentiary. That George Wright indicted as principal in
the second degree, of the murder of John Wright, was tried and convicted
of murder in the second deyree and sentenced to confinement in the
Penitentiary for seven years. Tumns the principal in che first degree
having been previously convicted of murder in the first degree and
sentenced to be executed. (The Judge continues)

The principal circumstances attending the case are as follows: The
prisoner came to the still house of Stark Jett in Scoce County inquiring
for Tumns, John and David Wright (who were his cousins, Tumns by
marriage and the others by blood). That Tumns, John and David Wright
shortly afterwards came to the still house aforesaid, Tummns carrying a

rifle gun which he set down near the still house, which they entered and |

procured brandy and cider and drank until the prisoner was intoxicated,
and the others considerably excited with liquor, thac they frequently
went out of the still house appearing co consult together, and came back
Tumns with a butcher knife in his hand repouring with it, and saying
what he could do with it, could kill people with it, ete. The prisoner also
boasted of having formerly dirked a man, saying he could whip, throw
down and outrun any person present, could whip a nation of hell cals,
ete. Stark Jett became alarmed at their conduct and threats, supposing
them aimed at him and left the still house going about 60 yards to his
dwelling house. Tumns and the prisoner were soon afterwards seen to fall
on John Wright prostrate and beat him, David, the brother of John, who
was sitting on the fence apart from the others, immediately interfered

(&

and tried to pull Tumns off his brother, but mot succeeding, seized an
axe and struck Tumns several blows, perhaps three or four with the pole
and side of the axe on the shoulders, which knocked Tumns off his
brother, Tumns and the prisoner instantly ran from David who pursued
Tumns with the axe, and not overtaking him threw it at him, but did not
hit him. Tumns called to the prisoner to shoot him (meaning David as is
supposed). The prisoner asked where the gun was. Tumns made no answer
but seized the gun himself. David said: “Run John or he will kill one of
us.”” John and David Wright immediately ran from Tumns and the pri-
soner, pursued by them. The prisoner asked Tumns to give him the gun
and he would shoot, saying ‘‘you are too bad hurt to shoot him”. Tumns
said no; “You are too drunk. I will shoot him myself.” They accordingly
pursued John and David Wright about eighty yards, the prisoner and
Tumns running side by side, when John who was considerably intoxi-
cated finding Tumns likely to overtake him, leaped a fence and turned
around, Tumns laid the gun on the fence about three steps distance from
John Wright who threw up his hands and said: “Oh John! Don’t shoot!”
He instantly fired and John Wright fell mortally wounded, and died soon
afterwards, The prisoner, who was standing at Tumns’ elbow when the
gun fired, immediately ran on the course he had been running, and pass-
ing through the gap of the mountain about a half a mile along the main
road, was soon afterwards found eighty yards from the road in a state of
beastly intoxication, brought to town and committed for trial. The body
of John Wright, on a post-mortem examination, exhibited bruises and
scratches in the face inflicted, as is believed, by the prisoner and Tumis
when they first prostrated him at the still house. No evidence of the
prisoner’s character was introduced at the trial, nor did it appear what
character he bears, other than is to be inferred from the foregoing facts,
which show all the aid, counsel, or advice he gave Tumns to perpetrate the
murder. It did not appear nor is it known or believed that the prisoner has
heretofore been convicted of any felony or other infamous offense. And
thereupon the said George Wright is remanded to jail.

Benjamin Estill--Judge (Circuit Court)

George McConnell, Sr., was sheriff 1831-1832 and was the man who
hanged John Tumns. John D. Sharpe was Commonwealth's Attorney
from 1829 to 1853.

It must here be noted that the Jett family was in no way involved in
the murder of John Wright, but the crime was committed in their
presence and they were called as witnesses. Nor was Stark Jett engaged in
illegal activities in the operation of a distillery. Ac chat period the manu-
facture of alcoholic beverages was legitimate enterprise. Breweries, distil-
leries, and saloons were numerous throughout the country. No attempt ty
made here to discuss the moral, social, economic and scientific aspects of
the use and restriction of alcoholic beverages, but it is chought since the
Jett family is mentioned so prominently, in this case, it is only fair they
be placed in proper perspective. The Jetts had large land holdings along
the north fork of Holston River near the juncture of the Washington and
Scott County lines, not far from where Mendota now stands. From bits


adjoining states to see this once in a lifetime event. Officers had to clear
the way as the wagon bearing Arch sitting atop his coffin wended its way
from the jail to the hanging site. It is said that Arch puffed on a long
black cigar as he made his triumphant entry into the hollow that was to
bear his name everafter.

Exactly at high noon of that fateful day, the trap was sprung and Arch
fell through the trapdoor, his neck broken, his debt to society paid. As the
trap was sprung, the story goes, a small Negro boy standing on top of the
hill fainted and tumbled end over end to the bottom, where he quickly re-
covered at the foot of the scaffold and scampered back into the crowd.

It is not known just where Arch was buried. The older citizens of
Lebanon say they recall the scaffold standing for many years afterwards—
perhaps as Arch’s only tombstone. The scaffold is gone, the story almost
forgotten. The hillside amphitheater remains — only a few minutes walk
from the business section of Lebanon. It has been almost one hundred
years since Russell County’s last and perhaps only legal hanging.

Compiled by: Roy L. Sturgill

(Information from old newspaper accounts, and Circuit Court Records
of Russell County )

nena AST

“HANGIN’S IN SCOTT COUNTY”
By Roy L. Sturgill

Introduction

One could spend an entire lifetime writing and compiling the more
pleasant historical records and events of the people of Southwest Vir-
ginia. However, we, as well as people in all parts of the world had dark
and gloomy times; and today they are forever imprinted in the record
books of the Courts, and on the pages of history, as solemn reminders
that the past was not always as pure and undefiled as we would like.
These unsavory happenings have therefore become a part of our history.

Certainly, we are not sadists in our curiousity as to how the Courts
dealt with the criminal element in the pioneer days. In Southwest
Virginia we had on the benches of our Courts, and at the Bar, some of the
most brilliant legal minds in the entire United States. It is indeed un-
fortunate that some of the criminals hold a more prominent place in
history than does these judges, lawyers, and other law enforcement
officers.

In the early days hanging was the method most widely adopted for
the infliction of the death penalty upon those convicted of first-degree
murder. It was at one time considered necessary to have executions
public in order to impress evildoers. The time and place was fixed within
limits by sentence of the Court, between specified hours, on a certain day.
Friday was customarily the day set because of its association with the
Crucifixion of Christ.

Hanging the condemned was the responsibility of the County Sheriff,
who in most cases was not a skilled executioner, and there were instances
when the job was horribly botched. Nevertheless, he was compelled by
law to perform the distasteful task to the best of his ability.

It was not until the 1908 General Assembly the Legislators became
alarmed by the spectacle of public hangings, and proposed that execu-
tions be performed in ‘quiet dignity”, with only those required by law as
witnesses to be in attendance, and that all public hangings in the
Commonwealth should cease.

In this article we turn back the pages of time, to a period many years
prior to the General Assembly of 1908, and reflect on the Court records
of hangings that took place in Scott County, as follows:

THE FIRST WAS JOHN TUMNS or TUMMS (For murder)

The Indictment April 9, 1832

At a Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery held for Scott
County at the Courthouse thereof, on Monday, the 9th day of April 1832:
Present Benjamin Estill, esq. Judge. Isaac C. Anderson Foreman,
Zechariah Hensley, James Bevins, John Wolfe, Cornelias Fugate, Henry
Wood, Sr., Abraham Lane, George Wineyard, James Jett, William Agee,
Isaac Hickam, William Smith, Reuben Pendleton, William Ervin, Samuel

24.55

Estep, John Strong, John Powers, Joseph Salling, John Pendleton,
Zehariah Fugate, Nimrod Taylor, Jr., James Donalson, and John Harris
were sworn a Grand Jury of Inquest for the body of the County, and
having received their charge, withdrew, and after some time returned into
Court and presented:

An Indictment against John Tumms and George Wright for murder, a
true bill.

(Called as Witnesses)

Stark Jett, Elizabeth Jett, Julia Ann Jett, George Vineyard, Paschal
Jones. Goldman Davison, and John Pearson were sworn in Court to give
evidence to the Grand Jury upon a bill of Indictment against John Tumms,
and George Wright ,for murder and sent to them.

(On the same day) Arraigned

John Tumms and George Wright both late of the County of Scott
labourers, who stand indicted of murder, were led to the bar in custody
of the jailor of this Court, thereof arraigned, and severally pleaded not
guilty of the indictment. Whereupon, on the motion of the said John
Tumms and George Wright, and for reasons appearing to the Court, this
trial is postponed till the next Term. And the said John Tumms and
George Wright are remanded to jail.

(Appearance bonds given by the following) ~

Stark Jett, George Vineyard, Paschal Jones, Goldman Davison, and
John Pearson came into Court and acknowledged themselves to be
severally indebted to John Floyd, Esq., Governor or Chief Magistrate of
this Commonwealth in the sum of one-hundred dollars each, of their
respective lands and tenement goods and chattels to be levied, and to the
said Governor and his successors for the use of the Commonwealth
rendered, yet upon this condition, that if the said Stark Jett, George
Vineyard, Goldman Davison, Paschal Jones, and John Pearson shall
severally make their personal appearance before the Judge of this Court
on the first day of September Court next, to give evidence on behalf of
the Commonwealth against John Tumns and George Wright, and shall not
depart thence without leave of the said Judge, then this recognizance shall
be void.

° (Appearance bonds)

Stark Jett as the next friend of his wife Elizabeth and daughter Julia
Ann (an infant) came into Court and acknowledged himself to be
indebted to John Floyd, Esq., Governor or Chief Magistrate of this
Commonwealth in the sum of two-hundred dollars, of his lands and
tenement goods and chattels to be levied, and to the said Governor and
his successors for the use of the Commonwealth rendered; yet upon this
condition that the said Elizabeth Jett and Julia Ann Jett shall severally
make their personal appearance before the Judge of this Court on the
first day of September next, to give evidence on behalf of the Common-
wealth against John Tumms and George Wright, and shall not depart
css without leave of the said Judge, then this recognizance is to be
void.

-14-

(This one did not appear for the arraignment)

David Wright who stands bound by two recognizances entered into
before the Court of Scott County, in the penalty of one-hundred dollars
each, to appear here this day to give evidence on behalf of the Common-
wealth against John Tumms and George Wright, was solemnly called and
came not, which default was ordered to be entered on the records.

The Trial September 10, 1832

At a Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery, held for Scott
County thereof on Monday, the tenth day of September, 1832.

Present: Benjamin Estill Esquire, Judge.

John Tumms late of the County of Scott, who stands indicted for
murder, and was heretofore arraigned thereof and pleaded not guilty to
the indictment, was again led to the bar in custody of the jailor of this
Court, and thereupon came a Jury to wit: David Wininger; William
Hensley; William Haynes; Stephen Epperson; Amos Templeton; Edward
Pace; William Slone; Burgess McKinzie; William Harris; Martin Shelton;
John Conn and Joseph Lane, who being elected, tried and sworn the truth
of and upon the premises to speak, and having heard the evidence, upon
their oath do say, that the said John Tumms is guilty of murder in the
first degree in manner and form as in the indictment against him is
alleged. And thereupon he is remanded to jail.

The Trial September 11, 1832

Benjamin Estill; Judge presiding.

George Wright late of the County of Scott who stands indicted for
murder and was heretofore arraigned thereof and pleaded not guilty to
the indictment, was again led to the bar in custody of the jailor of this
Court, and thereupon came a jury to wit: John R. Carter; Oliver Powers;
William Bond; Henry Frazier; John Easterling; Peter Dennison; James
Moore; David Nelson; Abraham Phipps; Nimrod Elam; John Proons, and
William Allen, who being elected, tried, and sworn the truth of and upon
the premises to speak, and having heard the evidence, upon their oath do
say, that the said George Wright is guilty of murder in the second degree
and not guilty of murder in the first degree, and they do asceztain the
term of his imprisonment in the public jail and penitentiary house to be
seven years. And thereupon he is remanded to jail.

The Sentence (The Story of John Tumms)

From the Clerk’s Office, Scott County, Virginia dated, September 13,
1832.

John Tumms (Tumns) late of the County of Scott, who stands con-
victed of murder in the first degree, was again led to the bar in custody of
the jailor of this Court, and thereupon it being demanded of him if any-
thing for himself he had or knew to say, why the Court here to judgement
and execution against him, of and upon the premises, should not proceed
he said he had nothing but what he had before said; therefore it is con-
sidered by the Court, that he be hanged by the neck until he be dead. And

-15-


execution of this judgement be made and done upon him the said John
Tumns by the Sheriff of Scott County, on Friday the ninth day of
November next, between noon and three o’clock in the afternoon of the
same day, at the usual place of execution or some convenient place for
execution. And thereupon the said John Tumns is remanded to jail.

The Sentence (George Wright implicated in the same case as Tumns)

George Wright, late of the County of Scott, who stands convicted of
murder in the second degree, was again led to the bar in custody of the
jailor of this Court, and thereupon it being demanded of him, if any-
thing for himself he had or knew to say, why the Court here should not
proceed to pronounce judgement against him according to law, and
nothing being offered or alleged in delay of Judgement, it is considered
by the Court that the said George Wright be imprisoned in the Public
Jail and Penitentiary house of this Commonwealth, for the term of seven
years, the period by the jurors in their verdict ascertained, and that he be
kept in a solitary cell in the said jail and Penitentiary house, on low and
coarse diet, for the space of one-twelfth part of the said term. And it is
ordered that the Sheriff of Scott County do, as soon as possible after the
adjournment of this Court, remove and safely convey the said George
Wright from the jail of this Court to the said Public Jail and Penitentiary
house, therein to be kept imprisoned, and treated in manner directed by
law. And the Court doth order it to be certified to the director of the
Public Jail and Penitentiary. That George Wright indicted as principal in
the second degree, of the murder of John Wright, was tried and convicted
of murder in the second degree and sentenced to confinement in the
Penitentiary for seven years. Tumns the principal in the first degree
having been previously convicted of murder in the first degree and
sentenced to be executed. (The Judge continues)

The principal circumstances attending the case are as follows: The
prisoner came to the still house of Stark Jett in Scott County inquiring
for Tumns, John and David Wright (who were his cousins, Tumns by
marriage and the others by blood). That Tumns, John and David Wright
shortly afterwards came to the still house aforesaid, Tumns carrying a
rifle gun which he set down near the still house, which they entered and
procured brandy and cider and drank until the prisoner was intoxicated,
and the others considerably excited with liquor, that they frequently
went out of the still house appearing to consult together, and came back
Tumns with a butcher knife in his hand repouring with it, and saying
what he could do with it, could kill people with it, etc. The prisoner also
boasted of having formerly dirked a man, saying he could whip, throw
down and outrun any person present, could whip a nation of hell cats,
etc. Stark Jett became alarmed at their conduct and threats, supposing
them aimed at him and left the still house going about 60 yards to his
dwelling house. Tumns and the prisoner were soon afterwards seen to fall
on John Wright prostrate and beat him. David, the brother of John, who
was sitting on the fence apart from the others, immediately interfered

-16-

ear as AA NAO at

gg

and tried to pull Tumns off his brother, but not succeeding, seized an
axe and struck Tumns several blows, perhaps three or four with the pole
and side of the axe on the shoulders, which knocked Tumns off his
brother, Tumns and the prisoner instantly ran from David who pursued
Tumns with the axe, and not overtaking him threw it at him, but did not
hit him. Tumns called to the prisoner to shoot him (meaning David as is
supposed). The prisoner asked where the gun was. Tumns made no answer
but seized the gun himself. David said: “Run John or he will kill one of
us.” John and David Wright immediately ran from Tumns and the pri-
soner, pursued by them. The prisoner asked Tumns to give him the gun
and he would shoot, saying ‘“‘you are too bad hurt to shoot him”. Tumns
said no; “You are too drunk. I will shoot him myself.” They accordingly
pursued John and David Wright about eighty yards, the prisoner and
Tumns running side by side, when John who was considerably intoxi-
cated finding Tumns likely to overtake him, leaped a fence and turned
around, Tumns laid the gun on the fence about three steps distance from
John Wright who threw up his hands and said: “Oh John! Don’t shoot!”
He instantly fired and John Wright fell mortally wounded, and died soon
afterwards, The prisoner, who was standing at Tumns’ elbow when the
gun fired, immediately ran on the course he had been running, and pass-
ing through the gap of the mountain about a half a mile along the main
road, was soon afterwards found eighty yards from the road ina state of
beastly intoxication, brought to town and committed for trial. The body
of John Wright, on a post-mortem examination, exhibited bruises and
scratches in the face inflicted, as is believed, by the prisoner and Tumns
when they first prostrated him at the still house. No evidence of the
prisoner’s character was introduced at the trial, nor did it appear what
character he bears, other than is to be inferred from the foregoing facts,
which show all the aid, counsel, or advice he gave Tumns to perpetrate the
murder. It did not appear nor is it known or believed that the prisoner has
heretofore been convicted of any felony or other infamous offense. And
thereupon the said George Wright is remanded to jail.

Benjamin Estill--Judge (Circuit Court) .

George McConnell, Sr., was sheriff 1831-1832 and was the man who
hanged John Tumns. John D. Sharpe was Commonwealth's Attorney
from 1829 to 1853.

It must here be noted that the Jett family was in no way involved in
the murder of John Wright, but the crime was committed in their
presence and they were called as witnesses. Nor was Stark Jett engaged in
illegal activities in the operation of a distillery. At that period the manu-
facture of alcoholic beverages was legitimate enterprise. Breweries, distil-
leries, and saloons were numerous throughout the country. No attempt is
made here to discuss the moral, social, economic and scientific aspects of
the use and restriction of alcoholic beverages, but it is thought since the
Jett family is mentioned so prominently, in this case, it is only fair they
be placed in proper perspective. The Jetts had large land holdings along
the north fork of Holston River near the juncture of the Washington and
Scott County lines, not far from where Mendota now stands. From bits

‘17.

HANGING IN RUSSELL COUNTY
By Roy L. Sturgill

THE YEAR WAS 1873, THE PLACE LEBANON, RUSSELL COUNTY,
VIRGINIA

John Hurt was missing from his home near Lebanon, and had been for
several days. It now seemed certain he had met with foul play. Arch
Johnson, a six-foot four-inch negro farm worker, was suspected of having
killed him, but no evidence actually existed that he had done the killing.

It is related that a group of men searching for the body asked Arch to
assist in finding Hurt in the hope that he would in some way reveal his
guilt. The story as told over the years, is that the group or posse stopped
on a hillside to scan the distant terrain. While there,Arch is said to ‘have
exclaimed, “There he is behind that log on yon hillside.” It was the mis-
take the searchers were hoping Arch would make. The distance was so
great, it was impossible to have seen an object the size of a man’s body,
and neither could they see behind the log. A closer search revealed Hurt’s
body behind the log, where only the killer himself could have known
it was hidden.

According to court records, John Hurt was slain in the month of Jan-
uary 1872. Arch Johnson was brought to trial the 29th day of April,1873.
Russell County’s first courthouse was destroyed by fire earlier in the year
1873 and Arch’s trial was held in the Lebanon Methodist Church. Below
is the exact transcript of the second day of the trial as taken from the
court records of Russell County.

April 30, 1873 — At a Circuit Court continued and held for Russell
County at the Courthouse thereof on the 30th day of April, 1873.

Present, Same Judge as on yesterday — Archy Johnson who stands in-
dicted of a murder by him committed in this County and within the
Jurisdiction of this Court in this that on the .. . day of January 1872 in
and upon the body of John Hurt in the piece of the Commonwealth, then
and there being feloniously willfully of his malice aforethought did make
an assault, and the said Archy Johnson a certain gun of the value of $5.00
then and there charged with gunpowder and leaded bullet which said gun
he then and there in both hands, then and there had and held, then and
there feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought did discharge
and shoot off to against and upon the body of the said John Hurt; and
that the said Archy Johnson with the leaden bullet aforesaid out of the
gun by him discharged and shot off as aforesaid then and there felon-
iously, willfully and of his malice aforethought did strike, puncture and
wound him the said John Hurt in and upon his body, giving to him the
said John Hurt then and there with the leaden bullet aforesaid so as
aforesaid discharged and shot out of the gun aforesaid by the said Archy
Johnson in and upon the body of the said John Hurt one mortal wound
of which said mortal wound he then and there instantly died. And further
that the said Archy Johnson him the said John Hurt in the manner and by

-10-

<3

the means aforesaid feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought
did kill and murder. Was this day again set to the bar in custody of the
Sheriff and thereupon came the Jury sworn in the case on yesterday pur-
suant to their adjournment to wit: Abram Salyer; Richard L. Smith;
Elijah Rasnake ,Sr.; Nelson H. Fraley; Samuel Burk; William Litton;
Thomas M. Gibson; Samuel B, Owens; James M. Lark; Aaron Cumbow;
William H. Mead; and Martin P. Barrett, and after having heard all the
evidence and arguements of counsel, withdrew from the bar to consult
upon their verdict and after some time returned into court, and upon
their oaths do say, “We the Jury find the prisoner Archy Johnson guilty
of murder in the first degree.” Whereupon the prisoner by his counsel
moved the court to set aside the verdict of the Jury and grant him a new
trial, which motion was opposed by the Attorney for the Commonwealth
and the Court took time until tomorrow morning to consider the motion
aforesaid, and thereupon the Jury was discharged and the said Archy
Johnson was remanded to jail.

John A, Kelly, Judge

The following day exactly as recorded on court records Russell County.

May 1, 1873 -- Archy Johnson who stands convicted of murder in the
first degree was this day again set to the bar in custody of the Sheriff, and
the Court having maturely considered the motion made yesterday to set
aside the verdict of the Jury and grant the prisoner a new trial is of the
opinion that the verdict of the Jury is sustained by the testimony, the
motion is therefore overruled. And thereupon it being demanded of the
prisoner if anything for himself he had or knew to say why the Court
should not now proceed to pronounce judgement and execution against
him according to law, and nothing being offered or alleged in delay of
judgement, it is considered by the Court that the said Archy Johnson be
taken to the jail of this County and from thense to the place of execution;
on Friday the 13th day of June between the hours of 12 p.m. and 3 p.m.
and there be hanged by the neck until he be dead. And thereupon the said
Archy Johnson was remanded to Jail.

On motion of James J. Henritze, jailor of Russell County and it appear-
ing to the Court that it is necessary for the safekeeping of Archy Johnson
who is now confined in jail under sentence of death, that a good and suf-
ficient guard be kept at said jail. The said jailor is therefore ordered to
summons and keep at said jail a good and substantial guard until the
day of execution.

Signed: John A Kelly, Judge
The hanging took place as ordered on Friday the 13th day, June 1873.

The scene was a hastily erected scaffold just north of Lebanon, in a small
valley resembling an amphitheater. More than 5,000 men, women and
children (white and colored) were said to have jammed the crowded hill-
side overlooking the place of execution from dawn that day until the trap
was sprung on the huge Negro.

The strects of this small southwest Virginia town were crowded with
the curious who had come for miles from other counties of Virginia and

-11-


eg?

Southampton County
Virginia

Thomas C. Parramore

Published for the
Southampton County Historical Society
by the
University Press oi Virginia
Charlottesville

A gn a ill ec clams Sil aly tn ae a naa ellie ea
canal

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF VIRGINIA
Copyright ° 1978 by the Rector and Visitors
of the University of Virginia

First published 1978

Endpapers: Adapted from a map drawn by Mrs. J. R. W. Street,

Franklin, Va., and printed in Bicentennial Calendar, 1975.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Parramore, Thomas C.
Southampton County, Virginia.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Southampton Co., Va.—History. I. Southampton
County Historical Society. I. Title.
F232.S7P37 975.5552 77-28828
ISBN 0-8139-0754-3

Printed in the United States of America

3
-

es)

10

John Crump Parker
In grateful appreciation
of his untiring efforts and
fervent interest in behalf of
the Southampton County Historical Society

eee ne. eee dasa th eaiie = cont beads hp ee eR

30 Southampton County

twenty-four feet, was completed in 1752 but had to be replaced
when it was burned, allegedly by an incendiary, in 1767. A prison,
together with pillory and whipping post, had also been com-
pleted before the end of 1751. The tavern license granted to Quaker
Exum Scott in 1749 probably gave the future town of Jerusalem its
initial business venture.*

The public affairs of Southampton Court in its earliest years
reflected the primary concerns of a community in transition from a
frontier to a more settled condition. Overseers were appointed for
maintaining the county’s roads and bridges, and bounties were
established for the scalps of squirrels and the heads of crows. Sign-
posts were ordered for the principal crossroads, and inspectors were
appointed for Southampton’s chief commercial exports—beef, pork,
flour, tar, and pitch. Anglican churchwardens, the designated
guardians of public and private morality, brought frequent actions
against unwed mothers and other offenders and were sued in turn
by the courts for failure to keep the chapels in good repair.”

The Negro slave bore the main burden of the rigors of frontier
justice in the criminal courts. For stealing a hog in 1762, Benjamin
Ruffin’s Negro York received thirty-nine lashes. For the theft of a
horse in the same year, Albridgton Jones’s Scipio was hanged. A
Negro picked up without a pass cheated white justice by refusing
to divulge his name and then setting fire to the jail and escaping.
A more ominous case was that of Joshua Harris’s Tom and Samuel
Westbrook’s Peter, charged in 1764 with giving poison in the form
of “medicine” to “sundry persons.” The pair were found guilty and
ordered to have thirty-nine lashes each, Tom being burned on the
hand as well. An omen of things to come in Southampton was the
account presented to the court in January 1764 for “whipping 11
Negroes by Order of a justice on Suspicion of an insurrection” and
for maintaining twenty-five blacks in jail on the same charge.”

The 2,009 people listed in 1755 as subject to the tithe in South-
ampton represented a total population of about four thousand
whites and some two thousand Negro slaves. Except for a few whose
occupation was flour milling or coopering, virtually every family’s
main employment was farming. Many of these, however, supple-
mented their income seasonally by collecting tar, pitch, and turper-
tine from the abundant pine forests. James Auld, a Maryland man

'

The Borderland 31

who passed through Southampton on horseback in March 1765,
found the latter business flourishing. After crossing the Blackwater
bridge at South Quay on March 5, Auld proceeded next day to
the Nottoway through “piney Lands” with “Tarr and Tarr kilns
plenty—which they cart to South Quay & being stored there by Mr.
[Thomas] Fisher is carted by the owners to Suffolk Town at the head
of Nansemond.” The rivers, particularly at this season of the her-
ring run, produced “Plenty of Fresh Water Fish.”*

The leading men of Southampton were mostly large planters
whose landed estates imposed upon them at least a moral respon-
sibility for active public service. Benjamin Ruffin was appointed
sheriff at the first court in 1749 but was soon superseded by Samuel
Blow. Thomas Clark was the first constable, and Richard Kello,
owner of a gristmill, served as clerk of the court throughout the
county’s entire colonial period. Robert Jones, his merit certified
by a commission from the president and masters of the College of
William and Mary, was named first surveyor of the county." |

The names of Joseph Gray and Thomas Jarrell loom as those of
early Southampton’s most conspicuous leaders. Jarrell, with Ethel-
dred Taylor, was elected to the House of Burgesses from South-
ampton in 1752 after having served as major in the county. militia *”
and churchwarden since before 1749." Gray, a native of Surry
County, had been a burgess from Isle of Wight for thirteen years
before the formation of Southampton and his election to the House
from the new county for the years 1754-58 and 1762-69. Colonel of
the county’s first militia regiment, churchwarden for both Isle of
Wight and, later, Southampton, sheriff of the latter in 1751-52, and
justice of the peace, Gray was a figure of prominence in all phases-.
of the life of the developing community.

The principal institution of the county, aside from its court, was
the Anglican church. Nottoway Parish was subdivided in 1762,
the part west of Nottoway River becoming St. Luke’s Parish. Besides
Seacock Chapel, which had stood since 1726, the eastern (Nottoway)
parish by now had a second chapel near Nottoway Swamp (three
and a half miles east of Courtland) and a third at Flowers’s Bridge.
The only church building in St. Luke’s at the time of its creation
was the chapel finished in 1734 at William Blake’s plantation (two
miles northeast of Capron), but the edifice afterwards known as

so

342 HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY

In 1870 he was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for Scott County and
served until 1874, when he was elected Judge of the County Court, which
office he held for six years. He was elected Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial
Circuit in 1885, and served until 1802, when he resigned to resume his practice.

The celebrated murder case of the Commonwealth vs. Dean was tried be-

Lon wad meal hene nei

fore him. Dean was convicted upon circumstantial evidence after two mis-
trials, in which more than one hundred Witnesses testified, and although the
case was appealed to the Circuit Court, and thence to the Supreme Court,
the sentence was confirmed and executed.

After resigning as Judge of the Circuit Court, he was retained in a number
of important cases. One of these was Emory and Henry College vs. Shoe-
maker, a case which attracted much attention because of the interests in-
volved. He prepared a brief in this case, which for deep and analytical re-
search, elegant and illustrative amplification, has seldom been surpassed.

Death came to him suddenly at 2:07 p.xt. as he sat in his library with his
family. The Board of Supervisors, then in session, ceased consideration of
the business in hand, and passed resolutions of respect. (Supervisor Minute
Book 2, page 376.) :

He married Miss Annice Kyle, daughter of Col. A. K. Kyle, of Rogersville,
Tennessee.

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REV. JAMES B. CRAFT

HE subject of this sketch was born near Hill Station, Scott County,

Virginia, April 16, 1859. His parents were William Craft and Margaret

Stewart Craft. Having been born in the country, he knew a hardy,
healthy boyhood. He was first a pupil in the so-called subscription schools,
under the following teachers: Miss Laura Rhoton, R. H. Darnell, John
Wolfenbarger, and Capt. George R. Dove. On passing from the subscription
schools into the free schools he came under the instruction of such teachers
as Profs. T. H. Mason, R. E. Wolfe, M. A. Riggs and A. Alley, for all of
whom he cherishes fond recollections.

He professed faith in Christ at about the age of 20, in a revival meeting
held by the Rev. Moses L. Ingram, and became a member of the Cartertown
Baptist Church.

On September 15, 1880, he was united in marriage to Rachel P. Gillen-
water, daughter of H. S. and Phebe Pennington Gillenwater. The children
of this marriage were Mary Ellen and Ryland G.

Rev. Craft was baptized in Clinch River on New Year’s Day, 1883, by the
Rev. W. H. Hill. He was also licensed to preach by the Cartertown Baptist
Church on the same day of his baptism. Three days later, he preached his
first sermon at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Darnell, an aunt of his, whose

343. ;

84 Southampton County

to find that it was a frightened servant girl, but Nat turned back
to the house to discover the killing far advanced. Three of Mrs.
Whitehead’s daughters and a grandson were dead, and the old
lady herself was being dragged from the house by Will Francis. As
Nat rode up, Will all but decapitated Mrs. Whitehead with a heavy
blow of his broadaxe. Moments later Nat caught sight of the fourth
daughter, Margaret, crouched in a corner formed by a projecting
cellar cap and a chimney. The girl ran when she realized she had
been discovered, but Nat easily overtook her and, after several
blows with his sword, finally killed her by striking her head with a
fence rail.

While the ransacking of the farm proceeded, two more recruits
joined the rebel army. Joe Turner, a slave of John Clark Turner.
and Nat, property of James and Elizabeth Turner, had been hunt-
ing raccoons nearby when they heard the shouts and screams from
Whitehead’s. Joe, who lived a mile off, was especially concerned
because his wife lived at the Whitehead farm. Already armed
and mounted, they were welcome additions to the growing rebel
force.

With two dozen armed cavalrymen at his command, Nat Turner
now had enough speed and firepower to overcome any kind of re-
sistance he might expect to find on the farms of this thinly settled
region. More than twenty whites were dead and waves of alarm
must soon be rippling across the countryside. In the panic and con-
fusion that would follow lay the only real hope for the success of
his ragged farmhands. For it was not the white people who were
the enemy so much as the system of organization and social disci-
pline that regulated their lives. Terror was the only feasible sol-
vent of the sinews of control that held the Negro in bondage, and
chaos among the whites was more to be desired than throngs of eager
recruits.

Alarum
As Nat regrouped his men at Whitehead’s around 7:30 a.m., word

of his uprising had not yet spread to the surrounding farms or habi-
tations. Even at the vortex of the ravaged neighborhood, white

The Southhampton Rebellion | ahs

families and their slaves were beginning the day’s work with no
hint of the events of the past hours. But the first news of the revolt
was already moving along the country lanes and would reach several
farmhouses within the next hour.

Perhaps the first white person, apart from the victims themselves,
to learn of the disturbance was John R. Williams, a schoolteacher
known as “Choctaw” for his long hair worn Indian-fashion. Wil-
liams, who lived on a neighboring farm, was attracted toward
Whitehead’s by the noise of the assault and arrived there to find
the house and yard littered with corpses. Returning toward his own
home, Williams was met by one of his Negroes who informed him
that the rebels had visited his farm in his absence and murdered
his wife Louisa and their child. It was “Choctaw” Williams who,
several frantic hours later, brought the first news of the rebellion
to Murfreesboro, North Carolina, some twelve miles south."

Nathaniel Francis, whose farm stood only a mile or so northwest
of Whitehead’s, was another who received early warning. Francis
was at work around 8 a.m. when a slave boy of Travis’s is said to
have rushed into the field and blurted out that all the whites were
dead at his master’s farm. The deaths had apparently been dis-
covered only after daybreak on Monday and the informant could
give no account of who was responsible or why. Francis was not
inclined to credit the story but told his wife and mother that he
thought he should ride over and make sure that his sister, Sally
Travis, and her family were unharmed. He would have his proof
within the next half hour. .

Jordan Barnes, another white farmer of the vicinity, was at work
in his field in the early morning when Jack Reese, a slave he had
hired from Joseph W. Reese, informed him of the killings at White- |
head’s. Jack, with Barnes’s permission, had left a few days earlier
for a visit to the Reese farm and had fallen in with Nat Turner and
the plotters on the eve of the rebellion. Having grown ill on Sunday
evening, Jack tried to quit the enterprise even before it began. Only
the imprecations of Hark Travis, who had considerable influence
over him, had induced him to join. But Jack, continuing ill, had
been of little service to the cause and used his first opportunity
during the pandemonium at Whitehead’s to desert. His story to
Barnes was that he had been told of the killings by one of White-
head’s Negroes.”

i ll Al. sii: ke

) Southampton County
‘rambled up the steps to find that the blade of Will Francis had
ccomplished for them in three strokes what two centuries of debate
ad not.

Abruptly transformed from a field hand into a general, Nat Tur-
er searched his recollection for clues as to what he must do next.
fe joined in a scavenging search for weapons that produced some
owder, a fourth gun, and several unserviceable muskets, but half
is force must still venture out against the enemy with axes and
rubbing hoes.* Moses Moore, a slave boy of the household, was
npressed into the ranks,‘ and Nat led his men out to the barn where
e lined them up in a caricature of military dress. He improvised
series of drills such as he had often seen performed by the South-
mpton militia and instructed the group in coordinated movements
-ntil each man appeared to understand what was expected. It was
‘robably past 3 A.M. when he finally set them off at a quick march
oward the farm of Salathiel Francis, bachelor brother of Sally
“ravis, perhaps six hundred yards away.”

The company took several horses as they left Travis’s but had
.ot proceeded far when someone realized that not all of the mem-
vers of the Travis family had been accounted for. Somehow over-
yoked in the upstairs darkness had been the sleeping form of Mrs.
Cravis’s infant child in its cradle. Nat sent Henry Porter and Will
‘rancis back to the house, and they returned shortly to report that
he deed was done.

Leading his men into Francis’s yard, Nat sent Sam and Will
“rancis, slaves of Salathiel’s brother Nathaniel, to the front door of
he one-room. structure. They knocked loudly and heard Francis
isk who was there. Sam identified himself and said that he had a
etter for him from Nathaniel Francis. When Salathiel opened the
ioor, the two men snatched him forward into the yard, raining
slows until the lifeless body slumped between them.

Whether the rebels gained any recruits from among the seven
laves of Salathiel Francis ig not known,’ but a few more firearms
ind horses were added to the small stock collected at Travis’s. More
hastily now, and with less pretense of military formation, Nat re-
assembled his force and set them off toward the next substantial
farm, two miles distant. Mrs. Piety Reese had gone to bed on
Sunday evening without barring her door and was spared the horror

The Southhampton Rebellion 83

of awakening to witness the blow that killed her. Her son William
had only time to call out “Who is there?” before he too was slain.
A nearly grown Negro boy of Mrs. Reese’s was enlisted before the
rebels left for their next destination. *

Despite a hurried pace, it was nearly 6:30 and sunrise before Nat
and his men could cover the mile between the farms of Piety Reese
and Elizabeth Turner. Hartwell Peebles, overseer for Mrs. Turner,
was already at work at the brandy still and three of the raiders—
Henry Porter, Austin Travis, and Sam Francis--veered off to deal
with him. Nat led the rest on to the “great house” and saw the front
door open briefly and slam shut as his men came into the yard. Will
Francis dismounted on the run and split the door with a blow of
his axe. In the room just beyond, transfixed in disbelieving terror,
stood Mrs. Turner, Nat’s former owner, and Mrs. Sarah New-
some, a sister of Joseph Travis.’ Will immediately struck down Mrs.
Turner while Nat, seizing Mrs. Newsome by a hand, began striking
her about the head with the dull blade of a sword. Again it was Will
who delivered the mortal blow. In the meantime Hartwell Peebles,
shot down by Austin Travis, had died near the still. '"

Joined by three of Mrs. Turner’s Negroes—Davy, Jordan, and
Sam"'—the insurgents rounded up more horses and weapons for
further forays. The next destination was Caty’ Whitehead’s farm,
but Nat sought greater effect by dividing his followers into two
groups. The nine men with horses or mules were ordered to pro-
ceed directly to Whitehead’s, while the six on foot were sent through
a by-way to Henry Bryant’s farm before rejoining the others at the

Whitehead place. The foot soldiers were soon able to report that
they had killed Bryant, his wife Sally, child, and mother-in-law.

Nat’s cavalry sped from Turner’s to the Whitehead farm at a
head-long gallop, thundering down the lane toward the latter
dwelling to find Mrs. Whitehead’s son Richard at work with some
of his slaves in the cotton patch. Will Francis, pausing beside the
lane fence, demanded that the young man-come to him and, when
he reached the fence, struck his head from his shoulders with his
axe,”

Nat Turner, leading the main body of his horsemen toward the
house, was almost in the yard when a figure darting around the
garden caught his attention. It took only a few seconds of pursuit

80 Southampton County

wards murdered, and besought them, with all the sincerity of my
soul, to make their peace with God, before it was too late.”
The preacher’s counsel was neither offered nor received as a warn-
ing of imminent danger. Many in the congregation may have known
si imething of the flaming call to action by black abolitionist David
Walker in his pamphlet of 1829 and the insurrection trial at Rich-
mond that August,” of the threats of black revolt at New Bern and
elsewhere in North Carolina at the end of 1830,” of the implacable
new assault on slavery by a Boston journal known as the Liberator,
and so on. But the Barnes’s Chapel worshipers were taken wholly by
surprise by the terrible events of the night that followed Powell’s

earnest admonition.

The Southampton Rebellion

The Solvent

Hark Travis had started toward the front door with his broadax
when he was stopped short by the tense whispers behind him. There
was another fevered conference while the plotters calculated the
consequences of axes slamming against stout oaken doors and
doomed victims screaming their agony onto the stillness of the sum-
mer night. It would not do to launch the business by rousing the
neighborhood to a sense of its peril. The midnight silence was a
useful ally and ought to be enlisted in the service of the plan.

The downstairs windows were bolted, but a partially opened one
on the second floor offered silent access to the very bedsides of the
family. Nat Turner directed Hark to fetch a ladder and plice it
beside the chimney, its upper end touching the window ledge. There
was a painful wait while Nat cautiously ascended the ladder and
raised the window far enough to permit entry. But now he disap-
peared into the room and, moments later, unbdarred the front door
for the seven men huddled on the porch.

Even now there was a taut moment of indecision. After removing
the three muskets from the racks inside, Nat proposed that some-
one other than himself should strike the first blow. But not even the
raging spirit of Will Francis could be harnessed to the awesome re--
sponsibility; Nat must affirm his resolution by delivering the first
stroke himself. The leader beckoned to Will to follow him and once
more entered the house.'

Gliding up the staircase, Nat paused beside the bed only long
enough to estimate the arc of the blade toward the pillow before
swinging his hatchet at the sleeping figure.,Joseph Travis, his head
grazed by the errant blow, still had another instant of mortality in
which to leap from bed and shout his wife’s name. But Will Francis,
his last doubt banished in the echo of the cry, laid Travis open with
another blow. In two more rapid swings he killed Mrs. Travis and
both of the sleeping boys in the other bed before any of them could
awake to an awareness of the attack.” The rest of the insurgents

< Romi aaa.” i aR Oe

86 Southampton County

Several Southampton households received their first reports of
the uprising from two of Mrs. Whitehead’s servants who spent a
frustrating day of indecision trailing along in the wake of the rebels.
Jack and Andrew, in company with Tom Whitehead, had fled the
farm at the first appearance of the insurgents.” The first two re-
turned to the house not long afterward and were told by other slaves
that the rebels had left orders for these two to follow and join the
uprising. Neither had much heart for it, but the gory evidence about
them suggested that it would be unwise to defy the command. Plac-
ing blankets across the back of the only horse left,’ they mounted
it together and set out along Nat Turner’s route.

When they reached Richard Porter’s farm around 9 a.m., Jack
and Andrew learned from Venus, a Porter slave, that the rebels
had passed that way, just missing the Porter family who fled ahead
of them. On reaching the house of Thomas Haithcock, a free Negro,
the two men told him of their doubts and asked what he thought
they should do. At his own trial later on, Haithcock’s wife and step-
daughter agreed that he advised the two men that they must do as
the rebels demanded. Asking that they wait for him, Haithcock
had something to eat and then rode off with them in search of the
insurgents. After hours of futile pursuit, Jack and Andrew in the
late afternoon turned themselves in to James Powell, a white farmer.
Finding them “very humble,” Powell escorted the pair to Cross
Keys and turned them over to authorities. Haithcock, however, had
apparently not abandoned hope of enlisting in the rebellion."

In spite of these vagrant reports, several hours were to pass before
the alarm became general in Southampton. Nat Turner and his
lieutenants could count on panic and slow communications to
retard the buildup of organized resistance in the rear, but speed was
their chief asset on the road ahead. If they could outdistance the
flight of the alarm along the line of march, a great army might yet
be collected before any pitched battles occurred. Some of his men
were treating each raid as an occasion for alcoholic revelry, but Nat,
firing his cohorts with visions of victory and freedom, struggled
against indiscipline and held his force intact.

Before leaving the Whitehead farm Nat divided his followers into
two detachments of a dozen or so men each. The most reliable men
were positioned at the head of each group and ordered to gallop

The Southhampton Rebellion 87

with all possible speed toward each new destination. Since silence
was no longer necessary, a great whooping and shouting would pre-
cede each successive attack. The orders may also have included an
injunction to spare no embellishment of gruesome butchery in the
execution of victims. Such tactics would not only prevent escapes
but add measurably to the panic that would paralyze resistance.”

Apogee

While Nat led one column north toward Richard Porter’s, the sec-
ond moved west toward Trajan Doyel’s with orders to rejoin the
first at Nathaniel Francis’s. Doyel was overtaken on the road a few
minutes later and instantly killed. Joe and Davy Turner, members
of this detachment, also visited the Elisha Atkins farm between 8
and 9 a.m. but found there only a servant who said that the family
had fled. Davy proposed that they break into the house and look for
guns and ammunition, but Joe objected that they had plenty and
must not tarry. One of Atkins’s slaves was induced to leave with
them, but the man is said to have slipped away and returned soon
afterward.” .

In the meantime the first detachment stopped briefly at Porter's
to find that the whites had been forewarned and were gone. Jacob,
Moses, and Daniel, slaves of the proprietor, and Aaron, owned by
Richard Porter’s ward, Jesse J. Porter,* were enrolled, but Nat was
disappointed to learn that the alarm was moving ahead of his
columns. Hurrying his men toward Francis’s, he doubled back
alone to rally his second force. He came up with it as it was leaving
Howell Harris’s, but here too the whites had fled. Urging all possible
haste, the rebel leader pushed forward in the hope of overtaking the
alarm and forging ahead of it again.

The first detachment ravaged and plundered the Francis farm
at a breakneck pace, cutting down three whites even before reach-
ing the house itself. Little John L. Brown, three-year-old orphaned
nephew of Francis, ran forward to ask for a ride on a horse and was
decapitated. His eight-year-old brother Samuel, witnessing the
scene from the barnyard, broke for the woods but was run down
and killed.2* Henry Doyel, overseer and still operator, ran from the


104 Southampton County

listed among the victims.® A letter from Southampton on August
31 stated that “many heretofore supposed to be murdered, were
secreted in the woods, and have been searched up.” The death toll
among the whites was finally fixed at fifty-five.” |

It remained to track down the author of the rebellion, the wiliest
fugitive of them all. Nat Turner’s wife, a slave of Giles Reese,*' was
lashed into cooperating with the whites and revealed to them a
cache of documents thought to represent Nat’s ruminations before
the revolt. These included what some took to be a list of names,
some symbols such as a crucifix and sun, various figures (6,000,
30,000, 80,000, etc.), an apparent map of the county, and certain
“hieroglyphic characters” said to have been inscribed in either
blood or pokeberry juice.*” O. M. Smith reported that “a written
plan of the insurrection, containing the order in which they were
to take us, [was] found on one of the generals!” But the documents
gave as little clue to the whereabouts of the black prophet as they
did to the secret thoughts that had Icosed the lightning of revolt
on Southampton County. As long as Nat Turner remained free,
Southampton’s white community was not.

7
Requiem for a God-fearing Man

Counsel for the Defense

“Should my son Thomas R. Gray... bring any claim against my
estate whatsoever it is my desire that the portion . .. bequeathed to
my Grand Daughter Ellen Douglas Gray may be equally divided
between my son Edwin and my Daughter Ann Gray.” There was
really no question at all about it, then: Capt. Thomas Gray must
have stretched himself out and died in the second week of Sep-
tember precisely in order to spite his son. The young man was not
only cut entirely out of the will,’ but his father’s death had come
at the most damaging moment possible, at the height of the insur-
rection trials. As a result--one the old man undoubtedly foresaw and
relished--Thomas Ruffin Gray of the Southampton Bar had gone
the whole period from September 7 to October 18, when over half
the cases were heard, without a single assignment.

Moreover, it must have seemed clear to the young attorney that
the court's prejudice had operated against ‘him even before his
father’s death. While William C. Parker was handling seven cases
in that first week of trials and the upstart French no less than nine,
Gray had been given only four and the court lad convicted every
man he defended. A docket of almost forty cases had gained him
$50—less expenses—or a dollar a day for the period of his involve-
ment.” It was too bad there was no God whose wrath could be called
down on rascal magistrates and faithless fathers or a hell where they
might go for an eternity of contrition. For Thomas R. Gray of
Round Hill there was no consolation in having played a role in one
of the most significant events in American history. His ruin was
even more complete now than it had¢been before Nat Turner
launched his hatchet at Travis’s cranium.

Despite an atmosphere still bordering on hysteria in and about
Jerusalem,’ the trials and executions were handled with admirable
efficiency and dispatch. Daniel Porter, on Levi Waller’s testimony
that he had seen Daniel among the rebels at his own house, was con-
victed on the last day of August and hanged six days later. Jack and


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3 2. nah pages St eee eres ee ae . : Ree
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110 Southampton County

Thomas R. Gray could not have failed to acquire substantial
information about Nat Turner’s life and ambitions even before their
first interview, and may, indeed, have had a manuscript already
in an advanced stage of preparation. Besides the details gathered
about him from others during September and October, Nat had fur-
nished a lengthy confession on the preceding evening. Norfolk
readers of the American Beacon had learned on November 2 that the
captive “evinced great intelligence and shrewdness of intellect,
answering every question clearly and distinctly, and without con-
fusion or prevarication.” He had conceived the enterprise, revealed
it to his cohorts ‘‘a few days before, and then only 5 or 6 in number!”
He had been actuated, he claimed, by “a revelation.”

In a letter of November | from Southampton, a correspondent of
the Richmond Enquirer reported that the prisoner told “with great
candour” of “the operations of his mind for many years past; of the
signs he saw; the spirits he conversed with; of his prayers, fastings
and watchings, and of his supernatural powers and gifts, in curing
diseases, controlling the weather, etc.” The “idea of emancipating
the blacks [had] entered his mind” about a year before, but it was
August 21 when he “‘rendezvoused in a field near Travis’s” with
his fellow plotters. It had been Nat himself who entered an upper

window of his master’s house, opened the outer door, and struck the:

first blow at Travis.”

Other informants passed on additional details gleaned from the
same interview on October 31—how Nat claimed to be able to “com-
mand the thunder and can thunder when he pleases; that he was
in the way of his duty; that he can read it upon the leaves of the
trees, &c.”” It was learned that he claimed to be able to “produce
a drought or a rain, by the efficacy of prayer,” that he was “induced

to believe that he could succeed in conquering the county of

93923

Southampton . . . as the white people did in the revolution,

that “the dark appearance of the sun” had been the signal for him
to begin. From the moment when “he struck his master. ..,
called on his wife” and “received the fatal blow from one of [Nat's]
associates” to the details of his flight and capture, Nat had already
made his confession, and Gray was undoubtedly among the
fascinated audience who first listened to it.** “He does not hesitate
to say,” one witness concluded, that “if his time were to go over

who

Requiem for a God-fearing Man 111

again, he must necessarily act in the same way.” He had intended
he remarked, “to lie by till better times arrived.”

It remained to make a full transcript for the court record, but
Gray had other purposes in mind besides. By encouraging Nat to

dwell upon his early life and development into manhood, the inter- .

viewer could flesh out a portrayal that would not fail to intrigue
thousands of Americans. An inexpensive pamphlet might serve ad-
mirably to gratify public curiosity as well as calm the fears of those
who wondered if the Southampton rebellion might only foreshadow
a terrible conflict in which white and black races would resolve by
savage violence the agonizing problem of their permanent rela-
tionship.

In three days of intermittent sessions from November 1 through
November 3, Gray sat in the jail with the shackled rebel leader, lis-
tening to his account, occasionally interjecting questions, from time
to tme taking unobtrusive notes. The result was in many respects
the most remarkable document produced by two and a half ¢en-
turies of American slavery.

While more than half of the five thousand words or so that com-
prise the confession relate to already well-publicized circumstances
of the raids on various farms, it is the first two thousand of these
that give the account its depth and vitality. Here the prisoner re-
lated his early awareness of abilities and a destiny that set him apart
from ordinary men—the infant utterances that gave rise to specula-
tion that he might be a prophet, the assurance of his parents that
certain marks on his head and chest confirmed it, the indications of

great intelligence and keen powers of observation. Bred to such a”

Conviction; he had, in his words, “wrapped myself in mystery” and
studiously avoided mixing in society” in order to preserve the aura
of superiority that seemed to surround him.” |
It was in turning strongly to religion in early manhood that Nat,
according to his confession, began the transition from mere mystic
to insurgent. A series of encounters with “the Spirit” strengthened
his belief that he “was ordained for some great purpose in the Hands
of the Almighty,” but some years passed before he made the eon:
nection between his “great purpose” and remarks by others in his
childhood that he had “too much sense” ever to “be of service to
anyone as a slave.” After a subsequent vision of “white spirits and

.

108 Southampton County

mained of keeping the rebellion alive." Patrols were swarming
across woods and fields in quest of the last fugitives and had no
foubt seized nearly all of them.

After gathering some provisions at the deserted Travis farm on
August 25, Nat had spent his first six weeks hiding nearby in a hole
under a pile of fence rails. Patrols appeared and reappeared in the
vicinity so frequently that he was unable to venture out except for
a few minutes each night for water. By early October, however, the
patrols had thinned out sufficiently for him to roam about at night,
and he had even been able to eavesdrop at various farmhouses."

Two weeks of nocturnal freedom, with Nat returning each night
‘ust before daybreak to his makeshift cave, ended on October 15
through an unlucky accident—a dog being attracted to the hideout
by the smell of some meat Nat had there. Nat returned from an
evening ramble to find the dog emerging from the hole, and the
same animal returned two nights later. This time the dog accom-
sanied two Negroes on a night’s hunt (so much had security
ioosened) and barked as it neared Nat’s cave. When the fugitive
identified himself to the two men, both immediately fled and Nat
realized that they would probably betray his hiding place, which
they did.” A report from Petersburg boasted that between five and
six hundred men had located the cave, finding in it “a pistol, and a
ham of bacon” and a stick with forty-one notches in it, believed to
represent the number of days he had spent there. * But Nat himself
was gone. .

Even now Nat was able to avoid discovery for another two weeks,
this time by hollowing out a space for himself under two adjacent
fodder stacks in a field on Nathaniel Francis’s farm. Again, he was
reduced to foraging only in the late hours of night, but he obtained
two bacon hams and enough sweet potatoes to sustain him, if neces-
sary, through a lengthy seige. On Wednesday, October 28, however,
Francis came riding through the field, saw. the rebel leader, and
fired a pistol charge at him, twelve pellets passing through Nat’s
hat as he fled barefooted toward the woods. A new hiding place on
ihe same farm, a cave fashioned under the top of a fallen pine tree,
proved futile; around noon on Sunday, October 30, young Benjamin
Phipps, whose farm was nearby, noticed some brush stacked in a
peculiar way around the treetop, removed some of it, and saw Nat

Requiem for a God-fearing Man . 109

underneath.” Phipps ordered Nat to hand out his sword and then
to lie on the ground so that his arms could be tied. '* Aware that the

area was full of armed searchers, suffering from the effects of cold
on his ragged body and shoeless feet, Nat surrendered quietly.
Phipps and others led Nat off to Peter Edwards’s farm where he
would spend the night before being taken next day to Jerusalem.
During the afternoon and evening, however, he was taken from
place to place around the neighborhood, “several females” having
“expressed a curiosity to see him.”’ Next morning, as he was escorted
to Jerusalem, the news of his capture spread and brought to town
a large number of curious people. “The firing and rejoicing was so
great,” wrote one enthusiastic Southampton witness. “‘as very soon
to collect a large concourse .. . from the surrounding country, who

Joined in the general expressions of joy.”'” There was some inclina-

tion among members of the crowd to lynch him, so that it was “with
difficulty he could be conveyed alive” to the jail. Though not mark-
edly abused. the prisoner appeared to one observer “dejected.
emaciated and ragged” from his seventy-day ordeal. After an hour

and a half of questioning by magistrates James Trezevant and Wil- -

liam C. Parker, he was locked in chains behind the bars where he
was to spend his last days. Phipps, hero of the hour among the
whites, had earned exclusive claim to the $500 reward offered by
the state plus another $600 that had been put up by individuals. i

the Confession

The Southampton jail was a depressing tomb of a place with four
“apartments,” each sixteen feet square and lacking either a stove
or fireplace. A committee examining the structure in June pro-
nounced it “clean & aired” though not “duely whitewashed.” The
place was secured by a single lock, and the only bed at that time
had no blanket or covering. In the steaming August week before
the trials opened, the jail had held up to fifty prisoners at a time.”
But the work of the court had gone far to relieve the congestion by
late October, so that there remained only Sam Edwards, scheduled
to die on November 4; Moses Moore, awaiting transportation; and
Ben Blunt and the four free Negroes, all of whom had been re-
manded for trial by the superier court.”°


ae

@ “
f

106 Southampton County

Andrew Whitehead, whose crime amounted to several hours of
uncertainty over what to do, were found guilty on September | and
were recommended for executive clemency and sold out of the state.
September 2 and 3, the harshest days in the history of Southampton
court, resulted in the death penalty being handed down for Moses
Barrow, Davy Turner, Curtis and Stephen Ridley, Sam Francis,
Hark Travis, Nelson Williams, Davy Waller, and James and Eliza-
beth Turner’s Nat. Isaac Charlton, convicted for indiscreet behavior
in the presence of Nancy Parsons on the day the revolt began, was
transported. *

With the immediate need for admonitory examples having been
met, the court settled down on Monday, September 5, to sober con-
sideration of the merits of each case. Dred Francis, Nathan Blunt,
and Jack Reese were condemned to death, though the sentence of
the last-named was commuted to transportation. Nathan, Tom,
and Davy Francis, along with Hardy and Isham Edwards, were
found guilty and transported. Half a dozen subsequent cases
brought no convictions, but Joe Turner and Lucy Barrow received
the death penalty on September 19 and Frank Parker and Jim and
Isaac Champion on September 22, the latter three on the testimony
of fellow slaves that they had vented some seditious sentiments.
(Frank Parker’s sentence was commuted to transportation.) The
convictions of Sam Edwards on October 17 and Moses Moore (com-
muted to transportation) the next day concluded the work of the
court for the time being, with only the fate of Ben Blunt and the
four free Negroes still to be decided. Of the twenty-seven con-
victed so far, only fourteen had actually ridden with Nat Turner’s
company.”

His small and unsuccessful part in the litigation that focused the
attention of a large portion of the world on Jerusalem courthouse
that autumn brought only further humiliation for Thomas R. Gray.
His financial collapse, accompanied by the death of his young
wife,® had come about only since 1829 when, as owner of eight
hundred acres of farmland and twenty-one Negro slaves, he had
been one of Southampton’s more prosperous and promising plant-
ters. The 1830 tax listings, showing his slave gang reduced to seven-
teen, was a warning signal for the catastrophic year 1831, which left
him with only one Negro and a little over three hundred acres. But

Requiem for a God-fearing Man . 107

the worst was yet to come, for the 1832 listings would record his
ownership of neither land nor slaves, his sole item of taxable prop-
erty being a horse.*? He had been practicing law for only eight
months at the time of the Southampton rebellion.*

Even his little girl was a source of anxiety. As designated heiress
to a third of her grandfather’s estate, Ellen Douglas Gray might
come before long into considerable property, but for the time being
her father could scarcely find the means for her support. With no
established reputation as a lawyer, no consideration from the South-
ampton magistrates, and no property whatever, he faced the pros-
pect of having his daughter assigned to a guardian and, should worse
befall, perhaps his own imprisonment for the debts he could not
pay.

At the nadir of his troubles in the fall of 1831, fortune thrust be-
fore Thomas R. Gray a sudden and dazzling prospect of salvation.
On the morning of Sunday, October 30, Benjamin Phipps, an
obscure dirt farmer of the Cross Keys neighborhood, stumbled upon
Nat Turner hiding in a small cave in the woods and took him pris-
oner. The rebel leader was brought early next afternoon to Jeru-
salem jail, and Gray applied for and received permission from the
jailer : interview the prisoner and make a formal! record of his state-
ment.’ Parker was assigned to Nat’s defense, but a nation waiting
eagerly for a clear picture of Nat Turner’s character and motives
could now have its curiosity gratified, and the credit—and royal-
ties—would belong exclusively to Thomas R. Gray.

The Fugitive

Although he had several times been reported seen or even captured
as far away as Washington, D.C., and Fincastle, Virginia, Nat re-
vealed to his captors that he had not left the vicinity of the insur-
rection. Instead, he had gone into Hiding on August 23-with two of
his men, Jacob Porter and James and Elizabeth Turner’s Nat, that
night dispatching them to search for Hark or Henry or others of his
most reliable lieutenants who might be hiding in the neighborhood
where the revolt began. But the pair had not returned, and the rebel
general realized by Wednesday evening that no further hope re-

a“ w J

a SUSSEX COUNTY, VIRGINIA.

o A BRIEF RESUME OF FELONS SENTENCED TO BE EXECUTED BY THE COURTS OF

) SUSSEX COUNTY, VIRGINIA, 1754-1977

(incomplete)

Name of Felon Offense - Manner of Execution & Date

1. William Willie's Jamie, burglary hanging, Tuesday, March 2, 1756
"an Indian man slave"

( Seurce: Order Book, Court of Oyer and Terminer, 1754-1801, p. 10)
2. Christopher Golightly's Bolster
a | burglary hanging, Friday October 12, 1759
(Source: Tbid, p. ee)

3. William Batts! Peter burglary hanging, Wednesday March 20, 1771
(Source: Eb#d,* p.26)

4. Robert Owen's Ned rape (of hanging, Friday July 10, 1772;
Ann Evans) escaped custody, date set at
(Source: “Thidsp 29,33.) | Monday; August 3, 17°72
>. John Princets: Harry : burglary hanging, Monday JULY RO L772

(Source: Ibid, p. 31)

3. rer are 's Jim
hanging, "next Friday fortnight"
7. Abraham Smith's Charles} burglary from September 27, 1780
: 8. Gray Briggs' Abram

(Source*“Epid ;. be8¥ 3.7, 38)

9. Hartwell Seat's Clem, murder “hanging, Friday, May 11,1787
"a Negro Boy Slave (of Henry Seat :
about the Age of & Miles Seat)

Twelve years"
1a .(Source®: “Ebidy p<: 46)

murder (of . hanging, August 28, 1795

David Mason)

10. David Mason's Allen attempted
ll. David Mason's Reubin

@ (Source: Ibid, pages 49-51)
12. Lewis Parham's Ned . burglary hanging, Friday, August 8, 1800

a

(Source? Fhiagan. 61)

54 Notes

ourt.... of Southampton County .. .” (Nov. 1848), John R. Kilby Papers, Man-
scripts Division, Duke University, Durham, N.C.

52. Ibid. .

53. Ibid.; Meherrin Circuit Steward’s Book, Southampton County Historical
ciety, Courtland, Va. The latter source gives a list of members of Clarksbury
hurch (formerly Turner’s Meeting House) in 1839, showing Nathaniel! Francis
« “class leader” and Harriet Whitehead as a member, as well as Lavinia Francis.
54. Whitehead, “to the Superior Court,” copy of Superior Court decree, Nov.
448. and copy of Harriet Whitehead’s will, dated June 1, 1842, probated May
1852, John R. Kilby Papers, Manuscripts Division, Duke University; F. Nash
oney, “Nathaniel Francis, Representative Antebellum Southerner,” Proceedings
the American Philosophical Soctety 118 (Oct. 1974): 456.

55. New Hampshire Post (Haverhill), Sept. 14, 1831.

56. Petition no. 10110-A (Richmond Darden, Dec. 10, 1832), Legislative Peti-
ons, VSL. The petition of Henry B. Vaughan for over $800 was not found among
‘ese papers and was presumably withdrawn before action could be taken on it.
57. Religious Herald (Richmond), Sept. 16, Sept. 23, 1831.

58. The Globe (Washington, D.C.), Aug. 27, 1831; Drewry, Southampton Insurrec-
nm, p. 75.

59. Richmond Enqutrer, Sept. 12, 1831; Thomas H.S. Hamersly, Complete Anay and
wy Register of the United States of America, from 1776 to 1887 (New York: T. H.S.
‘amersly, 1888), p. 79. Blunt was appointed midshipman in June 1838, lieutenant
. July 1842, and died in service on April 27, 1854.

60. Tragle, Southampton Slave Revolt, p. 402. This printing was published in Rich-
ond.

61. Southampton County Personal Property Tax, 1832-1836; Judgments,
ox A-2.

62. Minute Book, 1824-1830, entry for Dec. 20, 1830; Judgments, Box A-2 and

‘ox 43 (Dec. 21, 1829).

63. Norfolk County Court Minute Book 26, entry for Nov. 18, 1839, VSL. Gray
a this date qualified as attorney. in the Norfolk County court. See also South-
mpton County Judgments, Box A-2, for several letters from Gray at Portsmouth
. the Southampton clerk of court.

64. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Aug. 27, 1845.

65. Ibid., Nov. 14, 1831; Constitutional Whig (Richmond), Nov. 11, 1831.

66. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Nortolk), Aug. 27, 1831.

“Chapter 8: Trojan Horsepower

1. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), July 29, 1835.

2. Richard E. Prince, Seaboard Air Line Railway: Steamboats, Locomotives, and H1s-
7y (Green River, Wyo.: R. E. Prince, 1969), p. 6.

3. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), July 29, 1835.

+ Ibid.

AR ae A a A A NR CCR et eR et aa te mm

Notes 955

5. Ibid.

6. American Beacon (Norfolk), Aug. 9, June 22, Aug. 11, 1834.

7. Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Magazine, 8 (July 1836): 45.

8. American Beacon (Norfolk), March 17, 1836; The Corporate History of the Sea-
board Air Line Ratliway Company Compiled by the Valuation Department, Seaboard Au
Line Railway Company, Norfolk, Va. (Norfolk; Burke & Gregory, 1922), p. 7%.

9. Joseph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia and the District
of Columbia (Charlottesville, Va.: Moseley and Tompkins, 1836), p. 279.

10. Journal of Elliott L. Story, vol. 1, in possession of F. Story Cutchin, Franklin,
Va. The opening pages of the volume synopsize the year of 1837.

11. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Nov. 4, 1835

12. Story Journal, vol. 8, Sept. 28, 1858; R. Crawford Barrett, “Franklin, Va.,”
p. 2, copy of typescript, dated Aug. 12, 1922, in my possession.

13. Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald (Norfolk), Dec. 13, 1837; American Beacon ( Nor-
folk), Dec. 13, 1837.

14. American Beacon (Norfolk), Oct. 3, 1840.

15. Ibid., Sept. 1, 1836, Oct. 3, Sept. 29, 1840.

16. Prince, Seaboard Air Line, pp. 7, 8.

17. E. M. Babb, History of Ivor and Its Environs (n.p., 1965), p. 8.

18. Albemarle Enquirer (Edenton, N.C.), Aug. 5, 1886.

19. Amertcan Beacon (Nortolk), Nov. 8, 1850. The Fux was built in New York 1:
183+ of live oak and cedar and was 103 ft. long, with 132 ft. across the beam and
3 ft. 8 in. depth in the hold. She was copper fastened and drew 3 ft. of water.

20. Ibid., Jan. 28, 1851.

21. Story Journal, vol. 1, Nov. 10, 1838.

22. Barrett, “Franklin, Va.,” pp. 1, 2.

23. Ibid., pp. 3, 9.

24. Raleigh Register, Aug. 27, 1851.

25. Diary of William D. Valentine, Aug. 23, 1851, Southern Historica! Collec-
tion, Chapel Hill, N.C. The diarist was a resident of Hertford County, N.C.

26. Patron and Gleaner (Rich Square, N.C.), March 18, 1897. This article was
written by Pulaski Cowper, a native of Hertford County. =

27. Hugh T. Lefler and Albert Ray Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a
Southern State (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina, 1954), p. 362.

28 Daily Express (Petersburg, Va.), Nov. 3, 1857.

29. Lefler and Newsome, North Carolina, p. 562; James G. Scott and Edward
A. Wyatt, Petersburg Story (Petersburg, Va.: Titmus Optical Co., 1960), p. 104.

30. Daily Express (Petersburg, Va.), Jan. 15, 1859. |

31. Ibid. ; °

32. American Banner (Edenton, N.C.), Aug. 7, 1856.

33. Thomas C. Parramore, “The Ironic Fate of the ‘Southern Star,” North
Carolina Historical Review 13 (July 1965): 336-40. The builder of the vessel, Jesse
A. Jackson, was a resident of Franklin for some years after the Civil War

34. See, ¢.g., advertisement by Riddick and Burbage in The Citizen (Murtrees:
boro, N.C.), Nov 23, 1859.

2 hea att es SRO SE Slt: chat te a Cas - a abt SE cia Stk ie ARR. a, «A a la ol eral wet

256 Notes

35. Ibid., Oct. 17, 1860.

36. Semi-Centennial Memoir of the Harlan & Hollingsworth Company, Wilmington
Delaware, U.S.A. (n.p., 1886), p. 380. The Virginia Dare was built for the Albemarle
Steam Packet Co. in 1861. She was a +0U-ton ship, 155 ft. long, 27 ft. in the beam,
83 ft. 3in. deep, and was “afterward called Delaware & sold to U.S. Govt..” accord-
ing to this source.

37. Stephen Barton, Jr., to Samuel R. Barton, Bartonsville, July 13, 1859,
Xerox copy in my possession.

38. See p. 103 below.

39. “Porte Crayon” [D. H. Strother], “North Carolina Illustrated,” Harper’s
New Monthly Magazine 14 (April 1857): 435-36.

40. Darly Express (Petersburg, Va.), July 14, 1857.

41. Cecil D. Eby, Jr., “Porte Crayon”: The Life of David Hunter Strother (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), p. 121.

42. William M. Lytle, comp., and Forrest R. Holdcamper, ed., Merchant Steam
Vessels of the United States, 1807-1868: “The Lytle List” (Mystic, Connecticut: The
Steamship Historical Society of America, 1952).

Chapter 9: The Restless Calm

1. James Atkins Shackford, David Crockett, the Man and the Legend (Chapel Hiil:

<niversity of North Carolina Press, 1956), pp. 254-65.
. The Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), Nov. 3, 1877.

3. Shackford, David Crockett, p. 262.

4. James S. French, Elkswatawea; or The Prophet of the West: A Tale of the Frontier
2 vols., New York: Harper and Brothers, 1836). Shackford, David Crockett, p. 25%,
calls attention to the derivation of “Earthquake” from Crockett.

5. French, Elkswatawa 1: 210, 95, 109, 210.

6. According to Bassett French, “French, James Strange,” microfilm copy in S.
Bassett French Biographies, VSL, James S. French was born at Petersburg in
807, reared in Norfolk, graduated from William and Mary in 1826, was a student
t law at the University of Virginia in 1826, settled at Alexandria, and practiced
us profession there.

7. French, Elkswatawa 1: 40, 42.

8. Ibid, 1: 45-52

9. Curtis Carroll Davis, “A ne of ‘Elkswatawa,’” typescript summary of
v»oth volumes, contained in vol. 2 of the book in WSL.

10. George H. Thomas to John W. Thomas, May 10, 1838, in possession of Misses
»ssie and Letitia Shands, Courtland, Va., relative: of the Thomas brothe "rs, here
itter cited as Shands Papers.

11. Southampton County Marriage Register, 2: 485, VSL.

12. French, “French, James Strange.”

13. George H. Thomas to John W. Thomas, Oct 19, 1840, Shands Payers.

14. Christian Sun (Suffolk, Va.), June 8, 1860

ria emaiandon

te ati

ee a

Notes 257

15. Ibid.

16. Religrous Herald (Richmond), Aug. 30, 1833.

17. Story Journal, vol. 3, March 16, 1843.

18. Henry W. Lewis, Southampton Ridleys and Their Kin (Chapel Hill, N.C.: pri-
vately published, 1961), p. 56.

19. Daily Express (Petersburg, Va.), Jan. 8, 1859; Story Journal, vol. 8, Nov.
14, 1858. f

20. Story Journal, vol. 5, Dec. 25, 1848, May 13, 1847.

21. Ibid., vol. 3, June 1, 1843, 4 1, Sept. 5, 1839.

22. Ibid., vol. 3, Dec. 22, 1842.

23. Ibid.. vol. 5, March 6, 1847, March 18, 1848.

24. Ibid., vol. 4, Aug. 13, 1846.

25. Ibid., vol. 1, March 6, 1840.

26. Ibid., vol. 8, Jan. 1, 1858.

27. Ibid., vol. 5, Jan. 8, 1848.

28. Ibid, May 3, 1848.

29. Ibid., vol. 4, Jan. 29, 1846.

30. Ibid., vol. 5, June 6, 1848, Nov. 4, 1847.

. 31. Ibid., Feb. 9, 1848.

32. Ibid., vol. 8, April 29, 1858. vol. 1, June 24, a vol. 8, Dec. 29, 1857

33. Ibid., vol. 5, May 3, 1848.

34. Ibid., Sept. 9, 1847.

35. Luther Porter Jackson, Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virgina, 1830-
1860 (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1942), p. 108.

36. Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861-1865 (Washington, D.C:
U.S. Governinent Printing Office, 1931), p. 167; W illiam Couper, ed., Register
of Former Cadets, Centennial Edition: Virginia M tlitary Institute, Lexington, Wa. (Roanoke,
Va.: Roanoke Printing Co., 1939), p. 11, 15, 18, 30.

37. Couper, Regrster of Former Cadets, p. 18.

38. Wilbur Thomas, General George H. Thomas, the Indomitable Warrior. A Bios raphy
(New York: Exposition Press, 196+), p. 52.

39. George H. Thomas to John W. Thomas, Oct. 19, 1840, Shands Papers;
Thomas, General George H. Thomas, p. 60.

40. George H. Thomas to John W. Thomas, July 25, 1841, Shands Papers:
Thomas, General George H. Thomas, p.-42;

41. Thomas, General George H. Thomas, pp. 97-98.

42. George H. Thomas to John W. Thomas, Oct. 25, 1845, Shands Papers.

43. George H. Thomas to John W. Thomas, April 28, 1850, Feb. 28, 1857, ibid.

44. Story Journal, vol. 8, Oct. 13, 1858. °

45. Dai’) Express (Petersburg, Va.), Sept. 20, Sept. 24, 1859.

46. Ibid., Dec. 14, 1859.

47. The Pra (Petersburg, Va.), Dec.-1, 1859.

48. Daily Exp ress (Petersburg, Va.), Dec. 14, 1859; The Citizen (Murfreesboro,
N.C.), Aug. 3%, 1860; Story Journal, vol. 8, Aug. 2, 1860.

49. ‘Story Journal, vol. 8, Aug. 30, Nov. 3, Oct. 27, Oct. 12, 1860.


144 Southampton County
The Social Fabric

As the antebellum era drew to a close, Southampton seemed to be
trying to appraise itself critically, to develop some measure of that
detachment that enables us to see ourselves as others do. The self-
examination was rooted partially in the publicity surrounding the
slave revolt, but it was also created by the triweekly and even daily
visitations of strangers along the routes of the railroads and steam-
boats. The wayfarers not infrequently brought with them curious
customs shaped and nurtured by environments strikingly different
from those of the Blackwater-Meherrin country. Opportunities to
visit far-off places such as Richmond and Norfolk reinforced the
impression that Southampton’s folkways were in some respects
peculiar. As the era waned, the county was not only the home of a
novelist but the locale of several novels, including Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Dred (1856) and G. P. R. James’s The Old Dominion (1858).
These and other circumstances helped to bring on an introspective
mood, a prelude, perhaps, to a shaking-off of the provincialism of the
past.

A manifestation of the new mood was the question that arose in
1860 over the propriety of snuff dipping and tobacco chewing. An
anonymous Southamptonian aired in a Suffolk newspaper his
impression that “ladies lips do not look well after dipping snuff.”
There were, to his knowledge, gentlemen who could not bring them-
selves to kiss a snuff-dipping lady, though “most ladies of refine-

ment, who use snuff’ had the delicacy to withdraw to the parlor or |

otherwise out of male company when they did so.

Unfortunately, as Southampton’s Philip Lemont observed in a
rejoinder, the men themselves often revealed but slight sensitivity
when it came to the custom of tobacco chewing but persisted in
standing “right before you, with their chins dripping, their bosoms
besmeared, squirting in every direction, and seem[ing] to think all
is right. They will spit in the parlor, over the neatly painted hearth
or polished stone. T have seen such persons sitting in the company
of ladies, draw from their pockets the three cent twist and cram their
mouths full and then begin to sputter and spit as though they had
a bird caged in their mouths and feared its escape.” It ill-behooved
the inveterate chewer, thought Lemont, “his mouth besmeared with

The Restless Calm 145

tobacco-juice, and his whiskers as thickly set as a double-sowed
wheat-patch, all struck together as though they had been dipped
in a glue pot, with the filthy juice still trickling down the well traced
furrows of the chin,” to withhold his cherished embraces from the
snuff-dipping lady.”

Sobriety’s zealots began to experience some little success in South-
ampton, spurred in part by the example of the Abstinence Society
at Tucker Swamp Baptist Church, which enrolled sixty-five mem-
bers in 1833 despite what one member cited as “the circumstances
of the surrounding country.” Abstinence was, however, too great
a burden to attempt seriously to impose on Southampton, and better
results probably attended Rev. Putnam Moore’s temperance group
at Black Creek, a cause which, thought one who heard Moore dis-
course on the subject, seemed “to be gaining ground in this com-
munity.” '’ A small but significant concession to such efforts was
the political innovation adopted by Robert Ridley of Rock Spring
plantation in the 1840s. Candidates for office were expected to par-
take generously of the local brandies and buy a round at taverns in
the vicinity of political meetings. Ridley, who served three terms in
the state legislature, “employed a man to ride with him and drink
in his stead,”’* rather than risk being bested on the forum by an
opponent with a greater capacity. ‘

Perhaps more persuasive than either abstinence or temperance
groups was the fate of some such luckless inebriate as Bray Saunders,
tried at Jerusalem in 1858 for murdering his wife. Evidence showed
that Saunders was drunk on whiskey at the time of the murder, but
the court found no reason to mitigate the penalty and he was
sentenced to hang. When the appointed day came, a throng of ”
prospective onlookers filled the jail yard and clambered atop the
enclosure surrounding the gallows, “where they sat for hours, with
the rain descending in torrents, and themselves drenched to the
skin.” The knot slipped on the first try, but Saunders was led back
up the steps and, on the second try, satisfactorily dispatched.
“Such.” wrote farmer-teacher Elliott Story, “are the dire effects
of whiskey drinking and improper training while young.”

Jf personal! habits and beliefs came more and more under scrutiny,
social diversions remained what they had been in colonial times.
Elhott Story and other farmers, still by far the leading occupation

tie another noose and put it over the man’s head and fix the trap again and
make another cut of the rope. But we had to do it. When the victim fell he
swung back and forth like a pendulum until he was pronounced dead by the
jail physician.

Now that | was jailer and since it seemed that hangings were getting
more and more frequent, | decided to visit other county seats and see what
sort of gallows they had. | found a good one at Whitesburg, Kentucky and |
brought a pattern home.

So, | tore the old gallows down and with new lumber and bolts made
one which would not depend upon the cutting of a rope to drop the trap but
one whose trap would drop by pulling a lever.

INNOCENT MAN HANGED

And this new gallows was not long standing in the back yard of the
court until Eive Hopson was sentenced to die upon It.

Eive’s trouble had started over the theft of a hen from John Salyer’s
hen roost out at Glamorgan. At the time two other men were with him. They
were all drunk. Each was brought to trial. Two got terms in the penitentiary
and Eive got the gallows.

| told Wib that I’d done everything that was my duty to do. I'd made a
gallows which was easy to handle. All he’d have to do would be to spring the
trap by pulling the lever. It'd be easy.

‘Easy!’ Wib said to me. ‘Charles, it’s the hardest job | ever had to do.
Listen to him! He still says he’s innocent and | half way believe he is.’

I'd been good to Eive in jail. He'd wanted to be baptized and I‘d got
a minister and I’d taken him out to Flanary Creek and the rites were per-
formed in front of a large crowd.

At that baptizing were John Salyers’ boys. Eive vowed to them that he
hadn't killed their daddy that night the hen roost was robbed. He said that
he was drinking along with the other boys, but that he didn’t fire a shot, hope
to die he hadn't.

But, he said he’d handed his gun to the other boys and then went up
into the tree to get a chicken, like the two other men told him to do. While
he was up there John Salyers burst out of the house shooting and then some-
body shot back and John Salyers was killed.

The two other men had claimed in court that Hopson had done the
shooting and the jury had believed them.

There in the court window Hopson told the crowd that since Wib, the
sheriff, had tended to him as a baby and had almost raised him, he hoped
somebody else would spring the trap.

Well, we went down to the gallows and | put the hood on Hopson’s
head and | tied his hands behind him and | said that it was all | was going to
do.

Then Wib took off his hat and he stood a moment in silence.
‘May the Lord have mercy on your soul, Eive,’ he said.

He pulled the lever and the peg plopped out and down went the trap
and Hopson’s body dropped into the box I’d made around the posts of the
scaffold. That was May 15, 1903.

The two other men who'd been indicted went to the State penitentiary.
Later, after being released from prison, one of them on his death bed confes-
sed to having fired the shot that killed John Salyers.

Then it was that people knew an innocent man had been hanged.

THEY HANGED A PREACHER

Just a little more than four months after Hopson’s hanging the gallows
felt the tread of another doomed man, Clifton Branham. Long before Hop-
son met his fate, Branham’s case was hanging in court.

Branham had grown up on the Pound River and He’s been in plenty of
meanness in Kentucky, where he’s served a term in prison. In fact it seemed

that he crossed back and forth over the Kentucky border when the law got to
trailing him.

He’d gone to the Kentucky penitentiary because of murder. But while
he was in prison in that state he turned religious and began preaching and
reading the Bible to his fellow inmates. The story of his preaching reached the

governor who released him and told him to go home to his wife and children
who lived in Virginia.

For a while he roamed over the hills, staying with relatives and friends.
Finally he decided to go back to Kentucky since he and his wife couldn't get
along. But he stopped short of the state line at his son-in-law’s where his wife
was staying and while there he got into a quarrel with her, shot and killed her.

As was his custom he skipped to Kentucky. Soon after his return to
that state he hired himself out to kill a man; and for the job he was to get as
his wife the daughter of the man for whom he was doing murder.

His crimes, however, caught up with him and he was lodged in a Ken-
tucky jail. Virginia authorities prevailed upon the governor of Kentucky for
the right to bring him back to Virginia and the Kentucky governor agreed,
saying that his home county had a wide reputation for hanging men anyhow
and since Branham needed to be hanged he should be brought back.

43


So he was tried at Wise and found guilty of murder in the first degree.

When Judge Matthews pronounced sentence on Branham, he said:
‘You're a mean man, Branham. You're dangerous to society. You've killed
three men and your wife. On next Friday, September 25, 1903, you'll hang
by the neck until you're dead, dead, dead.’

Branham was defiant to the very last. Hanging seemed to hold no worry
for him. It was with a sneer and a hard face he went up onto the scaffold and
stood for the black hood. It was the last | slipped over a human head and the
last that anyone slipped over a head at the Wise courthouse for the Legisla-
ture of Virginia passed a law putting an end to hangings.

(References 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are to the court transcript of the Red Fox
trial as published in Johnson’s History of Wise County.

« 4

DANIEL BOONE IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

“The Story as Told by Lyman Coleman Draper”
Edited by James William Hagy

In the middle of the 19th century Lyman Copeland Draper hurried
about the United States collecting manuscripts promising to use them in writ-
ing about frontier history. Draper collected a tremendous volume of docu-
ments but he could never give up the search and settle down to writing for
any length of time. He was always searching for one more document, one
more eyewitness account. The people who entrusted Draper with the
documents were, of course, highly upset when the promised volumes never
appeared — and the documents were not returned. Draper did succeed in
writing his long “King’s Mountain and Its Heroes” which was published in
1881. A second work which he never finished was his “Life of Boone.” Con-
sequently this work has never been published but has been invaluable in help-
ing such writers as John Bakeless whose “Daniel Boone”’ is the most compre-
hensive account of the life of this frontiersman.

All of Draper’s manuscripts ended up at the Wisconsin Historical
Society where they have been of tremendous aid for research jn frontier
history. The manuscripts can be obtained on microfilm and though this
medium is of great importance in making documents available to many peo-
ple, microfilm is maddening to read for any length of time. Furthermore, one
has to pe at a library where there is a microfilm reader. Therefore the story
of Boone in Southwest Virginia, which is certainly one of the most important
periods of his life, is being presented here in order that a wider audience
might appreciate the work of Draper who, had he finished his book, would
have been the authority on Daniel Boone.

The “Life of Boone” is a handwritten manuscript which frequently
wanders from the subject. Therefore a few passages have been edited out.
Also the footnotes have been slightly altered so that the sources mentioned
by Draper might be located, and a few changes have been made in grammar
and punctuation. But for the most part the story reads as Draper wrote it.

The early part of the manuscript deals with the Boone family coming
from England, their life in Pennsylvania, their removal to North Carolina,
and Daniel Boone’s frequent hunts in Kentucky. The part of the story which
deals with Southwest Virginia begins at the middle of a page in Chapter IX
(3B91). Boone has recently returned from a trip to Kentucky.

ttttttttttrtttttttt

How he spent the ensuing two and a half years after returning from his
extended ramblings in Kentucky, his own scanty narrative is entirely silent.
He was however, busily employed during the cropping season at home, as-
sisted by his sons James and Israel, while the remainder of each year found
him searching the western wilderness for game and a suitable country for a
new settlement. During this period, one Joe Robertson, and old weaver who
had a famous pack of bear dogs and was devoted to the chase, often accom-

45