Appalachian History

(part 2 of 2)

In April 1806 John Amis, who lived along the Kentucky River’s Middle Fork, went elk hunting in the area where his cattle were wintering.

He discovered some cattle from North Fork farms grazing in what he thought were grass fields reserved for him and his cohorts. Amis proceeded to stab about twenty head of the North Fork cattle and drive them into the water where they sank and died.

North Fork cattleman William Strong was outraged and immediately sought outside help against Amis’ actions.

“The Strongs sent to Prestonburg for General White of that place, it was not General White of Goose Creek,” recounted Henry Duff to missionary Dr. John J. Dickey in the late 1890’s. “I am sure the Strongs appealed to the Governor for arms and ammunition, and the Governor asked White to help or gave him authority to help them.”

And General Hugh White’s reply?

A local poet of the time, Cana Baker, quotes White in ‘Cattle Wars:’

You have got yourselves in trouble
Get out if you can,
I'll neither come to your assistance
Nor send a single man

Upon hearing of this, the North Forkers, led by Strong and including Joel Elkins and 12 men from the Stacey, Davidson, Lewis, Bolling, Eversole, Callahan, Cornett, Lewis, and Begley klans, went to Amis’ house.

Amis wasn’t home, but his wife, Kate Bolling Amis, was there. The North Fork cattlemen shot the Amis horse and took twenty head of cattle from his farm to compensate themselves for the cattle that Amis had destroyed. Peter Stacy reportedly butted Kate in the face with his gun as the cattle were being rustled.

They took Jugie and Frogie
Burnt three fodder stacks
And broke some rifle guns

“As they started back Amis' Negro man followed them supposed to have been sent by Amis' wife, for the purpose of shooting at them,” relates John Lewis on July 27, 1898 to Rev. John J. Dickey, who recorded it in his diary. “At a turn of the road Peter Stacey concealed himself and as the Negro came in sight fired and struck his head. Stacey broke the gun, they brought back what cattle they could find.

“Then Amis solicitated a company of 30 men and started to the North Fork for revenge.”

John Gilbert, Amis’ brother-in-law, helped lead the group.

There was one Capt. John Gilbert
As I have heard them say
He fed his men on run down venison
Till Porter ran away
(Porter, a dog that ran over to the other side)

John Lewis continues the story: “William Callahan brought news to the North Forkers that they were coming and assembled at the mouth of Lick Branch concealing themselves in the ivy on the top of the cliff opposite the mouth of the branch, as Amis' men came across the river. William Callahan fired at Amis and missed him. There was a general firing in which several horses were killed and Nicholson and Cox were wounded.

Nicholson hid behind a log
And hid just like a fox
And presently came shivering & shimming along
This poor half drowned Cox

“Amis spurred his horse under the cliff to protect himself from the bullets. John Gilbert rode up the bank to the company and they took him prisoner. Some of the party wanted to kill him but Strong saved his life. [other accounts claim Strong said ‘Shoot him!’]

John the Captain did miss killing
All met with homely fare
And he who came in last of all
Is apt to lose his share

“The plan was for Strong and Callahan to shoot Amis first which was to be the sign of attack. Strong was the best rifle shot in the county. Callahan shot before Strong, which prevented Strong from getting a bead on him. Callahan was accused of treachery for this act.

“The North Forkers had 18 men, William Strong, (afterwards a preacher), Peter Stacey, James Lewis, William Callahan, John Bolling, Samuel Davidson and Jesse Bowling.”

The Middle Forkers retreated to Cutshin and fortified, leaving portholes, expecting the enemy to follow them.

Eventually, they all agreed to end the fighting and settle the dispute in court. However, on the first day of trial, August 5, 1807, John Amis was shot dead by Joel Elkins as he was testifying from the witness chair.

“It appears from the Circuit Court Records that the Whites had him killed over the contract they signed with John Amis, who then owned the salt mine,” states genealogist Bonnie Miller. “This is how the Whites came to get the salt mine from John Amis.” Joel Elkins was employed at the Goose Creek Salt Works co-owned by John White and John Amis.

The inability of the militia to be able to react in a timely manner and the failure to maintain law and order during the months before the trial had pointed to the urgent need for a local constabulary, organized through a smaller county structure with a sheriff.

Thus, the Kentucky legislature established Clay County on December 2, 1806, from parts of Madison, Floyd, and Knox Counties. Having local law enforcement did not help maintain law and order, however: descendants of these combatants figured prominently in subsequent feuds that occurred in Breathitt, Perry and Clay counties, leaving a bloody heritage for future generations.


Sources: www.oblevins.com/Blevins/d0024/g0000077.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bloodhound/feudsofclaycoky.html
www.owsleykyhist.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=572
http://boards.ancestrylibrary.com/surnames.eversole/176/mb.ashx
Dr. John J. Dickey Diary, Fleming County, Ky. Recorded in the 1870's and beyond. Reprinted in Kentucky Explorer, Volume 10, No 6 -November, 1995

"That’s a god-damned lie!" cried out Joel Elkins as John Amis spoke to those gathered in the Clay County court. He reached behind the door, grabbed William Strong’s gun, purposely loaded and placed there, then shot and killed Amis.

Accounts differ as to why John Amis was in that Kentucky court on August 5, 1807, and why Elkins shot him.

“Judge John Amis, born in North Carolina, was of the first generation born in America, and was a successful lawyer, was Circuit Judge in Kentucky, and was shot by an outlaw while holding the first Circuit Court ever held in Clay County,” claims the 1891 volume “Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Western Arkansas.”

“He was killed at the first session of court in Clay County in 1807 by Joel Elkins, whom he had partly reared,” recalled John Eversole, a Manchester, KY resident, in 1898.

“It is said that a peddler had been killed, and Amis and this man were accused of the crime. The man told Amis that if he swore against him he would kill him.

“Whether he testified against him or not I do not know, but the man came into the courthouse and shot Amis' brains out, in the presence of the court.”

More likely than these two interpretations, however, is that John Amis was on trial for provoking a ‘cattle war’ the previous year, between a group of farmers living on the Kentucky River’s North Fork and farmers on the Red Bird, a branch of the South Fork.

Oneida, KY as seen from the area where Red Bird and Goose Creeks merge forming the South Fork of the Kentucky River., c. 1905-10.

Amis had grown up in Rogersville, TN. His father Thomas had built a house at the mouth of Big Creek River, about four miles west of Rogersville. When the father died in 1797 he deeded to John “the tract of land he now lives on adjoining the town of Rogersville and lying the east side of the main road, also the lower part of my six hundred and forty acre tract of land to be laid off by a line to run square with the upper end of the above tract he now lives on, to him and his heirs forever.”

It didn’t take long for the 24 year old John to run into trouble. By 1802 a ‘fieri facias’ (a writ ordering a levy on the belongings of a debtor to satisfy the debt) had been issued against him in “Richard Mitchell vs. John Amis (Hawkins County).”

About 1800 he had moved with his wife Kate and their baby son into Madison/Clay County Kentucky, presumably to escape that debt and get a fresh start. John sold much of his land in Tennessee to purchase a partnership in the Goose Creek Salt Works, near Manchester, where the northern section of Goose Creek joins the Red Bird River to form the South Fork of the Kentucky River.

So vital was salt to frontier life and trade that Daniel Boone had offered to re-route the Wilderness Road to pass the Goose Creek salt works. (He did not get the approval, however, and the area had no suitable roads for some time.) Clay County went on to become the leading salt producer in the state during the nineteenth century. The struggle behind the scenes to control the industry was fierce.

“On August 12, 1806 John White made good to John Amis the title of one fourth of 375 acres including the Goose Creek Salt Works’ lower works, White reserving for himself the privilege of ‘wood and water’ for one furnace,” says historian Mary Verhoeff in ‘The Kentucky River Navigation.’ “Two acres of the most eligible and advantageous land of the tract was to be reserved for mansion houses upon which neither party could dig for water without the consent of the other.

“Within one year the reservation was to be equally divided between White and Amis. The tract of land, including the salt works, had on June 22 of the same year been sold to Amis by John Crook for the sum of $2,300, one half of which was to be paid in cash and the remainder in ‘good salable salt at two dollars per bushel.’ By the deed one half of the buildings and half the garden owned by Crook were secured to John White.”

At the same time John Amis was establishing himself on the south side of the Kentucky River, William Strong and a group of Virginia farmers and cattle ranchers were setting down roots on the North Fork of the river.

"About the year 1800 or 1801, a party was organized in Scott Co., VA, to come to Kentucky,” relates Mrs. J. C. Hurst in 'Strong Family in Kentucky .' ”This party was composed of Edward Callahan and family ~ William Strong and family ~ Daniel Davidson and three sons Samuel, John, and Robert, with their families ~ also Roger and Robin Cornett. Some reports say that the Cornetts came a year or two previous to this time. The above-mentioned parties brought along with them their livestock ~ household goods ~ slaves and other possessions.

"William Strong, Samuel Davidson and the two Cornetts had married daughters of Edward Callahan. After arriving in Kentucky the parties settled on the North Fork of the Kentucky River at and near the mouth of Grapevine Creek in (current day) Perry County.

"William Strong acquired a tract of land on the opposite side of the river from the mouth of Grapevine. It extended from near what is now Chavies down the river so as to include Strong's Branch. On this land he erected a log building where he made his home for some eight or ten years. He, as a deputy assessor, made the first assessment of all land and personal property on the North Fork, which was then embraced in the new county of Clay.”

Trouble was about to brew between John Amis and William Strong.

(end of part 1 of 2)


sources: “The road to poverty: the making of wealth and hardship in Appalachia,” by Dwight B. Billings, Kathleen M. Blee, Cambridge University Press, 2000
"Strong Family in Kentucky," by Mrs. J. C. Hurst, Lexington, KY, privately published, 1960
www.combs-families.org/combs/marriage/dd.txt
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brockfamily/ChiefRedBird.html
www.bellcountypubliclibraries.org/crm/ky/knox/decker.html
The Kentucky River navigation By Mary Verhoeff, Filson Club Publications/John P. Morton & Co, Louisville, 1917
http://home.fuse.net/jerry.johnson/FamilyHistory/JohnsonFamilyHistory1.HTM
www.oblevins.com/Blevins/d0024/g0000077.html

For many years Ira Butts and neighbor Clifton Pitts had been arguing over the boundary line of a small piece of property. The land was separated between the neighbors by a small creek, which headed on property owned by Butts. Each neighbor suspected that someone had channeled the branch to run opposite its original location.

Early in the morning of June 6, 1939, Ira Butts left his home in Holly Springs, SC for a trip back to his old homeplace near Toxaway Baptist Church. He set out walking by way of old foot-paths and wagon roads, for this was nearer than by way of the main roads. He was born and raised in the mountains, and knew every inch of the woods for miles around.

On his way he visited his sister Julie Lee near the Welcome Baptist Church, and Dandy Lee, who lived then at the old Joel Vinson place.

Just before noon, he arrived at the home of his son Tom, who was not there, for he was working that day at a textile mill in Greenville. Ira spent a short while talking with Tom’s wife Bessie. She offered to fix lunch for him, but he refused to eat with her.

After visiting with Bessie, Ira started walking down a path leading to a spring from which the family carried water, and which was close to the property that had caused problems for years between Pitts and Butts.

Tom’s son, Edward, had gone to the spring for water, and was at the spring when Ira arrived, and he talked with his grandfather for a few minutes. The well at the homeplace had gone dry while work was being done on the Southern Railway; blasting had probably cracked the bottom of it. Several attempts had not gained water in the well. The water from the spring formed a branch, which was also a property dividing-line.

After talking with Edward for a while, Ira started walking down the branch bank toward a street which lead from the Toxaway Road to the home of William Carson, another neighbor of Ira Butts and Clifton Pitts.

Edward ran back to the house, leaving his water bucket, and told his mother that he thought trouble was going to occur. Rumor has it that he saw Pitts coming toward the place where Ira was about to enter the road. He was frightened terribly when he reached the house.

Felix Bradley, a long-time neighbor and friend of Ira Butts, was walking up the road just at the time Ira stepped into the road. Ira had not seen Pitts, for some pine bushes along the road had blocked his view, so he turned toward Felix and started to talk to him. Just then, Felix saw Pitts behind Ira with a shotgun, and he yelled - "Look behin ju Pharoah!" (This was a name he used when addressing the aged man, for Ira was then 72 years old.)

Turning, Ira faced a 12-gauge shotgun aimed directly at his chest from not more than thirty or forty feet away. Ira reached into his overalls pocket and drew a revolver, but it was too late, for at that instant a blast from the gun struck him in the left side of the chest and knocked him over. He fell dying in the dusty country road, shot by his own neighbor.

Even though he lay on the ground with a two inch hole in his chest from the shotgun, with the last bit of life left in his body Ira continued to squeeze the trigger, but there was no strength left.

Bradley moved foreword, and by that time Pitts had also moved closer. Ira must have thought Pitts was intending to shoot him again, for with the final breath in his body, Ira said - "Don't let him shoot me again, he's got me."

These words marked the end of a life that had been taken for a piece of property; land valued at not more than the $3.50 Ira had in his pocket when he died.


source: http://sciway3.net/scgenweb/oconee-county/cemetery-txt/c024.txt



appalachia appalachian+history feuds history+of+appalachia

"Once we hit a place where a feud was being settled. It was back in the hill country of Virginia and the place was called Rocky Comfort. It really wasn't a town. There was a water-power grist mill, a store, a blacksmith shop and about a quarter of a mile up the little valley there was a meeting house, where traveling preachers would sometimes hold revivals which were called camp meetings.

"The feud was between the Buxton --or Bruxton-- and another bunch of natives named Greenberry,--I think that was the name.

"Old Uncle Jed Buxton, a tall, sharp-eyed old fellow with a yellowish-gray, hang-down, moustache was boss of the Buxton bunch and Grandpappy Lindsay Greenberry was head of the enemy tribe.

"I never heard what the feud started over, probably some Buxton stole a Greenberry pig, or some Greenberry shot a Buxton cow. But whatever it was that started it there'd been killing on both sides and from what I heard about it they were always gunning or ganging up on each other, or cutting each other up with Bowie knives. The cause of the feud wasn't important, though; it was the way it ended that seemed funny to me.

"And a queer thing was that both tribes were religious and when they'd go to the camp-meetings they've have a temporary truce while the meeting was going on.

"It was at the camp-meeting the feud ended. The preacher was a big raw-boned Hard-shell Baptist, and he certainly believed in hell-fire and damnation; and when he'd get up and start to preach he'd always pull out a twist of long-green tobacco and pull off a big chew--then he was ready to go at it. And he went.

"He was almost as good as Doc Porter when it came to oratory. He talked hell-fire and brimstone...sizzlin' and bilin' and smokin' until he'd have the whole audience sweating and groaning. Finally he got under the hides of the Buxtons and Greenberrys and had them all tremblin' on the brink as he called it...jest hangin'over eternal damnation by a brickle thread!

"The payoff was that old Uncle Jed Buxton and Grandpappy Greenberry both got more religion than they'd ever got before and decided to make peace and stop their tribes from carving and shooting and beating each other up.

"The preacher got them together at the mourner's bench and got them to agree to make friends and be brethren. But they had to do something to prove the treaty would last and they could trust each other... And that's where the funny part of it came in.

"Old Uncle Jed Buxton and Grandpap Greenberry acted for the whole bunch of each of their tribes. The peace ceremony was performed at the camp-meeting in the presence of the whole audience, the Hard-shell Baptist preacher acted as master of ceremonies. You'd never guess how they pledged themselves and proved that they trusted each other. Those two old mountain codgers who had been killin' enemies shaved each other! And not with safety razors either!

"They did it right on the preacher's platform while the whole congregation looked on and muttered a lot of 'Amens' and 'Praise the Lords.'

"They drew straws for to see who should shave who first, and Uncle Jed Buxton got the chair first. Grandpappy Greenberry lathered Uncle Jed up, took that wicked long-bladed razor (the preacher supplied the outfit) and whittled the whiskers off of Uncle Jed's face and neck...but when he got down around Uncle Jed's wind-pipes I noticed the Buxton clan got mighty tense and silent. But Uncle Jed didn't bat an eye while his old enemy was fooling around his neck with that darned sharp razor!

"When Uncle Jed was well shaved, Grandpappy Greenberry sat down in the chair, which was a common hickory split-bottom kitchen chair, and Uncle Jed took the razor and went over him!

"That settled the feuds. Each had trusted his neck to the other when the other had a sharp razor in his hand...and as far as I know they never feuded again. But I'll say those two tough old mountain hillbillies had a lot of nerve."


Source: Library of Congress, American Memory, American Life Histories: Manuscripts for the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940. From an interview conducted with William D. Naylor on Sept, 19, 1938; Sept. 27, 1938; Oct. 1 and 3, 1938 by Earl Bowman



appalachia appalachia+history camp+meeting feuds history+of+appalachia revival+meeting

'Wright’s Fork of the long ago -- McRoberts of Today'
by Burdine Webb
September 4th, 1941 edition of The Mountain Eagle [KY]

"A few days ago I saw Wright’s Fork and the town of McRoberts that lies along its waters, Shea’s Fork, Chopping Branch, Tom Biggs and Bark Camp– but it was a different picture to that of the long ago when, as a barefoot, one-gallused boy I trudged along pebbled creeks to the old school house which stood exactly where The Consolidation office and the post office have quarters now, where two of my older brothers taught “the young idea” in the olden days, when settlements were scant in these parts.

"It was a house now and then, one on Shea’s Fork, the hospitable home of Uncle Bill Wright, one on Chopping Branch, one on Tom Biggs, one at its mouth, and one or two further up. Uncle Jess Wright, brother of Capt. John Wright of the old days, had his log cabin home on the extreme head of the creek, and like the home of Uncle Bill, it was a haven of rest. No one was ever turned away.

"It was 'exhibition time' at the little school—the last day, a bleak December noonday, when a few recitations, a short talk from my brother, the teacher, a handful of patrons, and the term of school for that year ended. I recall recollections back from the haunts of the long past, and what Uncle Bill, the lone resident of Shea’s Fork, said to Brother and I, 'Dinner’s waiting for you and you’re going up to eat.' Yes, we went along, down the creek apiece, then up Shea’s Fork—it seemed a mile, along the zigzag creek, with tall, stately trees, proud monarchs of the forest clear down to the water’s edge—not a stick amiss.

"Three months later, in the month of March, poor old, blessed Uncle Bill Wright answered the call, not by a natural death, but from a felon’s bullet that ended all, and the country mourned. I heard it said by every one, 'No better man ever lived.' And in the same deplorable battle, 'Little Andy' Wright died like Uncle Bill. 'Little Andy' was his nephew.

"It was a mere, simple little dog fight, and Lige and Sam Wright, relatives of the two victims, angered, shot their rifles empty, leaving Uncle Bill and 'Little Andy' dead in fifteen inches of snow. Lige was shot, but he recovered. And all this because of a simple dog fight. It is a sickening story, a dark and bloody tragedy, that I have regretted to reiterate—but I never think of Shea’s Fork without my mind reverting back to that dismal, heartless day in the long ago.

"Today the only remnant that is left of the Uncle Bill place is the open top well. I stood beside it on my visit there, and thought, retrospective of Uncle Bill, Aunt Nancy, and their goodness. A tear to their precious memory.

"Today the Fork is teeming with good people, quiet, contented, prosperous. You have only to mention Uncle Bill Wright and they know the story."


source: http://www.geocities.com/nancybays/billandy.html


Wrights Fork KY
William S Wright
feuds
appalachia
appalachian culture
appalachian history