investigation.—Troops place Jackson under martial law.—Capt. Ewen tells the story of Marcum’s assassination and identifies the murderers.—Ewen threatened with death.—Burning of his home while troops are at Jackson.—Indictment of Judge Hargis, Sheriff Callahan, Curtis Jett, and Tom White for the murders of Jim Cockrell, Dr. Cox and Marcum.—Change of venue to other courts.—Determined prosecution.—Conviction of White and Jett for life.—Description of Jett.—Manufacture of fake alibis.—Confession of a witness convicted of swearing falsely for the defense.—Accuses high officials of Breathitt of intimidation.—Release of the convicted perjurer because of his confession.—Hargis and Callahan escape conviction.—Semblance of order finally restored in the county.—Murder of Judge Hargis by his son, Beach Hargis.—Details of the fratricide.—Caustic dissenting opinion of one of the judges of the Court of Appeals.—Conviction of Beach Hargis for life.—His release from prison.—Assassination of Ed. Callahan, the last of the feud leaders.—Details of the assassination.—Conviction of his assassins.—Comments.

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PREFACE

The feudal wars of Kentucky have, in the past, found considerable publicity through newspapers. Unfortunately, many newspaper reporters dealing with this subject were either deprived of an opportunity to make a thorough investigation of the facts, or permitted their imagination to supply what they had failed to obtain. At any rate, the result was distortion of the truth and exaggeration.

Exaggeration is not needed to make Kentucky’s feudal wars of thrilling, intensely gripping interest to every reader.

More than a score of years were spent in the collection of this material, involving tedious and painstaking investigations. The greatest difficulty was experienced in separating truth from falsehood. Often the most vital facts could be obtained solely from the actors in the bloody dramas. The feudists and their relatives proved, quite naturally, partial or prejudiced, and at all times were reluctant to admit any fact detrimental to their side, or favorable to their enemies.

I believe, however, that I have succeeded, with the aid of court records, legislative investigations and official military reports, in my task of producing a strictly authentic history of Kentucky’s Famous Feuds and their attending tragedies.

I trust that the publication of this volume will serve its designed purposes:—to make crime odious; to illustrate the havoc that may be wrought anywhere through the lax, inefficient or corrupt administration of justice; to arouse the people, not of Kentucky only, but of the country at large to the necessity of dealing sternly with crime and faithless officers.

Chas. G. Mutzenberg.

Harlan, Ky., September, 1916.

INTRODUCTION

A brief review of the history of Kentuckians may assist the reader to understand why they, a kind, hospitable people to the stranger, have so long borne the reputation of ready fighters who often kill upon the slightest provocation, and deserve that reputation in a large measure. It is “bred in the bone” for a Kentuckian to quickly resent an insult or redress an injury.

Long before the advent of the white man Kentucky, then Fincastle County, Virginia, had been the vast hunting grounds of the Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws and Catawbas of the South, and of the more hostile tribes of Shawnees, Delawares and Wyandots of the North. These tribes, when chance brought them together on their annual hunts, engaged in conflicts so instant, so fierce and pitiless that the territory became known as the Dark and Bloody Ground.

It was indeed a hunter’s paradise. Dense forests covered the mountains. Cane brakes fringed the banks of numerous beautiful streams, while to the west lay immense undulating plains. Forest, cane brake and plain were literally alive with bear, deer and the buffalo; the woods teemed with innumerable squirrels, pheasants, wild turkeys and quail.

The fame of this hunting ground had attracted bold and adventurous hunters long before Daniel Boone looked upon one of the most beautiful regions in the world from the crest of Cumberland Mountain.

These hunters, upon their return home, gave glowing accounts of the richness and fertility of the new country, and excited powerfully the curiosity and imagination of the frontier backwoodsmen east of the Alleghenies and of North Carolina.

To the hardy adventurers the lonely wilderness, with its many dangers, presented attractions not to be found in the confinement and enfeebling inactivities of the towns and little settlements. Daniel Boone visited the new territory. He found that the descriptions he had received of it were by no means exaggerations, and decided to remove thither with his family. After some delay amid many difficulties the first white settlement, Harrodstown (Harrodsburg) was established. Within a few years other stations sprang into existence and population increased with amazing rapidity. Immigrants crossing the Cumberland mountains settled in the eastern and central parts of Kentucky, while those traveling down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, generally located in the northern, western and southern portions of the state.

This invasion by the white man was not accomplished, however, without long-continued, bloody struggles with the savages. To maintain the slender foothold Boone and his companions had gained, required great courage and tenacity of purpose.

The man who shivered at the winter’s blast, or trembled at every noise, the origin of which he did not understand, was not known among those hardy settlers with nerves of iron and sinews of steel, who were accustomed from earliest childhood to absolute self-dependence and inured to exposure and dangers of every sort.[1] Man in this connection must include the pioneer women who by their heroism illustrated their utter contempt of danger, and an insensibility to terrors which would palsy the nerves of men reared in the peaceful security of densely populated communities. Even children of tender years exhibited a courage and self-composure under trying circumstances that at this day seem unbelievable.

The life of the Kentucky pioneer and backwoodsman was one of long and bitter struggle. Hunting, clearing the forest, plowing and fighting were his daily occupations. Every “station” had its conflicts with the savages who fought with relentless desperation when they found themselves gradually but surely driven from their beloved hunting grounds.

These armed hunters and farmers were their own soldiers. They built their own forts, they did their fighting under commanders they had themselves chosen. They fought the foe in his own style, adopted his mode of warfare, and proved generally more successful than bodies of troops who battled under time-honored military tactics.

The Indian understood the advantage of cover, and the white man copied his methods. Thus most of the Indian fights became nothing more nor less than ambuscades in which the side displaying the most skill in placing them, won the victory. Boone, Kenton, Brady, Wetzel—all that galaxy of pioneers and Indian fighters of the early West fought the enemy