Breathitt County Feud 1903 (One of Many).
The
Feud In Breathitt County - 1903
(Thought to have been written by the
president of the S.P. Lees College Institute in Jackson at the time of the
feuds.)
For several months the gaze of the
public press had been turned almost daily upon the little mountain town of
Jackson, Kentucky, the county seat of "Bloody Breathitt" County, the
scene during the previous year of three assassinations of increasing boldness
and atrocity, and occurring within a 100 steps of the business center of the
town. In the many newspaper accounts of the tragedies the word "feud"
has been almost universally employed to denote the state of affairs in Jackson.
"Feud" is a choice word for picturesque, romantic, and unique
effects. It has a pleasant medieval sound, a distinct flavor of the antique,
but in this instance it is misleading. An acquaintance of several years with
the town and the people, including all these prominently connected with recent
events in Jackson, leads me to think it necessary to look for other motives
than those usually supposed to actuate participants in a family feud.
The three men who were assassinated
were, it is true, in certain legal and business relationships to one another;
but there was not among them any tie of blood so close as that subsisting
between one of the victims of assassination and the man who according to the
testimony of an eyewitness shot him deliberately from a well-selected hiding
place. Personal feeling entered into the situation, as it must, but as will
appear in the sequel political motives have been to all appearance at least as
strong in their influence. And the so-called "other side" has not, so
far as I am informed, fired a shot or attempted to fire a shot. If such a state
of affairs constitutes a "feud," it is, as regards active participation,
a solitaire game.
The town of Jackson is by no means
wholly outside the pale of civilization and progress. It is 90 miles by rail
from the center of the "Bluegrass." The whole country around is one
vast deposit of coal, layer above layer, from one foot to 14 feet in thickness,
while on the surface, in hollow and on hill, mighty poplars, oaks, and walnuts
rear their heads. Capitalists from the East, the West, and the North are buying
large tracts of this valuable land for early development. Two 20 or 30 miles
leaders to the main railroad line are rapidly opening part of this great
territory, and others are contemplated as soon as there is assurance of peace
and order. Because of its central position and its railroad facilities, an
immensely disproportionate volume of business flows through this little
community of 12 or 15 people. It is a collecting and disturbing point for eight
or ten counties. There are two department stores, sometimes doing a business of
one 1,000 to 2,000 dollars a day each, a well-conducted bank, three hotels,
five church organizations with four buildings, a public school, and a
denominational school established 20 years ago, which now has an annual
enrollment of over 300 students, and excellent collegiate, music, business, normal,
and industrial courses. Students from this institution go into business or
attend college, and compare favorably in appearance, ability, and character
with those from any other part of the state. As two examples out of many, one
of the most prominent and efficient preachers and church executive officers in
one of the leading denominations, and the nominee for mayor of one of the
largest cities of the state, are both Kentucky mountain boys. A graduate of
this school was second in the oratorical contest to represent Central
University against the state the first year he was at college.
There are many excellent people in
Jackson, some of whom have come in from outside, but the native people of town
and county are kindly, hospitable, shrewdly alive to their own interests, and
ambitious for their children. Many believe, and have said to me sotto voce,
that if a certain mere handful of men were in some way to be subtracted from
the 15,000 population of Breathitt County, the present reign of lawlessness
would be at an end.
It is perhaps impossible for anyone
who has not lived among the people of these mountain hollows, to form a just
conception of their intense individuality of feeling, thought, and action. The
personal is all-pervasive, and the desires of the individual are often taken as
sufficient excuse for what has been done. Public opinion is a growing force,
but in many of the remoter parts of the region it is still a negligible
quantity. Consequently, the views of life, standards of judgement, and aims are
often unique. In some localities, for example, less open to the influences of
the outside world than the town itself, it is thought a needless extravagance
to pay the $2.50 necessary to procure a marriage license; nevertheless, the
wife, or as they put it, the "woman," is negotiable and is frequently
exchanged for one judged at the time to be more attractive or more desirable.
Some of the departures from accepted
proprieties seem almost incredible. One of the frequent visitors to the
mountains told me that once in her travels she came to a house very remote from
the influences and standards that are rapidly supplanting more primitive
conditions at Jackson. The woman of the house was in the field hoeing corn,
squaw-like, as is the frequent custom of the women in the remoter localities.
She came promptly to the house, welcomed her guests with the unfailing
hospitality which is characteristic of the people, and then paid what seemed in
the light of that which followed, an unnecessary tribute to cleanliness by washing
her earth-soiled feet in a common tin basin. She then proceeded, in accordance
with her usual custom and with utter unconsciousness of impropriety, to mix the
simple ingredients of the mountain cornbread, coarse-ground "grit"
bread, in the same basin. But she did have her own idea of what was proper; she
had rinsed the basin.
Another "furrier," who had
frequently penetrated to the heart of the most retired localities, told me of
an old woman who had spent almost her whole life in one deep mountain hollow,
from which she could see only the hills and the sky. She was sitting one
October evening on the humble stoop of her cabin as the sun shone slant and
golden on the gorgeous yellows, browns, and crimsons of the dying foliage. A
friend she had known long and well who was spending the night at her house, sat
beside her wondering when she would speak and what she would say. After a
silence of an hour and a half, unbroken save by the puffing of her pipe, she
slowly removed this boon companion from her lips, and said, "The trees air
a 'yallerin,' ain't they?"
An ailing husband of Jackson went to
Florida in the hope of restoring his health. He died in a very short while, and
his wife took upon herself the sad duty of bringing his body home for burial.
She remained in Florida, however, for a week, which was the limit of time
allowed by her round-trip ticket. She finally returned with the body, and when
asked why she had stayed so long, replied, "Well, they'd fixed him up so
he'd keep, an' I didn't see no sorter use in was 'n' thet thar ticket, so I
thought I'd travel roun' an' see the kentry." But she seemed to realize
that there was some need of self-defense, and added: "Thar was a man at
the deepo' whar was setting' fer me, but I wouldn' look at him. I couldn' have
nothin' ter do with no man while the corpse was above groun'." Needless to
say, she was not a widow for many months.
A son of this woman, a little fellow
of six, perhaps, kept bringing sticks of wood into the room where lay the dead
body of his father. "Thet thar kid 'mos' pesters the life outer me
bringin' in wood," remarked his mother to a friend. "Why does he
bring it?" was the reply. "He says his pa's in thet box an' can't git
out, an' he's goin' ter bust it open. I've done whipped him fer it a 'ready
more time 'n' I kin count, but he won't quit."
It is not such aspects, however, of
the typical as these that have at this time attracted the attention of the
public to this little mountain town. The two following incidents throw a direct
psychological light upon the Breathitt County reign of terror, the leading
events of which I shall soon relate. They show in youth and image the mental
attitude of which the recent assassinations are the outcome.
The hero of the story of the sticks
of wood, when ten or 12 years old, was taken to Louisville by a friend. About
the middle of the day he spied in front of a restaurant a bill of fare, which
was to his liking. The cost of the dinner, read the legend, was 25 cents. He
walked in, pulled out a long knife, and with a threatening air demanded the
meal for 15 cents. Charmed by this exhibition of youthful independence, the
proprietor accepted the cut in his rates. But the boy was in deadly earnest,
and if he had not been satisfied, would undoubtedly have attempted a cut to
which the proprietor would have had serious objection.
Barbaric criteria still appear here
in age as well as in youth. An old woman in the county had made for her
husband's grave a wooden imitation of a tombstone. It was neatly painted white,
and in order to do full justice to the virtues of the deceased, there was
painted on the "stone" in black a hand gripping a .45, from which the
bullets were streaming. So pleased was the widow with the realistic appearance
of the tribute to the memory of her man, that she could not bring herself to
the point of removing it to his grave on the other side of a neighboring hill,
but kept it on her front porch where she could point out its merits to all
comers with admiring pride.
The average number of deaths by
violence in Breathitt County in a year used to be about 20. It is said that
from November 1902 to June 1903, there were 30 or more. Most of these
fatalities, have been the outcome of drinking, and many of them have resulted
from open fights between town or county officials and those they were
endeavoring to arrest. It is not unusual for friends or members of the same
family to injure each other when drunk and armed. But assassinations, at least
in recent years have been very rare. A large majority of the more serious
offenses go scot free. There is either no indictment or the jury is friendly.
Only one man has ever been hung in Breathitt County.
At the primary election in the
spring of 1901 and at the final election in the fall of the same year there was
a bitter political fight for the offices of Breathitt County. James Hargis, of
the firm of Hargis Brothers, was elected county judge by a considerable
majority, while Ed Callahan secured the sheriff's office by a very small
majority. The election of Callahan and of one or two other officials was
contested by the opposing candidates, and Hargis supported Callahan and his
other friends in their defense of their election. During the course of the
contest there was an altercation at a conference at which Hargis, Callahan,
their attorney, the opposing attorney J. B. Marcum, and one or two others were
present. Serious trouble was averted only by the prompt action of one of the
attorneys in taking two of the disputants out of the room. Warrants for Hargis
and Marcum were sworn before the police judge of the town, Cardwell, a relative
of whom had killed a brother of hargis some years before. This relative had
been pardoned, but the feeling between the Cardwell and Hargis families had
ever since been, to say the very least, unfriendly. Marcum was arrested by the
town marshal, the local police officer, and paid his fine. The marshal, James
Cockrill, with a brother, Tom, as deputy, then attempted to serve the warrant
on Judge Hargis. The latter escaped by running into his store while the
revolvers of the Cockrills were covering him. Judge Hargis asserted that he had
surrendered to Sheriff Callahan, who was standing near, before Cockrill served
his warrant. The Cockrill boys declared that he surrendered to the sheriff
afterwards, and that they had not arrested him only because they saw it would
precipitate a fight with the sheriff who had drawn his revolver. The sheriff
and the town marshal both have power of arrest within the town limits, and such
conflicts of authority are not rare.
This incident occurred in the spring
of 1902. About a week later Tom Cockrill, who had aided his brother James in
the attempt to arrest Judge Hargis, and Ben Hargis, a brother of the judge, and
usually a pleasant, genial fellow, met in a wholesale liquor store. It is
pretty certain that Hargis had been drinking, and thet they had had some words
a few days before about the attempt to arrest Judge Hargis. Cockrill said that
Ben Hargis sent for him. However this may be, they seem to have opened fire on
each other almost simultaneously. The testimony as to this point is
conflicting. Both were badly wounded, but Hargis much more seriously. He lived
only for a day or two, while Cockrill recovered after a long and painful
confinement. It is credibly reported that just before his death Hargis asked
his brothers not to pursue the quarrel, as it had been an open fight and he had
merely gotten the worst of it, and that they agreed. However this may be, Tom
Cockrill was arrested and put in jail, where for one reason or another he
stayed for many weeks before he was brought out for trial.
Owing chiefly to the efforts of Dr.
Cox, one of the leading physicians of Jackson, and guardian of the Cockrill
boys, Cockrill's trial was transferred to an adjoining county. Judge Hargis
declared over his signature that he would not prosecute the case against
Cockrill there for fear of personal injury. Cockrill was acquitted.
Dr. Cox feared assassination after
this, and told his friends he expected it. He said that he felt it was his duty
to champion the cause of Tom Cockrill as he was his guardian and there was no
one else to render the aid. One moonlight Sunday evening in May, during church
service, two shots rang out, a pause, then a third. Dr. Cox, who had not only
been working for a change of venue for Cockrill's case, but had been active in
the canvass against the Hargis ticket, was found dead with more than 20
buckshot wounds in his body. He had been called to his office by telephone, but
found no one there and started home again. He was shot from the direction of
the Hargis Brothers' stable yard, which is just to the rear of their store and
across the street from the Cardwell store, in the second floor of which Dr. Cox
had his office. The intersection of this street between the Hargis and the
Cardwell stores, and Main Street, is the assassination center of Jackson. The
Hargis and Cardwell stores occupy the north and west corners, respectively, the
courthouse the east corner, while on the south corner is the building which
contains the office of John Patrick.
As I hurried to Dr. Cox's house
immediately after he was shot, and was just approaching the spot where he fell,
there came behind me along the silent and deserted streets, a feeble old woman.
She kept looking apprehensively around and said, "May I go along with you?
I'm afraid they'll shoot me." It was the mother of Dr. Cox's wife, going
to the home of her bereaved daughter.
No apparent effort was made to find
the assassins. No special term of the grand jury was summoned. No evidence was
offered at the regular session in June. No one desired to take an initiative
which everyone thought would be deadly. No one knew what to expect next. People
talked with bated breath. There was not one public expression of condemnation
of the dastardly crime, except from the pulpit. I walked through the principal
streets of the town about eight o'clock in the evening a few nights after Dr.
Cox's assassination. The brilliant moonlight revealed no one beside myself. The
streets were deserted at an early hour for a long time after this murder, the
stores were closed at dusk, and blinds were drawn. Later, the streets were
frequently patrolled by armed men who would stop every one on their own
authority until satisfied of the peaceable intentions of each passer-by. The
Hargis Brothers were for along time accompanied by guards when they went about
or on their trips by rail. Their store was guarded night and day against the
assassin they said they feared and the incendiary that never came.
About two months after the
assassination of Dr. Cox, in July 1902, James Cockrill, the town marshal who
had attempted to arrest Judge Hargis as already narrated, had an altercation
with Curtis Jett, in which several shots were exchanged, but without injury to
either. A few days later, about the middle of the day, as Cockrill was standing
in front of the Cardwell store, he was shot five or six times from a second
story window of the courthouse on the corner diagonally opposite. Several of
the shots took effect, and he died the next day. It is said that no one was for
a time allowed to search the courthouse, and that when the search was finally
made, the assassin helped to look for himself. The same night the building in
which Ben Hargis had been fatally wounded by Tom Cockrill a few months before,
was burned to the ground.
John Patrick, a young lawyer of
Jackson, had an office directly across the street from the window of the
courthouse from which Cockrill was shot. Patrick told someone that at the time
of the shooting he was in his office and saw the muzzles of three guns
protruding from the window. He averred further that he recognized one of the
assassins. He was warned to leave the town, and left very promptly. Some months
later he was summoned to appear before the grand jury, but he refused, saying
in an open letter to the judge of the circuit court, Judge Redwine, that he
feared assassination, but would come if protected by troops. Sheriff Callahan
was sent for him, but in spite of an apparently diligent search, failed to find
him. Some months later, when the town was filled with troops during the trial
for a third assassination, Patrick appeared before a special grand jury, and
testified that he had seen Curtis Jett at the window from which James Cockrill
was shot, but had not recognized his companions.
Public opinion connected Hargis and
Callahan with the two assassinations. Curtis Jett is a nephew of Judge Hargis,
and had been befriended by him in many ways. He was also for a time deputy
sheriff under Callahan. He had been in jail under many indictments and several
times was let out under circumstances mysterious to the public. On one occasion
after he escaped in the night, there was a hole in the wall of the jail through
which he might have passed. Dr. Cox was the guardian of Tom Cockrill who had
fatally wounded Ben Hargis, and he was also actively opposed to the Hargis
ticket in the election as well as instrumental in having Tom Cockrill's trial
removed from Breathitt County. Whatever may have been the reason, there was a
notable falling off in the number of visitors to the Hargis store. For many
weeks it had an air of desertion. The many wagons which ply from the county
stores to town for supplies either went to other stores or did not come to
Jackson. There was a large increase in the trade of the other department store
at this time. Hargis and Callahan denied all connection with the
assassinations, and professed themselves deeply grieved at the death of Dr.
Cox, but so far as I am informed they expressed no such regrets in the case of
James Cockrill.
A merchant of the town, C. X.
Bowling, was after considerable delay appointed guardian of the remaining
Cockrill boys in the place of Dr. Cox. During the winter, Mr. Bowling's store
was burned to the ground in the night. After the burning of the wholesale
liquor store in which Ben Hargis was shot, mentioned before, the insurance
companies cancelled, promptly, every fire insurance policy in Jackson, and no
renewals could be secured for some months.
Mr. Marcum, as has been said
already, was attorney for the contestants in the election cases, and
participant in the original altercation which is supposed by many to have been
the starting point of the series of calamities of which this is the story. He
had left Jackson after the killing of Cockrill, and did not return until
November, when he had business before the circuit court meeting then. He had
been warned repeatedly that he would be killed if he did not go. He told me of
one of these warnings at a chance meeting, and said he was going to his office
to do his duty by his clients and by the town. He was president of the Board of
Trustees, which is the governing power in small Kentucky towns. He had often
complained of the impossibility of properly carrying on the town government and
making needed improvements because of friction with the county authorities.
After Mr. Marcum returned to
Jackson, he published a circumstantial statement of the information he alleged
had been given him from time to time as to plots against his life. He asserted
tat he had been able to escape on several occasions only because the man who
had been hired to assassinate him had told him of each plot as it was made and
had managed to put his fellow assassins off the track. Mr. Marcum would remain
in his room all day and steal out in the dark, or he would slip down a back
street in company with his wife or daughter, or would carry his baby in his
arms for protection. Mr. Marcum's informant also had published a signed
statement corroborating Mr. Marcum's assertions, and naming as the men who had
hired him to assassinate Marcum; Hargis and Callahan. The latter promptly
brought suit for libel against Marcum and also against the paper which
published the statements just mentioned.
Marcum was vigorously preparing to
reopen the election cases, which had been tried before a special judge who had
declared the election void because of fraud on both sides. Meanwhile, the
apparently successful candidates had been promptly appointed by Judge Hargis,
the county judge, to serve until the next election. The libel case against
Marcum was transferred to an adjoining county in order to secure a fair trial,
as Breathitt County has long been notorious for its partisan juries. The trial
was set for the 11th of May 1903. The contested election cases also were soon
to be passed upon by the Court of Appeals, the supreme court of the state. On
the fourth of May, while standing in the front door of the courthouse with his
hand on the shoulder of B. J. Ewen, a deputy sheriff, Mr. Marcum's attention
was attracted by a man named Tom White passing by him out of the courthouse and
scowling at him. Marcum remarked to Ewen that he was afraid of that man, he was
a bad man. The words were hardly out of his mouth when he was shot from behind
by someone in the hall of the courthouse. Ewen testified that he saw Marcum
fall, then saw "Curt" Jett advance upon him with his pistol held in
both hands. Then the second shot was fired at such close range that the powder
burnt Marcum's face. The ball penetrated the brain. Either shot would have been
fatal, and Mr. Marcum died in a few minutes without being able to speak.
At the time of the shooting,
according to their own testimony, Judge Hargis and Sheriff Callahan were just
inside the Hargis store directly across the street. Hargis said he was not
directly in front, and could not see the assassin. Callahan said he saw his
form, but could not recognize him for the smoke. A number of witnesses
testified that smokeless powder was used. Judge Hargis, the county judge,
advised Callahan, his sheriff, not to go to look for the assassin for fear of
personal injury. Some minutes elapsed, and Hargis finally directed Ewen to make
the search, which was fruitless.
Many witnesses testified that Jett
and White apparently had a conference just before the shooting, that they both
entered the side door of the courthouse shortly before the shooting, that White
came out of the front door as already narrated, while Jett was seen shortly
after the shots to look cautiously out of the side door, and then come out and
mingle with the crowd around the wounded man.
Ewen was called to a conference with
Hargis, Callahan, and one or two of their adherents in a second story room of
the Hargis store, and was there asked what he knew about the shooting. Ewen
testified that he said he did not recognize the assassin, because he was sure
he would be killed if he told the truth. He told a number of friends the next
day or so that he had recognized the murderer, and named Jett as the man. Jett
went about town as usual for a few days. No further attempt was made on the
part of the authorities to ascertain the identity of the assassin. Judge Hargis
did send a message to the widow of Mr. Marcum offering to have a warrant served
on anyone she might desire. Jett finally went on a visit to his mother in one
of the Bluegrass counties, and was there captured without resistance. He was
anxious to be taken to Jackson for trial, and was finally taken there. White
was captured later by a detail of soldiers from the 200 troops sent to preserve
order, and to protect witnesses during the trial. While told his captors that
if they had been a few minutes later he would have escaped. It was currently
reported that a friend of Whites' was sent to warn him before the special
sheriff was notified of the order for his arrest.
After Ewen had given his testimony
against Jett, declared that he was approached by a man who offered him $5,000
to change his testimony so as not to incriminate Jett, and who threatened that
if he would not accept the bribe, Hargis and Callahan would kill him. He told
the briber that he could not talk to him then in such a public place, but he
would see him at his own house at a time appointed. Ewen and a witness, whom he
had concealed in the room, both testified before the grand jury as to the
repetition of the offer of the $5,000, and of the threat that he would be
killed if he did not accept. Ewen promised another witness at the time of the
trial. This testimony was brought out before the grand jury.
Ewen had refused to accept the
bribe, and early one morning while he was in the camp with the soldiers for
safety and his family were asleep, his large hotel was burned to the ground,
and almost all the contents destroyed. This fire occurred during the Marcum
trial, and Ewen's friends thought it was an attempt to get him out in the open
where he could be shot. Alex Hargis, one of the firm of Hargis Brothers, said
he thought Ewen had had the fire started himself in order to throw suspicion on
Judge Hargis. As the value of the property, and it was all Ewen owned, was
about $10,000 and the insurance companies had canceled the insurance a few
weeks before, because they feared incendiarism, this opinion of Judge Hargis'
brother did not find many adherents.
All the jury, but one, were for
Jett's conviction, but that one persisted in his opinion and the jury was
discharged and a new trial appointed to be held at Cynthiana, 100 miles from
the troublous town of Jackson. The discharged jury had been procured from the adjoining
county of Magoffin, and a short while after the failure to convict and the
discharge of the jury, the following item from Lexington appeared in The
Jackson Hustler, one of the two weeklies published in the town:
"The report comes here from
Salyersville that Burns Fitzpatrick, the man who hung the jury that tried
Curtis Jett and Tom White at Jackson, has left Magoffin County, and returned to
his former home on Jennie's Creek, in Johnson County. It is said Fitzpatrick's
neighbors cut him, and the talk was so against him that he was forced to leave.
Before leaving he stated that he did not think he would ever come back."
The new trial of Jett and White
resulted in conviction and a sentence of imprisonment for life. The jury in
Kentucky fixes the sentence in such cases, and one juror held out against the
death penalty. Indictments were found against two teamsters of Hargis Brothers
for setting fire to Ewen's Hotel, and against a man named Plummer for offering
Ewen the $5,000 bribe. L. T. Bolin, who corroborated Ewen's testimony as to the
offer of the bribe, said he was warned by Plummer's wife to leave Jackson. He
left, saying he didn't think he could live there after giving the testimony.
Such, in outline, is the story of
what many believe to be a conspiracy on the part of those in official power to
accomplish criminal ends.
Later
Note From Newspaper Items
January
1907
Jett was sentenced to be hanged for
the murder of James Cockrill, secured a new trial, confessed the crime,
implicating Hargis and Callahan, denied his confession on the witness stand,
re-confessed his part in the murder at a subsequent trial, and was sentenced to
life imprisonment instead of hanging. The "life" imprisonment lasted
only a few years, whereupon Jett took to preaching.
Hargis and Callahan were sentenced
to pay Mrs. Marcum in a civil suit for conspiring to kill Marcum the sum of
$8,000, although acquitted in the criminal trial due to Jett's withdrawal of
his charge against them, it is said, an interesting legal anomaly.