Days of Darkness (11 page)

Shortly after dark the riders began arriving, and by ten o'clock a ring of hundreds of men encircled the courthouse and jail. Citizens of Jackson kept to their homes, and guards were posted at the door of practically every house in town.

With Callahan and a few close friends giving the orders, a committee was named to call on Bill Combs, the jailer, and demand the
keys to the jail. Combs refused, but since he was a popular and respected man, he was not harmed and was allowed to keep the keys, but was escorted from the jail. Members of the mob then took axes and chopped down the jail door, seized Kilburn, and dragged him, struggling and cursing, toward the noose dangling above the front door of the courthouse. A black man, jailed with Kilburn but guilty of nothing more than having taken food to him while he was in hiding, was dragged out, too. Kilburn had been wounded by an axe blow and was bleeding profusely. The black man screamed and begged. But no word was spoken as the two of them were pulled up. Orders were given—and posted on the courthouse door—that the bodies were to be left hanging until after eight o'clock the next morning. The sight of them dangling there was a fearful message to Captain Strong as well as the people of Jackson.

Ed Callahan was now the most powerful individual in Breathitt County. Old Captain Strong seemed not only to realize the fact but to accept it. Increasingly he withdrew from active participation in the political life and conflicts of the county. He was called Uncle Bill by most of his neighbors and apparently assumed that the old enmities had been forgotten. He was wrong. One morning he had to go to the store, saddled up his old mule, put his little grandson on behind him, and made a leisurely ride through the familiar countryside.

At the store, the old captain bought a few things, sat for a while talking, and then began the trip home. He could not know, as he passed up Lick Branch, that Big John Aikman and two of his henchmen were lying in a dense clump of woods above the trail. Big John, released from prison, had vowed for a time that he had found religion and forsworn his violent ways, but in the end the call of the gun was too much. As Captain Strong rode slowly by, Aikman's rifle barked. The first volley killed the old Union bushwhacker. The second burst killed his mule. His grandson fell to the ground, screaming, as Aikman and his men rushed from hiding and riddled the aged captain with a dozen bullets. They did not harm the boy, who ran home with the dread news.

The death of Captain Bill Strong marked an end to the feuds growing out of the Civil War, though most of the feuds were not directly attributable to the war, as some historians have charged; practically all of the feudists had fought on the same side. But the bloodiest feud, one that shattered the image and the social fabric of Breathitt County, while it had no connection to the causes or outcome of the Civil War, sprang directly from the Strong-Callahan-Deaton conflicts.

The Last and Bloodiest Feud

The worst feud to tear Breathitt County apart has come to be known as the Hargis-Cockrell feud, though it might as easily be called the Hargis-Cockrell-Marcum-Callahan War. It started, not surprisingly, over an election. And it involved friends and close relatives. Scratch a feud and you'll find tragedy and heartbreak.

As has happened many times in Breathitt County, the first signs of this trouble appeared in 1898 at a school board election. James B. Marcum, a prominent Republican attorney, accused James Hargis, a former school superintendent, of trying to vote a minor. Tempers flared and, as usual, pistols were drawn—everyone seemed to carry a pistol—but friends prevented any shooting. Marcum and Hargis had been friends, but after this the relationship became hostile.

But the real trouble began with the elections of 1902. Hargis was Democratic candidate for county judge and Ed Callahan was candidate for sheriff, but some Democrats were so dissatisfied that they bolted and joined Republicans in a Fusionist ticket. Hargis and Callahan won, but by eighteen votes, and the Fusionists immediately moved to contest the election, charging vote-buying and intimidation, practices not unheard-of in Breathitt.

James Marcum and O.H. Pollard had been friends for many years and together formed one of the most prestigious law firms in Eastern Kentucky. But they fell out over the elections, and the partnership was dissolved. Pollard favored—and represented—the Democrats; Marcum represented the Republicans or Fusionists.

The political alignment of Breathitt County at the turn of the century reflected the shifting political currents of the region in the postwar era. Breathitt had been strongly pro-Union during the Civil War, as was most of Eastern Kentucky, and after the war some of the leaders, especially in the Strong camp, became Republican. But by the time the Hargis-Cockrell conflict erupted the county usually voted Democratic. Judge David Red wine of Jackson presided over the Democratic convention of 1899 that selected the controversial William
Goebel as Democratic candidate for governor, and in the voting for governor in 1899 Breathitt voted for Goebel.

The reason for this Democratic strength is not clear. A clue may be found in the popularity of the Regulator groups often claiming to be part of the Ku Klux Klan. Their rise reflected a dislike of federal postwar policies, a dislike that in part accounted for the pro-southern sympathies so prevalent in Kentucky following the war. Many slave-holding Kentuckians had remained loyal to the Union in the war and felt betrayed when Lincoln freed their slaves without compensating them for their loss. Others resented what they considered the highhanded methods of Union commanders who, in the months following the war, occupied Kentucky and treated its citizens as though the state had been in rebellion. And many simply hated blacks for their role in causing the disastrous war and for what whites considered their insolent or “uppity” conduct after emancipation. Thus many former Union soldiers became members of the Ku Klux Klan, harassing not only blacks but people friendly with federal officials.

It is strange that Marcum let political differences split his law firm. He had practiced in Breathitt for seventeen years and had represented the largest corporations doing business in Eastern Kentucky, including the Lexington and Eastern Railroad. He was a trustee of Kentucky State College (later the University of Kentucky) and a U.S. commissioner. His partner, O.H. Pollard, was almost equally prominent.

Relations between the two men remained polite, if chilly, until depositions concerning the election contest were taken in Marcum's office. Hargis and Callahan were there, as well as Pollard. Marcum was cross-examining a witness when Pollard objected to the line of questioning and the two former partners almost came to blows. Hargis and Callahan drew pistols, and Marcum ordered everyone to leave his office. Police Judge T.P. Card well subsequently issued warrants for the arrest of the principals. Marcum appeared in court, confessed that he had drawn a pistol, and paid a fine of twenty dollars, but Hargis, for years a political enemy of Cardwell, refused to be tried by him. Tom Cockrell, at the time town marshal of Jackson, was sent to arrest Hargis and bring him into court. Cockrell took his brother Jim with him.

When Tom Cockrell informed Hargis that he was under arrest and asked him to come with him, Hargis started to draw his pistol. Cockrell beat him to the draw, but Sheriff Ed Callahan, standing nearby, pulled his pistol and covered Cockrell. At the same time Jim Cockrell pulled his pistol and covered Callahan. Hargis and Callahan, seeing that they were outgunned, two pistols to one, surrendered. But Marcum
had sent word to Cardwell that he did not want to prosecute Hargis and asked that his case be dismissed. This was done, and everyone hoped that friendly relations might be reestablished.

That was not to be. Several months later Marcum and Callahan had an argument over a school election. The trouble was settled amicably, but Marcum then charged Callahan with the murder of Marcum's uncle, and Callahan accused Marcum of assassinating his father. Something seemed to be happening to Marcum, embittering him. His actions at times seemed to invite trouble.

Then violence erupted. Town Marshal Tom Cockrell and Ben Hargis, a brother of James, met in a “blind tiger” (an illegal saloon—Breathitt had voted dry in 1871) and got into an argument. One thing led to another, both men drew pistols, and Ben Hargis was killed. Judge James Hargis and his brother, State Senator Alex Hargis, insisted on prosecuting Tom Cockrell for murder.

Dr. D.B. Cox, the leading physician of Breathitt, was the legal guardian of the orphaned Cockrell children, including Tom, who, though still under twenty-one, was town marshal. Dr. Cox had married a sister of Police Judge Cardwell and was a close friend of James Marcum, who agreed to defend Tom Cockrell without fee. Indeed, the Hargis-Cockrell feud, like the earlier conflicts, pitted relatives against each other. Senator Alex Hargis was married to a sister of J.B. Marcum. (Breathitt historian E.L. Noble says she was Marcum's niece.) Curtis Jett's father was a brother of Tom and Jim Cockrell's mother. Curtis Jett's mother (he became a major figure in the violence) was a half-sister of James and Alex Hargis. And so on. It is hard to see how these people managed an amicable home life, being constantly at war with their in-laws.

Jerry Cardwell, a cousin of Police Judge T.P. Cardwell and a member of the Cockrell faction, was a railroad detective. It was not his primary duty to keep order on passenger trains, that being the task of the conductor, but on this particular occasion he was riding in the passenger coach toward Jackson when John “Tige” Hargis, who had been drinking, became disorderly, cursing and waving a pistol. The conductor complained to Cardwell, who tried to quiet Hargis and, when Hargis kept threatening to shoot, tried to arrest him. Hargis resisted. Both fired. Cardwell was wounded, Hargis was killed. The Hargis family, charging that Cardwell had picked the fight and killed John without provocation, took him to court, and he was sentenced to two years in prison. Upon appeal, however, he was pardoned by Governor W.O. Bradley, left Breathitt, and went to live in Wolfe County. Two weeks after Tige was killed, Elbert Hargis, a half-brother of Judge
James Hargis, was shot from ambush and killed in the yard of his home in Jackson while making sorghum molasses. No one was ever arrested for the murder. The Hargises were understandably alarmed and angry. Ben, John, and Elbert had been killed, and no one was in prison for their deaths.

A few days later Dr. Cox received a message around eight o'clock at night asking him to attend a sick woman living near Jackson. He left, telling his wife that he would return shortly, but as he reached the corner across from the courthouse and opposite the stable of Judge Hargis, he was shot and killed. His murderer then ran up and fired another shot into the body. It was reported that the shot came from Judge Hargis's stable. Members of the Cockrell faction charged, of course, that Dr. Cox had been killed because of his interest in the defense of Tom Cockrell, and in court it was charged that Judge Hargis and Ed Callahan were watching from the second floor of Hargis's home when the fatal shot was fired. They said they didn't know anything about it. Never heard any shot.

Jim Cockrell, who had been busy gathering evidence for the trial of his brother Tom, succeeded Tom as Jackson town marshal. It was not an easy time to be marshal. He hadn't been in office long before he ran into Curtis Jett one night in the dining room of the Arlington Hotel. Words led to pistols. Neither man was hurt, though the dining room was battered. Then, at noon on June 28, Marshal Jim Cockrell was killed by a shot fired from a window on the second floor of the courthouse. Judge James Hargis and Sheriff Ed Callahan were standing on the second floor of Hargis's store and saw Cockrell fall. Though law officers, they did nothing to assist him.

It was widely rumored that Curtis Jett, at the time a deputy of Sheriff Ed Callahan, did the killing and that he remained in the courthouse until that night, when friends brought a horse to the side door and helped him ride off, undetected. Jett was a dangerous, hot-tempered young man who apparently took part—and a very bloody part—in the feud for the excitement of it. He was the son of Hiram Jett, who had left Breathitt for Madison County after making peace with the Littles, and the grandson of Curtis Jett Sr., a prominent merchant who took no part in the troubles.

Attorneys for Tom Cockrell, charged with killing Ben Hargis, asked Judge David Redwine to vacate the bench in the Cockrell case, since he was known to be a close political friend of Judge Hargis. Redwine stepped down, and Judge Ira Julian, of Frankfort, appointed in his place, granted a defense request for a change of venue. The case was transferred to Campton, in Wolfe County. But Judge Hargis
and his brother Alex, who had brought the suit against Cockrell, refused to go to Campton. They protested that if they had to travel the road from Jackson to Campton their enemies would ambush them along the way, that they would never reach Campton alive. Judge Julian had no choice but to dismiss the case.

They probably were not exaggerating the danger. In a letter to the
Lexington Herald,
J.B. Marcum declared that over thirty men had been killed in Breathitt since Hargis took office as county judge, “and Lord knows how many wounded.” In a similar letter written on May 25, 1903, Mrs. Marcum stated that there had been “thirty eight homicides in Breathitt County during the administration of Judge James Hargis.”

The most notable among these was J.B. Marcum himself, who was shot down in the Breathitt County Courthouse on May 4, 1903. The shooting could hardly have been a total surprise. Ever since Marcum became attorney for the plaintiffs in the suit contesting the county elections, there had been reported threats against his life. On November 14, 1902, he said, in a written statement:

I heard the rumor that Dr. Cox and I were to be assassinated; he and I discussed these rumors and concluded that they were groundless. I went to Washington D.C. and stayed a month. While I was there Dr. Cox was assassinated. I was attorney for Mose Feltner. On the night of May 30th he came to my house in Jackson and stated that he had entered into an agreement with certain officials to kill me. He said that their plan was for him to entice me to my office that night, and for him to waylay me and kill me. He said that the county officials had guaranteed him immunity from punishment [for the earlier killing of a man named Fields], and he led them to believe he would kill me to secure their protection, all the time warning me of plans to kill me. He could visit me without arousing suspicion as he was my client and supposed to pretend friendship for me.