Days of Darkness (3 page)

The Turners were causing trouble long before their fight with the Howards began. A storm blew down one of the Turners' fences in the
spring of 1852, and the cattle of J.T. Ward, a neighbor, wandered into the Turners' pasture. The Turner boys, William and Devil Jim, solved the matter by shooting the cows. Ward, saying that he was afraid to press for damages, left the county. John Skidmore opened a hotel and a general store, but when his store began to rival that owned by the Turners, he was threatened with death. He closed the store, sold his hotel, and moved to Indiana. Campbell Hurst, who owned a prosperous hardware business, was elected county court clerk, defeating the Turners' choice. Hurst was shortly afterward killed by a man named Jones, a Turner relative. Jones was not indicted.

The Howards had no such rowdy reputation when they began to clash with the Turners in the years following the Civil War. Ben Howard, a veteran of the Revolution, had come through Cumberland Gap from Virginia around 1800, settling near Cumberland Ford (now Pineville). The Howards seem to have been regarded as peaceful citizens when they moved up the Cumberland River and settled in what became Harlan County. Samuel and Chloe Howard were probably the first permanent settlers, building a home there in 1796. When Harlan County was created in 1819 the county court bought twelve acres of land from John and Susannah Howard and Samuel and Chloe Howard for five dollars. The land, located where the Martins Fork, Poor Fork, and Clover Fork join to form the Cumberland River, became the county seat. The first records list as owners of town lots Joseph Cawood, Berry Cawood, Adron Howard, Andrew Howard, John Howard (seven lots), Benjamin Harris, Alfred Hall, Wix Howard, John Jones (two lots), Abner Lewis, and Edward Napier. No Turners are listed, indicating that they were living outside the town, but they had a great deal of property on county tax rolls. Sam Howard built the first courthouse and jail shortly after the county was formed, and in 1833 added public stocks and a whipping post near the jail. The Turners by that time had bought much of the good acreage in town. William Turner also owned a tavern and two stores, and for several years he was one of the few county residents taxed for owning a silver watch.

In 1853, when he was sixteen, Devil Jim Turner married Sarah Jones, but marriage didn't settle him down. He and his older brother William, John and Hezekiah Clem, and Joseph Nolan formed a dangerous gang. In 1854 Hezekiah Clem and Nolan allegedly killed John Clay and robbed him of ninety-five dollars. David Lyttle, their attorney, got them acquitted, and Nolan decided to go straight, but Clem became known as a gunslinger, and Jim fell in with him. By 1860 Jim was in trouble with his cousins, the Middletons, and Narcissa Middleton accused him of trying to kill her husband William.

When the Civil War erupted, Jim enlisted in a Union outfit, but he deserted when his term was half over and, according to Narcissa Middleton, “gathered up a guerrilla company, he being the captain, and kept up a regular system of murder, robbery and horse stealing throughout the war, southern men being the principal sufferers.” Incidentally, Confederate William Jr. and Unionist Devil Jim often rode together, one robbing southern sympathizers, the other Unionists, both getting fairly rich. The sign on the lawn of the Harlan County courthouse today states that it was burned by Rebel troops in retaliation for the burning of the courthouse in Lee County, Virginia, but some local historians maintain that Devil Jim and his outlaws did it. Wood Lyttle, in his memoirs, says that Devil Jim “burned it in broad daylight.”

At the end of the war, William Middleton was killed, allegedly by Devil Jim and his men, on his way home. In 1869, William's widow, Narcissa, testified that Jim, his brother William and Francis Pace killed David Middleton, William's brother. Before they could be tried in Clay Circuit Court, Campbell Hurst, who was scheduled to testify against them, was stabbed and killed on the main street of Harlan in what Narcissa Middleton swore was a set-up to keep him from testifying. On December 5, 1874, Jim, William, and Francis Pace were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. William died in prison in 1877. Francis Pace was pardoned in 1891 and vanished. Devil Jim got out on parole and went with his son Hiram to Washington, where he suffered a stroke, fell into the fireplace, and died of burns. (Tom Walters says that Devil Jim was shot by Wood Lyttle. In any event, he died.)

The Howards, like their cousins in Clay County, had been Whigs and fought for the Union and had come home to take up the job of making a living. They spread out around the county, some on Martins Fork, some on the Cumberland River south of Harlan. Hiram and Alice Howard ran a grocery store on the southwest side of Harlan and made whiskey. In 1869 a Hiram B. Howard sold his store to William Blanton, Jr., but whether this Hiram was the father of Wilson, and also owned a store and sold whiskey, is not known.

In 1884 George Turner built a handsome home, usually referred to as the Turner Mansion, not far from the courthouse. The Howards looked upon the Turners as nouveau riche. Wix Howard opened a store in Harlan, but he claimed the Turners were threatening his customers and quit the business. This was not the only instance of friction. The Howards, with their friends the Gilberts, had angered the Turners as early as 1855 when they insisted that Devil Jim be arrested
and tried for theft, assault, and rape. He was, and sent to prison. Shortly after the trial, Will Turner met Bill Gilbert on the street and killed him, reportedly raising his pistol and shouting, “Dead center, by God, Sir!” He was arrested but freed on bond and never tried.

But the Turners had poked a hornet's nest.

The Turners Meet the Howards

The Howards had been a large, peaceful family, mostly storekeepers and farmers, whereas the Turners had often been the source of friction and outright crime. Yet when historians write of the feud, many tend to refer to the Howards as “outlaws.” This may be due to the hostility between the Howards and County Judge Wilson Lewis, who was suspected of conspiring against the Howards to control the whiskey business in Harlan County.

The Turners were naturally indignant when the Howards helped to send a Turner to prison. But several years elapsed between the time Devil Jim and Francis Pace were convicted and the time the feud began. As usual, the origins of the clash are murky. John Egerton, in
Generations,
reports that the Ledford family left Harlan because of feud violence that they said started when a Day, allied with the Howards, and a Cawood, a Turner ally, clashed. But the crucial conflict may have resulted from a poker game in which Wix Howard and Little Bob Turner got into a dispute over the pot and each accused the other of cheating. (Wix said that Turner, half drunk, was taking a nap when another player, as a joke, set his hair on fire. Turner accused Wix and threatened to kill him.) The next day they met on the street, and Little Bob shot Wix in the arm. Raising his shotgun with one arm, Wix fired, and the load of buckshot blasted a hole the size of a baseball in Little Bob's chest. He died that evening in the Turner Mansion. Wix was arrested, tried, and acquitted on grounds of self-defense. Curiously, it was the last time Wix was involved with the Turners. Somehow the torch passed to his cousin and friend, Wilson Howard, who proved to be a real wildcat and turned the friction into a feud.

Though Wilson (Wils or Wilse) had been in no trouble with the law, he was regarded as a tough, dangerous man. This may have stemmed from an experience he had when he was only fifteen. In an argument with one of the Cawood boys, Wilse was jumped by a half-dozen older boys, including Cawoods, Baileys, and Turners, and while two of the Cawoods held him, the others gave him a bad beating that he never forgot. He began carrying a gun.

A few weeks after Wix killed Little Bob, Little George Turner and one of the Bailey boys went down to the Howard store, where Hiram and Alice Howard also made and sold whiskey. They ordered Alice, who was alone in the store at the time, to stop selling whiskey to George Sr., who was known to drink more than he could hold. Alice told them that if they didn't want George to drink, they should tell him not to buy it.

Little George apparently spoke roughly to Mrs. Howard. That was a mistake. Tall, slender Alice Howard had been a Jennings, a family known as tough, proud people. Hezekiah Jennings, Alice's father, was in the thick of the Howards' feud with the Turners. Alice's brother Will and her son Wilse formed a team that more than held up the Howard end of the violence.

It is significant that the running battle between these two families apparently started over whiskey, and one must wonder how much Judge Wilson Lewis had to do with lighting the fire. Lewis himself, in a letter to the
Louisville Courier-Journal
of September 23, 1889, declared that the death of Little Bob Turner at the hand of Wix Howard had for all purposes ended the real family feud. From then on, he said, it was really a matter of the “Turners joining an effort by law enforcement officers to control the whisky traffic” personified by Wilse Howard, who resisted efforts of the law-abiding people to bring the evil booze under control. His own statements strengthen the belief that Lewis was the one who kept the feud going and provoked Wilse Howard into retaliation.

Most of the Howards seem to have been reluctant about entering the armed conflict; indeed, most of the large family never took part in the feud. Wilse was an exception, and it is probably significant that the ties between Alice and her slender, dark-haired son were especially strong; Wilse had a lot of Jennings blood in him. When he heard of the encounter between his mother and the Turners, he took the news sourly.

The following week, on the road to Hagan, Virginia, Wilse ran into Will Turner, reputedly the toughest of the Turners, and a man named Bob Maupin. Insults were followed by gunfire, but no one was hurt. Wilse went home and reported the skirmish, and the Howards took precautions against a possible attack. Sure enough, that night the Howard home was attacked by a group led by Will Turner. In the dark, little was accomplished, but Will Turner was wounded. He left a few days later, saying he was going out West to recuperate. Will Jennings, Alice's brother, had moved to Indiana, but with trouble looming, Wilse and his mother sent for him, and he was soon seen riding with what became known as the Wilse Howard gang.

In the late summer of 1887, Will Turner came home and George Turner wrote Captain Ben Howard a most remarkable letter, one that again raises questions about which side was outside the law. “The bulldog of the Turners has returned,” he wrote, “with all of his teeth intact.” He then challenged the Howards to meet the Turners “in open battle at Harlan Courthouse [He may have meant the town rather than the building, but the Howards took it to mean the building] and decide by the arbitraiment of blade and bullet who has the better right to rule the county.”

The Howards had cause for worry. Wilson Lewis, who was kin to the Turner and Cawood families, had been elected county judge and was said to be determined to kill off the Howards and take over the whiskey business. Moses Turner had been elected sheriff. While Will was out West recuperating, a man named Huff had tried to negotiate a truce between the two clans but had received little encouragement from the Turners. “I'd rather have my boys brought home on blankets,” said Mrs. George Turner. “My boys will never lay down their arms.” But Huff persisted, James Howard and Hezekiah Jennings came into Harlan and met with the Turners, and a truce of sorts was accepted. But Little George and Carlo “Bony” Turner were not parties to the agreement, and Wilse warned that they could not be trusted to keep the peace. He was right. As the Howards rode home from the meeting, someone—Wilse claimed that it was Little George—fired at them from a brushy cliff. No one was hurt, but Wilse swore he would clean out the Turners, truce or no. The shooting soon resumed.

So when the Howards received George Turner's challenge, Ben Howard sent out word to family members, and a council of war was held at the log “fort” on the river. (Relatively few of the Howards attended, indicating that most of the family wanted to be left out of the feud.) James Howard, Wilse's older brother, sent word back to George Turner that the Howards would meet them on the appointed day in Harlan. Berry Howard, who had been jailer and sheriff, warned that Lewis would deputize a crowd of gunfighters and occupy the courthouse, forcing the Howards to attack from the street. James had not specified at what time they would arrive, however, and on Monday morning the Howards gathered before dawn, rode into Harlan and quietly took up positions; Berry, Hiram, and James Howard and Hezekiah Jennings were in the courthouse; Wilse, Alex, and Elijah Howard were across the street. It is possible that Chad Hall and Bud Spurlock were with them.

The Turners must have intended the battle to be a showdown to impress the large crowd expected to watch. It didn't turn out that way; in fact, it was something of an anticlimax. Shortly after breakfast
time, a dozen or so of the Turners, unaware that the Howards were waiting for them, walked casually out of the Turner Mansion toward the courthouse. They had almost reached it when someone spotted the Howards in second-floor windows and gave the alarm.

Everyone started shooting. Will Turner, the returned bulldog, showed his courage, if not his common sense, by attempting to rush the front door of the courthouse. He was hit before he reached it, got up and retreated, firing as he went, but was hit agian. He got up and, with the help of others, staggered up the street to the Turner home, where his mother came out and helped him onto the front porch. He had been hit in the stomach and was screaming with pain. “Stop that!” his mother snapped. “Die like a man, like your brother [Little Bob] did!” Will stopped screaming and died.

The firing went on for a few more minutes. Four men were hit, none seriously, and no one else was killed. After Will was shot, the Turners fell back to the mansion, spectators peered from around corners, and the Howards came out of the courthouse, sat for a few minutes smoking and talking, then mounted their horses and rode home.