Days of Darkness (6 page)

It was a rough land into which they had come, and one must wonder now why they stopped among the sharp, steep hills and narrow valleys of the central Cumberlands instead of going a little farther west into the rich and gentle Bluegrass region. From the first they faced the handicap of isolation. Until 1840, when a road was completed from the village of Jackson to War Creek, all merchandise had to be brought up the Kentucky River from a landing at Clay's Ferry, near Lexington. Not until 1890 did the Kentucky Union Railroad extend its line from the Red River to Elkatawa, and in 1891 to Jackson, the county seat. As late as 1930 there was one black-topped road in the county.

From its founding in 1807, Breathitt County grew slowly. In 1809 it contained 8,705 people, in 1900, 14,320. It was not an easy place in which to make a living. The rich river bottomland was good for farming but flood prone, and settlers were soon clearing timber from the hills to create farmland and pastures. On the steep slopes grew more than a hundred species of trees, but the land made cutting difficult, and the logs had to be floated down the swift, swirling waters of the Kentucky River at flood tide to sawmills fifty miles away. When the big lumber companies such as Mowbray-Robinson finally arrived in 1908, they were warmly welcomed for the payrolls and purchases they brought, but they were not an unmixed blessing. They stripped the hills, leaving them prone to erosion that silted the creeks and added to river flooding.

When and why the fighting began that gave this scenic mountain land the unwanted nickname “Bloody Breathitt” is hard to pinpoint. But apparently it began with the Civil War. During that disastrous conflict, army officers, Union and Confederate, were often obliged to live off the land and sent foraging parties out into the countryside to round up whatever food they could find. According to law, they were supposed to pay or give promissory notes for what they took. In practice, they seldom did, taking what they could find and making foraging parties the dread of the mountain citizens, regardless of their sympathies. Such men were referred to as bushwhackers—they whacked the bushes to drive out livestock, cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens—which they then appropriated. Soon the name would be applied also to those who lay in the bushes and ambushed and robbed passers-by.

It was assumed, of course, that the foragers would take the livestock and farm produce back to the troops. Again, it didn't always work out that way. Frequently the leaders, especially leaders of the Home Guard (regular or irregular troops who were supposed to protect citizens of a stipulated area from enemy troops or robbers) simply rounded up the stock and divided it among themselves, with top dog getting the biggest bone. That is apparently what took place among the Union army units of the Home Guard representing Breathitt and neighboring counties. Captain William Strong, of Company K of the Fourteenth Regiment, had a falling out with Lieutenant Wiley Amis of Company I over such a divison of spoils. Wiley Amis and his men had been scouting the northern half of Breathitt, while Captain Strong, with other Amises and Wilson Callahan, were robbing the Lost Creek Section. According to his men, Captain Strong took more than his share, the Amises and Wilson Callahan protested, and the incident led to the Strong-Amis feud, which lasted well into the 1870s. It fairly well ended when John Amis, the leader of the family, was killed in 1873 and the other Amises, or most of them, moved out of the county. But before it ended, it involved the Littles, another large family, when a gunfight broke out in the Breathitt courtroom in which Bob Little, a nephew of Captain Strong, was killed and five others wounded. In that same year a fire destroyed much of the courthouse in Jackson, the county seat, including most of the county records. There are few things more convenient than a good courthouse fire.

Like many feud leaders, Captain Bill Strong was a curious combination of altruist and tyrant. Having served in the Union army, he apparently took the Union cause seriously and became known in the hill country as the protector of the newly freed slaves. On the other hand, he was a brutal enemy. After the war, when a man ran against him or his choice for office, Strong was apt to take it as a personal affront. If the offending party did not withdraw, he frequently wound up dead. Bill Strong wanted the law enforced to accommodate Bill Strong; he wanted his followers left alone, taxes on his land kept low, and land disputes settled in his favor.

But the worst aspect of his rule was his tendency to act as commanding officer long after the war was over. He is said to have held courts-martial and condemned to death those who challenged his control. These courts-martial, it was reported, were held at night with only a few trusted men present. There was no need for the accused to be on hand. Captain Bill would review the sins of the offender, ponder the case and, in most cases, sentence the offender to death. Usually one of his trusted lieutenants was given the job of killing
the condemned man at a convenient moment. No hurry. Sometimes it was months before the blow fell. But it fell, invariably. One day the doomed man would be riding along, going to work or to the store, probably not knowing he was doomed, when a shot would ring out from ambush.

Wilson Callahan, John Amis and two of his cousins, possibly others, went the way of the court-martial. The Amises fought back and are said to have claimed more than two dozen of the Strong forces. But Strong's executions had an inexorable air about them, as if by fate decreed, and one by one Captain Bill whittled away the enemy. Soon, few men wanted to challenge him. But in the mid-seventies a series of violent incidents marked the beginning of the end for the captain.

The events of 1874 involved not only Bill Strong but the Littles, the Jetts, and the Cockrells (sometimes spelled Cockrill), large and determined families. In the early summer of 1874 Jerry Little, not the most popular man in the hills, started a rumor, probably motivated by jealousy, charging one of James Cockrell's daughters with pregnancy or lack of chastity. A slur against the virtue of a female in the family could not be tolerated, and the Cockrells set out to avenge her honor. Two of Little's allies were shot, one killed. But at about the same time, Jerry Little shot and killed Curtis Jett Jr. in a bar near the Jackson courthouse. In return, Hiram Jett, Curtis's brother, shot but failed to kill Jerry Little. The fight persuaded the Jetts to join the Cockrells against the Littles.

Captain Bill Strong couldn't keep out of it. While the Littles and Jetts were banging away at each other, David Flinchum shot and killed a Negro. Ordinarily this would have caused hardly a comment, but now Bill Strong had made himself the special protector of the Negro population. The Flinchums joined the Cockrells for protection, so Strong joined the Littles against the Cockrells, and the lines were drawn. But at that point Captain Strong threw the whole county into confusion and brought in state troops for the first time by staging a coup d'état. Marshaling about two dozen of his old wartime followers, Strong rode into Jackson and took over the courthouse without firing a shot. He just walked in, told people in the offices to leave, and took over.

Feeling it advisable not to resist, the county officials in their offices at the time filed out and held a meeting at the home of Jim Cockrell, and decided to send a message to the governor complaining that there had been an insurrection and that Strong had illegally captured the courthouse. Governor Preston H. Leslie was astounded; he had had trouble out of the mountain courthouses before, and requests for
troops to allow courts to function, but he had never before faced a coup d'état, the blatant capture of a county government. He sent in sixty soldiers on September 16, 1874. Some of Strong's messengers heard that the troops were on the way and warned the captain. A few hours before the militia arrived, Strong and his men very casually left the courthouse and rode out of Jackson.

The tension in Jackson, however, and the constant shooting between the Jetts and Littles worried the captain in charge of the troops, and before the episode ended five companies had arrived and encamped in the town. They remained through December 1874, protecting the court so that it could function.

The Little-Jett feud was ended, however, not by troops but Breathitt sheriff John Linville Hagins. A gunfight broke out between the two sides on Quicksand Creek. Logan Cockrell was killed and Jerry Little was wounded. Cornered, Little jumped into the creek and hid under some brush until dark, when he dragged himself out of the water and crawled home. Finally, Sheriff Hagins, a twenty-six-year-old who had friends on both sides of the feud and refused to be drawn into it, decided that the Little-Jett conflict had gone on long enough. Riding to the home of Hiram Jett, he said, “I've come to arrest you, Hiram, and would like for you to come peaceably.” Jett's response indicates that he may well have been tired of the fighting but felt he had a tiger by the tail and was afraid to let go. “I will if Little will,” he replied. So Hagins went to the Little home and made the same statement to Jerry Little, who made the same response; he would come peaceably if Jett would. Thus the leaders of both factions were brought in without a shot being fired, and the court took bond for their appearance at the next term of court, at which time they were tried. To everyone's apparent satisfaction, no one was sent to prison for the casual shootings and killings of the previous months, but the leaders were fined. That seemed proper.

A strange sidelight: Hiram Jett was tired of the hostility. A gentleman and prosperous merchant, he did not want the reputation of a gunfighter, but he knew that the image would follow him as long as he lived in Breathitt County. So shortly after the trials he sold his home and moved to Madison County, where he lived until his death in 1887. Two years after his death his widow married ex-sheriff John Linville Hagins. It proved to be a happy marriage. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Calm did not reign for long, however. In the summer of 1878 there was a heated contest for the office of county judge. Among the candidates were Judge D.K. Butler, who had held the office before,
attorney John Wesley Burnett, and E.C. Strong, a cousin of Captain Bill Strong. E.C. was supported by the Littles. On June 3 a Democratic convention was held in Jackson. It was an ill-tempered gathering, marked by frequent gunfire, at which nothing was accomplished, since a majority could not decide on a candidate. Soon afterward, Judge Butler withdrew, and friends urged Burnett to do the same to avoid conflict with the Strongs. He refused, though E.C. Strong was gathering support, including that of Big John Aikman. But Aikman was Captain Strong's bitterest enemy, and the captain, caught between dislike for his old enemies—the Littles and John Aikman—and loyalty to his cousin E.C, deserted E.C. and supported Burnett, who had the backing of what law-and-order element there was.

To general surprise, Burnett won, but by a thin margin—eight votes. The Littles and Aikman swore that Burnett would not live to take office. Burnett feared they would fulfill their prophecy and with three friends rode to Frankfort, where he persuaded the governor to award him the commission of office without customary procedural delays. The Littles grumbled and made sullen threats but did little else.

But Big John Aikman was not content to talk. Three weeks after the election he collected a dozen or so supporters of E.C. Strong and rode into Jackson with the aim of killing Burnett. But someone talked—whiskey was probably involved, it usually was—and before the Aikman forces reached Jackson more than thirty Burnett partisans rallied at the courthouse. The attack never came off, but several times during the following week gunmen attacked the Marcum boardinghouse where Burnett stayed, leaving a few bullet holes but injuring no one.

Then a nasty event occurred that ignited the Little-Burnett fire again. A few weeks after he took office, Burnett heard that the wife of Jason Little, Jerry Little's uncle, had died under strange circumstances and had been buried hurriedly under Jason's home. Judge Burnett ordered the body disinterred. This caused a furor. The Littles swore they would kill anyone who tried to dig up the body, but Burnett was not to be bullied. He appointed a coroner's jury, deputized a cordon of guards, and directed them to the Little home, where they dug up the body. The coroner's jury found (1) that Mrs. Little had been pregnant at the time of her death, and (2) that her body had suffered gunshot wounds that had been stuffed with beeswax to disguise them. Jason was charged with her murder and lodged in the Jackson jail, but Burnett ordered him transferred to the jail in Lexington, fearing that as long as he was in Jackson, efforts would be made to storm the jail and free him or hang him.

What happened next demonstrated how shaky was the hold of
law in Breathitt County. During the second week of November 1878, Deputy Sheriff Charles Little, a cousin of Jason, obtained from Circuit Judge John Randall of Perry County an order directing the jailer in Lexington to release Jason to Deputy Charles Little. Charles then gathered some deputies, and they rode to the railroad station in Montgomery County to catch the train to Lexington. Sheriff Hagins, hearing of this, gathered a group of his own and set out for the same train station. When he arrived, Deputy Little and his band were waiting on the platform.

A tense moment. Sheriff Hagins ordered Deputy Little to disperse his men and return to Jackson. Little said that he had a court order to return Jason to Jackson and that he had no choice but to obey the order. About that time the train for Lexington arrived. They all stood, glaring at each other and wondering whether to reach for their pistols. Finally both parties boarded the train and rode to Lexington in tense silence.

In Lexington they went in search of the jailer and found him at home, and both demanded the release of the prisoner. The jailer, choosing to obey the rules of rank, released Jason to Sheriff Hagins. Deputy Little fumed, calculated his chances in a shoot-out, and decided to wait until they were back home and among friends to attempt to rescue Jason. Again they all boarded the train, got off in Montgomery County, mounted their horses, and rode toward Jackson. Deputy Little, with no prisoner to bother with, raced ahead, planning an ambush. Sheriff Hagins, knowing that was what Little would probably do, took a long, roundabout way back to Jackson, hoping to get behind the would-be ambushers and place Jason in the questionable security of the Breathitt jail.