Meanwhile, Brandon and Billy were back at the bedside of Bill Adkins. Bill said Ed used to visit his father Fed Adkins for two or three days at a time when he was a boy. Fed and his family lived in Harts with Black John Adkins, a mulatto cousin who had neen present at the Haley-McCoy executions in 1889. When Haley came by, he usually traveled with Dood Dalton, a fiddler from Big Branch who played with a similar style. Ed and Dood played for all night dances at Fed’s but never sang anything. Bill said Ed played fast and smooth and was a “long bow” fiddler. He tapped his feet while playing.

Fed and Black John were both fiddlers, Bill said, but they never played with Ed and Dood. Instead, they tried to copy them after they left.

Bill said Ed didn’t drink at his father’s home and was a very serious person, never carrying on much. People led him around. When he stayed overnight, he slept in the same bed as Bill and the other Adkins boys.