Category Archives: Big Harts Creek

In Search of Ed Haley 249

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud, Timber

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At the time of the ambush on Al and Hollena Brumfield, Henderson Dingess and his family were in no mood to see yet another one of their fold die violently. Less than a year before, on November 15, 1888, Floyd Dingess, an older son of Henderson, was murdered while working logs at the mouth of Rockhouse Fork on Harts Creek. It was a horrific deed: Floyd, whose wife was several months pregnant, was murdered by his own brother-in-law, Billy Hall. Floyd had never been popular with the Halls. He reportedly made a habit of bullying Billy. It was said that when he came home from working, his wife would clatter pots and pans in the kitchen just so her family wouldn’t hear his footsteps.

When Billy finally shot Floyd on that fateful day, some of the younger Dingess boys were fishing in the creek nearby. They raced home to tell their family what had happened, while Billy quickly returned home and received instructions to hide out in Robinson Creek, Kentucky. Meanwhile, Floyd’s pregnant wife was floated across the creek to her husband, who died in her arms. Hugh Dingess, Floyd’s brother, tracked Billy to Kiah’s Creek but lost his trail. For years, Hugh was devastated by his brother’s death. He used to get drunk and shoot the Halls’ cattle.

The Dingesses eventually learned the whereabouts of Billy Hall and prepared to fetch him by force. The Halls on Harts Creek caught wind of their plan and sent word to Billy to escape by train to Tennessee, which he did — and was never heard from again.

Surely, when Milt Haley and Green McCoy shot Hollena Brumfield less than a year later, the Dingess family was determined to execute a harsh revenge. It was, after all, the second attack on their clan in several months. We wondered then, why would Milt, Green, Runyon, and Ben Adams — knowing the fate of poor Billy Hall — want to risk their lives (and fortunes) to attack Brumfield? Surely Milt and Green — taking a cue from Billy Hall — were well aware that once they committed their heinous act, the only avenue open to them was to flee the state forever. We also wondered if Milt just abandoned Emma and Ed on Trace Fork or if there was some kind of arrangement to later meet him in Kentucky?

In Search of Ed Haley 233

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Whirlwind

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In that same year, 1912, according to a state business directory, there were a variety of folks with business interests in Whirlwind, West Virginia. Sol Riddell was the postmaster, a lawyer, and part owner of a general store named Mullins & Riddell. Peter Mullins was a carpenter, D. Adams was an apiarist, Grover Adams dealt in ginseng, Sol Adams was a miller and lumber dealer, W.J. Bachtel was a teacher, Reece Dalton dealt in livestock and M. Tomblin was a teamster. Reverend Perris Hensley and Reverend William Tomblin were area preachers.

Between 1916-1918, roughly the time Ed Haley left Harts Creek for Ashland, Kentucky, many of these same folks were listed in business directories for Whirlwind. James Mullins was postmaster in 1916, as well as the local general store operator and photographer. William Farley was a mail dealer. In 1918, Frank Adams was a mail carrier. Sol Adams operated a saw mill. Lindsey Blair was a watchmaker. Callahill McCloud dealt in poultry. C.M. Mullins dealt in ginseng. J.M. Mullins operated a flour mill.

By that time, Peter Mullins served as a sort of surrogate father to Ed Haley. It was Uncle Peter who had given Ed a cornstalk fiddle when he was a young boy and who kept him for years. As Ed became a young man who frequently left Harts with his music, Uncle Peter toiled on Trace Fork as a farmer and occasional timberman. He was perhaps best known for his moonshining, an art form with a long history in his pedigree. In January of 1919, he appeared in The Lincoln Republican in an article titled “Four Moonshiners Caught in Raid.”

A constable and owner of a general store was one of the four men arrested Saturday night in Harts Creek district and taken to Huntington Sunday for arraignment before United States Commissioner J.P. Douglas on a charge of illegally manufacturing liquor. The men were found on Trace Fork of Harts creek.

Peter Mullins is the constable and owns a general store on Harts creek. He is known as ‘Shooting Pete’ and is now in the Cabell county jail in default of bond. In his store were found 900 pounds of meal and 209 pounds of flour. Sol Adams, Peter Jonas and George Adams, the other three arrested, gave bond. All are held to the grand jury at the April term of federal court. At the home of Geo. Adams, were found 200 pounds of meal, 100 pounds of light brown sugar, 200 pounds of bran or ships stuff and one barrel of mash, made up, which Adams said was for his hogs. He had one hog, according to the men on the raid. The arrests were made on Saturday by G.C. Rutheford and Hartley Ferguson, deputy marshals; H.D. Sims and G.L. Hannan, of the internal revenue department; M.E. Ketchem, Frank Adkins and W.F. Porter of the state prohibition commissioner’s force.

In Search of Ed Haley 232

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Whirlwind

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In spite of new economic developments, educational opportunities for young Ed Haley were limited. As far as can be ascertained, he received no formal education as a child. In that Victorian era of prosperity and refineries, schools (and other forms of improvement) were slow to arrive in the mountains of Appalachia. Joe Adams, whose father was Ed’s age and who was raised at the mouth of Trace Fork, summed it up this way: “All the education they got, they got theirselves.” (He had heard the old-timers speak of the McGuffey Readers.) In August of 1897, Ed got his first chance for an education when Sophia and David Kinser donated land on Trace Fork to the district board of education for the purpose of building a schoolhouse. So far as is known, this was the first school built on the branch. It was easy to picture Ed showing up to visit and entertain students with his amazing fiddle playing…and perhaps to occasionally sit in on school.

In February of 1898, as Ed approached his teen years, Weddie and Peter Mullins swapped property on Trace Fork. Weddie deeded his land to Peter’s wife Liza, who likewise sold her land to Weddie. Thereafter, Peter made his home in the spot where Lawrence Haley and I had visited in the early ’90s, while Weddie lived at the Jackson Mullins home. A few years later, after Weddie was murdered, his widow remarried to Lee Farley — brother to Burl — causing many people to refer to their home as the “old Lee Farley place” (as opposed to the Jackson Mullins place).

In May 1898, the Logan County Court appointed Henry Blair, Jr. as guardian of Ed Haley “an infant under the age of 14 years.” Blair and Albert Dingess paid the bond of 100 dollars. Haley was listed with his maternal grandparents, Jackson and Chloe Mullins, in the 1900 census.

By that time, the Emma Haley property had dropped in value to 33 dollars. Then, for reasons unknown, the value of “Emmagene Haley’s” property increased to $5.50 an acre for a total worth of $110 in 1906. Maybe Uncle Peter or Weddie had made an improvement on the property or maybe someone had appraised it for timber. In any case, Ed would’ve inherited it outright at that time as a person of legal adult age. More than likely, he had no idea of its worth.

The timber boom led directly to the creation of new towns on Harts Creek. Around 1902, a new post office was created at the mouth of Smoke House Fork called Spottswood. According to a 1904 business directory, Sol Adams was a justice at Spottswood. In 1906, Anthony Adams was the operator of a general store, as was J.M. Adams and James Thompson. Berl Adams was a blacksmith, Sewell Adams was a logger, Francis Collins was a miner, Albert Gore was a constable, David Dingess was a lawyer and Sol Riddell was a teacher. Joseph Adams dealt in walnut lumber, while Reverend John McCloud handled local religious matters. Alice Adams was the postmistress at Spottswood. A little later, Berl Adams, Albert Dingess, Alice Adams, Charles Dingess, William Farley and Thomas J. Wysong opened up general stores.

Later, other post offices opened on Harts Creek. In 1910, according to local tradition, Whirlwind Post Office opened in the head of Harts Creek. This replaced Spottswood as Ed Haley’s local post office, although he was traveling away from Harts quite a bit at that time. Whirlwind was roughly sixteen miles from Logan and nine miles from Dingess. (I had seen the remnants of Whirlwind post office on my recent visit to Harts Creek.) It served 250 people and received mail daily.

Ed Haley, meanwhile, sold the only piece of land he would ever own in March of 1911 to his first cousin Ewell Mullins for 25 dollars (1/5 of its appraisal value as per the assessor). In the deed, Jonas Branch was called Gunnel Branch and the size of the tract was given as 25 acres. The deed read as follows:

Beginning at a rock at the mouth of the Gunnel Branch on the right side of Trace creek thence up the hill to the top of the hill; thence up the ridge to opposite a ash corner on a cliff thence down the hill to the ash thence cross the creek to a plum tree thence up the hill to a beech thence a strait line to the top of the hill thence around the ridge to point on the u[p]per side of the Gunnel Branch thence down the point to a stake on the bank of branch thence down the branch and with the division between Ed Haley and Liza Mullins and crossing the creek to the beginning, containing 25 acres more or less.

Tax books first listed the property in Mullins’ name in 1912 and valued it at $140.

Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield v. McCoy (2014)

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Culture of Honor, Harts, Lincoln County Feud, Timber

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Blood in WV

In June of 2014, Pelican Publishing Company will release my book detailing the true story of the Lincoln County feud.

In Search of Ed Haley 228

19 Sunday Jan 2014

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Bob said the Brumfields left Hugh’s with Milt and Green when they heard about the existence of an Adams mob nearby.

“They took them up over the ridge and down and crossed into Ferrellsburg up at Fry,” he said.

They went to the home of Tucker Fry, who took all of the women away from the place.

“I think maybe they stayed there a day and night or something like that a trying to make them tell who hired them to do that,” Bob said. “They was a trying to get them men to tell who hired them to kill Al Brumfield. And they took one of them outside and lectured him while the other was inside. When they took him back in, they said, ‘He won’t talk.'”

Bob said the mob even took Milt and Green into different rooms trying to get a confession but they just blamed the shooting on each other. Finally, French Bryant “blew Haley’s brains out with a gun.” Burl Farley hollered and everyone shot Haley and McCoy “all to pieces.” Cat Fry, who was about ten years old at the time, hid in a corner or in the fireplace and witnessed their deaths. “It was very cruel,” Bob said.

The mob returned to their homes after killing Milt and Green and it wasn’t long until the “murder house” was burned to the ground so there’d be no evidence against them.

I asked Bob if he remembered the house and he said, “Aunt Cat, she told me it was a two-room log house. One of them old-timers, big ones. They all slept in one room. Big fireplace in the other one. I never was in that house.”

Bob said that hard feelings over the feud lingered for years, especially toward Ben Adams. “After Haley and them was killed, old man Ben Adams never done no good at timber,” he said. “He run a mountain still up there — moonshine — and he had cabins built and he had men there and ever man had a Winchester and you couldn’t do much a bothering him ’cause old man Ben was a mean man.”

So what happened to Ben, we wondered.

“Ben died in 1912,” Bob said rather undramatically, “and was buried up yonder on the hill.”

According to Bob, the 1889 feud eventually ended because most of the participants were related and ultimately wanted to see it put to rest. “Here’s the thing,” Bob said. “The Adamses and Dingesses all married through each other and the Brumfields married into the Dingess clan. Everybody was kindly keeping a steel tongue because they didn’t want no more feuding more’n what they had and they didn’t want the young people to really know anything about it — how cruel it was. Dad up here never would talk about it. Nobody talked. Years and years and years in here it was just gossip. People a talking that didn’t know a thing on earth about it. It was a rumor. Someone would tell one story and someone would tell another.”

Every now and then a bit of the story leaked out, mostly from eyewitness Cat Fry. “Aunt Cat down here, now, was a little eight-year-old girl in the same house when they was killed,” Bob said. “She would very seldom talk about it but once in a while if nobody was around sometimes she’d start off a telling me about it some. She wouldn’t hardly tell you names. Nobody wanted to hear it. They wanted to let it die down and forget all about it.”

Bob remembered French Bryant well. “He was a big 200-pound 6’4″ tall mean man,” Bob said. “He’d carry a pistol on him that hung on his hip — one of these cap ‘n balls. He lived just over the hill up yonder and he made liquor and sold it all the time up that holler. Nobody lived up there. He had two miles of a hollow there to himself and he had a big dapple gray stud horse about fourteen, fifteen hundred pounds. He’d get on that horse and go to Ferrellsburg and if the river wasn’t too big he’d swim him across that river and he’d get him a load of groceries and put them on his back and then swim that horse back.” Bob told Billy, “People didn’t fool with that old man, either. Right when you leave the mouth of Hart and come up there at the schoolhouse — just across the creek starting up West Fork — there was a big house there and old man Ross Fowler lived there. I never did know what Ross done, but old man French went there… They didn’t have no lamp oil, they had pine knots. He took a sack full of pine knots there and set them afire and burnt creation up — burnt them out of house and home. Nobody ever knowed he did it, of course. He was a mean old cuss but he didn’t bother nobody in his last days. He made a little liquor and sold it and that’s the only way the old man could make it.”

Just before we left Bob’s, he told us a very important bit of information about Ed’s relationship with Al Brumfield’s oldest son, Ward. “Like I started to say a while ago, they was a feud between the Brumfields and the McCoys,” he said. “But remember, Ward Brumfield was a very fine man. He was a handsome man. Ward was a wonderful person. He was a first cousin to me and I have to congratulate him. He’d get up and him and Ed Haley’d hug each other and they’d prance and dance on the floor and just love each other. They’d both sit down at the table to eat together. Ward and him forgot all the past. Ward and Ed Haley was good friends.”

In Search of Ed Haley 226

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley

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Billy recommended that we visit Bob Dingess, a man of advanced age who was related to and personally remembered almost everyone in Ed’s story. His father was Dave Dingess, a younger brother to Hollena Brumfield, while his mother was a daughter to Anthony Adams. His first wife was a daughter to Charley Brumfield, while his current wife was Robert Martin’s niece. Bob was a close cousin to Bob Adkins and Joe Adams, as well as many of the Brumfields. He was a fine old man — a retired schoolteacher and elementary principal — who could probably tell us more about Harts Creek history than any one alive.

We drove to Bob’s small white house, which sat just below the mouth of Smoke House on Big Harts Creek, and knocked at his back door, where a nurse met us. She knew Billy and invited us inside, through the kitchen and into a dark stuffy living room. There, we met Bob and his wife. Bob was bundled up in a light black jacket, oblivious to the enormous August heat. A somewhat tall man, he had an alertness to his movements that was surprising and enviable. He was very friendly. We all sat down on couches to talk about Ed Haley. I was sure that Bob’s heater was running; in no time at all, my sinuses were ready to explode.

When Billy told him that we were interested in finding out about Ed Haley, he said, “You have to give me a little time on this. My memory jumps on me. I’m no spring chicken and I have to think.”

But it was obvious that his mind was sharp as a tack when he started telling about his memories of Ed.

“Now Ed Haley, he left here after so long,” Bob said. “He went to Kentucky and he married there. He had a blind woman and she played the mandolin and he played the violin and they had a lot of the meanest boys you ever saw. I first saw him in 1918, during the First World War. Well on Saturday I’d go to Ferrellsburg to haul groceries. That’s the only way to get them. No bridge at Hart. And bless your heart, here that man and them four children come off’n that train, and that old woman, and I got a wagon load of groceries and set them on it and them boys fought and that old man he just slapped and knocked and kicked among them. And the old man, he wouldn’t tell them nothing — he was blind — and she couldn’t tell them nothing, either. And I finally got them up here at the house, and when I got them there Mom made me unload the wagon and says, ‘Get ’em away from here.’ And we took them up yonder to old man John Adams’ then, and let them go. They stayed a month up there.”

I asked how Ed dressed.

“Well, he was all right now, boys,” Bob said. “Don’t worry about him. He took care of everything. He’d laugh and talk, too. You’d think he could see. After you’d get him located and get him in the house, you know, he could get up and walk about through the house.”

Bob didn’t think Ed was the best fiddler he ever heard.

“Nah,” he said. “He couldn’t play this fancy music like Bill Monroe and them played. The old-time fiddle, he was good…old-time music. ‘Comin’ Around the Mountain’. He had a dozen songs.”

Bob said Ed used to play at the old pie suppers on Harts Creek.

“See, I was born in ’04, and I went to these frolics where they had pie suppers and socials and all these gals gathered and these men,” he said. “About every weekend the girls’d go to one home and they’d kill chickens and bake cakes and bake pies and everything and they’d auctioneer them off. If you had a pretty girl, buddy you’d better have a little pocketbook because somebody’s gonna eat with her and knock you out. Mother always give me a little money and I’d just pick me out one and get her. Yeah, planned all week, the girls would. We did that once a week unless they was some special occasion. We’d start at Bill Brumfield’s down yonder. From Bill’s, we’d come to Andy Thompson’s, come from Andy Thompson we went to Rockhouse to Uncle Wash Farley’s. Uncle Sol over here, he wouldn’t let them have it but just once in a while. Mom would let them have it about every three or four months up here. But on up the hollow up yonder it was a regular thing. Them days is gone, though. You couldn’t have that now. No fighting, no quarreling, everybody got along happy.”

I wanted to know more about Ed.

“Ed Haley, here’s what they’d do,” Bob said. “They’d put him and her on a mule and he’d be in front and she’d ride astraddle behind and hold him. And somebody else’d have to carry their musical instruments, see? And when they got them up there then they had to lead them and get them in the house and get them located. And somebody’d slip around and give him a big shot of liquor and her and they’d say, ‘All right, old-man, let ‘er go.’ ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’, boy here she’d go. He’d sing it. He was a good singer. And his old woman, she didn’t look like she was very much, but she was a singer. She was a little woman, blind. But she’d sing right with him. Yeah, ‘Turkey in the Straw’. Ah, that ‘Grapevine twist,’ man, ‘circle eight and all get straight.’ Ah man, them girls had them old rubber-heeled shoes and they’d pop that floor. It was an all-night affair. He’d play a while, then he’d rest a while, then he’d start again. Along about midnight, they’d drink that liquor in them half a gallon jugs. You know, I was a boy and I wasn’t allowed to drink too much but now them old-timers they would drink that liquor. ‘Bout one o’clock, she’d start again, and when the chickens was a crowing and daylight was coming still they were on the floor. They would lay all day and sleep.”

In Search of Ed Haley 225

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Whirlwind

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After lunch, Billy suggested that we go see Sherman and Minnie Smith, who lived a little further up the creek at the old Whirlwind Post Office. Minnie was the granddaughter of Solomon Adams and a great-granddaughter to Anthony Adams. Her father was a nephew to Melvin Kirk, who helped bury Milt and Green.

We soon pulled up to an incredible two-story log home with a remodeled front. We first spoke with Minnie’s husband Sherman who was busy dismantling a chimney labeled “S.A. 1875.” Minnie came out of the house, recognized Billy and started talking to us like we were neighbors. We raved over her log house for several minutes, which caused her to tell us how her grandfather Sol Adams had built it of yellow poplar in 1869. We later discovered that he was born in that year.

We gathered in chairs and sofas in a dimly lit living room with a low ceiling, while Sherman stood nearby in a doorway leading into the kitchen. We told them about my interest in Ed Haley, which caused Sherman to tell about seeing him in Logan when he was a boy. He said Ed was usually by himself but sometimes had a banjo-picker with him.

“Ed Haley used to play here when I was a girl,” Minnie said, adding that she was born in 1933. According to Minnie, Ed played for dances in the Workman home. Her parents would clear all of the furniture out of the living room and an adjacent room on Saturday. Ed came before the dance started and was fed properly, then as people started showing up he was “set up” on a stool in the doorway between the two cleared rooms. From there, he could entertain two rooms of people instead of just one. Minnie remembered him playing tunes like “Blind Man Stackolee” and “Fire on the Mountain”. Creed Conley was usually the caller and would have people dancing so wildly that they’d bump heads. Most were drunk. Minnie said someone passed a hat around for Ed’s pay toward the end of the dance.

In Search of Ed Haley 206

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Big Harts Creek, Ed Haley, Lincoln County Feud, Timber

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Ben Adams — the man who supposedly hired Milt Haley and Green McCoy to assassinate Al Brumfield — was born in 1855 to Joseph and Dicy (Mullins) Adams on Big Harts Creek in Logan County, (West) Virginia. His older sister Sarah married Henderson Dingess and was the mother of Hollena Brumfield, Hugh Dingess and several others. He was a first cousin to Jackson Mullins, Milt Haley’s father-in-law, and a brother-in-law to Chloe Mullins, Milt’s mother-in-law, by her first marriage to John Adams.

In 1870, 17-year-old Ben lived at home with his mother, where he worked as a farmer. He was illiterate, according to census records. His neighbors were Andrew Robinson and Henderson Dingess, both of whom had married his sisters (Rhoda J. and Sally). In the next year, according to tradition, he fathered an illegitimate child, William Adams, who was born to Lucinda Brumfield (niece of Paris).

In 1873, Ben married Victoria Dingess. Victoria was born in 1856 and was a first cousin to Hollena Brumfield and Hugh Dingess. The marriage made for an interesting genealogical connection: Ben was already Hugh’s uncle; now he was also his brother-in-law, as Hugh was married to Victoria’s sister, Viola (his first cousin). Ben’s daughter Sally, who was named after Hollena’s mother, later married a cousin of Spicie McCoy, Green’s wife. For all practical purposes then, Ben Adams was genealogically connected to all sides of the feud — making it a true intra-family feud from his perspective.

For the first decade or so of his marriage, Ben lived with his mother on family property, although he did acquire land and open a general store business. In 1880, he was listed in the Lincoln County Census with his mother Dicy, aged 63, and family. He was 26 years old, Victory was 23, Sally was six, son Charlie was four, daughter Patsy A. was two, and son Anthony was a few months old. George Greaar, age 20, was a boarder. In 1881, he purchased 25 acres on the Meekin Branch of Trace Fork. Three years later, he was listed in a business directory as the proprietor of a general store. At that same time, his brother-in-law and neighbor Henderson Dingess was a distiller.

Later in the decade, Ben fathered three more children: George “Greasy” (1885), Harvey (1886), and May (1889). In 1889, the time of Milt Haley’s ambush of Al Brumfield, Adams owned 260 acres on the Boardtree Branch of Trace Fork valued at $1.00 per acre in Logan County.

Anthony Adams — Ben’s brother and ally in the 1889 troubles — was a prominent timberman on Harts Creek. Anthony had been born in 1849 and was the husband of Pricie Alifair Chapman, Burl Farley’s half-sister. In 1884, Adams was listed in a business directory as a blacksmith. In 1889, he owned two 50-acre tracts of land, one valued at $3.50 per acre with a $30 building on it, the other valued at $2.00 per acre. By that time, he had three sons of fighting age who may have participated in the feud: Solomon Adams (born 1869), Horatio “Rush” Adams (born 1871), and Wayne Adams (born 1874), as well as a son-in-law, Harrrison Blair (born c.1867).

A quick examination of the Adams genealogy gives a clue as to Ben’s other 1889 allies. First there was brother “Bad John” Adams. Adams was deceased at the time of the Haley-McCoy incident, but he had been married to Chloe Gore — mother of Emma Jean (Mullins) Haley. He had three sons of fighting age in 1889: Joseph Adams (born 1859), John Frock Adams (born 1861), and Ticky George Adams (born 1865)…as well as son-in-law Sampson Thomas.

Rhoda J. Robinson was a sister to the three Adams brothers. She had several children who may have allied with Ben: David Robinson (born 1860), Ben Robinson (born 1866), John R. Robinson (born 1868), and Joseph Robinson (born 1870). There was also brother Solomon Adams, who may have offered his loyalty to Ben, along with sons John M. Adams (born 1869) and Benjamin Adams (born 1867), and sons-in-law David Robinson and Peter Carter (c.1873).

As for Ben himself, he stayed busy with timber after the feud. According to an 1896 article from the Logan County Banner: “Benj. Adams, of Hart, is hauling some fine poplar from trace fork.” In 1901, he married Venila Susan Abbott, a daughter of Wilson and Elizabeth (Workman) Abbott, and had at least eight more children (born between 1901 and 1921). Not long after his remarriage, he was accused of murdering a local postman named Jim Allen Martin — and nearly went bankrupt paying for his legal defense. He died in 1910 and was buried on the hill near the mouth of Trace Fork.