USA > Tennessee > Sevier County > The White-caps : a history of the organization in Sevier County > Part 6
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THE TER COLUM
ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL R. A. MYNATT.
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son's Springs soon after dark, their plans were agreed upon and they started at once in the direction of James Massey's house.
The conflict took place at a point only one half mile from the famous summer resort, Henderson's Springs, where a narrow road runs around the craggy cliff overhanging the beautiful Pigeon river.
The citizens on duty that night were Elijah Helton, M. F. Nichols, W. A. Henderson, A. W. Nichols, M. V. Lewellen, John Myers and Pink Rauhuff.
They took the road to Massey's house leading around the bluff. M. F. Nichols, Henderson and Myers were about thirty steps in front of Helton and Lewellen. The night was quite dark. Suddenly they met four unmasked men who pulled their hats over their faces and passed in single file on the upper side of the road.
The men in front failed to recognize any of them, and while suspicious, were not certain that they belonged to the band of raiders.
In a moment the four suspicious characters met Helton and Lewellen ; some words were passed which could not be heard distinctly, but a volley of pistol shots were fired, followed immediately by a' roar of shot guns. The first shot fired by the White-caps struck Lewellen square in the breast and knocked him off of the bluff.
In the meantime, Helton had emptied both barrels of his shot gun and two of the White caps fell to the ground. Helton threw out his two empty shells and was in the act of reloading when James Gibson, a White-cap, rushed up and fired two pistol shots at
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close range which went crushing through Helton's brain. A regular fusilade of shots from the three men in front compelled the two White-caps yet unhurt to beat a hasty retreat, one of them with two holes in his hat.
This was an unexpected meeting and neither side had their full force present. The main body of the White-caps were assembled in a little grove near Henderson's Springs, while A. W. Nichols and Pink Rauhuff were watching the road a few hundred yards down the river. The firing was distinctly heard by both sides and a stampede followed. Nichols and Rauhuff came running down the road to overtake their friends and suddenly stumbled upon the dead bodies of Helton and Keeble. They did not take time to see who it was, but wheeled around and retraced their steps in double quick time.
Lewellen started for home, suffering excruciating pain from the wound in his breast. He died a year later of consumption, thought to have been caused by the wound he received that night, as the ball was never located.
Mitchell Nichols and William Henderson left the main road and wound their way around the foot of the bluff and waded the river, up to their necks, at a · point where they had never crossed before, All this time they could hear distinctly the pitiful groans of Laban Latham pleading :
"Oh, my God; I am shot and dying. Friends come to me."
After crossing the river they stopped again to listen, and Nichols thought he recognized the voice of his
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brother "Ash." They were almost frozen to death, but stealthily slipped up the river bank opposite to where Latham was lying. With only a narrow stream between them, the groans of Latham fell distinctly upon the ears of the anxious listeners as he cried out :
"Oh, Jim, where are you ! I am shot and bleeding to death."
They soon decided he was not one of their friends and departed for home.
On arriving at home Nichols found that his brother Ash had not returned. All night long he walked the floor exclaiming :
" Oh, my God ! The poor unfortunate man is dying all alone by the river side. Surely, it must be brother Ash."
He could not stand it any longer, and returned that he might hear the voice once more. But a death-like silence reigned over the weird scene and not a sound could be heard save the doleful hooting of an owl that sat on the over-hanging cliff.
His brother Ash was then at the house of Pink Rauhuff fearing that one of the dead bodies over which he had stumbled was his brother Mitchell.
There was an old sack under the dead body of Keeble, containing three White-cap suits, which told plainly his business on that fateful night.
Immediately following this occurrence, feeling ran high in the community. Each family sympathized with one side or the other, and life-time friendships were dissolved. William Brown, the informant, together with Jesse and Isaac Brown, the two latter
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having also joined the White-caps, became alarmed and decided to turn state's evidence, which they did, and then in quick succession followed the arrests of Dan Davis, captain of the band, and two of his boys, John Blair, William Wear, George Montgomery, Lon Carnes, John Norton, Henry McMahan and Arthur and John Seaton, all charged with the whipping of Ben Farr and Ruth Massey.
They all waived a trial before a Justice of the Peace and gave bond for their appearance at court. When court convened, in the selection of the grand jury two White-caps were chosen, hence no true bills were found and the men were released.
The White-caps were encouraged by this act and boasted that the court was in sympathy with them and that nothing could or would be done to punish them for their lawless acts.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE MURDER OF TOM GIBSON.
On Saturday evening, early in the month of April, 1895, there came into the little town of Sevierville an old man whose face looked sad and care-worn.
He was not clad in the best of clothes, yet he had an honest face, and a reputation which gave him credit in any store in the town.
Before leaving town he bought a quarter sack of flour, and with a smile on his face he carried it away on his back, with the remark :
"I will have biscuit for breakfast Sunday morning.''
But before the sun rose that Sabbath morning Tom Gibson lay cold in death upon the floor of his humble cabin home.
He was the victim of a band of midnight assassins, known as White-caps, or Grave Yard Hosts, who were on one of their lawless raids. Within a brief space of time his once happy home was broken up and shrouded in darkness and death.
On the night of this cruel murder the White-caps had first visited the home of Jerry Woodsby. Woodsby lived on James Catlett's farm about two miles from Sevierville.
He had been working for Catlett previous to this time, but for some cause, unknown to the writer, had left his employ.
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The White-caps surrounded his house and he was told to open the door. Woodsby, surmising what this command meant, refused to do so.
With a heavy fence-rail, in the hands of strong men, the door was soon battered down and Woodsby was overpowered and taken out of the house, and an un- merciful whipping was the result. He was led back to the house, writhing in pain from the cruel lashes that had been laid upon his bare back, and told to go back to work for James Catlett at once, or they would return and double the dose. There was no cause for the whipping of Woodsby except the one stated above.
Soon the band disappeared from the home of Woodsby, and proceeded in the direction of Thomas Gibson's cabin, which was only a short distance away His door was also battered down in like manner. Instantly a half dozen well-masked men stepped inside and informed the old man that they had come to whip his daughter.
The father, no doubt, realized the situation, and knew full well that to resist meant death.
Callie, his oldest daughter, had been the tender care of the old man for many years. He had toiled in the heat of summer, had struggled along through the dreary months of winter, and had gone through many hardships that his little family might not go in want. He had looked into the face of his prattling babe, had seen her pass through the halcyon days of child-hood and girl-hood, and had now just reached young woman- hood. After enduring the hardships of many years, he must now either stand by and see his oldest daughter subjected to a cruel beating at the hands of an unmerci-
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ful band of outlaws, or make a feeble resistance. He chose the latter, and died like a hero, defending his humble home. Tom Gibson was a poor man and had neither gun nor pistol at his command. He rose with a chair in his hand, and was just in the act of dealing the captain of the band a blow, when the contents of a double-barreled shot-gun was discharged, striking him squarely in the breast.
He reeled and fell backward and expired without uttering a word. The White-caps remained only for a moment and then disappeared from the scene of their awful crime, leaving their victim lying upon the floor, weltering in his blood.
The wife and daughter, in the meantime, had gone out at the kitchen door and made good their escape. It was a dark, gloomy night, and after a long and weary tramp they found their way to a neighbor's house. But no one dared go near the place until next morning.
As soon as the news reached Sevierville, which was early the following day, Sheriff Maples, Dr. Massengill, Dr. Walker, Judge Houk and many others left for the scene of the murder. The people in Sevierville were slow to believe that such a horrible crime had been committed within two miles of the little town, and yet not hear of it until the following day.
Sheriff Maples and his posse were not long on the way to the Gibson home, and returned, perhaps, in less time than it had taken them to go. Their blood boiled as they gazed at the scene. All night long he lay in a pool of blood, and not a friend had dared to give the heart-broken family any assistance, for fear that they too would meet a like fate.
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On the return of sheriff Maples the first report was verified, and the news spread like wildfire. The whole town and surrounding country was wrought up over this crime committed by the White-caps.
A determined effort was made to spot the guilty parties. The only blood hounds in the county were owned or controlled by William Wynn. He was appealed to for assistance, but refused to go, or even let his dogs go.
County court met in a few days, and sheriff Maples asked for an appropriation to buy a pair of blood hounds. It was discussed quite freely among the jus- tices. During the discussion, deputy sheriff Tom Davis arose and said :
" This court has just appropriated a large sum of money to build a new court house. Crime after crime is being committed by a band of White-caps, and to invest a small sum of money in a pair of blood hounds to run them down, and thus regain the good name of Sevier county, would be of vast more importance to the county than a new court house to try them in."
The vote was taken and the money appropriated.
But the White-caps saw danger approaching, and a hasty consultation was held, in which it was decided that some immediate steps must be taken to bar this appropriation.
Accordingly a bill was filed in the Chancery Court, by Jesse Atchley, to enjoin the county court from making this appropriation.
The Chancery Court did not meet for six or eight months, and when it did meet the court decided in .
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favor of the complainants. Thus the White-caps scored another victory.
By this time the excitement had subsided to some extent, and. it was hoped that the White-caps would see the error of their way and refrain from the com- mission of other outrageous murders.
But such was not the case, as you will see from reading the following chapters.
The alleged cause for the attempted whipping of , Gibson's daughter was that she was not living up to the moral standard demanded by a few Sevier county toughs. And toughs they were, for by this time all good men who had once favored white-capping, had seen to their own sorrow that it was a great mistake.
From the best information that can be had we do not doubt but that the young daughter of Gibson had strayed from the path of virtue. Yet she was Tom Gibson's daughter and at home under the parental roof, and as near and dear to him, dear reader, as your daughter is to you.
CHAPTER XVII.
MURDER OF AARON M'MAHAN.
Among the many murders in Sevier county growing out of White-capping, none perhaps has been so bold and reckless as that of Aaron McMahan who was shot and killed from ambush in the month of July, 1896, by Newt Green and West Hendricks.
There is no doubt that this murder was instigated by the White-caps, and that Green and Hendricks were full-fledged members of that organized band of outlaws. The facts leading up to this murder are about as follows :
Aaron McMahan, who was killed as above stated, lived in the Sixth district of Sevier county in what is known in East Tennessee as Wear's Valley, .one of the most beautiful little valleys in East Tennes- see, nestling as it does at the foot of the great Smoky mountains, and claiming for its citizenship many of the best citizens of Sevier county.
Among them was Aaron McMahan, a substantial farmer and a hard-working, industrious man. He was about fifty years old and had a wife and a large family of children, some of whom were grown up and married and had family circles of their own, while his youngest was an infant at the mother's breast.
Green and Hendricks were cousins and McMahan was their uncle, his wife being a sister of Green's father and Hendricks' mother. Green and Hendricks
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lived near each other in the hills about three or four miles north of Wear's Valley, near Pigeon Forge, which place has had more White-caps than any other locality in Sevier county, according to accepted reports.
McMahan's daughter had married James Clabough, a poor but respected citizen of the county, who, at the time of the murder and prior to that time, had been living in what is known as the Little Cove, near to the home of Green and Hendricks, and on the public road leading into Wear's Valley.
Clabough's wife had been accused by the White-cap's of not being virtuous, and as they felt called upon, under their code of morals, to correct all unchaste conduct in their neighbors, they had, only a short time before the killing of McMahan, gone to the Clabough home, dragged Mrs. Clabough out of bed and house in the night and administered to her an unmerciful whipping.
The McMahan family were, of course, aroused over the matter and expressed their opinion freely against the White-caps and the cowardly night attacks on defenseless women.
Green and Hendricks, with others, were accused of being in the gang that had whipped Mrs. Clabough, and prosecutions and trials had grown out of it, one of the trials occurring before J. A. Tarwater, Esq., in Wear's Valley, on the day before the murder.
The next morning after the trial, Aaron McMahan, his son Amos, and James Clabough, his son-in-law, with a two-horse wagon loaded with wheat, went to the Pigeon Forge . Mills. While at the mills waiting to
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have their wheat ground, some of the White-caps came up and they all became engaged in a general quarrel growing out of the whipping of Mrs. Clabough.
About the middle of the afternoon, McMahan, his son and son-in-law, started for their home in Wear's Valley, about eight miles distant. As they were pas- · sing through Little Cove, about four o'clock, in a lonely and secluded place with hills and dense woods on each side of the road, two gun shots suddenly rang out on that July evening which cost Aaron McMahan his life and dangerously wounded his two companions.
The horses, frightened by the gun shots, instantly became unmanageable and ran away. The elder McMahan, although having received his death wound, was conscious of what was happening, yet was power- less to stop the flying steeds, while Clabough received a wound in the back of the neck which so shocked him that he fell from the wagon unconscious and was left lying prostrate in the road. The younger McMahan, while not seriously wounded, having only received a flesh wound in the leg, was so dazed and frightened that he failed to realize the condition of affairs.
The team, however, was stopped by some parties who met it, and the wounded men taken to the nearest house, which was John Myers'. The news soon spread from house to house until the whole commun- ity was aroused and had gathered at the place where the wounded men lay. Dr. Massey, of Sevierville, was at once sent for and did all he could to allay their suffering. Clabough and young McMahan recovered,
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but Aaron McMahan, after lingering and suffering untold agonies for about ten days, died with the declaration on his lips that Newt Green and West Hendricks killed him.
It was, indeed, a heart-rending scene to see three inoffensive, law-abiding citizens of the county lying prostrated upon couches with blood issuing from ghastly wounds which meant certain death to one of them. The groans of the men, shot down in broad day light, without cause and without notice, mingled with the piteous cries of wives with babes in their arms and little children clinging to their skirts in terror, brought tears to the eyes of the stout-hearted men who had gathered around the house in large numbers, and they no doubt vowed in their hearts that the cowards who had committed this foul murder should be pun- ished, and that White-capism in Sevier county must cease.
The good resolutions there formed were kept, for West Hendricks and Newt Green are now serving an imprisonment of twenty years in the state peniten- t'ary, and the White-cap organization is now extinct and its leaders scattered.
There is no doubt as to the guilt of Green and Hendricks. They planned and perpetrated this bloody broad daylight assassination, and the only wonder is that a jury should return a verdict of murder in the second degree and fix their punishment at twenty years in the penitentiary instead of condemning them to pay the penalty on the gallows.
Green and Hendricks were seen on the day of the murder near the place where the shooting occurred
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with guns, and were passed by McMahan and his asso- ciates that morning on their way to the mill at Pigeon Forge.
Aaron McMahan said from the very first that Green and Hendricks had shot him; that he heard a noise in the woods near the roadside, and just as he looked around and saw them their guns were discharged ; that one was a rifle and the other a shot gun. To this statement he adherred unequivocally until he died, having made two or three formal dying declarations to this effect.
The accused men were at once arrested and given a preliminary hearing before Esquires J. A. Bryan and J. A. Tarwater who first held them to court under heavy bond for felonious assault, but after Aaron McMahan died a new warrant was issued charging them with murder, and they were held to court by J. R. Houk, Esq., without bond. They applied after- wards for bail under writ of habeas corpus before Judge Hicks, but it was denied them and they remained in the Sevier county jail until they were tried at the March term, 1897, of the circuit court, which resulted as above stated in a sentence of twenty years in the penitentiary. Pending an appeal to the supreme court, Green and Hendricks with a number of other prisoners overpowered the jailer, H. D. Bailey, and made good their escape.
Among those who made their escape with Green and Hendricks was the notorious George Thurmer, who is well known in criminal circles and who was afterwards recaptured in the state of Kentucky by deputy sheriff Tom Davis, who has so long been a
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terror to criminals in Sevier county and especially to the White-caps.
After their escape from jail, Green and Hendricks scouted in different parts of Sevier county, but most of the time in the hill country around Pigeon Forge and Little Cove where they were harbored and pro- tected by their White-cap friends and sympathizers.
Many were the stories that were afloat during the · summer of 1897 as to the boldness with which these two criminals travelled over the community and along the public highways, sometimes at work in the fields and at other times attending public gatherings in the community and yet not discovered or recaptured by the officers of the law. To what extent these reports are true we do not know, but it is safe to say they played a bold hand, and, backed by their White-cap associates and sympathizers, they played the Jesse James act pretty well in defying the officers of the law.
Much interest was centered in the trial of these two White-cap murderers. J. R. Penland, Esq., who has shown a keen interest in putting an end to White- capping in Sevier county and restoring to her and her people the good name they formerly bore, was retained by Aaron McMahan, prior to his death and after he had received his death wounds, to prosecute his slayers.
He undertook the duty and prosecuted the case with all the vigor and ability characteristic of this well known lawyer. The defendants were represented by W. W. Mullendore, Geo. L. Zirkle, W. G. Caton and A. M. Paine, an able array of counsel, but with all their ability and all the aid which the White-cap
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organization could bring to them in the way of proof and witnesses, and in the selection of jurors, yet a jury of twelve men said that they were guilty and should suffer for their bloody deed.
As before stated, it is difficult to see how the jury could return a verdict of murder in the second degree when the facts seem to make it a most aggravated case of murder in the first degree, yet it is just one of those unexpected results which often occur in jury trials.
While Green and Hendricks, after their escape from jail, had remained for several months among their friends in Sevier county secure from the officers of the law, yet they concluded that it would be safer for them to roam in different fields, and it is said that during the July term of the circuit court in Sevierville, 1897, they boldly walked into the town after dark and, with friends, hired a hack from a livery stable and drove to Knoxville that night and on the following morning boarded the west bound train for the Lone Star state.
The chief cause of their sudden departure from this section is supposed to be the presence of Judge Nelson who was to hold the Circuit Court of Sevier county in the place of Judge Hicks. It was under- stood by the White-caps, whether true or not, that the new judge was sent there especially to deal with them, and it seems that his presence did strike terror in their ranks.
So Green and Hendricks made up their minds to leave at the time stated, but it is asserted on reliable - authority that several important meetings were held
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prior to their departure in which it was decided to do some desperate things. At one of these meetings it was agreed that Dr. Massey, who was an important witness against Green and Hendricks on their trial, J. R. Penland, who had prosecuted them, and Tom Davis, whom they hated worse than Satan, should all be put to death, and that Green and Hendricks were the ones delegated by the mystic order to execute this desper- ate scheme.
One of the White-caps gave out this story, whether true or not, by informing one of the parties that such an agreement was made and such an order given in their meeting. He told of the time and manner in which the crime was to be committed in order that he might be on guard and protect himself against his would-be assassins, as the informer was a better friend of his than of the White-caps. In this way the three named gentlemen were put on their guard and no doubt would have given their assailants a warm recep- tion if they had been attacked, but on that very night Green and Hendricks left Sevier county in the manner above stated.
It is to be hoped that the above story was not true, but if they would deliberately waylay the McMahans in broad daylight and without warning murder them, would they not be equally willing to wreak vengeance on others, especially when urged and ordered to do so by the organization which had sheltered them in their extremity ?
No doubt the White-cap organization, and particu- larly some of its members who almost felt the halter tightening around their necks, were especially anxious
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to get rid of the three men marked as the victims of that midnight conspiracy. But even some good may come out of Nazareth. As bad as the White-caps were and whatever bad there was in the one who revealed this murderous scheme, yet he is to be com- mended for having averted a crime which would again have blackened the character of Sevier county.
We close this chapter by saying that a condition of society that will allow men to be shot down in broad daylight on the public highways while following their lawful and peaceful avocations, and afterward to shield and harbor the perpetrators in the community where it is done is an appalling state of affairs indeed. And yet such was the history surrounding the murder of . poor Aaron McMahan.
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