You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

Clay and Blood: The Frank Williams Murder

The Brick Yard smelled like the earth being punished.

Maybe that’s how Frank Williams had always thought of it. If it was, he never said so to anyone. You didn’t say things like that to the big wigs at the Southern Clay Manufacturing Company offices in Chattanooga. You said things like “production is up” and “the kiln’s running clean” and “yes sir, the boys are working steady.” You kept the poetry to yourself and you kept the ledgers straight and you tried not to think too hard about the red clay dust that worked its way into your lungs one breath at a time, slow and patient like bad debt.

Frank Williams, age 30, timekeeper and shipping clerk, had been working steady himself. Three years in the mountain hollow at Robbins, where the clay came out of the hillside dark red as a wound and the kilns roared day and night and the workers moved through the dust like ghosts that hadn’t finished deciding whether to haunt the place or leave it.

He had been good at his job. He had been fair, or at least he had believed so, which is not always the same thing but which mattered to Frank Williams in the way that certain beliefs matter to certain men — not as beliefs but as identity. As the thing you are when you strip everything else way.

Frank Williams did not know, on the morning of Wednesday, January 11, 1905, that he had less than four hours to live.

***

The trouble had been building the way trouble always builds in places where men work hard for money that never feels like enough: slowly, invisibly, the way water finds the crack in the foundation wall.

There were too many men. That was the plain fact of it. The company had hired beyond its need, and the work had slowed with the season. Someone had to go. Frank Williams had looked at his ledgers on that January morning — the cold pressing in around the office door, the kilns banging and roaring out beyond the frosted windows — and he had made the calculations that needed making.

Some would later say that the men who were fired that morning hadn’t been doing their fair share of the work. Some even said that Williams had asked them to work harder, and they had refused. One way or another, Williams called a couple of them in and told them to come by at one o’clock to collect their time. He was not cruel about it. He had not been raised to be cruel. But he was not, perhaps, as careful as he might have been about what was happening in the yard beyond his window, in the cold spaces between the kilns where men gathered to talk in low voices and watch the office door with eyes that had been watching white men’s doors for a long time and had learned to read them in ways Frank Williams could not have imagined.

Frank Williams, you see, was white. Many of the laborers at the Brick Yard were black, drifting up to Robbins from Alabama, Georgia, and points further south. And what was about to happen on that January morning would light a fuse of racial animosity that would have implications for generations to come.

***

What happened next, Frank Williams did not see. He was alone in his office with his ledgers and his cold breath making small clouds in the air and perhaps a thought or two about his old hometown — Hood’s Landing in Roane County — and the Emory River and his mother’s face.

Out in the yard, eight men gathered.

What was said between them, what grievances were named, what fear and fury and desperation found its voice in that huddle of men in January — that is a room history did not enter. We have only the outcome. We have the terrible arithmetic of what was decided: that one man would be chosen. That the choosing would be done by lot, which is a very old and very human way of making the unbearable feel like fate rather than choice.

Ten of them drew. One of them drew the mark.

His name was Luther Wilson. He was just barely 18, originally from Campbell County. He had a brother named Arthur who worked at the Brick Yard with him, four more siblings back at home near LaFollette, and none of them knew, in that moment, that the piece of straw or the folded paper or whatever it was that Luther Wilson pulled from someone’s fist was going to determine the shape of the rest of all their lives.

The gun was a Winchester rifle, .38 caliber, a serious instrument for a serious purpose. Someone had brought it or someone fetched it, and passed it into Luther Wilson’s hands. And the mob of angry workers moved toward the office.

***

They said afterward that Luther Wilson faltered at the door.

A moment of hesitation, the Winchester rifle heavy in his hands, the office door close enough to touch, the man inside unaware, and Luther Wilson standing in that terrible corridor between what he had agreed to do and what his body understood was about to happen.

“Here, Wilson,” someone said. “Give me the gun if you are scared to kill the fellow.”

Luther Wilson did not give up the gun. He marched into Frank Williams’ office. He aimed the rifle. He fired.

***

The bullet entered Frank Williams’ right side and passed entirely through his body. He was seated at his desk when it happened. He may have heard the door. He may have looked up. The newspapers do not say.

What the newspapers say is that he lived for 10 more hours.

Ten hours is a long time to lie in your body with a hole through it, knowing you’re going to die. Long enough to make a dying declaration — “I was shot without provocation,” the words of a man trying to set the record straight before he ran out of time to set anything.

The sound of the shot brought James Cook, a deputy sheriff, out of a nearby store at a run. He learned who had fired and took up the chase, and here is where the story acquires one of its stranger graces: Cook ran Luther Wilson down after a quarter mile, and Luther Wilson still had the Winchester. Cook had only a revolver, and Luther Wilson was young and desperate and the gun was in his hands. But Cook walked up to him anyway, got the drop, and took him peacefully.

The other arrests followed within hours.

By nightfall, the hollow at Robbins had become something else entirely. Word had spread the way word spreads in mountain communities, person to person, across ridgelines and down creek beds, and what traveled with it was not merely information but heat, the old terrible heat that collects around certain kinds of crimes in certain kinds of places and becomes a thing with its own momentum and its own appetite.

Lynchings were still common in the early 1900s, and folks in Scott County didn’t take too kindly to accused murderers. They had hanged two men accused of murdering Talitha Harness and her mentally disabled son in 1889. More would follow. Through the years, there were more lynchings in Scott County than in any other county in East Tennessee.

A couple of white men killing a white woman was bad enough. But black men killing a well-liked white man? The writing was on the wall, plainly visible for anyone who cared to look. A newspaper in Chattanooga reported that a lynching was imminent: the three accused men, including Luther Wilson and his brother, Arthur, would soon be hanged by a mob.

***

William J. West was a newly elected sheriff in Scott County, a young man, and he was the only thing standing between three handcuffed prisoners and several hundred people who wanted to kill them. He had no horse, no train, no telephone line that would bring him help before the mob arrived.

Somehow, West got the men from Robbins to the county seat in Huntsville. According to The News & Advance, he hid them in a farmhouse rather than placing them in the county jail because he knew a mob was looking to hang them. At a preliminary hearing before the week was out, a judge bound the men over, ordering them to stand trial on murder charges. For one reason or another, the mob’s fury began to grow again. Down in Rockwood, Frank Williams’ family and friends began to board trains to make the trip to Robbins.

Sheriff West was in Robbins, nine miles away from Huntsville, when he learned that mobs were assembling at three different points. He walked the nine miles to the county jail, roped his three prisoners to one another, and set out for Knoxville — intent on keeping them safe.

All West had was his legs, his nerve, and an understanding of the people he was dealing with — which is to say, his neighbors, his constituents, men he likely knew by name — and a deputy named Joe Hughett who was willing to walk through the mountains at nine o’clock on a January night.

But West had something else — an intelligence that belied his youth. Before leaving Huntsville, he spread rumors. He told different people different things about where he was going, knowing that rumors, like water, find every crack, and that a mob following contradictory trails splits and loses itself. Then he took the three men — Luther and Arthur Wilson and Jule Henderson, handcuffed and roped together — and he walked them into the dark, as the mob closed in on Huntsville.

The mountains in January. No road, no path, the rough country of Scott County in the small hours, the ground frozen and uneven, three men tied together stumbling over terrain that would have been hard going even in daylight even alone. The night was clear and cold and the mob was somewhere behind them in it, torchlight moving through the hollows, voices carrying on the mountain air.

And the whole way, the three men prayed.

Luther Wilson was just 18, still a teenager. Arthur wasn’t much older. Neither was Henderson. They prayed and they moaned and they wept and they begged Sheriff West to save them, the words tumbling out into the frozen dark, and West kept them moving, kept himself between them and whatever sound rose up from the valley below. “The night was made hideous to (Sheriff West) through the praying and the begging of the negroes that he save them,” a newspaper wrote.

Nineteen miles. All night. They reached Pioneer at dawn.

They took the train to Knoxville. The prisoners, West reported, did not understand they were safe until they were on board and the platform was moving away behind them. Against all odds, the sheriff had gotten his prisoners out of the mountains alive.

***

The trial was held at the next term of the circuit court in Huntsville. E.G. Foster defended the men. D. Cecil, H. Clay James, and J.F. Baker prosecuted. The jury returned a verdict of second-degree murder.

Second degree.

Not first. The drawn lots, the plan hatched in the cold yard, the men assembled at the door — the law looked at all of it and arrived at second degree, which is a verdict that contains its own argument about intention and premeditation, an argument that lawyers make and juries accept and history neither confirms nor refutes.

The sentence was 15 years for each man.

***

Luther Wilson did not serve 15 years.

He entered the state prison in Nashville and on June 11, 1909 — four years and some months after that January morning in Scott County — he died of pneumonia. He was 22 years old. His body was returned to LaFollette for burial.

Arthur Wilson — Luther’s brother — was sent to Brushy Mountain. After he got out, he moved to West Virginia. He had mined coal at Brushy as a convict doing hard labor. He mined for pay in West Virginia. He married a woman named Fannie Floyd in 1922, and they lived the rest of their lives in the West Virginia mountains, where Arthur worked in the coal mines for decades. Luther and Arthur were from Campbell County, Tenn. Another of their brothers, Emmitt, was said by the press to be one of the men who conspired to murder Williams, but he was not charged.

Jule Henderson may have gone to Brushy Mountain, too. If so, he was born in Georgia in 1878. The records are less clear with him.

***

And Scott County. The story didn’t end when Frank Williams was buried, or when the Wilson boys were sentenced to hard labor.

Williams’ death changed Scott County forever.

Esther Sharp Sanderson wrote bluntly about it in her book, County Scott and Its Mountain Folk. When Williams was killed, she later wrote, black people living in Scott County were given two weeks to settle their affairs and get out. Or else. Later, there were big signs posted along the highway at the state line and at the Morgan County line: “N***er, don’t let the sun set on your head.”

Scott Countians were mad. They would not soon forget.

The Chattanooga Daily Times newspaper on Jan. 15, 1905, quoted James Pearson, a grocer who had returned to the city after spending an afternoon in Scott County. Pearson talked about how angry the folks were in Scott County. He predicted that there would be wholesale lynchings of black residents of the community within 48 hours.

The Journal & Tribune newspaper in Knoxville reported that a “wholesale lynching of negroes” was scheduled for Huntsville on a Monday night. Rumors had spread that the men were members of something called the “Break o’Day” society.

Black people — who were very common in Scott County prior to Williams’ death, working on the railroad, or in the coke ovens at Glenmary, or at the Brick Yard — were driven out.

In 1912, three 17-year-old black boys were reportedly killed while walking the railroad tracks in Robbins, after being told “a negro is not even permitted to walk through the village even on the railroad track.” A few years after that, a black man who worked at the Pearson Hardwood Flooring company in Oneida was forced to pack up his family and leave town after a band of 12 masked men went to his home and threatened to dynamite it.

The 1900 census showed that there were 337 black people living in Scott County, making up about 3% of the population. By 1910, there were 77. By 1920, there were only seven. And they never came back.

The newspapers recorded the murder and the trial and the sheriff’s long walk through the mountains with great energy and considerable detail. They recorded the mob that wanted to tear the accused men apart before any court could speak.

They did not record what it meant that between 1905 and 1920, nearly every black person in Scott County vanished from the census rolls. They did not record where those 330 people went, what they carried, what they left behind.

But Brick Yard Hollow at Robbins knew. The earth knew, being patient the way earth is patient, the way it was patient with Frank Williams and Luther Wilson both — receiving them both at the end, indifferent to verdicts, indifferent to justice, asking only that you come when it’s time and lie still and let the cold ground have you.

It always does.

Frank Williams is buried at Hood’s Landing, near Kingston, on the Emory River, in the churchyard of the Baptist congregation to which he belonged. He was thirty years old. He had won, his employers said, the esteem and respect of all who knew him. He had been, they said, one of the most reliable men connected with the concern. He left behind a mother. Three sisters. Two brothers. The floral tributes, the newspaper noted, came from all over the county.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

The Spring Hiking Challenge visits another of the northern Cumberland Plateau region’s lesser-known spectacular features this week, with a hike to Kellogg’s Crack in the Rugby State Natural Area, just outside the historic village of Rugby.

Located on White Oak Creek, which is one of the most scenic tributaries of the Big South Fork River system, Kellogg’s Crack is a stunning natural passageway between two rock walls that features a hidden exit through a cave that leads out of the crack and to the west bank of the creek.

This hike utilizes parts of three different trails that make up the Rugby trail system: Link Trail, Cox Branch Loop, and Kellogg’s Loop. Together, they make up a short, two-mile hike that is a combination of out-and-back and a loop.

This week’s hike does come with a major caveat: the trails at Rugby are utilized very little and, unfortunately, the trails leading to Kellogg’s Crack are in dire need of maintenance. They’re a little overgrown in places. Additionally, a bridge over Little Creek was washed away by flood waters several years ago and has not been replaced. The stream bed was dry when we scouted the hike earlier this week, and it’s easy to cross without a bridge. However, thunderstorms are in the forecast this week and weekend. Depending on how much rain we receive, crossing Little Creek might require getting your feet wet.

With that in mind, we’re offering an alternative. We encourage you to hike to Kellogg’s Crack. This hike is one part hiking, one part spelunking, and 100% adventure. However, the goal is for each hike to be kid-friendly. While we believe this one still is, if you would rather seek out the alternative, we invite you to complete this week of the challenge by instead hiking to Split Bow Arch. More on the alternative below.

If you do hike Kellogg’s Crack, a few things to keep in mind: 1.) Insect repellent is absolutely recommended to ward off ticks. 2.) Wear shoes you don’t mind getting wet in case Little Creek is running high. 3.) Wear clothes you don’t mind getting a little dirty if you choose to exit Kellogg’s Crack through the cave. Doing so isn’t absolutely necessary, but it is by far the coolest part of the hike.

Let’s get started!

Kellogg’s Crack
Trailhead: White Oak Creek, Rugby
Trail Type: Out-and-back, loop
Payoff: Rock formations
Difficulty: Easy
Length: 2.0 miles
Elevation Gain: 237 feet

We’re starting our hike at the White Oak Creek parking area on Rugby Parkway. To get there, take U.S. Highway 27 south to Elgin, and turn onto S.R. 52. Continue west for 5.6 miles, then turn right onto Rugby Parkway (old Highway 52). In three-tenths of a mile, just after you’ve crossed the bridge over White Oak Creek, there’s a small parking area on the right. This is the starting point for the White Oak Trail, which is a 2.3-mile trail that loops through the Horseshoe Bend area northeast of Rugby. Note that this first leg of the hike, along the Link Trail, is the part that is especially overgrown. If you want to avoid it, you can hike up Rugby Parkway to Cox Branch Trail, which will be on the left side of the road.

Mile 0.00: Head north along White Oak Trail, past the old Highway 52 bridge, which dates back to the 1920s.

Mile 0.04: Turn left onto the Link Trail. This trail is not signed, but you’ll turn left and follow an old road trace up the hill. This trail follows the original road into Rugby. It was just a wagon road, of course, and was called “The Rugby Road.” It connected Rugby to Elgin (although Elgin was then called Sedgemoor), where folks disembarked from trains and headed west to Rugby during the colony’s earliest days of settlement. Because the trail isn’t frequently maintained, it is overgrown with weeds, making insect repellent a strong recommendation to avoid ticks!

Mile 0.10: There’s an old houseplace on the left that is slowly being reclaimed by nature. There’s nothing left of the home that once stood here, but you can pick out where the edges of the clearing used to be.

Mile 0.12: Several young bigleaf magnolia trees grow along the trail. As pointed out on recent hikes to Buzzard Rock and Angel Falls Overlook, the bigleaf magnolia has the largest leaf and the largest single flower of any tree indigenous to North America. The tree is native to parts of the Southeast, including the Cumberland Plateau region and parts of Mississippi and Alabama.

Mile 0.23: The trail arrives at Rugby Parkway. Turn left on the roadway and walk a short distance to the Cox Branch Trail.

Mile 0.31: Cox Branch Trail leaves the roadway on the right. It follows another old road trace towards Little Creek.

Mile 0.43: The trail dips to Cox Branch, which will soon empty into Little Creek, which in turn empties into White Oak Creek near where we parked and began our hike.

Mile 0.49: Thick stands of mountain laurel — still blooming — blanket both sides of the stream, creating a tunnel that the stream flows through.

Mile 0.58: The trail emerges on an old road trace and turns right.

Mile 0.61: At the trail intersection, turn left onto Kellogg’s Loop. If you cross the new wooden foot bridge, you’ve gone too far.

Mile 0.63: Kellogg’s Loop crosses the creek. The bridge that was once here is gone, washed away four years ago by heavy flood waters. Only the wooden foundation remains. The creek bed is solid rock, allowing you to easily walk across as long as the water isn’t too high (it almost never is this time of year, and with any luck, it’ll be low enough that you won’t get your feet wet). Scramble up the bank on the other side to reach the loop part of the trail.

We are going to go right, and hike the loop portion of the trail in a counter-clockwise direction. This section of trail is not often utilized by hikers and is faint. However, it is blazed with orange flagging tape, so you won’t lose your way.

Mile 0.80: The trail passes through a lush stand of native warm-season grasses. This entire hike is an excellent example of changing forest types in and around the Rugby State Natural Area. Although you’re never far enough away from the highway to escape the traffic noise, you are never close enough to a home to feel like you’re actually in Rugby. The trail travels through forests that much look much like they did when English settlers first arrived here in the early 1880s.

Mile 0.88: The trail crosses an old road trace. On the opposite side of the old road, it is much more worn and easy to follow.

Mile 1.07: The trail reaches a set of wooden steps just above White Oak Creek. We’re nearing Kellogg’s Crack.

Mile 1.08: The gap in the rocks to the left is Kellogg’s Crack. It is not signed, and the hiking trail actually bypasses it. It’s possible to stay on the trail and walk around the crack, but you’re missing the best part of the hike if you do. Go left to walk down the crack.

Mile 1.12: At the back of the crack, you’ll find a narrow passageway (cave) on your right. It might look like it’s too tight to squeeze through, but it isn’t. A couple of notes about this adventurous way out of Kellogg’s Crack: You will brush the sides of the rocks, which are always slightly damp, even during dry weather. At the cave’s exit, you’ll have to stoop down and basically crawl out, which will result in your hands and knees getting a little dirty. A flashlight isn’t completely necessary for this adventure, but if you happen to have one handy, it sure helps.

If you’re claustrophobic or simply afraid of getting a little dirt on your hands and knees, you can turn around and retrace your steps to the entrance of Kellogg’s Crack, and follow the path around it. However, you’ll be missing out on the best part of the adventure!

Mile 1.19: The trail emerges from the small cave. When you stand up, you’ll be looking directly at White Oak Creek. From here, we turn left and continue following Kellogg’s Loop in a counter-clockwise direction through a hemlock forest. Note the hundreds of young bigleaf magnolia trees growing along the left side of the trail along this section of the route.

Once the trail reaches Little Creek, it turns along the creek and follows it back to where the bridge is out. At this point, cross the creek and retrace your steps back to the trailhead. If you chose to walk the Link Trail coming in, you might choose to walk along Rugby Parkway on your way out so that you don’t have to pass through the overgrown segment of the trail again!

Scavenger Hunt: This week, we’re simply looking for a picture from inside the small cave that serves as an exit from Kellogg’s Crack. Post it on social media and tag it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag to be entered into this week’s random prize drawing!

Historical Context: Kellogg’s Crack (and Kellogg’s Loop) are named for Nelson Kellogg (1850-1925). Originally from Pennsylvania, he migrated here and owned Rugby’s Newbury House, which remains in operation today. Nelson and his wife, Ida May Clark (1856-1945), are buried at Laurel Dale Cemetery just outside Rugby. The Newbury House was Rugby’s first boarding house. Today, it is one of several lodging options in Rugby, featuring five bedrooms and a suite that can accommodate up to 14 guests. It is complete with authentic Victorian-era furnishings.

Make It Better: No trip to Rugby is complete without exploring the historic village that was established by famed British author Thomas Hughes. There are no events scheduled for this weekend (Irish Road Bowling will be featured next weekend), but you can still tour the town, including the South’s first free public library. There’s also a 22-minute screening of the award-winning historical film, “The Power of a Dream,” that can be seen at the theater inside the Rugby Visitor Center (free admission). You’ll also tour the Kingstone Lisle, which was Hughes’ home, built in 1884; the Christ Church Episcopal, built in 1887; the schoolhouse, built in 1907; and the Rugby Printing Works. Tours of the print shop are offered every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Be Careful For: There are no real hazards on this hike (except the ticks!), but you’ll want to be careful for the scramble back up the bank when crossing Little Creek.

The Alternative: Split Bow Arch is a magnificent natural sandstone arch in the Kentucky portion of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. It is accessible via an easy, 0.6-mile loop featuring less than 200 feet of elevation gain. To add a little additional length to the hike, you can check out Bear Creek Overlook from the same trailhead. To access the trailhead: head north on U.S. Highway 27 from Oneida and across the TN-KY line. At Strunk, Ky., turn left onto Ky. Hwy. 1470 (Mt. Pleasant Road), following the signs towards Bear Creek Horse Camp. After 5.5 miles, take a sharp left onto Bear Creek Road, and follow it to the trailhead in another 1.5 miles.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Hike #1: Sunset Overlook
Hike #2: Angel Falls Rapid
Hike #3: Yahoo Falls
Hike #4: O&W Bridge
Hike #5: Northrup Falls
Hike #6: Burnt Mill
Hike #7: Buzzard Rock
Hike #8: Cracks in the Rock
Hike #9: Angel Falls Overlook

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

He walked the wrong road alone

They buried him where he dropped: on the side of a lonely road that snakes through the hills west of Oneida. No obituary. No trial for his name. Just a crude marker in the dirt, poured from a bucket of concrete, etched with three words: Negro Willis Greene.

That was 90 years ago. The stone’s still there.

So is the story.

And like most stories that linger in the dark corners of the past, this one begins with a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not because he was guilty. But because, in the summer of 1923, being a black man walking alone through Scott County was all it took.

***

It wasn’t always that way. There was a time, not long before the killing, when Scott County had been home to hundreds of black men, women and children. Especially in the southern end of the county, where labor was cheap and hands were needed, the black population made up a sizable portion of the workforce. Timber. Railroad. Mines.

But then the violence came.

A white man was killed. And that was enough.

Local history books — like County Scott and Its Mountain Folk by Esther Sharp Sanderson — remember it plain: the black community was given a deadline. Two weeks. Liquidate what you owned, get out, or else.

At the Kentucky line and again at the Morgan County line, hand-painted signs spelled it out: “N***er, don’t let the sun set on your head.”

Most didn’t. They left. Fast.

But in July 1923, one man either hadn’t heard the warning, or didn’t care.

***

His name was Willis Greene. That much we know.

No birthdate. No census record. No marriage license. History lost the rest.

But on July 12, 1923, Greene was walking north on Big Ridge Road, east of Foster Crossroads, alone. He was black, on foot, and heading toward the Kentucky line. Maybe he was passing through. Maybe he was trying to find work. Maybe he just didn’t have anywhere else to go.

What’s certain is this: he was warned.

Sherman Marcum, a farmer who lived on Big Ridge, saw Greene walking the road and told him to turn back. Told him it wasn’t safe. Not there. Not then.

Willis Greene thanked him and kept walking.

Some men are like that. Stubborn with purpose, maybe. Or maybe just too tired to be afraid. Sherman Marcum watched him go and felt that coldness linger, the way it does when you know something is already in motion and there isn’t a thing left to be done about it.

***

Waiting further up the road was Daley Musgrove. Dale, as folks called him.

He’d served in the war. Fought in Europe, came home different. Everyone said so. Some said he was off. Others said he was just mean. Either way, he was dangerous.

What brought Greene and Musgrove together that day isn’t known for sure. But family accounts passed down through the years say Musgrove believed — claimed, anyway — that Greene was a wanted man. That there was a reward for his capture. Musgrove meant to collect.

He found Greene at Foster Crossroads. Musgrove was on horseback, carrying a hickory stick. Greene, still on foot, was shoved ahead like cattle. The horseman drove him north toward Oneida, beating him with every step.

They climbed the ridge that afternoon, sun bearing down, sweat and blood slick on the old man’s skin.

At a narrow stretch of the road, a curve that hugs a bluff line, Willis Greene collapsed.

So Dale Musgrove pulled a gun and shot him dead.

The sound of that gunshot rolled out across the Tennessee hills and was absorbed by the trees and the heat and the silence of that place, and then there was nothing. Just a dead man on a lonely road, and a living one deciding what to do next.

***

Hillery Marcum found him on the way back from Oneida, his wagon still smelling of fresh lumber. Esau Foster was with him. The two men looked at each other over Greene’s body and reached an unspoken agreement, the way good men sometimes do in the face of something that can’t be undone. They spent the night there, by the road, keeping watch. Keeping darkness at bay — the animal kind, at least. The human kind had already done its work.

The next morning, the Marcum family built a casket out of yellow poplar and buried Willis Greene by the side of Big Ridge Road, near enough to where he fell.

There was no preacher.

No songs.

No family.

Just the Marcums, a few neighbors, and a hole in the dirt.

They set a slab of homemade concrete into the ground, marking it with crude letters before it died.

NEGRO WILLIS GREENE.

That was it. No dates. No epitaph. No justice.

For decades after, Wallace and Charlie Marcum — Hillery’s sons — would return to clear the brush from Greene’s grave. Long after the world forgot him, they didn’t.

This is what good people do, quietly, without applause. They bear witness. They tend to the forgotten. They remember so the forgetting doesn’t win completely.

***

Someone talked. Someone pointed the finger at Dale Musgrove.

No one knows exactly how it happened. But enough people had seen him riding behind Greene. Enough people heard what he was doing.

Musgrove was arrested, tried, and convicted of first degree murder. A white jury sentenced him to 25 years of hard labor.

He appealed. He lost.

They shipped him to Brushy Mountain Penitentiary. Later, they moved him to Nashville. By 1930, he was still locked up, serving time.

And then, quietly, he was let out.

On July 2, 1932, Dale Musgrove was gunned down in Scott County.

Nine years, almost to the day, after the death of Willis Greene.

No one knows who pulled the trigger. No one remembers why. The death certificate didn’t elaborate. It simply said:

“Gunshot wound.”

Musgrove was buried just a mile from where Greene was killed, in Foster Crossroads Cemetery, surrounded by his people. He was 38.

The man who shot an old stranger in the road died just short of his own redemption arc.

***

Today, there are no statues. No plaques. No roadside markers. Just a homemade headstone, some fake flowers left by the living, and a story whispered through generations.

Willis Greene was murdered for being a black man in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

But that’s not the end of it.

Because someone stopped. Someone buried him. Someone gave him a name, etched in stone. And someone remembered.

And if you know where to look — off a curve in the ridge, in a cluster of trees, you’ll find his grave. Still there.

Waiting to be remembered again.

Editor’s Note: This is the thirteenth installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

Angel Falls Overlook
Trailhead: Grand Gap
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Payoff: Views
Difficulty: Easy/Moderate
Distance: 2.7 miles
Elevation Gain: 273 feet

The Twin Arches and O&W Bridge might beg to differ, but there is arguably no scene in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area that is photographed any more than Angel Falls Overlook — specifically, the view north along the Big South Fork River, with the rock wall jutting out into the foreground. It is a stunning vista, and little wonder that it is considered the best overlook anywhere in the Big South Fork NRRA.

That’s our destination for Week #9 of the Spring Hiking Challenge. There are multiple ways to get to Angel Falls Overlook. In keeping with the theme of the challenge — family-friendly to encourage the participation of young and old alike — we’re choosing the easy route, with an option to take the longer route if you so choose. By doing so, we’ll turn this into an out-and-back hike of just 2.7 miles, beginning and ending at the Grand Gap Trailhead on Alford Smith Road.

Please note that parking is somewhat limited at Grand Gap Trailhead. That’s why we didn’t include this hike earlier in the challenge, waiting instead for the number of participants to diminish somewhat. Also note that Alford Smith Road is a one-lane, gravel road that may not be suitable for some sportier vehicles. SUVs, pickup trucks, and most cars are fine on this road, but sportier cars that sit very low to the ground might not be the best option. If either of these things are a concern, the hike in from Leatherwood Ford is much more scenic — just longer and more difficult. Don’t let them discourage you from attempting this hike; just know that if you drive a McLaren 750s, you probably don’t want to drive this road! Sedans like a Toyota Camry or Kia Optima, however, will be just fine.

With that in mind, let’s get started!

To get to Grand Gap Trailhead, drive to Bandy Creek, and turn right into Bandy Creek Campground. Just past the registration kiosk, turn left to drive to Bandy Creek Pool. Just beyond the pool, the pavement ends. Continue onto the gravel road. This is Duncan Hollow Road. After a mile or so, the road will fork at a power line right-of-way. Take the left fork to stay on Duncan Hollow Road. Continue on Duncan Hollow Road until you see the signs indicating a right turn for Grand Gap Loop. This is Alford Smith Road. Drive to the end of the road.

The Grand Gap Loop Trail crosses the road just before the parking area. A short distance north, John Muir Trail departs the Grand Gap Loop and heads toward Station Camp. A short distance south, Fall Branch Trail departs and leads back to the John Litton Farm Loop. At the parking area, there is an unsigned but well-worn trail that connects to the Grand Gap Loop. For the purposes of the mileages listed in this trail description, we’re taking this short cut and knocking off a couple of tenths of a mile from the start of the hike. Go left on Grand Gap Loop.

Note: Angel Falls Overlook is located southeast from the parking area. If you’re standing on Alfred Smith Road looking at the parking area, we’re going to head right, NOT left.

Mile .07: As we head east along Grand Gap Loop, notice the cleared area to your left. This was the site of the Alford Smith homeplace — the man for who the road to Grand Gap Loop is named for. He was the son of John “Hawk” Smith, a noted resident of the Big South Fork area. According to Alford’s grandson, Dave Smith, who lives in Muncie, Ind., the road once led through Alford’s barn at this location. The road trace is still there, although the current road ends at the Grand Gap Trailhead.

Mile .32: The forest along this stretch of trail is a mixed-oak forest typical of the Big South Fork’s upland areas. Here, several young bigleaf magnolia trees begin to mix in. The bigleaf magnolia is an understory tree that has the largest simple leaves and the largest flower of any tree indigenous to North America. In Tennessee, it isn’t often found outside the Cumberland Plateau. Its natural range is limited to the plateau and a large swath of Mississippi and Alabama, along with smaller pockets elsewhere in the Southeast.

Mile .36: Mountain laurel begins to dominate the understory along this stretch of trail. The laurel is still blooming, though the blooming season is nearing its end. Here, the laurel grows in such density that it creates a nearly impenetrable thicket on either side of the trail.

Mile .41: The old Alford Smith road trace reappears along the left side of the trail. The road parallels the trail for the first half-mile or so. Just past here, the trail will start a slight ascent to the ridgetop.

Mile .56: On the left is the grave of Archie Smith. This is also called “The Baby Grave” by locals. Archie was born May 27, 1932, and died on Oct. 22, 1932. He was the son of Alford Smith and Elva Choate. His last surviving sibling, Milford Smith, died in 2022. Hikers sometimes leave small trinkets on Archie’s grave as a show of respect.

Mile .65: The trail begins a slight descent as it heads down the ridge towards the gorge rim.

Mile .82: A backcountry campsite is located on the right. This is a popular stopping point for backpackers on the John Muir Trail, which utilizes this section of the Grand Gap Loop as it makes its way from Pickett State Forest to Honey Creek.

Mile .99: Notice the sandy soils, the scrubby appearance of the forest canopy, and the thickness of the undergrowth. These are all signs that we’re approaching the rim of the gorge, where the shallow soils don’t support the massive oak and hickory trees that are found deeper in the forest.

Mile 1.04: The first overlook comes into view. This is not Angel Falls Overlook, although many hikers mistakenly assume that it is. This is Fall Branch Overlook. The drainage you’re looking at is Fall Branch, which heads up around the historic John Litton Farm and drains much of the Bandy Creek area. It empties into the Big South Fork River just above Angel Falls. If you step out onto the rock and look left, you’ll see the river in the distance.

Mile 1.17: The trail intersects with the John Muir Trail segment that connects Grand Gap to Leatherwood Ford. Hikers who make the trip in from Leatherwood emerge from a beautiful, miniature canyon at this spot that serves as a natural passageway through the cliff line. It’s interesting to observe the rapidly changing forest types here. On either side of this passageway are the sandy-soiled, unshaded edges of the gorge with their scrubby growth. However, this canyon provides an environment for deep, lush growth that includes hemlock, rhododendron and other species preferring relatively cool, moist environments, casting a deep shade that contrasts with the surrounding rim areas.

Mile 1.33: The trail reaches Angel Falls Overlook. As you step over a crack in the rock and onto the overlook, you might notice that Angel Falls Overlook is actually a freestanding rock butte, or chimney. It’s an incredible geological feature that also provides one of the most spectacular vantagepoints found anywhere in the Big South Fork NRRA. Just below the overlook, Fall Branch empties into the Big South Fork. If you look upstream, you can pinpoint the TVA transmission line that crosses the gorge just downstream from Leatherwood Ford. If you look downstream, you’ll see the incredible view that has appeared on magazine covers and brochures since the Big South Fork was created — the iconic scene of the river appearing as a blue ribbon snaking through the canyon as the rock wall juts out in the foreground.

You don’t actually see Angel Falls from here, although it’s called Angel Falls Overlook. The rapid is hidden by the forest canopy. However, you can certainly hear Angel Falls. The sound of the roaring whitewater easily reaches to the top of the gorge. This is a spectacular place to simply sit and take in the sights and sounds of Big South Fork Country.

One interesting temporary feature: if you look directly below the overlook, along the far side of the river, you’ll notice a scar from a huge blowdown caused by high winds during a late winter thunderstorm. You might remember that when we hiked to Angel Falls Rapid earlier in the challenge, we passed through a significant blowdown that had been cleared by National Park Service trail maintenance crews. This is a bird’s-eye view of what mother nature’s destruction looks like.

From the overlook, we retrace our steps back to the trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: Along the route, there is a tree that has been uprooted by high winds, creating a huge rootball near the trail. That’s what we’re looking for this week. Snap a picture of this gigantic rootball and post it on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to be entered into our drawing for a pair of Sunhauk shades.

Historical Context: Alford Smith (sometimes mistakenly called Alfred Smith) was the man who called this area home. What remains of his farm — and there’s very little besides a “clearing” that is quickly being reforested by nature — is located just east of the Grand Gap Trailhead. Alford Smith (1891-1970) was the son of John J. “Hawk” Smith (1886-1949) and Polly Ann Blevins (1868-1942). Both his parents were descended from some of the Big South Fork’s first settlers, including Anderson Smith and Armstead Blevins. He married Nancy Burke, the great-granddaughter of Jonathan Burke, another of the BSF’s first settlers. However, she died in 1925. He then married Elva Choate of Jamestown. He had a total of 13 children, including Everett, Claude, Lonnie, Clay, Dallas, Ruth Marie, James, Herbert, Archie, Edna, Ralph, Milford and Mildred. Milford and Mildred were twins. Alford and his family left the Big South Fork region during World War II, when he moved to Oak Ridge to take a job there as the Manhattan Project flourished.

Make It Better: There are two ways to add mileage to this hike, if you wish. The first is to begin and end your hike at Leatherwood Ford. This is a spectacular hike that crosses the river on the S.R. 297 bridge, descends a staircase on the far side of the river, then follows the river to Fall Branch before climbing to the base of the cliffs, then traveling through a natural passageway through the cliffs to reach the Grand Gap Loop. This is a 6.0-mile route featuring 712 feet of elevation gain with a difficulty of hard. The second option is to keep hiking Grand Gap Loop once you’ve reached the overlook, turning it into a loop hike rather than an out-and-back. The total Grand Gap Loop is a 6.4-mile hike featuring 680 feet of elevation gain.

Be Careful For: Duncan Hollow Road is a multiuse trail that is shared by mountain bikers, hikers, and horseback riders. Alford Smith Road is a multiuse trail that is shared by mountain bikers. Please drive with caution on these roads. Fall Branch and Angel Falls overlooks are not protected. Use extreme caution with pets and small children.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Hike #1: Sunset Overlook
Hike #2: Angel Falls Rapid
Hike #3: Yahoo Falls
Hike #4: O&W Bridge
Hike #5: Northrup Falls
Hike #6: Burnt Mill
Hike #7: Buzzard Rock
Hike #8: Cracks in the Rock

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

The tragedy of the Jerome Boyatt saga

It started with a fistfight — a struggle over the sale of illicit liquor. It ended with five bodies, a shattered community, and a question that’s never been answered: Who really fired the first shot?

In the Spring of 1933, the rugged hills along the Scott-Pickett county line erupted in bloodshed that still haunts people who trace their lineage back to No Business Creek. By the time the smoke cleared, a father and son from one of Pickett County’s most respectable families lay dead. So did a moonshiner, his father, and a teenage boy caught in the crossfire.

The newspapers called it justice. The mountains called it murder.

What happened in that boxcar on Rock Creek has been told a hundred different ways, but none of them ended with a trial. There were no convictions, no apologies. Only the cold truth: five men went into the ground, and not a single man answered for it. Ninety-two years have passed and still the truth proves elusive. Most of those who knew what really happened are dead. The rest — their children, grandchildren, and neighbors — have only pieces of the story, handed down in hushes and warnings.

This is the story of one of the most brutal and infamous lynchings in Scott County history — and the violence that led to it.

***

Jerome Boyatt wasn’t born to be notorious. But by 22, he already had a reputation.

The second-oldest of seven children, he was raised on a hardscrabble farm near the headwaters of No Business Creek — a remote, cliff-lined gorge cut off from the outside world by bad roads and worse terrain. His father, Ransom Boyatt, worked the land with bare hands and grit. His mother, Poppie Litton Boyatt, came from a long line of Appalachian settlers who had buried more children than they’d raised.

The Boyatts lived by their own code. And in those hills, moonshine wasn’t a crime — it was currency.

Jerome knew how to fight. He knew how to run. And, as the law would learn, he knew how to shoot.

***

Sixty miles west, in the tidy town of Byrdstown, Sheriff George Winningham sat at the head of a very different family. At 62, he was a fixture in Pickett County — four times elected, respected by preachers and feared by bootleggers.

His son, Deputy Floyd Winningham, was following in his father’s footsteps: sharp-eyed, proud, and quick on the draw.

The Winninghams came from lawmen and Union scouts. George’s wife Martha was the daughter of Asa Smith, a Civil War veteran who survived a Confederate hit squad that murdered his father and brother. That kind of legacy doesn’t go away.

Neither does a vendetta.

***

It began at Rock Creek, a coal camp run by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company. Jerome Boyatt had ridden the train there that morning with his deaf-mute brother, Eugene, and three friends: Walter and Charlie Crabtree, and Lige Terry. Word was he brought liquor with him.

Then he ran into his uncle — Albert Boyatt.

Nobody knows what sparked the fight. Maybe Albert was selling bootleg in Jerome’s territory. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, fists flew, and Albert came out the worse for wear.

The camp superintendent, fearing more violence, herded all five men into a boxcar and phoned the sheriff. But when he called, he didn’t report a fistfight.

He claimed there’d been a murder.

***

Maybe things would’ve been different if Sheriff Winningham had known the truth — that they were headed to Rock Creek to break up a fight between family members. Instead, he and his deputies thought they were going to a fight that had turned deadly. In any event, George left his dinner table and rode out with Deputy Floyd and another officer, Bram Garrett. What happened next is where the story splits.

The official story — what made the front page of The Tennessean — claimed that when the sheriff opened the boxcar door and opened the men out, Jerome raised a .45 and fired.

But the men inside — and witnesses outside — told it differently.

They said Floyd Winningham fired first. Maybe a warning shot into the air. Maybe into the car itself. Maybe he was drunk.

What’s certain is that Eugene, unable to hear and panicked, screamed and fell back. Believing his brother had been shot, Jerome drew his pistol and fired.

Floyd took two rounds to the face. Dead before he hit the ground. Sheriff Winningham fired back and was hit twice in the gut.

As the old lawman collapsed, Jerome fled into the woods. The others were arrested on the spot.

The sheriff died the next night. The Winninghams were gone. Well, most of them. One very determined member of the family remained. And that’s where things started to get really ugly.

***

What followed was less investigation than crusade.

A reward fund was established. A posse of more than one hundred men — led by George Winningham’s surviving son, Sheriff Willie Winningham of Kentucky — descended on No Business like an occupying army.

And they weren’t looking to arrest Jerome. They were looking to bury him.

They tore through the creek, rounding up everyone named Boyatt. Ranse and Poppie were taken. So were their four daughters — Lola, Violet, Bonnie and little Dulcie, just eight years old. Even today, those descended from families that were close to the Boyatts grit their teeth in anger over the way it all played out.

But Jerome? He vanished.

He knew the cliffs, the caves, the game trails. He found refuge with people like Will and Maude Burke, with people like Dewey Burke, with anyone who knew what happened in that boxcar and believed a man had a right to defend his kin.

He never fired another shot.

But blood was still coming.

***

After several weeks, Ranse Boyatt was released from jail. The newspapers said he’d agreed to talk Jerome into surrendering.

Instead, he was found dead.

Concerned neighbors entered the Boyatt home to find Ranse’s body lying on a bed, badly decomposed. Some said he’d been hanged in the barn and then laid in the bed to rot. Others were less sure. An autopsy was inconclusive. And, for the record, the door was locked from the inside.

There was no investigation. Just another dead Boyatt.

And still, no Jerome.

***

Poppie Boyatt begged neighbors hot to tell Jerome what had happened to his father. She knew what he’d do. And what would happen to him. But someone figured he needed to know the truth. And what happened next was exactly what Poppie had feared.

Fearful for his mother and his sisters, Jerome met a Scott County lawman near the Black Oak community west of Oneida. He was taken to the Scott County Jail in Huntsville.

He wouldn’t last a week.

***

The mob came with masks.

Twenty-five men stormed the jail, beat the jailer, and dragged two prisoners from their cells: Jerome Boyatt and 19-year-old Harvey Winchester — a kid awaiting trial for a separate killing.

They were taken into the woods outside Helenwood.

Harvey was found first. Rope around his neck. Bullet in his chest.

Jerome’s body was found hundreds of yards away. Naked. Shot twice in the back. Once in the head.

Executed.

Those who saw the scene said both men had been tortured. It appeared that Jerome had been turned loose to be gunned like a rabbit.

But who pulled the trigger?

Suspicion fell on Sheriff Willie Winningham. He was never formally charged. But the next day, one of his deputies died from a gunshot wound. The official story — the one Willie told — was that his deputy dropped the gun and it went off. But the bullet didn’t match the dead lawman’s weapon.

Did Jerome or Harvey somehow get ahold of a gun during the melee in Helenwood? Did the Kentucky lawman wind up in a crossfire as bullets were rained down on Jerome?

No one knew for sure. Chances are, no one ever will.

***

Six days after the lynching, the men from the boxcar — Eugene Boyatt and the others — were released. A Pickett County grand jury found no cause for further prosecution.

Martha Winningham was named sheriff of Pickett County, replacing her husband.

Sheriff Willie Winningham died the following month in a shootout across the state line in Kentucky.

Jerome Boyatt was buried at Foster Crossroads. His mother remarried and lived another forty-five years. His sisters scattered, some to Ohio.

Harvey Winchester was buried quietly in Pine Knot, Ky. His family, too, left behind a trail of silence.

***

It was a day that forever changed No Business. It was a day that forever changed Byrdstown. Five men died in the wake of a fistfight. Some called it justice. Others called it murder. They’re still disagreeing on it today, and who calls it what depends on whether you’re asking in Scott County or Pickett County.

But one overriding truth remains: Nobody ever answered for the deaths of Jerome and Ranse Boyatt.

And the law never came back to that gorge the same way again.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

Cracks in the Rocks
Trailhead: Blue Heron Overlook
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Payoff: Views, rock formations
Difficulty: Moderate
Distance: 1.3 miles
Elevation Gain: 494 feet

The Spring Hiking Challenge has taken us to some pretty amazing places so far, each seemingly better than the one before: places like O&W Bridge, Yahoo Falls, Northrup Falls, and Buzzard Rock. Week #8’s destination will continue that trend. And, if we’re being completely honest, this week’s destination might be tough to beat.

We’re headed to Cracks in the Rocks this week. It is the pride and joy of the Kentucky side of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, and the pride and joy of the Blue Heron Loop Trail. We aren’t hiking the entire loop; instead, we’re carving out an out-and-back adventure that takes us to the spectacular overlook and the split rock passageway below it.

For those of us on the Tennessee side of the national park, Cracks in the Rocks — and the Blue Heron area in general — are generally underrated, simply due to a lack of awareness. The infrastructure here (paved trail access, expansive parking, restrooms, and et cetera) far surpasses East Rim Overlook or anything else on the Tennessee side of the park, and while the views offered here may not be quite the best in the BSF (respectfully, Angel Falls holds that distinction), they certainly rank towards the top. Throw in Cracks in the Rock, which rivals Twin Arches and Needle’s Eye for the most outstanding geological formations in the BSF, and Blue Heron is a can’t-miss destination that everyone should experience … especially when the mountain laurel is in bloom, as it is now.

Step-for-step, there’s no question that this week’s hike is the most difficult one thus far. However, we’ve intentionally shortened it so that it will still be kid-friendly and a hike the entire family can enjoy. At 1.3 miles, it’s one of the shortest hikes of the challenge so far.

The challenge apologizes for back-to-back trips to the Kentucky side of the park, but we wanted to catch the mountain laurel while it’s still in bloom, because it grows in abundance along the route to Cracks in the Rocks. While we’re headed to the north end of the BSF, we aren’t headed as far north as Buzzard Rock or even Yahoo Falls.

So, for the third and final time of the Spring Hiking Challenge, let’s head north across the state line!

To get to the trailhead, head north on U.S. Highway 27 into Kentucky. (If you want to take the scenic route, turn onto Kingtown Road in Winfield and go that way, which adds about 10 minutes to the trip.) At Stearns, turn left onto Ky. Hwy. 92 (towards McCreary Central High School), and take it 1.3 miles to Revelo. There, veer left onto Ky. Hwy. 1651, and after half a mile take a right onto Ky. Highway 741. After seven-tenths of a mile, turn right again onto Mine 18 Road, and follow it 5.9 miles to Gorge Overlook Road, which will be on the left after entering the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area (if not using a GPS or maps app, watch for the sign). Continue to the end of the road, which ends in a loop at a large parking area.

There are actually two overlooks here: Devils Jump Overlook and Blue Heron Overlook. Devils Jump is definitely the most spectacular of the two, and you owe it to yourself to check it out while you’re here (more on that in a bit). For the purposes of this hike, though, we’re going to start at the end of the road and visit only Blue Heron Overlook.

Mile 0.0: From the parking lot, the trail is a wide, paved, handicap-accessible pathway all the way to the overlook. It ventures through a lush, mixed-hardwood forest that features oak, hickory and maple, with a sparse scattering of hemlock and an understory of mountain laurel and various other shrubs.

Mile 0.12: Check out the large oak tree on the right side of the trail. By Big South Fork standards, this tree is pretty massive. Most of the older oak and other hardwoods were cut by timber-cutters in the early and mid 20th century, before the land was acquired by the federal government. This land was once owned by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company, which did the bulk of the timber-cutting.

Mile 0.20: The trail splits, with the dirt right fork leading to Blue Heron Loop, and the paved main trail continuing to the overlook. We’re going to stay left and visit the overlook. The forest type changes dramatically here, as it nears the rim of the gorge and the mature hardwoods give way to scrubby trees and shrubs that define the sandy, shallow, and well-drained soils near the edge of the gorge.

Mile 0.25: The trail reaches the overlook, which offers an expansive view of the Big South Fork River. To the left, you can see a reclaimed strip mine near the river’s edge. Also to the left, you can see the viewing platform at Devils Jump Overlook. The platform here is massive, and it’s the only place in the BSF where there’s a roofed vantage point that allows you to admire the views from an overlook on a rainy day and stay dry, if you so desire.

From the overlook, we backtrack to the fork in the trail.

Mile 0.34: Take the left fork at the split, leaving the pavement and turning onto the narrow, dirt trail that leads to Blue Heron Loop. The trail will lead slightly downhill as it makes its way from the tabletop plateau lands to the bottom of the cap rock that lines the rim of the gorge.

Mile 0.40: The trail gets a little steeper as the real descent starts.

Mile 0.45: If you’re fortunate enough to hike this trail on schedule, while the mountain laurel is still blooming (we’re nearing the end of the blooming season), check out the stunning pink laurel to your left. Most of the mountain laurel in the BSF has white flowers that are outlined in pink. Occasionally, though, you’ll come across the more colorful varieties, like this one.

Mile 0.46: The trail intersects with the actual Blue Heron Loop Trail. Turn right.

Mile 0.53: The trail descends a steep set of steps to reach the bottom of the bluff line.

Mile 0.59: There’s an unsigned fork in the trail. The right fork dead-ends at a rock shelter. Stay left to continue to the destination.

Mile 0.63: Check out the towering rock wall along the left side of the trail. It is a fissure through this same rock wall that offers the passageway known as Cracks in the Rocks.

Mile 0.66: Arrive at Cracks in the Rocks. This series of “cracks,” or fissures, through the massive rock lining the gorge rim has been created by time and erosion. The trail enters and exits the passageway via two sets of steps. This is one of the most stunning geological formations in the Big South Fork, competing with points of interest like Twin Arches, Needle’s Eye, and Devils Cave for that unique honor. After exploring the natural passageway through the rock, we’ll retrace our steps to the trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: There is a main way in and a main way out of Cracks in the Rocks. But if you stoop low enough, you’ll find a “secret” exit near the base of the stairs. Take a picture of this hidden passageway and post it on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to enter our random drawing for a Texas Roadhouse gift card.

Historical Context: Blue Heron was an isolated mining camp on the Big South Fork River that was operated by the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company from 1937 to 1962. It was the site of the company’s Mine #18, and it was served by the Kentucky & Tennessee Railroad, which still offers excursion trips to the historic mining community today. As a company town, Blue Heron was complete with workers’ houses, a store, and related infrastructure. There was also a coal tipple, where coal was loaded onto railroad cars. After the mine closed in 1962, the buildings all decayed or were removed. In the 1980s, the National Park Service rebuilt many of the structures as open-air steel skeletons or “ghost structures” to show the original size and locations of homes, the church, and the school. The coal tipple was also restored. Today, Blue Heron tells the stories of the life that once happened in this isolated, yet vibrant community.

Make It Better: We’re starting this week’s hike from the Blue Heron Overlook Trailhead to shave off some distance, but there are several ways to make this trip better. A.) Begin your hike at the first parking lot on the left after turning from Mine 18 Road onto Gorge Overlook Road, which is the trailhead for Devils Jump Overlook. From there, you can hike to Blue Heron Overlook and Cracks in the Rocks. It’s a 1.8-mile out-and-back hike (not including the climb from the loop trail up to Blue Heron Overlook) and includes a visit to Devils Jump Overlook. B.) Begin your hike at either starting point and finish the entire Blue Heron Loop. From Cracks in the Rock, simply continue along the trail rather than retracing your steps back to the trailhead. You’ll go to the historic Blue Heron mining community, follow the river for a short distance, then climb back to the top. It’s a 7-mile hike featuring about 980 feet of elevation gain. C.) If you don’t want to add any mileage to your hike, finish your trip to Blue Heron by driving back to the Devils Jump Overlook parking lot and visiting the overlook, which is just a short walk from the trailhead, and/or take Mine 18 Road on to the Blue Heron mining community and explore it while staying within sight of your vehicle.

Be Careful For: There are steep steps on this hike. Use caution with pets and small children. Use extra caution if the stamps are damp or wet, as they can become slick.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Hike #1: Sunset Overlook
Hike #2: Angel Falls Rapid
Hike #3: Yahoo Falls
Hike #4: O&W Bridge
Hike #5: Northrup Falls
Hike #6: Burnt Mill
Hike #7: Buzzard Rock

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

Deputy sheriff was first from Scott County to ‘ride the lightning’

Moonshiners were afraid of Ben Fowler. And for good reason.

He was a lawman carved of oak and iron — a big man, shoulders like a coal barge, and a stare that could blister paint. He didn’t just chase moonshiners through the thickets of Scott County; he hunted them. Crushed more than 200 stills in three years, folks said. Killed at least two men — maybe more, if you believed the whispers that moved like smoke through the hills. Seven bodies died by his hand, the rumors claimed. Fowler denied that last part, and he’d been cleared of wrongdoing in the only deaths officially linked to him.

He wore a bulletproof vest — steel plates stitched into canvas, homemade and heavy as sin — and he claimed it had saved his life more than once. His trademark look was the vest, a set of .44 pistols at his hips, and the glint of a man who had seen too much, drank too hard, and couldn’t quit either one.

By the time March 5, 1927 rolled around, Ben Fowler was one of the most feared men in Scott County.

That Saturday night, he walked into the auditorium at the old Robbins High School to watch a motion picture. He was wearing the vest. The pistols. And, most notably, the whiskey.

People say he came in drunk, but no one could agree on just how drunk. That he was belligerent, nobody disputed. He was there to serve a warrant, or so he said. Maybe he was just there to show off — to remind everyone who was still king of the hill.

Fowler didn’t like noise, not unless it came from his own gun. So when some kids in the front row laughed too loud at the picture, he stormed down the aisle like a storm with a badge.

“You’ll hush or you’ll go to jail,” he barked.

That’s when Dr. Wiley W. Foust laughed. It wasn’t a big laugh, just enough to cut through the tension like a blade. He thought it was ridiculous — a grown man threatening to arrest children for laughing at a movie. It was ridiculous. But Ben Fowler didn’t like to be laughed at.

He turned to the doctor, face flushed, eyes wild.

“Big boy,” Fowler growled, “you will have to be quiet or I’ll get you, too.”

Foust didn’t back down. “Ben, you wouldn’t do that.”

But he would. And he did.

Fowler swung the butt of his pistol and struck the doctor in the head. As the crowd gasped and people began to rise from their seats, Fowler didn’t hesitate. He leveled one of his .44s and pulled the trigger five times.

Five bullets to the fae. Point blank. Dr. Foust never stood a chance.

Panic erupted. People dove for the floor, scrambled over benches, screamed into the smoky dark.

Another deputy, John Wesley West, had been seated in the crowd. He tried to stop Fowler, but he wound up being shot too — a bullet in the gut that would spell a slow, agonizing death. A bystander was also hit.

Dr. Foust’s wife, sitting just a few feet from her husband’s body, began to cry. Fowler demanded that someone shut her up.

Fowler didn’t flee. He didn’t hide. He stood there like he was untouchable, like the vest on his chest made him immortal.

But not everyone was afraid.

Dr. Foust’s adult son had been in the theater that night. When the first shots rang out, he drew his pistol and fired back. Five shots. Four hit the steel plate. The fifth punched into Fowler’s arm. The lawman staggered but didn’t fall.

The vest had saved him again. But this time, the end was already in motion.

Lawmen stormed the scene. Fowler was arrested on the spot, still half-drunk and bleeding from the arm. West was rushed to Howard-Henderson Hospital in Knoxville. He lasted two days before dying.

By Sunday morning, the news had already torn through Scott County like a brushfire in August. Dr. Foust was dead. Deputy West was dying. Ben Fowler — the iron-jawed still-buster who liked to consume liquor almost as much as he liked to confiscate it — had become the very monster he was supposed to protect the county from.

And the people wanted justice.

They didn’t waste time. By Monday — just two days after the shooting — a grand jury was convened in Huntsville and handed down an indictment for murder. The trial began three days after that. Justice in 1927 didn’t take long, especially when the defendant had killed a beloved doctor in front of dozens of witnesses.

Fowler’s defense? He was drunk. Too drunk to know what he was doing. He hadn’t meant to kill Deputy West — that was an accident.

But the court didn’t deal in mercy that week.

On March 14 — exactly seven days after his indictment — the jury took just two minutes to return a verdict. Guilty of murder. They recommended death.

The judge set the date: April 21. The sentence was death in the electric chair.

Fowler appealed, but the state Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Tennessee Governor Austin Peay granted a short stay of execution so Fowler’s parents could travel from Kentucky to see him one last time.

On the morning of Jan. 25, 1928, Ben Fowler walked calmly toward the electric chair. He comforted his grieving father.

“Now you go on, Pap, just like you’re going to the mill,” he said. “Tell Maw I’m just going on ahead, and I’ll be waiting when she gets there.”

He sat in the chair without resistance. Even offered tips on how to strap him in.

The switch was pulled. Ben Fowler — lawman, killer — was dead.

Fowler was 35 when he died. He became the first — and still the only — Scott Countian to be executed in the electric chair. The only other legal execution in the county’s history was Mike King, who was hanged in 1895 for killing a schoolteacher in Winfield.

Dr. Wiley Foust, age 54, was buried at Robbins Cemetery, just a short walk from where he died.

Deputy John Wesley West, 53, was laid to rest in Marcum Cemetery in Oneida. He left behind a widow, Tilitha Susanna King, and two sons — George and Fed — who lived out their lives in the quiet hills their father had sworn to protect.

Time passed. Names faded. But Scott Countians still tell the story of the night the law turned in on itself. Of whiskey and steel. Of the pistol smoke that lingered in the rafters long after the motion picture stopped.

And of a man in a bulletproof vest who finally couldn’t outrun the bullets.

Editor’s Note: This is the eleventh installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

We reach the halfway point of the Spring Hiking Challenge with a visit to one of the most spectacular vantage points you’ll find anywhere in this region — and that’s saying something, because there are a lot of spectacular vantage points around here.

This one is called Buzzard Rock — a name that belies the magnificence of the views that await — and it’s located in the McCreary County section of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

One of the nice things about Buzzard Rock is that it is truly a hike that is friendly for all ages — a short, easy stroll through the woods with a tremendous payoff waiting in the views at the end of the trail. We’re dialing back the difficulty after last week’s hike at Burnt Mill, just as we did after the earlier hike to O&W Bridge. You might be noticing a trend by this point, as we try to pace the challenge so that novice hikers who might be discovering the great outdoors for the first time can ease into it.

So, let’s head north up U.S. Highway 27 and get started…

Buzzard Rock
Trailhead: Buzzard Rock
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Payoff: Views
Difficulty: Easy
Length: 1.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 239 feet

Buzzard Rock is located inside the Daniel Boone National Forest north of Whitley City, Ky. The trailhead is located on Big Creek Road, near where the road turns over the hill to the Big Creek Boat Dock on the Big South Fork River. To get there, take U.S. Highway 27 north into Kentucky and through Whitley City. In the Beulah Heights community, 14.3 miles after crossing the TN-KY line, turn left onto Wiborg Loop Road. After six-tenths of a mile, turn left again onto Roberts Ridge Road (Tom Roberts Road). In about 1.4 miles, the road will turn into Big Creek Road. The pavement will turn to gravel. The trailhead can be a little tricky because it isn’t signed, and is simply a pull-off to the right side of the road that looks like the entrance to an ATV trail. It is located 1.1 miles past the last house on the road. If you come to a sharp left-hand switchback leading down the hill, you’ve gone too far. The easiest way to find it is to plug “Buzzard Rock” into your favorite maps app, like Waze or Apple Maps. It will lead you directly to the parking spot.

Mile 0.12: The first tenth of a mile is slightly uphill, as the trail climbs to the top of the ridge that separates Koger Creek from Big Creek. At this point, the trail levels out, and it’s an easy hike the rest of the way.

Mile 0.19: Notice the huge downed tree along the trail. The tree uprooted, taking a large piece of earth with it.

Mile 0.30: The drainage that is visible to the right is Koger Creek, which empties into the Big South Fork River just downstream from Buzzard Rock.

Mile 0.34: The trail begins a slight descent, dropping over small rock ledges.

Mile 0.36: Notice the light-colored ends on the hemlock boughs. The lighter green is the new growth that emerges on the hemlocks during the middle of each spring. These lighter green tips will slowly become the same darker green as the rest of the hemlock’s foliage over the course of the summer.

Mile 0.38: Mountain laurel is in full bloom now, and begins to show up along the trail. It will become quite prolific the rest of the way to the overlook.

Mile 0.45: If you look through the trees, you’ll catch your first glimpse of the Big South Fork River. The first thing you’ll immediately notice is how calm and still the river is here, compared to Tennessee, where it’s fast-moving. That’s because the river this far north is constrained by the effects of the Wolf Creek Dam on the Cumberland River. The Big South Fork is part of the backwaters of Lake Cumberland at this point, calm and still the rest of the way to where it empties into the Cumberland River at Burnside, Ky.

Mile 0.54: The trail turns downhill as it begins its final approach through the laurel to Buzzard Rock. A final step across a fissure in the earth and onto the large, flat surface of Buzzard Rock offers spectacular views of the Big South Fork valley. The stream to the right is Koger Creek. To the left, Big Creek empties in. Across the river is Cowhorn Creek. Downstream, you can see the rugged cliff lines along the edge of the ridge that separates the Big South Fork River from Straight Creek. You can’t see it from here, but just a short distance upstream, around an S-curve in the river, is Yahoo Falls Overlook, where we were just at a few weeks ago. Not visible but a short distance downstream is the mouth of the Little South Fork.

Scavenger Hunt: This week, we’re looking for mountain laurel … and you won’t have any trouble finding it, because it grows in abundance around Buzzard Rock and is in full bloom. It is truly one of the most spectacular flowers found in the Big South Fork region. Snap a photo and tag it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag to be entered into this week’s drawing for a pair of Sunhauk sunglasses.

Historical Context: Although we drove through Daniel Boone National Forest to reach Yahoo Falls, this is the first time the Spring Hiking Challenge is actually setting foot in the national forest. It was established in 1937 as the Cumberland National Forest, and renamed in 1966 for the famous frontiersman who explored the area in 1769. It covers more than 700,000 acres of land in eastern Kentucky.

Make It Better: Just a short distance north from Buzzard Rock is the spectacular Natural Arch, also located in Daniel Boone National Forest. We aren’t coming back this far north simply out of respect to the drive time, but the hike to Buzzard Rock is so short you might wish to tack on the equally short hike to Natural Arch while you’re here. Natural Arch Scenic Area is located on Day Ridge Road. Back at U.S. 27 from Wiborg Loop, turn left toward Somerset and drive a few miles to Ky. Hwy. 927 (if you reach the turnoff to Cumberland Falls, you’ve gone too far). Watch for the signs to Natural Arch. After the turnoff, it’s 1.8 miles to the parking lot. The hiking trail is an easy, 1.5-mile loop.

Be Careful For: Buzzard Rock is unprotected. Use caution near the edges with pets and small children.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Hike #1: Sunset Overlook
Hike #2: Angel Falls Rapid
Hike #3: Yahoo Falls
Hike #4: O&W Bridge
Hike #5: Northrup Falls
Hike #6: Burnt Mill

Subscribe now

Week 6 of the Spring Hiking Challenge takes us to one of the most underrated hiking trails in the entirety of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area: Burnt Mill Loop.

Most folks recognize Honey Creek, which borders Burnt Mill to the west, as not only the best hiking trail in the Big South Fork, but one of the best day hikes anywhere in the eastern U.S. Burnt Mill, by comparison, is often overlooked. But this trail offers many of the same features as Honey Creek, albeit on a smaller scale. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The strenuousness of Honey Creek discourages some people from attempting it, but Burnt Mill is a relatively easy hike. It earns a “moderate” difficulty rating due to its uneven terrain, its length, and its elevation gain, but it’s a pretty mild hike in terms of its difficulty.

There’s nothing mild about the sights along the Burnt Mill Loop, however. The Clear Fork River is absolutely gorgeous. It earned its name, after all, because it is the clearest of the two primary tributaries of the Big South Fork (the other being New River). It is a pristine mountain stream that is especially gorgeous this time of year, when the last of the spring wildflowers are still blooming and the mountain laurel is coming into bloom.

So, off we go for Hike #6 of 14…

Burnt Mill Loop
Trailhead: Burnt Mill
Trail Type: Loop
Payoff: River views, rock formations
Difficulty: Moderate
Length: 4.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 385 feet

To get to Burnt Mill, take U.S. Highway 27 south to the New River community, then turn right onto Mountain View Road (by the New River carwash) and follow the signs. You’ll turn right and then immediately left at the old Shoemaker Store onto Mountain View Road, then right again onto Honey Creek Road at Black Creek Crossroads. Once at the trailhead, the trail is best hiked in a counter-clockwise direction. You’ll find the start of the trail by crossing Honey Creek Road by the bridge. The trail follows the river for nearly a mile, then crosses the ridge and drops to the river again, following the river for two more miles back to the trailhead. The small structure along the river’s edge just downstream from the bridge is the U.S. Geological Survey’s river gauge at Burnt Mill. The data it collects is constantly available online.

Mile 0.08: The trail requires a mild scramble over some boulders, one of several small boulder climbs along the route. At the top, you’ll find the first of several shallow rock shelters along the trail. The forest is a typical streamside forest in the Big South Fork, dominated by hemlocks with an understory of rhododendron and other shrubs that thrive in dense shade.

Mile 0.14: Keep your eyes peeled and you’ll notice the twisted steel remnants of the historic Burnt Mill Bridge on the far side of the river. The century-old bridge was washed away by a flood in March 2021.

Mile 0.20: Notice the young magnolia trees growing in the understory. There are two species of magnolia found in the Big South Fork, usually along the rivers, and one of them — the big-leaf magnolia — has the single largest leaf and the largest flower of any tree in North America. It is found primarily on the Cumberland Plateau.

Mile 0.27: An unmarked foot trail joins the hiking trail. This trail is walked by locals who are accessing a swimming hole and camping spot from Honey Creek Road.

Mile 0.38: The trail descends a small ladder. From here, it continues along the river, between the bluff lines and the river’s edge. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy over the next half-mile, but it’s a beautiful hike.

Mile 0.85: The trail turns up an unnamed stream and leaves the river’s edge. There is a tiny cave on the left, and trilliums — one of the chief wildflowers of the Big South Fork — grow by the hundreds along the trail. The character of the forest changes significantly here. The trail leaves the towering hemlocks and the rhododendron understory behind, and travels up a lush stream bottom. There are several of these streams that feed into Clear Fork, and although the streams themselves are currently dry due to the drought we’re experiencing, the lush growth along them is fully underway.

Mile 1.08: The trail hooks into an old road trace that it will follow most of the way to the top of the plateau. The only serious ascent of the loop starts here.

Mile 1.28: The trail intersects with the Beaver Falls Trail, also known as the Lower John Muir Trail, which serves as a connector trail between Burnt Mill Loop and Honey Creek Loop. The good news is that the only hard part of the hike is over.

Mile 1.30: The trail crosses Honey Creek Road. The sign shows that it is 2.9 miles to the bridge. It’s not as far as it sounds, because it’s all downhill — or, at least, level. The forest type has changed again, and now is the open mixed hardwood forest that characterizes the plateau ridgetops of the BSF region. The next four-tenths of a mile will be mostly uneventful.

Mile 1.70: The valley to the right is the Clear Fork River coming back into view.

Mile 1.76: The trail begins its descent into the river gorge. Once more, the forest type will change, returning to predominately to hemlock, rhododendron, and various riverside shrubs.

Mile 2.0: The trail reaches the river. Soon, another extension of the John Muir Trail and the Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail will depart here, continuing upstream along Clear Fork to Brewster Ford and then into the village of Rugby.

Mile 2.26: The hemlocks you’re seeing here are some of the largest in the southern portion of the Big South Fork NRRA. They’re giant, old hemlocks.

Mile 2.37: The trail passes through thick stands of rhododenron. This stretch, from Mile 2.0 to roughly Mile 3.0, is Burnt Mill Loop at its absolute best. Keep your phone at the ready, because there are plenty of photo opportunities along this stretch of trail.

Mile 2.52: A backcountry campsite comes into view. It is a beautiful campsite in a deeply shaded hemlock grove.

Mile 2.63: The whitewater rapid here is the roughest and most technical found anywhere upstream of Burnt Mill Bridge. It’s only a Class II-III rapid, but it’s an exception in a river that’s otherwise mostly gentle between Brewster Ford and Burnt Mill Ford. The rock that juts out over the river is an excellent spot to take pictures, or just sit and enjoy the sounds of the rushing water.

Mile 2.79: A faint foot trail to the left leads to Burnt Mill Shower, a wet-weather waterfall. It isn’t much right now, thanks to the lack of rainfall our region has experienced, but it’s still a nice feature along the trail.

Mile 3.06: The trail hooks into an old road trace.

Mile 3.15: There’s another campsite on the left side of the trail. The river here is flat-bottomed and shallow, making an excellent place to wade in and cool off when the streamflow is at summer levels.

Mile 3.35: The old road trace departs the trail on the left. This was called the Old Dump Road by locals. Like most other roads leading into the gorge, it was closed by the National Park Service in 1989. Today, it’s barely visible through the forest growth.

Mile 3.61: The river, which could constantly be heard gurgling further upstream, becomes calm and silent south of the Old Dump Road. There’s only one set of rapids between the rapids just above Burnt Mill Ford and the backcountry campsite at Mile 3.15. They’re located here, at the mouth of Skull Creek, the stream that drains the Black Creek Crossroads area and parts of West Robbins. You can see the stream entering river right, just above the rapids.

Mile 3.97: An old road trace is visible going up the hill to the left of the trail. This is the original Honey Creek Road, before the modern road was built. At the top of the hill here, located off-trail, is the mysterious Foote Cemetery.

Mile 4.22: The trail reaches the trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: This week’s virtual scavenger hunt is for a unique rock that has broken over time, the top layer of the rock sliding down to the ground and resting against the base of the rock to form a natural tunnel. Snap a photo of this rock and tag it with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to be entered into this week’s random prize drawing, which will be for a prize pack that includes a waterproof National Geographic trails map of the Big South Fork, a compass, and more.

Historical Context: The old bridge over Clear Fork at Burnt Mill Ford was a Pratt through truss and Pratt half-hip pony through truss that was constructed in 1920 by J.I. and E.K. Foster Bridge Builders. It was closed to vehicular traffic in 2003 after being condemned by the TN Dept. of Transportation, but it remained as a pedestrian bridge until half of it was lost to raging flood waters in March 2021.

Make It Better: Just about three miles west of Burnt Mill Ford is the Honey Creek Trailhead. At the end of Honey Creek Loop Road, which is nine-tenths of a mile beyond the trailhead, is the Honey Creek Overlook, which provides spectacular views of the Big South Fork River gorge. The overlook is accessible via a short, easy walk from the parking lot.

Be Careful For: There are no significant hazards along the Burnt Mill Loop Trail.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

The Apple Orchard Killing

Station Camp – August 27, 1924

“I didn’t think anyone would have cared for the children getting apples.”

That’s what Newt Blevins claimed he told Dick Hatfield in the waning summer heat of 1924. That was right before Hatfield called him a “damn liar” and came at him with a knife. Again, that’s what Newt claimed.

What followed was a scuffle, then a gunshot. By the time the dust had settled, Dick Hatfield lay dying in the dirt beside Newt’s porch. The law called it murder. Newt called it self-defense.

A jury, apparently unsure what to believe, landed somewhere in the middle – convicting Blevins of involuntary manslaughter and sending him to prison for a single year. But was it mercy, or was it a miscarriage of justice?

One thing’s for sure: the killing started over something as simple – and as American – as apples.

***

John Newton Blevins, born in 1875, came from rugged Appalachian stock. His blood ran thick with the history of the Big South Fork region. He was the grandson of pioneers who’d carved out a life in the wilderness long before roads or lawmen ever reached that far. One ancestor, Richard Harve Slaven, was the first white settler in the No Business Creek area. Another, Jonathan Blevins, may have been one of the first to settle on Station Camp Creek.

But Newt Blevins was no frontier hero. He was a man worn down – crippled in one leg and one hand, rail-thin at a hundred and forty-five pounds, and struggling to raise eight children alongside his wife, Amanda Smith Blevins. He walked with a limp and lived in constant pain, a broken body housing a sharp mind that hadn’t yet dulled.

And if his neighbors thought he was as stubborn as a mule, so be it. Mountain men are supposed to be.

***

William Clayburn “Dick” Hatfield had been born in 1861 – a Valentine’s baby – son of William Riley Hatfield and, some said, kin to the infamous Devil Anse Hatfield of West Virginia feud fame. This branch of the family, as the story went, had fled the bloodshed, crossing into Tennessee in search of peace.

They didn’t find it.

In 1892, Dick’s father was shot and killed during a riverbank quarrel on the Big South Fork. Decades later, Dick followed the same path, though this time the fight wasn’t over land or legacy – just apples.

After a stint in Oklahoma and the tragic death of his wife, Vicy, Dick had come back to Station Camp alone. His children stayed out west. He remarried, maybe. Records suggest a match with Poppie Litton Blevins, though if it happened, she never took his name. Folks still called her Poppie Blevins, even after he died.

***

It started with kids – like trouble often does. Blevins’ children, along with a few others, wandered into Hatfield’s orchard and helped themselves to a few apples.

Nothing serious. Just kids being kids, or so Newt thought. But Dick Hatfield didn’t see it that way.

He filed a complaint with the local constable and schoolteacher, Ike King. Word came back to Newt, who returned the apples and likely figured that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

According to District Attorney W.H. Swiggart, Newt resented Hatfield’s complaint – saw it as an insult to his family and his name. Whatever bitterness Newt felt, it simmered quietly until August 27.

That was the day the two men met at High Point, near Oneida. That was the day Newt invited Dick home for dinner.

***

What followed could have passed for neighborly. Hatfield came into Blevins’ modest home, sat at his table, and shared a meal with his family. The old mountain code – hospitality above all else – seemed to hold.

But not for long.

After dinner, the two men stepped onto the porch. It was there, amid the hush of the forest and the far-off whinnies of horses, that the apple incident came up again. Accusations flew and words grew sharp.

Then the knife came out.

What happened next depends on who you ask.

***

According to Hatfield, who gave his statement before dying, Blevins started the fight. He said hew as getting ready to leave when Newt raised hell about the apples again. Hatfield admitted to drawing his knife, but only after Newt came at him with a chair.

Blevins’ version? Completely different.

He said he made a casual comment – “I didn’t think anyone would have cared for the children getting apples” – and Hatfield exploded, calling him a liar and lunging at him with the knife. Newt barely had time to react, he said. He shoved a chair between them and still took a slash to the chest.

According to Newt, as he staggered for his gun, Hatfield grabbed Mandy, who was holding their baby. By the time Newt returned, Dick had let go and was making for his horse.

That’s when the rifle cracked.

***

“I saw Blevins coming with the gun and I run,” Hatfield told Marion Marcum. “I aimed to get to the horse and get away.”

But he didn’t make it. Witnesses said Newt fired once under the horse, striking Dick in the side. Hatfield collapsed trying to reach the barn.

A neighbor, Lora Smith, later asked Newt why he did it.

“He cut me with a knife, and I aimed to kill him,” Newt replied.

***

The jury didn’t buy it as self-defense. But neither did they agree with the state’s charge of first-degree murder.

Instead, they split the difference: involuntary manslaughter. One year in jail.

The prosecution wasn’t pleased. Swiggart called it a “very merciful verdict,” arguing that Blevins had gone too far when he “got his rifle and hunted Hatfield down while he was trying to get away.”

The defense said the jury wasn’t lenient enough. They pointed to Newt’s disability, the wound on his chest, and the threat to his wife and child.

“This killing could not be involuntary manslaughter,” they argued. “The evidence shows a crippled man defending his home, his wife, and his life.”

But an appellate court sided with the jury. The verdict stood.

***

Newt Blevins served his time in the old Scott County Jail in Huntsville. He walked free in 1926, a man hardened by captivity and haunted by the blood that stained his porch steps.

Two years later, justice came calling again.

Newt and Mandy were out rounding up cattle near their home when a bullet found him. Just like Hatfield before him, Newt dropped where he s stood. This time, no arrest was made. No trial. No conviction.

Just silence. Oh, there were suspicions about who was responsible. Still are, handed down to the kids of those who lived at Station Camp, and kids’ kids. But no proof.

***

In the years that followed, the killing of Dick Hatfield and the death of Newt Blevins faded into local memory – not forgotten, but folded into the long, complicated fabric of life in the Cumberland Mountains. There were no memorials, no markers beyond Dick’s weatherworn stone that bears his name at Coffey Cemetery (which is more than what Newt got when he was buried in an unmarked grave near his home). Just two men, both proud and flawed, caught in a moment that spiraled too far out of control.

The apple trees that sparked it all grew old and bare. The families scattered – Hatfield’s bloodline lingering in Oklahoma, Blevins’ children forging quiet lives of their own in the hills and hollows of East Tennessee.

And life went on.

In Station Camp, folks still tell the story from time to time – less as a warning, more as a curiosity. A reminder that justice is never as clean as the law, and that in a place where pride runs deep and tempers run hot, even something as simple and as all-American as an apple can change everything.

Editor’s Note: This is the tenth installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

After stepping up the intensity a bit with last week’s hike to O&W Bridge, which closed out the first month of the Spring Hiking Challenge, we’re dialing it back this week with a short, quick, easy hike to Northrup Falls.

Northrup Falls is the crown jewel of the Colditz Cove State Natural Area, located just outside Allardt. It was long one of the most underrated natural features of the northern Cumberland Plateau, but has exploded in popularity in recent years. We first visited this beautiful waterfall as part of 2017’s Twenty Week Hiking Challenge.

There’s no doubt that Northrup Falls is at its best when it’s at full flow … and there isn’t a stream anywhere around the region that’s anywhere close to full flow right now, amid what has been our driest spring season in 19 years. The waterfall may not be as spectacular as it usually is during the spring months, but it still makes for a great hike. So, let’s get started with Week 5 of 14.

Northrup Falls
Trailhead: Colditz Cove
Trail Type: Loop
Payoff: Waterfall
Difficulty: Easy
Length: 1.42 miles
Elevation Gain: 108 feet

Colditz Cove is a 165-acre state natural area surrounding Big Branch Creek just outside of Allardt. To get there, take S.R. 52 west from Elgin to Allardt. Just inside the Allardt City Limits, turn left onto Northrup Falls Road (if you reach the “great pumpkin” water tower, you’ve gone too far). The parking area for Colditz Cove is on the right.

The first part of the trail is out-and-back, leading to a loop trail that circles Northrup Falls on top of the canyon that Big Branch Creek flows through, then drops into the canyon for an up-close view of the falls.

540 feet: Notice the old road trace that the trail crosses. This old road once led to Big Branch Creek. The forest so far has been mixed hardwoods with an understory of mountain laurel and holly, among other species.

0.13 Mile: The trail crosses a footbridge over a small wet-weather branch and marshy area.

0.20 Mile: The trail begins to enter a thick forest of hemlocks. The forest type changes dramatically here.

0.25 Mile: A sign placed by Pickett State Park — which manages Colditz Cove — describes the threat that the hemlock woolly adelgid is posing to this forest and other hemlock forests across the region, and what state botanists are doing to combat the pest. At this point, you can hear Northrup Falls if you listen.

0.29 Mile: The trail reaches an intersection. This is the loop part of the trail. Go right to complete the trail in a counter-clockwise direction. Almost immediately, the trail will split. The left fork is an unauthorized trail created by hikers venturing off the original trail, but both lead to the same place. You’ll also get your first look at Northrup Falls.

0.36 Mile: The trail crosses Big Branch Creek just above the waterfall via a wooden footbridge. The Northrup family that once lived here operated a grist mill above the falls. On the opposite side of the creek, the thick hemlock forest continues. Notice how the hemlocks are so thick that little can grow in the understory, due to the lack of sunlight that penetrates the canopy.

0.48 Mile: Look at the tall white pines that begin to mix in with the hemlocks.

0.51 Mile: The trail drops over some rock ledges and begins its descent into the gorge that encases Big Branch Creek below Northrup Falls. If you look to your right, you’ll also notice another stream drainage, though you can’t see the stream itself. This is an unnamed fork of Big Branch Creek. Keep your eyes peeled in the gorge area! You probably won’t see these secretive critters, but this area is known to be home to several rare animals, including: the Black Mountain dusky salamander, the woodland jumping mouse, the smoky shrew, the pygmy shrew and the southeastern shrew.

0.53 Mile: Rhododendron becomes the prominent species in the understory as the trail travels the base of the bluff line. The trail will follow this bluff line to the waterfall.

0.59 Mile: The trail crosses a wooden footbridge that, like most of the footbridges along this trail, has recently been rebuilt by Pickett State Park staff.

0.62 Mile: If you listen, you’ll hear not only the sound of Northrup Falls splashing into this small canyon in your right here, but also the sound of running water in your left ear. You might first believe that you’re hearing an echo off the bluff wall. But if you step up to the large rock to your left and look behind it, you’ll notice a spring flowing out of the rock wall.

0.65 Mile: Even in dry weather, water seeps from the rocks, creating a thick cover of moss and lichens on the rocks. Just ahead, the jumbled rocks squeeze the trail against the bluff line.

0.70 Mile: The trail reaches Northrup Falls. The trail goes behind the falls, where it’s always muddy and wet. Notice the inviting swimming pool at the base of the falls.

0.86 Mile: The trail finally emerges from the huge rock shelter behind the waterfall. It will continue to follow the bluff line for a while.

0.92 Mile: Look at the narrow crack through the rock to the left, which creates a natural passageway. You’d have to be a small child or painfully thin to fit through the crack, but it’s a neat feature nonetheless.

0.97 Mile: Notice the thick stand of cave alumroot growing inside this shallow rock shelter.

1.0 Mile: The ascent back to the top of the gorge begins. It’s just a short climb, and the only part of the hike that’s remotely difficult.

1.18 Mile: Reach the trail intersection that signals the start of the loop. Turn right and retrace your steps to the trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: This week’s virtual scavenger hunt is for a site along the hike that we also looked for the first time we did it back in 2017 — a huge white pine that is one of the largest you’ll find anywhere on the northern plateau. Unfortunately, the tree has died since that 2017 hike, but it still stands for now. You’ll know it when you see it — it’s massive! It was likely more than 200 years old when it died. Here’s a hint: It is located after you enter the canyon. If you find it, snap a picture and tag it with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to be entered in this week’s random prize drawing. We’ll announce what prize we’re going to give away on social media.

Historical Context: This area was originally called Northrup Falls, after the Northrup family that operated a grist mill upstream from the waterfall. In 1984, Arnold and Rudy Colditz donated 42.5 acres of property to the state, more than doubling the size of the state natural area surrounding Northrup Falls. It was named Colditz Cove in their honor, and has since grown to 165 acres surrounding one of Tennessee’s most spectacular waterfalls. The Colditz brothers played a big role in Scott County’s past. Their father was a German immigrant to the northern Cumberland Plateau named Maximilian Bernhard Colditz. He was born in Dresden, Germany, but migrated to the United States and became a naturalized American citizen. He moved his family to the German settlement of Allardt and opened a general store there. Arnold and his younger brother, Rudy, were two of six children in the family. They moved to Oneida in 1923 and established Colditz Brothers Motor Company. It was an International Harvester dealer in the 1940s to the 1960s. Together, the brothers were instrumental in persuading both Greyhound Bus Lines and Western Union Telegraph to locate offices in Oneida. The brothers also owned the large farm on Coopertown Road near its intersection with Leatherwood and Station Camp roads. Arnold Colditz served as mayor of Oneida in 1938 and 1939. He died in 1991.

Make It Better: On your way back to Scott County, swing right off S.R. 52 onto Peters Ford Road and follow it into the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area where Crooked Creek empties into the Clear Fork River. There are no trails to hike here, but it’s a beautiful area to explore and even wade in the river, and there’s a picnic area if you pack a lunch.

Be Careful For: The bluffs along the canyon below Northrup Falls are unprotected. Use caution with pets and small children.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

Huntsville, Tennessee – May 6, 1921

The doors to the old Scott County Jail creaked open around midnight. A cold wind moved through the iron bars and into the cramped cell where Berry Bowling sat alone. The boots echoing on the stone floor didn’t belong to lawmen. They belonged to masked men with shotguns and a verdict already decided.

As they dragged Bowling out of his cell, the wife of the jailer, James Mart Chambers, made a final plea.

“Pray, Berry!” Nancy Chambers cried out.

Berry turned his head slightly. “I can’t,” he said.

Those were the last words anyone ever heard him speak.

***

Back up a few months. Back up to the hills of Bull Creek, south of Huntsville, where this story started. It was the same little community where another double murder had led to the lynchings of two men more than 30 years earlier, after Elias Reynolds and Thomas Lloyd were accused of killing a woman and her teenage son.

This time, the killings started with William Harness. He was seventy-two years old, a Civil War veteran, patriarch of a large mountain family. He turned up dead, and the newspapers barely noted it. There was no statewide spectacle; no outrage. Just a quiet death in a strange place, and one man arrested: Berry Bowling, the dead man’s former brother-in-law.

Whatever the motive was, it’s been lost. Maybe it was land. Maybe it was an old grievance. The only thing people could agree on was that Mary Jane Harness had taken the stand and testified against Bowling, and he hadn’t taken it kindly.

Mary Jane Lawson had already seen hard times before any of this. She’d buried one husband – John Bowling, Berry’s older brother – and then married William Harness. Between her first marriage and her second, she had six children. William had ten from his first wife, Elvira Brown. It wasn’t an easy life, but it was hers.

She was thirty-three years old on the morning of May 3, 1921, when someone shot her dead in her home.

Some said it was revenge for her testimony. Others said it was rage. Either way, everyone in town knew who would be arrested. By the next day, Berry Bowling was behind bars in Huntsville.

The Associated Press was direct about it: “The testimony of Mrs. Harness was most incriminating, and this is believed by some to have led Bowling to kill her.”

That sealed it. Whether he pulled the trigger or not, Berry Bowling was a marked man.

***

By Saturday night, four days after Mary Jane’s murder, the mob arrived.

Fifty men, or twenty-five, or thirty – the newspapers couldn’t agree on the number, and that fact alone says something about how little anyone was paying attention to the details. Their faces were covered in black cloth – which suggests they knew, on some level, that what they were about to do wasn’t right. They told Mart Chambers they had a new prisoner to book. It was a lie, of course. When he opened the door, they shoved their way through.

“Berry,” one of them said, “we’ve come to bond you out.”

They laughed as they pushed him into the street.

Nancy Chambers followed them out in her nightclothes.

“Pray, Berry,” she begged. “Pray.”

“I can’t,” he said.

***

A white oak stood on River Junction Road, a mile from the jail. It was the kind of tree that stands by the roadside like a sentinel, has been there so long that it has become something more than a tree – a landmark that the road has grown around.

They threw a rope over a branch. When they hoisted Berry up, it snapped.

There’s an old notion – a mountain superstition – that a broken rope means something. It’s a sign to stop, to let the man go. But there’s no lawfulness in a lynch mob, and old notions don’t mean much to men who have already made up their minds.

They got a second rope.

When Berry Bowling was dead, they filled his body with bullets and left him hanging. A Nashville newspaper reported it plainly: “After he had apparently choked to death, the body was riddled with bullets and left hanging in the tree until Sunday morning when officers cut it down.”

His death certificate listed the cause of death as strangulation. In the space where the manner was recorded, someone wrote four words: “Hanged by a mob.”

***

Nobody was ever charged.

Sheriff Mitchell Phillips estimated twenty-five men were involved. The NAACP said fifty. The Nashville Bannerguessed thirty. Whatever the number, not one of them ever faced a jury.

Scott County, researchers would later document, had more lynchings than any other county in East Tennessee – seven in total. While lynching across the South was overwhelmingly used as a weapon of racial terror against black victims, in the remote hollows of Scott County the rope was applied more broadly. Berry Bowling was white, but his skin color didn’t save him. Because it was never about Berry’s skin color. It was about the death of his former sister-in-law, Mary Jane Harness.

The newspapers took notice, briefly. “Mob justice strikes again,” one headline read. Then the ink dried, and the story faded.

***

William Harness was buried in the cemetery at the head of Bull Creek, beneath a stone with no date of death. Mary Jane was buried beside him. And then, in what might be the strangest footnote to this whole grim story, Berry Bowling was buried there, too – the man accused of killing both of them, laid to rest within arm’s reach of his alleged victims.

Nobody seems to have planned it that way. It just happened.

Berry’s five children, all under twelve when he died, grew up fatherless. His youngest, Obis Bowling, lived until 1999. Mary Jane’s youngest daughter, Laura Mae, lived until 2016. Their descendants still live in those hills, still drive the same narrow roads, still pass that cemetery.

There’s no marker on Litton Covered Bridge Road – what used to be River Junction Road – where the oak tree stood. No plaque on the old jail. Nothing to say that any of this happened.

Just a cemetery. Just the three graves at the head of Bull Creek.

And a cold wind some nights through the trees.

“Pray, Berry.”

“I can’t.”

—

Editor’s Note: This is the ninth installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

The #SpringHikingChallenge keeps getting better with each hike, and this week’s hike to O&W Bridge may be the best one yet.

The O&W Bridge Trail — which is part of the John Muir Trail — may be one of the most underrated trails in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. And this — the spring, when the wildflowers are in bloom and the green-up is underway but before the summer heat sets in — is the best time of year to hike it.

It earns a “moderate” difficulty rating, but the only part that’s remotely difficult is a short uphill climb about nine-tenths of a mile into the hike. And that climb isn’t as difficult as the staircase on the Yahoo Falls Loop! Otherwise, this one earns a moderate rating simply because it’s a little longer than the first three hikes, checking in at 4.73 miles. But give yourself ample time and enjoy this one, because there is lots to see along the way.

O&W Bridge Trail
Trailhead: Leatherwood Ford
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Payoff: River Views, Wildflowers
Length: 4.74 miles
Elevation Gain: 260 ft.
Difficulty: Moderate

The trail begins and ends at Leatherwood Ford Trailhead off S.R. 297 (Leatherwood Road), same as the Angel Falls hike two weeks ago. This one, though, departs from the opposite end of the parking lot, near the gazebo and restroom facilities. The trail passes the gazebo and goes under the highway bridge to enter the forest.

130 ft.: The trail goes under the Leatherwood Road bridge that crosses the river. The bridge was constructed in the early 1980s, when Leatherwood Road was improved into a state highway, and replaced the “low water bridge” that remains but is rapidly deteriorating. The trail is nice and flat, wide and graveled, to start the hike, with benches for resting for the first quarter of a mile.

425 ft.: The trail crosses a wooden footbridge. As you travel, watch for blue blazes marked with a white turtle. That’s because this trail is also part of the Sheltowee Trace National Recreation Trail, which extends from near Morehead, Ky., in the Daniel Boone National Forest, to Honey Creek Trailhead in the Big South Fork NRRA. Currently, another extension is underway that will take the trail all the way to Historic Rugby. Plans are for it to eventually tie into the Cumberland Trail at Frozen Head State Park. “Sheltowee” was the nickname the Cherokee gave to Daniel Boone, and it means “slow turtle.”

550 ft.: A backcountry campsite can be seen on the right side of the trail, near the river. There are several of these backcountry campsites along the route. Backcountry camping is permitted anywhere within the Big South Fork, except under rock shelters, in parking lots, and select other areas. A permit is required, which can be purchased from the National Park Service.

0.15 Mile: There’s another, larger campsite along the right side of the trail.

0.21 Mile: Yet another campsite.

0.25 Mile: The wooden observation deck on the right is for Echo Rock, the large sandstone boulder along the river that reflects the sound of the water crashing through the rapids. There is a lower observation deck, where the echo can best be heard, but it was closed after a portion of the boulder broke off and smashed onto the platform. On the opposite side of the river is the mouth of Bandy Creek, which lends its namesake to the developed park facilities near its headwaters, including the visitor center and campground. Also visible here is one of the best examples of a Big South Fork cobble bar, the ecologically-rich river scour prairies that can be found along much of the BSF. These flood-washed areas of bedrock and cobble are among fewer than 500 acres of cobble bar habitat remaining in the world today. Flooding rains scour the prairies from most plants, and only the native plants that are naturally engineered to withstand those floods remain. They’re bare to start the spring season, but are teeming with plant, insect, and aquatic animal life by the summer.

0.28 Mile: The last of the wooden benches along the trail, and the gravel surface ends.

0.35 Mile: Note the changing forest type. The trail started through open hardwood forest that included a mix of maple, oak, beech, and other trees. Now it’s traveling through a typical stream side forest of hemlock and an understory of rhododendron.

0.45 Mile: A stand of mayapple can be seen along the trail. Podophyllum peltatum, also referred to as American mandrake or even ground lemon, grows prolifically in the Big South Fork NRRA. Colonies usually grow from a single root. The plant emerges in early April and flowers in May. The fruit ripens later in summer (human consumption is not advised, although the ripened yellow fruit is edible in small amounts and is sometimes used to make jelly).

0.53 Mile: The Leatherwood Loop Trail departs. From here, it climbs the gorge to Leatherwood Overlook, traverses naturally reclaimed farmland for a distance, then descends back into the gorge, arriving at Leatherwood Ford.

0.83 Mile: The trail dips to a steam crossing. Like the other stream crossings along this route, this is a wet-weather stream, and it’s bone-dry during this unusually dry spring.

0.86 Mile: The trail begins its only real stretch of ascent, and will work through a pair of switchbacks as it climbs away from the river’s edge. The reason for the climb is the bluff line closes in on the river here at a set of shoals, necessitating a climb to higher ground.

0.93 Mile: The trail levels out. The worst of the climb is over, though there’ll be a gentle uphill slope for a while longer.

1.21 Mile: The valley that can be seen across the river is the mouth of North White Oak Creek, which drains much of the area south of S.R. 297 west of the river, in both Scott and Fentress counties. It was here that the O&W Railroad turned away from the river and began its journey into Fentress County toward the mining camps at Zenith and elsewhere.

1.26 Mile: The trail emerges on an old roadbed. From here, it’s mostly a flat or gentle downhill grade to the bridge.

1.63 Mile: Notice the effort that went into digging a flat grade into the rocky earth along this stretch of trail. This was part of a planned early-1900s railroad spur from the O&W to Anderson Branch south of Leatherwood Ford, intended to aid with coal-mining efforts there. A mile or so of the railroad grade was finished before the plans were abandoned.

2.10 Mile: The jumble of rocks on the left side of the trail is home to one of the Big South Fork NRRA’s more unique waterfalls during periods of wet weather. Unfortunately, it’s currently dry to the eye, though if you listen you’ll hear some water gurgling deep in the rocks.

2.24 Mile: Notice the huge boulder ahead. This giant rock, the size of a small house, broke free from the caprock some 500 feet above and rolled into the rail grade that was being constructed in the early 1900s. Supposedly, that convinced the railroad’s owners to abandon plans to build a rail spur to Anderson Branch. The rock still sits in the old rail grade, more than 100 years later.

2.30 Mile: Arrive at O&W Bridge. Venture out onto the bridge to see the towering O&W Wall, the huge cliff that stands sentry over the bridge. There’s a staircase leading to the river’s edge, and a sandy beach area that invites exploring and even wading in the river as a way to cool off before beginning the journey back to Leatherwood.

Scavenger Hunt: This week’s virtual scavenger hunt is for a “hidden passage” of sorts. It’s an unmarked trail segment that briefly leads away from the main trail to provide an alternative way around a huge boulder. Look for the huge rock alongside the trail. (Hint: It’s closer to the Leatherwood end of the trail than the O&W Bridge end of the trail.) Snap a picture of this hidden passage emerging from behind the gigantic boulder to be entered into this week’s drawing for a gift card to RaeZack’s.

Historical Context: The O&W Bridge is the oldest bridge in Scott County. The steel was forged in the late 1800s, and it was originally used elsewhere before being disassembled and moved to the Big South Fork as the Oneida & Western Railroad was being built in 1914. It’s one of the few remaining Whipple through truss bridges still in use in the United States. The O&W Railroad was built to link Oneida to Jamestown, providing passenger transport and a means of hauling coal and timber out of the vast expanse of wilderness area between the two towns. The O&W Railroad was built by the Hagemeyer brothers who owned a lumber mill at Glenmary and in 1906 transformed it into a hardwood flooring mill. They had originally proposed a railroad from Glenmary to Jamestown before selling out and purchasing another lumber mill at Verdun. Their railroad proposal met stiff resistance from the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company, and resulted in a lawsuit. Stearns said the O&W lacked a proper charter. A judge agreed, but also ruled that the very court action had created a legal entity of the O&W — paving the way for the railroad to begin being built. Steam locomotives thundered down Pine Creek, across the river, and up North White Oak Creek for decades before the coal and timber played out and the railroad was abandoned in the 1950s.

Make It Better: Don’t stop at O&W Bridge! Make the climb on up to Devils Den and the Jake Hole Overlook. It’s a strenuous climb — six-tenths of a mile to Devils Den and a bit further to the overlook — but well worth the effort. The trail departs on the west side of O&W Bridge.

Be Careful For: There are no serious hazards along the trail, though some creek crossings require rock-hopping, which could trip up small children. Overall, this is a kid- and pet-friendly hike. If you choose to continue up to the Jake Hole Overlook, note that it is an unprotected overlook.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Subscribe now

Editor’s Note: Each hike of the Spring Hiking Challenge includes a segment documenting its “historical context.” This story provides further insight on Yahoo Falls — this week’s featured hike — and the purported massacre that occurred there in 1810.

Each of the hiking trails in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area have historical significance attached to them — some of the tales grander than others. There are perhaps none as spectacular as the legend of Yahoo Falls, which is this week’s destination for the #SpringHikingChallenge.

Located near where Yahoo Creek empties into the Big South Fork River, west of Whitley City, Yahoo Falls is the tallest waterfall in Kentucky. It drops 113 feet in front of a massive sandstone rock shelter, and it was inside this rock shelter that the great Cherokee Women and Children Massacre of 1810 supposedly occurred.

This story actually starts in the winter of 1777-1778, when a militia member named Jacob Troxell was serving at Valley Forge under the command of General George Washington.

As the story goes:

Troxell — “Big Jake,” they called him, because of his enormous height — was what was referred to in those days as a “half-breed.” His father was a Jewish immigrant from Switzerland, and his mother was a Delaware Indian. Perhaps it was because of this that commanders in the Continental Army recruited Troxel to pose as a trader and visit the old French outpost at Vincennes (in modern-day Indiana) to persuade as many of the Native Americans as possible to support the American patriots in their war against the British.

At Vincennes, Big Jake befriended a young Cherokee warrior from the Cumberland River valley who was about his age: Tuckahoe Doublehead, son of the great Chickamauga Cherokee war chief Doublehead. Tuckahoe invited Troxell to his village, Tsalachi, which was located near present-day Burnside, Ky., where the Big South Fork River emptied into the Cumberland River. There, Troxell fell in love with one of Chief Doublehead’s daughters, Corn Blossom.

During the winter of 1779-1780, as the Revolutionary War continued, Tories under the command of Major Patrick Ferguson killed Cherokee hunters on the Tellico Trail, an old Indian travel route that is today U.S. Highway 27. In retaliation, Troxell accompanied Chief Doublehead in an attack on the Tories’ camp at Little South Fork. As a result, Big Jake was able to convince Doublehead and his warriors to support the colonials in their war against the British.

Following the war, Big Jake married Corn Blossom, and they had a son named Little Jake. Other white settlers began moving into the Cumberlands, which was opened to settlement by a series of treaties collectively known as the Treaties of Tellico, which saw the Cherokee cede ownership of their territory to the federal government. Many of the Cherokee remaining in the area began to assimilate into white culture, sometimes living in cabins just like the white settlers. Doublehead was one of the leading proponents of this assimilation. Prior to that, he was recognized as one of the most vicious fighters in the Cherokee Nation, and he led an assault on White’s Fort in present-day Knoxville in 1788.

Chief Doublehead became quite wealthy and owned a lot of the same material possessions that white settlers were bringing into the region. Some of his fellow Cherokee believed he was making money on under-the-table deals with the federal government. In 1807, his chief rival — James Vann — and other younger leaders of the Cherokee Nation conspired to assassinate Doublehead. He was shot and badly wounded at McIntosh’s Tavern near Calhoun, Tenn., then finished off in the attic of schoolmaster Jonathan Blacke.

As the assimilation of the natives and white settlers continued, Tuckahoe Doublehead married a white woman from present-day Scott County named Margaret Mounce. She lived at Cherry Fork, near present-day Helenwood. (She was likely a sister to Susannah Mabel Mounts, who married Richard Harve Slaven, first settler of the Big South Fork region.)

The assimilation of the Cherokee and the white settlers did not ease tensions between the two races. Tuckahoe was murdered in Wayne County, Ky. in 1807, by men who sought the location of a secret silver mine.

In 1810, things came to a head in the Cumberland River valley. As relations between white settlers and the Chickamauga Cherokee worsened, Corn Blossom realized that her people needed to leave the region and move further south. Several years earlier, Presbyterian pastor Gideon Blackburn had opened a school on Cherokee land near Chattanooga, and he offered to protect and educate Cherokee women and children from the Cumberland River valley.

Corn Blossom sent her son, Little Jake, on horseback to spread the word that anyone seeking protection at the Blackburn school in Chattanooga should meet at the rock shelter behind Yahoo Falls when the moon was full.

It was August 1810.

More than 100 Cherokee Indians remaining in the region, mostly women and children, gathered at Yahoo Falls and waited for Corn Blossom and Little Jake to arrive and lead them to safety. As they waited, gunfire erupted in the darkness. A group of white vigilantes under the direction of Hiram Gregory had surrounded the rock shelter from above. After killing the few men present, they began to slaughter the women and children, who were trapped beneath the waterfall. More than 100 were killed or severely wounded.

Among the casualties was Big Jake Troxell, who was mortally wounded and scalped. He died two months later.

According to legend, the white men raped the women and younger female children, slit open the bellies of pregnant Cherokee women, and scalped many of the victims.

It is said that Corn Blossom arrived as the slaughter was winding down, along with her son, Little Jake, and Chief Red Bird from Cumberland Falls. They killed most of the men, but both Corn Blossom and Little Jake were mortally wounded in the fight.

The murdered Cherokee people were said to be buried in a mass grave beneath the waterfall. Little Jake died immediately and may have been buried with the others. Princess Corn Blossom died two days later and is buried in an unknown location. Big Jake Troxell died sometime later. His grave marker is located along the road to Yahoo Falls. However, many believe he was actually buried in an unmarked grave at the Otter Creek Cemetery, further south.

In the aftermath of the massacre, some of the remaining Cherokee in the region fled southward; others went into hiding.

The story, however horrific and fascinating it may be, is believed by modern historians to be almost entirely fictional. There is no documented evidence of a Cherokee woman named Corn Blossom; the first mention of her appears in Thomas H. Troxel’s 1958 book, “Legion of the Lost Mine.” In his foreword, Troxel notes that some of the characters in the book are fictional, but he does not specify which.

The details of the Yahoo Falls Massacre itself did not appear in writing until Robert Collins’ 1975 book “A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest,” which he said was based on an unpublished manuscript compiled by Dan Troxell and entitled, “The Great Cherokee Children Massacre at Ywahoo Falls.” Most historians agree that Dan Troxell’s information was sourced from oral legend handed down by the family through the years. All published articles that mention the Yahoo Falls Massacre cite Troxell’s manuscript as their source, and there is no documented contemporary evidence to support the events that supposedly took place at Yahoo Falls in August 1810.

Some elements of the story are certainly true. Jacob Troxell very much existed, and fought in the Revolutionary War. However, other aspects of his life are much debated. He did, indeed, move to Wayne County, Ky. (which included present-day McCreary County) around 1801. His daughter was Catherine “Katy” Troxell, who married Jonathan Blevins Jr. — forefather of the Blevins family that later settled the Big South Fork region and remains in Scott County today.

Beyond that, much is unknown. Some family genealogists suggest that Jacob Troxell moved south, living in both Marion County, Tenn., and in Alabama, after 1810, dying in 1843. His first wife and mother of his children, these genealogists say, was not known. He later married a woman named Elizabeth — who may have been Elizabeth Blevins — in 1823.

The alternative story of Jacob “Big Jake” Troxell is the one that emerged later, in the 1958 “Legion of the Lost Mine” book. This version is the one that has Troxell living among the Cherokee and later marrying Corn Blossom, daughter of Chief Doublehead. The 1958 book appears to be the first reference in literature to Corn Blossom.

As for the grave marker that is placed on the road to Yahoo Falls: it identifies Troxell as a private in the Philadelphia militia. There were two Jacob Troxells from Pennsylvania who served in the Revolutionary War, but they appear to have been different individuals. Even genealogists who believe Jacob Troxell died in 1810 admit that he’s likely not buried along the road to Yahoo Falls, but instead believe that he was buried at Otter Creek further south in McCreary County.

Chuqualatague, or Chief Doublehead, also very much existed. The events surrounding his life and death are well documented. His 1807 assassination near Hiwassee, Tenn. was fictionalized in Dee Brown’s novel, “Creek Mary’s Blood.”

However, there’s no documentation to support that he had a daughter whose name translates to “Corn Blossom.” Further, she’s referred to in modern writings as “Princess Corn Blossom,” and Cherokee tribes did not have princesses.

Less fully documented is the purported death of Doublehead’s son, Tuckahoe Doublehead, who supposedly lived in present-day Scott County. His death at the secret silver mine is documented in Collins’ 1975 book, which also introduces an alternative account of Chief Doublehead’s death: that he was killed amid a dispute near present-day Monticello after Tuckahoe eloped with his white wife. (There’s even a purported grave site for Doublehead in Wayne County.) Collins further wrote that Corn Blossom avenged the death of her brother, Tuckahoe, by shooting and killing his attackers.

Rev. Hiram “Big Tooth” Gregory, the man who supposedly led the Yahoo Falls Massacre, also very much existed. He would have been about 36 years old in 1810, living in Wayne County, Ky. Interestingly, genealogists suggest that Hiram Gregory’s second wife, Jane “Jenny” Stephenson, was first married to Peter Troxell — the son of Jacob Troxell who is also known in the legend as “Little Jake.” The legend suggests that Little Jake, aka Peter, married an Indian woman named Standing Fern. Like Corn Blossom, there is no contemporary evidence that Standing Fern existed.

Little Jake supposedly died at the Yahoo Falls Massacre. However, records from Wayne County show that he was named a road overseer in February 1819, and died sometime between then and January 1820, when his wife was named administrator of his estate.

Gideon Blackburn, the Presbyterian minister, also existed. He did, indeed, start a school for Cherokee children — two of them, in fact. One was located on the Hiwassee River and opened in 1804; the other opened in 1806 at Sale Creek. He was a staunch ally of Chief Doublehead. Troxell’s manuscript states that Blackburn closed his school in grief after learning of the Yahoo Falls Massacre, and that he was later caught with a boatload of alcohol and became an alcoholic. However, it was in 1809 — before the purported massacre at Yahoo Falls — that the Creek Indians implicated Blackburn and others in a scheme to illegally ship whiskey through Creek territory to Mobile, Ala. As a result of fallout over that scandal, he closed both schools in 1810 and moved his family to Middle Tennessee.

As for Hiram Gregory, he has been thoroughly vilified since the emergence of the Yahoo Falls Massacre narrative in Collins’ 1975 book. But every mention of Gregory as a murderer of Indians ties back to the single narrative of the Yahoo Falls Massacre.

In short, historians doubt that the Yahoo Falls Massacre ever occurred. There is no contemporary evidence — court documents, newspaper accounts, or military records — to back up the story, and its only documentation is a single 1975 book that references the Troxel manuscript. It’s doubtful that Corn Blossom, Standing Fern, or Chief Red Bird existed.

Nevertheless, the hike to Yahoo Falls is one of the true gems of McCreary County, and the scenery there is spectacular. If those massive sandstone walls behind the waterfall could talk, they could tell us the true story of what did or didn’t happen there in August 1810. Since they’re silent, all we can do is enjoy their beauty, and speculate.

Subscribe now

This week, we’ll make a short drive to the northern end of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, visiting the beautiful Yahoo Falls near Whitley City, Ky.

This is a shorter hike than either Angel Falls or Sunset Overlook, the first two hikes of the Spring Hiking Challenge, but it’s also the first hike to earn a difficulty rating of “moderate.” It’s not a strenuous hike, by any means, but it does feature some elevation change since it starts atop the plateau and dips into the gorge to the base of the waterfall. If you’re just getting started in hiking, don’t let that deter you. This is an absolutely beautiful hike, and Yahoo Falls is one of the most-visited landforms in McCreary County — for obvious reason!

Yahoo Falls
Trailhead: Yahoo Falls
Trail Type: Loop
Difficulty: Moderate
Payoff: Views, Waterfall
Distance: 1.42 miles
Ascent: 125 feet

The Yahoo Falls Loop is a short, well-maintained loop trail near Alum Ford in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, with the option to add on mileage by visiting the Yahoo Arch. To get there, take U.S. Highway 27 north to Whitley City. At the caution light on the north end of town, turn left onto Kentucky 700. After half a mile, stay straight across Kentucky 1651 to stay on Kentucky 700. Travel another 3.4 miles, then turn right onto Yahoo Falls Road. The road dead-ends at the trailhead in 1.5 miles.

The trail to Yahoo Falls is one of the most intricately built hiking trails in the entire Big South Fork NRRA.

368 ft.: There is a spur trail to the left. This leads to a beautiful overlook of the Big South Fork River downstream of Yahoo Creek. Take the short side trip to the overlook either now or on your way out. Either way, it’s a beautiful site that isn’t to be missed. The trail is a mix of hemlock and beech to start, with significant stands of rhododendron mixed in.

624 ft.: The trail splits, as the loop portion of the trail begins. You can hike it in either direction. For the purposes of this description, we’re going to hike it in a counter-clockwise direction. Take the right fork to hike counter-clockwise.

0.23 mile: The trail passes a major blowdown that was recently cleared by Big South Fork NRRA maintenance crews. The forest type continues to be a mix of hemlock and beech, with some oak and other hardwoods sprinkled in. Look closely and you’ll see painted dots at the base of the hemlock trees, indicating that they have been treated by BSF botanists for the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive pest that poses a serious risk to hemlock trees throughout the region.

0.28 mile: The trail splits. It isn’t signed, but take the left fork (down the hill).

0.33 mile: The trail reaches an overlook on the east side of Yahoo Creek. Just past it, there are copious stands of rhododendron.

0.40 mile: The trail crosses Yahoo Creek. There is no bridge, but conveniently-placed stones make crossing the small stream easy work.

0.46 mile: Notice how rhododendron and mountain laurel grow together along this section of the trail. These plants are cousins among the evergreen flowering shrubs that are found in the Big South Fork region, but they don’t often grow together. Laurel is usually found in well-drained soils atop the ridges, usually near the rim of the gorge, while rhododendron is found in more shaded and damper areas beneath the cliff lines, inside the gorge. This section of the trail features characteristics of both the plateau top and the gorge areas, allowing both plants to grow together. They’re distinguishable by the rhododendron’s larger leaves.

0.55 mile: The trail splits. The right fork goes to Yahoo Arch, a short trip well worth the additional effort if you choose to do so. The loop trail continues along the left fork.

0.59 mile: Check out the dirt dauber nest beneath the rock along the right side of the trail, sheltered from the weather. The dirt dauber, also called mud wasp, is a species of wasp that build nests out of mud. Nests like these are built by organ pipe mud daubers (so called because the nests resemble organ pipes). The organ pipe mud dauber is native to eastern North America, including both the eastern U.S. and southeastern Canada. Dirt daubers feed primarily on spiders. They are not aggressive and will not sting unless threatened.

0.63 mile: The trail has reached the base of the bluff line, and travels beneath the bluff line. Feel the cooler air, as the dark crevices in the rock have an air-conditioning effect on mother nature!

0.76 mile: The trail reaches Yahoo Falls. At 113 feet, Yahoo Falls it the tallest waterfall in the state of Kentucky — yes, even taller than Cumberland Falls, though the volume of water is obviously much less. Like many waterfalls in the Big South Fork NRRA, the flow of Yahoo Falls depends heavily on recent rainfall. The waterfall is not as spectacular during dry weather. However, the huge rock shelter that lies behind it is always spectacular, and certainly worth the hike in. The trail itself makes a sweeping pass through the rock shelter behind the waterfall.

0.98 mile: A side trail leads to Yahoo Creek and a wooden footbridge, offering a different perspective of the waterfall and excellent photo opportunities.

1.11 mile: The trail begins its ascent toward the top of the gorge.

1.14 mile: The trail reaches the base of the steep staircase. This is the only part of the hike that isn’t easy, and it is what earns this trail a moderate difficulty rating. If you’re not accustomed to hiking, take your time and enjoy the views of the Big South Fork River off to the right as you climb (views that will disappear once the trees have leafed out).

1.2 mile: The trail reaches the top of the plateau. From here, simply continue back to the trailhead. If you didn’t stop by the river overlook on the way in, be sure to do so on the way out. It’s a very short side trip to an excellent vantage point.

Worth noting: There’s another overlook of the river at the trailhead, just around the bend in the road from the restroom facilities.

Scavenger Hunt: This week, we’re looking for a unique hollow tree. Somewhere along the trail, there is a huge beech tree with an open crevice at its base that is almost large enough for a small child to climb inside. Snap a photo of this tree and tag it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media. We’ll randomly select someone for a free set of Ozark Trail trekking poles.

Historical Context: The huge rock house behind Yahoo Falls is historically associated with a massacre of Cherokee Indians that allegedly occurred on Aug. 10, 1810. A number of Cherokee women and children were supposedly massacred by white settlers as they met in the rock shelter to travel to a Presbyterian school that was being opened by Rev. Gideon Blackburn near Chattanooga. They were led by Princess Corn Blossom, daughter of Cherokee war chief Doublehead and husband of Jacob “Big Jake” Troxell.

Allegedly, a group of soldiers sent by Indian hunter John Sevier of Tennessee, and under the command of Hiram “Big Tooth” Gregory, murdered the Cherokee women and children beneath Yahoo Falls.

However, historians doubt the legitimacy of the story. The account of the massacre comes from an unpublished manuscript written by Dan Troxell in the 1990s. Corn Blossom appears to have originated in a 1958 book by Thomas H. Troxel entitled Legion of the Lost Mine. In his foreword, Troxel noted that some of the characters in his book were fictitious, though he didn’t specify which. There are no contemporary records that document the Yahoo Falls Massacre or a Princess Corn Blossom.

The grave site of Big Jake Troxell (1758-1810) can be seen at the turn onto Yahoo Falls Road, 1.5 miles from the trailhead. He was a Revolutionary War soldier in the Pennsylvania militia who later lived with the Cherokee. A monument to the victims of the Yahoo Falls Massacre was placed here in the early 2000s, but was removed by the National Forest Service. (Jake Troxell is not believed to have actually been buried at this place. It is believed by many that he was actually buried at Otter Creek in an unmarked grave.)

Make It Better: Hiking to Yahoo Arch adds about 1.6 miles (0.8 mile in each direction) and it’s a fairly easy hike to a spectacular rock feature.

Be Careful For: The overlooks above Yahoo Falls are protected, but be cautious with small children, as they can easily climb over or around the short fencing.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

Huntsville, Tennessee – August 11, 1925

The first bullet didn’t make a sound.

It was the second one that echoed – the crack of it bouncing off the stone walls of the Scott County Jail, rolling past the courthouse like thunder on a dry summer day.

Sheriff Richard D. Ellis collapsed in front of the iron door, the keys still in his hand. Blood pooled beneath him on the courthouse steps. The prisoner beside him – George Foster, accused moonshiner – stood frozen, his eyes wide.

No one saw the shooter.

But everyone knew why Sheriff Ellis was dead.

In Scott County, Tennessee, during Prohibition, fighting moonshiners was about as safe as walking barefoot through a copperhead den. And Richard Ellis had made himself a target the moment he took the oath.

***

When R.D. Ellis ran for sheriff in 1920, he didn’t sugarcoat anything.

He was a Baptist preacher, just like his father before him. The kind who quoted scripture with his eyes locked on yours and didn’t flinch when he talked about hellfire. The kind who commanded a room just by standing in it. And he had one promise for Scott County: he was going to clean up the whiskey trade.

But Scott County didn’t just have moonshiners in the 1920s. It had generations of them. They were born into it, raised on it, fed on the fumes of copper kettles hidden deep in the hollers – places like No Business and Smokey Creek and dozens of dense, wild ridges where the law couldn’t reach even if it wanted to.

They called it a way of life.

He called it a sin.

And in 1920, sin was winning.

The hills were alive with the hiss of mash cooking and the sound of boot soles on wet leaves. The law could barely keep up. The National Park Service would later discover over a hundred and sixty still sites in the Big South Fork alone. If that number carried across the county, there were hundreds more.

Ellis didn’t care about the odds. He strapped on a badge, picked his deputies, and went to work.

But this war wasn’t fought with trumpets.

It was fought with guns.

***

On January 31, 1924, Sheriff Ellis’s crusade turned bloody.

He and his deputies were raiding a still just west of Oneida when they walked into an ambush. Gunfire erupted from the trees. Deputy Johnny Acres – the police chief in Oneida and Ellis’s closest ally – was shot through the chest. He dropped without a word, dead before he hit the ground.

Acres had just turned thirty-seven.

No one was ever charged.

When they buried John Acres that cold winter day at Marcum Cemetery, on a knoll overlooking the small town where he’d served as chief of police, Sheriff Ellis stood over the grave with his hat in his hand and his jaw clenched tight. He looked like a man who’d stared into something dark and found it staring back.

But Ellis didn’t flinch.

If anything, he dug in deeper.

That fall, Ellis teamed up with federal revenuers – men who’d made moonshine busts from Kentucky to Alabama. They carried rifles, not warrants. Among them was Col. Bob Smith, a grizzled agent out of Clinton who claimed he could sniff out a still just from the wind.

On November 6, 1924, they set their sights on Huntsville.

The target: Jerry Filmore Sexton, a young father with five small children, a reputation for a quick temper, and a still behind his home. Smith warned Ellis that Sexton might be trouble.

Ellis didn’t hesitate.

The raid turned into a bloodbath.

Gunfire erupted before the agents ever reached the still. Smith would later say he’d never heard shooting like it – not in the war, not in the backwoods, not anywhere. Bullets tore through brush and bark.

Sexton’s wife, Gertrude, was reportedly beside him the entire time, feeding cartridges into his rifle as fast as he could fire. A member of her family was shot and killed. Lee West was hit nine times but survived. Another man, Howard Griffith, was wounded.

Sexton himself was killed with a single round to the forehead.

The rest of the gang fled.

The hills went quiet again.

But they remembered.

And they waited.

***

August 11, 1925. A Tuesday. Bright sky overhead, not a cloud in sight.

Col. Bob Smith was back in town with a prisoner: George Foster, just another moonshiner picked up near Winona. Smith needed a place to hold him. Sheriff Ellis said he’d take him.

They met outside the jail. Ellis took custody of the prisoner, and they turned toward the door.

Then came the shot.

The preacher-turned-sheriff stumbled and fell. He was dead before Smith could turn around.

Foster didn’t run. He just stood there.

When the Knoxville News Sentinel asked Smith what happened, he just shrugged.

“Killing folks up in Scott County is just sort of a mountain pastime,” he said.

The newspaper didn’t hold back its coverage.

“The fellows up there get their biggest thrill out of killing officers,” it reported.

Maybe it was hyperbole. Maybe it wasn’t. But the facts were the facts.

In nineteen months, Scott County had lost its sheriff and its chief of police, both murdered in cold blood. Both killed while enforcing laws that a good chunk of the county didn’t give a damn about.

And there would be more.

Just over a year later, another officer – John Wesley West – would be gunned down.

Three lawmen in two years. No justice.

***

The hunt for Ellis’s killer began that same afternoon. They brought bloodhounds in from Dayton. The dogs picked up a scent and followed it across the wooded hills, through brush and briar, all the way to the edge of Paint Rock.

Then the trail went cold.

The case was never solved.

The bootleggers kept working the hills for a while longer, but the war eventually ended – not because anyone won, but because everyone got tired. Prohibition ended in 1933, and with it went most of the killing. The law turned its attention to other things. The hills got quieter.

But the questions never stopped.

Who pulled the trigger that morning in front of the jail? Was it revenge for the Sexton raid? A hired gun paid in corn liquor and resentment? Or just someone with a grudge and a rifle, waiting for the right moment?

The answers went to the grave with the men who were there – Ellis, Acres, Sexton, and the others who fought on the front lines of a war nobody really won.

The rest of the county moved on, because that’s what people do. They have to.

But some things don’t leave. Memory sticks around like the smell of sour mash in damp timber. History doesn’t really get buried. It just sits there under the surface, waiting.

Editor’s Note: This is the eighth installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

Traditionally, the Angel Falls Rapid trail is where hiking in the Big South Fork River & Recreation Area begins. It isn’t considered the most awe-inspiring trail in the national park — that distinction usually goes to Honey Creek Loop. But its close proximity to park headquarters and Oneida, and its ease of difficulty, make it a logical first option for visitors to the national park to put boots on the ground.

However, don’t let “easy” fool you into thinking Angel Falls isn’t worth trekking. This is a beautiful trail, with lots of redeeming qualities. We chose it for Week #2 in part because of its accessibility, in part because of its ease of difficulty, and in part because this trail doesn’t deserve to be left out simply because we started the Spring Hiking Challenge with the nearby Sunset Overlook Trail. And there are many nuances to this trail that are overlooked by those who simply park and set out to hike. So, are you ready? Let’s hike!

Angel Falls Rapid
Trailhead: Leatherwood Ford
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Difficulty: Easy
Payoff: Views, Waterfalls
Distance: 3.53 miles
Ascent: 51 feet

As you notice in the trail stats, Angel Falls is approximately one mile longer than the Sunset Overlook Trail. But also notice that there is slightly less elevation gain spread out over that distance. What does that mean? In some regards, Angel Falls is an even easier hike than Sunset Overlook, despite the longer distance. Hiking from the observation platform to the river’s edge adds some elevation gain that isn’t included in these stats, but it’s certainly worth the effort to see the house-sized boulders around the rapid.

To get there, take S.R. 297 (Coopertown Road) west from Oneida. Turn left onto Leatherwood Road (continuing on S.R. 297) at Terry & Terry Store, and drive into the river gorge. At the bottom of the gorge, turn into the Leatherwood Ford parking lot. Immediately turn left again and drive to the north end of the parking lot (the end opposite the gazebo and restroom facilities). The trail begins at the north end of the lot.

As you hike, note the signposts along the route. At one time, this was an interpretive trail, with an accompanying booklet available from the visitor center at Bandy Creek. Each of the numbered signposts corresponded with a site of interest along the route that was described in the booklet. There are 30 signposts between Leatherwood Ford and Angel Falls.

50 ft.: Almost immediately after you step off the asphalt and onto dirt, you’ll notice a camping spot along the river. This sandy beach-like area is both a popular swimming hole for day users and also a “backcountry” camping spot. You’ll also notice two other things almost immediately: rhododendron and trillium. We talked in last week’s hike about the difference between mountain laurel and rhododendron, the two flowering evergreen shrubs that are found in abundance in the BSF. Mountain laurel is found on top of the gorge (along Sunset Overlook Trail and many others), while rhododendron is found inside the gorge — on this trail and many others. As for trillium, it is one of the most celebrated spring wildflowers found in the Big South Fork, and all of the trails that depart from the Leatherwood Ford trailhead are great options to find them. Hundreds — if not thousands — of individual trillium can be found around the start of the Angel Falls Trail.

0.16 mile: A waterfall threads its way through jumbled rocks on the right side of the trail, the first of several side streams that feed into the Big South Fork River along this route. There was once a footbridge across this stream, but it’s no longer in place. No worries, though; you won’t get your feet wet.

0.25: You’ll pass the first whitewater rapid along this stretch of the river. This is a gentle Class I/II rapid that poses little trouble for whitewater paddlers. In fact, whitewater enthusiasts don’t usually venture this far downriver. The roaring river becomes much calmer downstream from O&W Bridge, and much calmer still downstream from Angel Falls. But there are several small rapids between Leatherwood Ford and Angel Falls.

0.4: Early spring, before the green-up, is one of the best times to hike Angel Falls because you are afforded spectacular views of the cliff lines that tower over the river — views that disappear once the trees have leafed out. Here, you’ll get your first look at one of those cliff lines, and it is an excellent photo opportunity if you want to scramble down to the river’s edge.

0.47: A small landslide area has exposed tiny bits of coal along the trail. You can also find coal in lesser amounts along much of the rest of the trail if you keep your eyes peeled. Coal was never mined as prolifically in the Big South Fork region as in the Cumberland Mountains to the east, but mining was a key industry here beginning around the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. We’ll talk much more about the history of coal as we venture further into this hike.

0.5: Another backcountry campsite is found along the river’s edge.

0.59: A large beech tree on the left side of the trail bears the carved initials of some hikers who have made this hike. Beech trees are hard to resist for anyone with a pocket knife and a desire to leave a record of their presence, thanks to their smooth bark. But as we said last week, please obey the Leave No Trace ethic and resist the urge!

0.73: You can find hemlock trees all along this trail, none bigger than the one you’re seeing here. The hemlocks found in this region are eastern hemlocks, which are primarily found in the New England and Great Lakes regions but also extend southward throughout the Appalachians. They’re currently threatened by the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive pest that weakens and eventually kills the trees. Look closely, and you’ll spot painted “dots” on the hemlocks along the trail. These are the signs of National Park Service botanists treating the trees to protect them from the pest infestation.

0.78: The trail crosses a wooden footbridge. This stream is Anderson Branch. You can’t really see it now, but uphill to the right is the reclaimed Anderson Branch strip mine, one of the most prolific strip mines in this part of the Big South Fork region. Coal was found in abundance around Anderson Branch … in fact, shortly after the construction of the O&W Railroad a couple of miles upstream, grade work began on a spur down the river to Leatherwood Ford and on to Anderson Branch. However, the idea was quickly abandoned.

0.89: Check out the massive boulder between the trail and the river. Sometimes, these boulders were exposed by erosion due to the moving water. Other times, they broke loose from the caprock nearly 500 feet above and tumbled down to the bottom of the gorge. Just beyond this boulder is one of several blowdowns from this past winter that you’ll find along the trail. The forces of nature constantly keep maintenance crews busy in the Big South Fork, and this past winter was particularly rough. Literally hundreds of mature hardwood trees along this two-mile stretch were toppled by winds.

1.1: You’ll get your first look at Angel Falls Overlook, the massive rock outcropping that juts out over the river at the mouth of Anderson Branch. It’s a welcome sight, because it means that the destination is getting close.

1.22: Water cascades through rocks on the right side of the trail.

1.31: Notice the cobble bar on the left side of the river. Also known as “scour praries,” cobble bars are an important part of Big South Fork ecology. There are only about 500 acres of cobble bar habitat remaining worldwide, thanks to dams and other human activity. They require free-flowing rivers where heavy rainfall drastically changes water levels. One of the best examples of a Big South Fork cobble bar is found just upstream of Leatherwood Ford, near the mouth of Bandy Creek. These rock prairies contain several native plant species that are not found anywhere else — like prairie grasses and flowering herbs. Without the floods that “scour out” the species that aren’t adapted to these conditions, these plants would not be able to thrive here. The cobble bars don’t look like much this time of year, other than a bunch of rocks, but later this summer they’ll be teeming with life.

1.4: Various wildflowers — including trillium — can be found in abundance along the trail.

1.51: The stream that you see emptying into the left side of the river is Fall Branch. It drains the area of Bandy Creek Campground and other parts of Bandy Creek on the east side of Bandy Creek Road, and is the largest tributary of the Big South Fork between Leatherwood Ford and Station Camp.

1.67: Here, we get our first look at Angel Falls. Some first-time visitors to the Big South Fork who hike this trail expecting to find a true “waterfall” are disappointed to discover that Angel Falls is only a rapid, but it’s a mighty impressive rapid, a Class IV surge of water that is a recommended portage for even experienced paddlers.

1.72: We’ve talked about the coal that was mined along this stretch of river. How about the coal that was not mined. Here, note the small seam of coal that is exposed along the right side of the trail. It is fascinating to note how firmly it is embedded between layers of rock, which illustrates why mining it was so dangerous.

1.79: We’ve reached the observation platform for Angel Falls. Below is the powerful Angel Falls Rapid. Above is the rock outcropping that is Angel Falls Overlook. They’re impressive sites all around.

It is tempting to end your hike at the observation platform, and if you’re a newcomer to hiking who’s still getting acclimated to the activity and you don’t feel up to a jaunt down to the river’s edge, that’s understandable. However, the most impressive sights of this hike, by far, are found along the edge of the river, where huge boulders — some as large as small houses — are strewn about the stream bed while jagged cliff lines tower overhead.

Scavenger Hunt: This week, we’re looking for coal! You can find it in small chunks along the trail, in small chunks smoothed by water along the river, and also in a seam still embedded in the earth near the observation platform. Take a photo of yourself with the seam of coal or, even better, find a handful of isolated chunks along the river or the trail. (But obey the Leave No Trace ethic and don’t take it with you!) This week, we’ll be giving away a wooden hiking stick affixed with a Big South Fork badge to someone who finds coal along the Angel Falls Rapid Trail. Take a photo and tag it #SpringHikingChallenge on social media.

Historical Context: Angel Falls may not be much of a waterfall today, but up until the 1950s it was very much a waterfall, a split flow that dropped about 10 feet. It was dynamited by fishermen who thought it would improve canoe travel along the river … and maybe it did, but it also created the dangerous (for canoes, at least) Angel Falls Rapid. (The left photo is what Angel Falls looked like in the 1910s.)

Make It Better: The picnic tables at the Leatherwood Ford Trailhead make an excellent, shaded spot for lunch before or after your hike. You can also continue your hike from Angel Falls to the John Hawk Smith Place, a distance of about 1.3 miles (one way). There isn’t much to see at the Hawk Smith Place today, aside from a small cemetery, and the trail is shared-use with horses much of the way. But Hawk Smith was one of the most colorful and notable people to live along the river during the Big South Fork’s settlement era.

Be Careful For: If you venture down to the river’s edge and “rock hop” on the boulders, be careful, especially with small children. A slip onto the rough boulders can result in injury. A slip into the water can result in death.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also, remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be leashed and kept within six feet.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

For Your GPS: Here is a GPX file of the Angel Falls Rapid Trail that you can load into any GPS app or device.

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

Murders in the Heartland: Vengeance against the sheriff

There is a particular kind of man the mountains make – not invincible, exactly, but durable in a way that baffles the men who keep trying to break him. Frank Hughett was that kind of man. He was shot. Poisoned. Shot again. Men from the hills of Scott County spent the better part of a year trying to kill him before they finally got it right, and even then, it took an ambush on a Sunday morning, with his wife and two-year-old baby nearby, to bring him down.

He was fifty-nine years old, sweeping the front steps of a railroad commissary, when the bullet found him.

He was dead in ten minutes.

But the story was hardly that simple.

***

To understand Frank Hughett, you have to understand the country that made him. Scott County in the late nineteenth century was a place where the law wore a face and rode a horse and could be found at specific addresses – which meant it could also be targeted, ambushed, and settled with. The office of high sheriff wasn’t an abstraction. It was a man. And if you had business with the law, you had business with the man specifically.

And folks in the mountains had ways of settling accounts that were not always through the courts.

Frank Hughett was born in March 1851, the son of John Hughett and Christena Lewallen, out of Robbins and the Brimstone Creek country. His father was a justice of the peace – Squire Hughett, folks called him – and the Hughett name was embedded in the landscape the way old names get embedded out there, in the creek hollows and ridge lines and the small places on maps that only locals can find. There was a Hughett post office, near where Huntsville Branch empties into Brimstone Creek, run by his brother, Jasper, who would later help build the bank and the high school down in Robbins.

There were a total of ten children in the Hughett family. Christena died in her forties and was buried at the family cemetery on Brimstone. Squire Hughett lived out his years with Christena’s sister, Lucinda – a woman who could not marry again without forfeiting the monthly pension from her first husband, Capt. William Robbins, who had helped raise the Scott County Home Guard during the Civil War, had his home attacked in what became known as the Battle of Brimstone, and died of typhoid fever in Lexington, Kentucky, far from the mountains he’d set out to defend.

Frank married Amanda – one of William and Lucinda’s daughters – and they had six children together. When Amanda died around 1891, Frank remarried to Abigail Cecil. Then he married a third time, to Rhoda Shoopman, and they had a child together in 1908, when Frank was in his late fifties. There is something quietly remarkable about that detail – a man pushing sixty, starting again, a new baby in the house – and it makes what happened two years later land with even heavier weight.

***

He was first elected Scott County’s ninth sheriff in 1888, succeeding Beaty Cecil of New River. He was reelected in 1890 and 1892, served out his three terms, and stepped aside as the law required. He left the job to John Goad, who had his own difficult tenure – tasked eventually with hanging a convicted murderer named Mike King, a duty that bothered Goad so profoundly that he refused to run for sheriff again. He ran for county trustee instead. Some burdens you carry out of office and try not to look at directly.

Hughett came back in 1896. He ran again and won again, becoming the first man in Scott County history to serve the office on two separate occasions. Whatever it was the work did to him, whatever weight it added to those years of riding out to hard places and standing between the law and people who didn’t want the law standing anywhere near them – it didn’t appear to drive him out. He served until 1900, and then went on living in the county he’d spent years policing.

Then, in the winter of 1910, Frank Hughett was part of a posse.

The man they were after was Riley Lowe, wanted on a larceny charge. He was accused of stealing a moonshine still, which sounds almost quaint until you understand that in Scott County in 1910, a man’s still was his livelihood, and stealing one was serious business, and the men who ran them were not the kind to accept the loss quietly. The posse found Riley Lowe. Frank Hughett killed him.

From that moment on, Hughett was a marked man. Riley’s family had their own accounting to do.

***

June 1910. Oneida. Someone shot Frank Hughett in the street.

The shooter apparently believed he’d finished the job, because when Hughett fell, the man turned and fled. This was his mistake. Hughett regained consciousness – came back up out of whatever dark place the bullet had sent him toward – and gave chase. Wounded, bleeding, fifty-nine years old, he went after the man who had just shot him.

No one was ever apprehended.

Days later, someone poisoned his whiskey.

The Knoxville Sentinel reported that Hughett “suffered much” from the poisoning, which is the newspaper’s restrained way of saying that a man survived being shot and then survived being poisoned in the same month, which should perhaps be classified as something beyond ordinary human endurance. The paper also noted that Hughett “is a man of great bravery and refuses to move away.”

Refused to move away.

That was the essential thing about Frank Hughett. The mountains were trying to kill him – methodically, patiently, working through the available methods – and he would not leave. Whether that was courage or stubbornness or some combination of the two that becomes indistinguishable after enough years in hard country, he stayed. He took a job as a foreman on the railroad at Cook’s Camp on Smokey Creek. He brought his wife and two-year-old child and went to work.

And on Sunday morning, September 19, 1910, at around eight o’clock, he was sweeping the steps in front of the commissary when someone fired from a cluster of bushes on the mountainside above the camp.

Two shots. Under his right arm.

He was dead in ten minutes.

***

Another person in the camp saw a man run from the bushes after the shots. Bloodhounds were brought in from Somerset, Kentucky, and they followed the track with the patient, unhurried certainty that bloodhounds have – noses to the earth, reading the story the ground was telling – until the trail led to arrests. Five men: Joe Lowe, Nelson Lowe, Shack Lowe, John Bunch, and Jeff Bunch. The Lowe name was right there in the middle of it, as Hughett might have known it would be. Riley Lowe’s brother and kin, settling the account that had been opened in the winter.

A newspaper called it “cold-blooded murder in a railroad camp.” That phrasing has the flat declarative quality of a verdict – not quite outrage, not quite grief, just the mountain chronicle doing what it does, setting the facts down in ink so it doesn’t get lost in the hills.

Frank Hughett was buried at Robbins Cemetery back in the community where he was born.

***

Twenty years later, in June 1930, his son Reuben went the same way.

Reuben Lafayette Hughett was forty-three years old, a deputy U.S. Marshal, working a warrant down in Knoxville at Copper Ridge. The suspect was Harrison Welch, charged with selling liquor. When Welch was arrested, he asked for a moment to tell his wife. Reuben Hughett, his father’s son in the way that runs bone-deep in some families, agreed. He followed Welch into the house.

The two men tussled, and Reuben was shot.

They buried Reuben Hughett at Robbins Cemetery, too, beside his father. Two men. Two badges. Two ambushes. Both over whiskey. Twenty years of the same mountain arithmetic, patient and unresolved, the same lesson learned by the same family twice in the same generation, which is not a lesson at all but a weight – the kind that accumulates in county records and grave markers and the long silence of a place that has seen more than it can say.

***

There is an old story in Scott County about the men who went after Frank Hughett’s job. One of his predecessors, John Goad, hanged a convicted murderer and found he couldn’t put it down afterward, couldn’t stop seeing it, couldn’t keep carrying the thing the office required him to carry. So he found a different job.

Frank Hughett did not find a different job. He stayed. He came back. He was shot and he gave chase. He was poisoned and he refused to leave. He brought his family to a railroad camp and swept the front steps on Sunday mornings and went on being exactly what he had always been – a man the mountains had made and could not seem to unmake.

Until they did.

It took an ambush. It took a cluster of bushes on a hillside and a Sunday morning and a man with a rifle who waited until Hughett wasn’t looking. It took every advantage the other side could arrange, and even then it was over in ten minutes, which feels like the last thing a man like that owed the mountains that raised him.

Ten minutes.

The bloodhounds followed the track. The arrests were made. And the Robbins Cemetery received another Hughett, and the hills went on keeping their counsel, and the creek moved through the hollow where the old post office used to be, and the November light came down thin and cold, and the county went on writing itself, one violent chapter at a time, in the only language it had ever really known.

Editor’s Note: This is the seventh installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

The Spring Hiking Challenge begins!

The 2026 Spring Hiking Challenge begins this week — the first official week of spring — with a short, easy stroll to Sunset Overlook.

In making this hike, we’re returning to the site of the inaugural Twenty Week Hiking Challenge back in March 2015, when more than 700 hikers joined us on Week 1 for the hike to Sunset.

We chose the hike to Sunset Overlook because we want to start slow and easy for novice hikers who aren’t experienced in the woods. Sunset Overlook is one of the easiest trails the Big South Fork has to offer — subjectively, it’s second only to the Bandy Creek Loop. Angel Falls Trail is an easier walk, but further distance (about four miles).

The purpose of the Spring Hiking Challenge is to encourage local residents to explore the Big South Fork and discover the beautiful places that exist in our back yard — places that some people who have lived in this area their entire lives have never seen before. In the process, we hope participants will discover that hiking is an excellent health tool, not just for physical fitness but maybe even more so for mental fitness.

Over the next 14 weeks (ending the final week before summer officially begins in June), we’ll hike 14 trails throughout the Big South Fork. We’ll avoid horse trails, which are generally more difficult to walk, and stick solely to hiking trails. Each trail will feature at least one of overlooks, rock formations, or waterfalls, along with other points of interest. Each trail will include a “Make It Better” option for hikers that want to add some mileage to their effort. Each will also include a virtual scavenger hunt — requiring hikers to pay close attention to their surroundings to find a point of interest along the trail — with a prize randomly awarded to someone who finds and documents the site we’re looking for.

Hikers will document their participation by sharing photos of their hike on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge — or, if they do not have social media, photos can be emailed to newsroom@ihoneida.com. At the end of the challenge, we’ll award a grand prize to two people — one adult, one youth, randomly chosen — who complete all 14 hikes. We’ll also award a prize for the best photograph that’s taken throughout the challenge. Those prizes, as well as the weekly prizes, will be announced in our hike stories and on our Facebook page.

Each week, the hike will be announced, along with full details about it, on our website — www.indherald.com— by Thursday.

So, with all that said, let’s get started!

Click here to continue reading this week’s full trail description!

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)

Subscribe now

The 2026 Spring Hiking Challenge begins this week — the first official week of spring — with a short, easy stroll to Sunset Overlook.

In making this hike, we’re returning to the site of the inaugural Twenty Week Hiking Challenge back in March 2015, when more than 700 hikers joined us on Week 1 for the hike to Sunset.

We chose the hike to Sunset Overlook because we want to start slow and easy for novice hikers who aren’t experienced in the woods. Sunset Overlook is one of the easiest trails the Big South Fork has to offer — subjectively, it’s second only to the Bandy Creek Loop. Angel Falls Trail is an easier walk, but further distance (about four miles).

The purpose of the Spring Hiking Challenge is to encourage local residents to explore the Big South Fork and discover the beautiful places that exist in our back yard — places that some people who have lived in this area their entire lives have never seen before. In the process, we hope participants will discover that hiking is an excellent health tool, not just for physical fitness but maybe even more so for mental fitness.

Over the next 14 weeks (ending the final week before summer officially begins in June), we’ll hike 14 trails throughout the Big South Fork. We’ll avoid horse trails, which are generally more difficult to walk, and stick solely to hiking trails. Each trail will feature at least one of overlooks, rock formations, or waterfalls, along with other points of interest. Each trail will include a “Make It Better” option for hikers that want to add some mileage to their effort. Each will also include a virtual scavenger hunt — requiring hikers to pay close attention to their surroundings to find a point of interest along the trail — with a prize randomly awarded to someone who finds and documents the site we’re looking for.

Hikers will document their participation by sharing photos of their hike on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge — or, if they do not have social media, photos can be emailed to newsroom@ihoneida.com. At the end of the challenge, we’ll award a grand prize to two people — one adult, one youth, randomly chosen — who complete all 14 hikes. We’ll also award a prize for the best photograph that’s taken throughout the challenge. Those prizes, as well as the weekly prizes, will be announced in our hike stories and on our Facebook page.

Each week, the hike will be announced, along with full details about it, on our website — www.indherald.com— by Thursday.

So, with all that said, let’s get started!

Sunset Overlook
Trailhead: East Rim
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Difficulty: Easy
Payoff: Overlook
Distance: 2.51 miles
Ascent: 53 feet

Sunset Overlook is one of the most popular hiking trails in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, and also one of the easiest. It is a 2.51-mile, out-and-back hike that is almost completely level, except for a slight bit of elevation change near the overlook.

The hike begins and ends at East Rim Trailhead, which is located on East Rim Overlook Road near the Big South Fork headquarters west of Oneida. The destination is a rock outcropping that overlooks the Big South Fork River approximately one mile upstream from Leatherwood Ford. The East Rim Trailhead is a paved parking area on the right side of East Rim Overlook Road, just a few hundred feet from the turn off S.R. 297. The trail begins on the left side of East Rim Overlook Road (across the road from the parking area).

Mile 0.14: The hiking trail crosses a single-lane, gravel administrative access road. The road accesses a shooting range for law enforcement training purposes. Note the sign where the hiking trail crosses the road indicating that only authorized personnel are permitted on the road beyond the hiking trail.

0.15: Almost as soon as the hiking trail re-enters the forest on the north side of the administrative access road, there’s a small pond on the left. This area was farmland before the Big South Fork NRRA was established, and this is the smallest of four farm ponds that are located in the area. It has been mostly filled with sediment over the years, but hosts a healthy stand of cattails and other aquatic plant life, along with amphibians like frogs and salamanders.

0.25: A building can be spotted through the trees to the left. This is part of the National Park Service’s Resource Management division. Specifically, it houses the NPS’s firefighting cache. Also notice the small hemlocks that are growing in abundance here. Although the Sunset Overlook Trail stays entirely on top of the plateau, it features several of the forest types that can be found within the boundaries of the Big South Fork NRRA. This is the head of a small, unnamed stream that eventually empties into the Big South Fork River, and hemlocks can be found in abundance around most streams in the BSF, both inside and outside the gorge. The hemlock is a threatened tree species, due to the hemlock woolly adelgid infestation. NPS botanists are using chemicals to mitigate the damage.

0.27: The trail crosses the first of two wooden footbridges, and mature hemlocks stand sentry over the bridge.

0.40: The trail crosses the earthen dam of the second of the aforementioned farm ponds that remain from the days of settlement in this area. This is the largest of the four ponds found in the vicinity of the park headquarters and is also a source of an abundance of aquatic plant and animal life.

0.47: As the trail re-enters the forest on the east side of the pond, the forest type has changed. Holly trees are now found in abundance along the trail. There are several species of evergreens that provide color along this trail before the deciduous trees have gained their leaves for the warm season. First were the hemlocks along the small stream; now are the holly trees.

0.55: Another evergreen begins to pop up in abundance along the trail: white pines. These young white pines grow in significant numbers along the ridge on the left side of the trail, spilling down the hillside to the trail itself. If you look to the ridgetop on your left, you’ll see the mature, parent white pines growing tall over the surrounding forest.

0.70: The Sunset Overlook Trail joins an old road trace, which it will follow most of the rest of the way to the overlook. This road once joined the main road, which is today S.R. 297. This road — and others like it that you’ll see joining this old road trace further along the route — were made during mid 20^th century logging operations.

0.90: This is the easiest part of the hike — a great opportunity to slow down and observe the forest that surrounds you. This forest is typical of the mixed hardwood forests found throughout the Big South Fork’s plateau areas: few old-growth oak or hickory trees due to the 20^th century logging operations, but lots of red maple, sugar maple, black gum, sourwood, black cherry, tulip poplar, American beech, and sassafras trees in various stages of growth.

0.99: Yet another type of evergreen comes into view. Mountain laurel is found in abundance along the trail for the first time. This is a sign that you’re getting close to the rim of the gorge. Laurel is typically found outside the gorge, in the shallow, well-drained soil near the edge of the plateau. Its cousin, rhododendron, is found in the more shaded and moist areas inside the gorge. We won’t see rhododendron on this hike, since we’re staying on top of the plateau.

1.08: Note the carved beech tree on the left side of the trail. Beech trees often attract people with a pocketknife or other chiseling instrument because their smooth bark makes it easy to carve messages into their trunks. In some parts of the BSF, carvings from the settlement days can be found in beech trees, though they’re usually illegible because the tree’s growth has distorted the carvings. The carvings on this particular beech tree are more recent, made by hikers. (Please note: carving initials into a beech tree is a violation of the Leave No Trace ethic and should not be attempted.)

1.21: The trail begins a slight descent to the overlook.

1.27: The trail emerges on the unprotected rock outcropping that provides scenic views of the river gorge. Just upstream, almost invisible through the trees, is a drainage on the west side of the river. This is the mouth of North White Oak Creek, the stream that was followed into Fentress County by the old O&W Railroad once it crossed the Big South Fork River. Downstream, the S.R. 297 bridge at Leatherwood Ford is visible. You will also see the observation platform at East Rim Overlook if you look hard enough. One item of interest that you’ll find at the overlook is the mysterious Chi Rho symbol that someone chiseled into the sandstone rock face long ago. The Chi Rho is one of the earliest Christian symbols, formed by superimposing the Greek letters Chi (X) and Rho (P) to represent Christ. This one is mysterious because no one is sure who chiseled it here, or why. However, it probably isn’t as old as you might think. Sandstone erodes quickly, and Big South Fork trail literature from the 1980s does not mention the symbol. Once you’ve enjoyed the views from the overlook, you’ll retrace your steps back to the trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: In accordance with the “Leave No Trace” ethic, our scavenger hunt will be virtual. Each week, we’ll ask participants to find a sight along the trail and snap a picture of it. This week, we’re looking for a tree along the trail that is bent into an unnatural stair step shape (growing vertical, then horizontal, then vertical again). During the era of Native Americans, the Indians would bend trees to mark trails, causing them to grow in shapes similar to this. However, most of the trees found in this shape in the Big South Fork today are far too young to have been caused by Native Americans. Instead, they’re usually caused because a tree was damaged by a storm or some other occurrence, and then continued to grow. This week, we’ll be giving away an Embrava 32-oz. sports water bottle — perfect for hiking — to one person who finds this tree. Take a photo and tag it #SpringHikingChallenge on social media.

Historical Context: Like much of the Big South Fork region, the ridge leading to Sunset Overlook was heavily logged during the early and mid 20^th century. The road trace that the trail follows is one of the remnants of the logging era here. Another is the deep depression that can be found on the left side of the trail at Mile 0.95. These were called “jack pits” or “loading pits.” Before hydraulic loaders and knuckleboom cranes became common in the 1960s and 1970s, loading heavy logs onto trucks was assisted by digging a pit that the truck would be backed into, lowering the bed of the truck to ground level. Workers would use hooks, chains, jacks or winches to roll the logs onto the truck.

Make It Better: There are several overlooks along this stretch of the Big South Fork River, and two of them are accessible from East Rim Trailhead. Once you’ve arrived back at your vehicle, it’s a short stroll to the second of these overlooks: Leatherwood Overlook. It is located along the Leatherwood Loop Trail. To reach it, follow the trail that departs the trailhead on the west side of the road, following it through the clearing and into the forest. When the trail reaches the Leatherwood Loop junction, take the left option and follow it to a spur trail at the rim of the gorge that leads a tenth of a mile from the main trail to the protected rock outcropping.

Be Careful For: Sunset Overlook is not protected. Use caution with pets and small children.

Please Remember: Hikers are encouraged to obey the “Leave No Trace” ethic. “Leave only footprints, take only memories.” Please do not litter! Also remember that while all trails in the Big South Fork are dog-friendly, all dogs must be always leashed on a leash that does not exceed six feet in length.

Document Your Hike: Record your participation on this week’s hike by taking a photo of you and your group and tagging it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media (make sure the post privacy is set to public!) or emailing newsroom@ihoneida.com.

Subscribe now

You’re reading Friday Features, a weekly newsletter containing the Independent Herald’s feature stories — that is, stories that aren’t necessarily straight news but that provide an insightful look at our community and its people. If you’d like to adjust your subscription to include (or exclude) any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t subscribed, please consider doing so!

Today’s newsletter is sponsored by First National Bank. Since 1904, First National Bank has been a part of Scott County. First National is local people — just like you. Visit fnboneida.com or call (423) 569-8586.

The death of the baseball star

Helenwood, Tennessee – July 5, 1906

Sam Parker stepped off the train into the afternoon heat and never saw it coming.

He’d been playing baseball in Oneida that Thursday – just a summer game with friends – and caught the Cincinnati-Southern back to Helenwood. He was twenty-six years old, a lawyer with a future, the kind of young man people pointed to as an example of what you could become if you worked hard and kept your head on straight.

Judge James E. Fulton was waiting on the platform with a double-barreled shotgun.

He fired both barrels into Parker’s stomach while his own teenage son watched.

Sam Parker – star athlete at the University of Tennessee, promising attorney, son of one of Scott County’s most powerful political families – died on the depot platform before the doctor from Somerset could even get there.

Fulton’s excuse was that Parker had seduced his wife.

Everyone denied it. Parker denied it with his dying breath. Fulton’s wife, who’d already left him by that point, denied it too.

Nobody believed him. But it didn’t matter. Sam Parker was still dead.

***

Samuel Young Parker was born into the kind of family that made things happen in Scott County.

His father, James Crawford Parker – J.C. to everyone who knew him – came from frontier stock down near Robbins and worked his way up to county judge and eventually state senator. He was Scott County’s first superintendent of schools. J.C.’s wife, Mary Burke Parker, ran the post office in Helenwood. They had nine children, and Sam was the one who stood out.

He was smart like his father. Studied like his father. But it was athletics where he really shined.

At the University of Tennessee, they called him “Judge” – partly because he was studying law, but mostly because of the way he carried himself. He played football, basketball, and baseball, and excelled at all three. The newspapers called him “the best all-around athlete” at UT. In 1904, he helped the football team beat Alabama for the first time, which started a rivalry that’s still going strong today. That same year, he made All-Southern as a fullback.

Parker was also the ace pitcher on the baseball team. Pro teams came calling, but he turned them down. He wanted to come home and practice law, to make a difference in his community.

He was twenty-six and just getting started when Judge Fulton killed him.

***

The shooting happened in broad daylight on the depot platform. No hiding, no sneaking around. Fulton just stood there and waited for Parker’s train to arrive, then raised the shotgun and pulled both triggers.

They sent a special train to Somerset to fetch a doctor, but there was no saving him.

Fulton surrendered to the authorities and was taken to Knoxville for a hearing. His defense was temporary insanity brought on by drink and cigarettes. He said he’d snapped. His lawyers brought in doctors who swore his mental state was unsound. Some people said they’d seen him tearing up money on the streets before the shooting, muttering to himself.

The prosecution didn’t buy it. A man named Church Pemberton – a respected citizen – testified that Fulton had waited calmly at the depot for over an hour before Parker’s train arrived. He wasn’t drunk or crazy. He knew exactly what he was doing.

J.C. Parker was devastated that Fulton had turned on his son. Fulton had been a family friend and had even boarded at the Parker home in Helenwood. Judge Parker sent three of his daughters to plead with Fulton’s attorney. The lawyer was so moved by their appeal that he dropped Fulton as a client and refused to represent him anymore.

The first trial ended with a hung jury. The second one stuck. Fulton was sentenced to ten years in prison.

He served ten months.

Governor Malcolm Rice Patterson commuted his sentence. The man who murdered Sam Parker in cold blood walked free.

***

Ten years later, in 1917, Judge James E. Fulton was the city attorney for Oneida.

When the town’s newspaper, the Scott County News, printed an editorial that angered him, he threatened to kill the editor, J.E. Bell. For two weeks, Fulton stalked Bell around town, making his intentions clear.

Finally, they met face to face in Judge W.H. Potter’s office.

This time, Bell was armed.

He pulled a derringer and shot Fulton in the spine. Fulton died in a Knoxville hospital a few days later – almost exactly eleven years after he’d killed Sam Parker.

Bell was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. The governor pardoned him almost immediately.

***

J.C. Parker never recovered from his son’s death.

He was already sick, already grieving the loss of his wife, Mary, and a teenaged son who’d died earlier. Sam’s murder was the final blow. He died three weeks after the shooting, broken-hearted.

Four members of the Parker family – J.C., Mary, Sam, and his nineteen-year-old brother, Burdette – are buried side-by-side at Helenwood Cut Cemetery.

The rest of the family scattered.

John, Sam’s younger brother, died in Kentucky in 1938 of heart disease. Luther went to Chicago and died there in 1936. Ella, one of the three daughters who’d pleaded with Fulton’s attorney, died of Spanish flu in 1918. Ida died in Kentucky in 1924, just before Thanksgiving. Belle made it to Memphis and died in 1954.

The Parker family, once among the most powerful in Scott County, was broken and scattered.

***

More than a century has passed since that July afternoon on the depot platform.

The depot is gone now. Helenwood barely remembers the Parkers or the man who killed their most promising son. But the story’s still there if you know where to look for it – in the cemetery at Helenwood Cut, or in old newspaper clippings.

Sam Parker was twenty-six years old. He’d just finished a baseball game. He stepped off a train and died before he hit the ground.

His killer served ten months and walked free.

That’s all there is to it. That’s the whole story.

Sometimes justice works the way it’s supposed to. Sometimes it doesn’t. In Scott County in 1906, it didn’t. And by the time Judge Fulton got what was coming to him eleven years later, the Parker family was already gone – scattered to Chicago and Kentucky and Memphis, or buried at the Helenwood Cut.

The mountains don’t forget. They never do.

They just keep standing there, watching families rise and fall, watching men kill each other over things that don’t matter, watching the trains come and go from depots that eventually get torn down and replaced with nothing.

That’s the way it seemed to go in these hills as the 1800s rolled into the 1900s. Maybe it always has been.

Editor’s Note: This is the sixth installment of Murders in the Heartland, the IH’s reimagined series covering particularly noteworthy murders that have been committed in Scott County through the years. In many instances, descendants of both the victims and the perpetrators still live in our community. The intent is not to reopen old wounds or to cast judgment, but to document past events that have an indelible impact on our community’s history. At the conclusion of the series, our book by the same name will be republished in a second, revised edition.

Thank you for reading. Our next newsletter will be The Daybreaker bright and early Monday morning. If you’d like to update your subscription to add or subtract any of our newsletters, do so here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, it’s as simple as adding your email address!

◼️ About the IH • IH Sports Network • The Encyclopedia of Scott County
◼️ Subscribe • Sponsor • Manage Your Account
◼️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, YouTube

Our Newsletters:
• Monday morning: The Daybreaker (news & the week ahead)
• Tuesday: Echoes from the Past (stories of our history)
• Wednesday: Threads of Life (obituaries)
• Thursday evening: The Weekender (news & the weekend)
• Friday: Friday Features (beyond the news)
• Sunday: Varsity (a weekly sports recap)