Kentucky's Famous Feuds and Tragedies: Authentic History of the World Renowned Vendettas of the Dark and Bloody GroundMutzenberg, Charles Gustavus
History
Kentucky's Famous Feuds and Tragedies: Authentic History of the World Renowned Vendettas of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Mutzenberg, Charles Gustavus
Crime -- Kentucky; Vendetta -- Kentucky
Morehead, in fact the county, was now in a state of anarchy. The
matter was reported to the Governor, who immediately ordered General
John B. Castleman, then Adjutant General of Kentucky, to Morehead
to investigate conditions there and to discover the causes of this
shameful lawlessness. General Castleman, in company with others, went
to Morehead and interviewed the adherents of the different factions
and leading citizens of the county. This commission, on completing its
mission, reported its findings to the Governor. The result was that the
leading spirits in the feud were summoned to Louisville, Ky., where
a _compromise_ was patched up between the belligerents. Both sides
pledged themselves to return home, to lay down their arms and to cease
to molest each other. This proceeding brought into prominence H. M.
Logan, Judge James Carey and Cook Humphrey as adherents of the Martin
faction and Craig Tolliver, Dr. Jerry Wilson and others as the Tolliver
faction leaders.
The agreement entered into at Louisville, intended to restore peace,
effected the opposite result. It prevented prosecution of either side
for the Morehead riot. The leniency extended by the authorities merely
emboldened and encouraged the warring parties--the truce was violated
by both sides within a short time after it had been agreed to.
The factions charged each other with insincerity, of secretly
maintaining armed bands and preparing for renewed hostilities. Within a
few weeks after the compromise at Louisville, conditions in Rowan were
as bad as ever, nay--worse.
As we have stated, the shooting of Young, the County Attorney, had
been charged to the Martin faction. In retaliation for this crime
the Tollivers had murdered Sheriff Humphrey's deputy, Baumgartner.
Subsequent developments then seemed to directly implicate Cook
Humphrey in the shooting of Young, and this led to a renewal of
active hostilities. It appears that immediately after the treaty at
Louisville, Ed. Pierce, the man who had so mysteriously appeared on the
streets of Morehead in company with Cook Humphrey on the day of the
riot, was arrested in Greenup County and taken to Bath County for trial
on a charge of robbery. A jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to
the penitentiary for a long term. While confined in jail previous to
his trial, he admitted his participation in the shooting of Mr. Young,
implicating also Ben Rayborn of Carter County, a man but little known
in Rowan County. In his confession Pierce claimed to have been employed
to kill Mr. Young by the sisters and family of John Martin, and that
Sheriff Humphrey and Baumgartner, his deputy, had aided and assisted in
arranging the details of the plot.
Humphrey and the Martins indignantly denied every word of Pierce's
confession, and asserted that he had been bribed by Mr. Young to make
it for the purpose of destroying the prestige of the Martin family in
the county, and to furnish the excuse for further outrages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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