This account given by Howe cannot be considered as wholly independent of the influence of Wirt. In his “Historical Collections of Virginia,” Howe quotes from Wirt’s book in substantiation of his statement that the “practice of Lynching continued years after the war.” On the other hand, however, the fact that he repeated his assertions in regard to the origin of “Lynch Law” in emphatic terms in his later book, and therewith described the operation of “Lynch Law” in the west, is strong evidence that he had other sources of information than Wirt’s book on the matter.[54] An account, entirely independent of any influence from either Wirt or Howe, is found in “Colonel William Martin’s Narrative of Frontier Life,” prepared about 1842 for Dr. Lyman C. Draper and now in the Draper MS. Collections in the Wisconsin State Historical Society Library. It is as follows: “In those times there were a great many bad men settled along the frontiers who by their thefts annoyed the country greatly. Insomuch that the people entered into combinations to suppress them and formed companies called regulators. They formed in military style, with officers, etc. “They also organized a court and appointed some three or four of their aged, discreet men judges to try criminal causes, award punishment, etc. The company would bring up suspected fellows and the court would try them. But they seldom extended punishment beyond whipping and driving them from the country, sometimes making them pay for property stolen, when they had the means. “This method of breaking up combinations of rogues was first set on foot by Col. Charles Lynch, of Bedford county, Va., where I was raised. He and my father were acquainted. (The same man for whom Lynchburg was named.) This plan was started some seventy or eighty years ago.[55] “The measure seemed to be called for from the situation of the country at the time. And it has been practiced more or less in the settling of new countries from that time until within a few years past, since the laws operate with more efficiency. The authorities generally connived at it from the necessity of the case. And perhaps nowhere has it been more common than in Tennessee. Lynch at first punished with thirty-nine stripes, taking, as I suppose, Moses for his model. And this was for a great while called Lynch’s law, meaning all unlawful whipping. Any of the old men now in the South and West can tell the meaning of Lynch’s law. “Lynch, however, has been improved upon and more severe punishments sometimes inflicted. I have given this feature of Western history from the presumption that you may not have known it.”[56]