Independent Herald: Friday Features

Week #14: Twin Arches

Ben Garrett — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:31:26 GMT

Twin Arches
Trailhead: Twin Arches
Trail Type: Loop
Payoff: Rock formations, views
Distance: 1.4 miles
Elevation Gain: 100 feet
Difficulty: Moderate

It seems like such a long time ago that the calendar was flipping to spring with the arrival of the spring equinox (when there are equal parts of daylight and darkness each day) and the Spring Hiking Challenge began with a hike to Sunset Overlook.

Now we’re on the cusp of summer. The summer equinox — the longest day of the year — is on Sunday, June 21, and we’re concluding the Spring Hiking Challenge with our 14th and final hike, which takes us to the most famous landmark in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area: Twin Arches.

For many years in the mid 20th century, the Twin Arches had a sort of mythical status. It was rumored that there were giant rock formations deep in the forest, but they were located so far back — and getting to them was so rough — that most folks never saw them. A few hardy souls bounced along the rutted logging roads in their jeeps, but for the most part, the arches stood sentry over the surrounding forest landscape in relative obscurity.

Today, the Twin Arches are known to be the largest natural land bridge in the State of Tennessee, and one of the largest in the world. They’re perhaps the single most-visited natural feature in the Big South Fork backcountry, attracting thousands of visitors each year to marvel at these spectacular landforms.

Getting to the Twin Arches requires a short hike that’s not too difficult, and there is a lot to see besides just the rock themselves.

To get there, take S.R. 297 west through the Big South Fork NRRA to S.R. 154 in Fentress County. Turn north onto S.R. 154 for approximately one mile, then turn right onto Divide Road. Follow Divide Road to the second right, which is Twin Arches Road. The trailhead is located at the end of the road. There are picnic and toilet facilities available.

Mile 0.0: The trail begins at a well-maintained trailhead near the end of the ridge that the Twin Arches are located on. This is the Twin Arches State Natural Area, which is comprised of about 1,500 acres and is one of two state natural areas managed by the National Park Service within the BSF (the other is Honey Creek).

Mile 0.05: Mountain laurel is prominent on either side of the trail to begin the hike. We’ve seen mountain laurel on almost all 14 of the hikes we’ve been on this spring. It is one of the most prominent understory shrubs in the Big South Fork region, typically growing in abundance on well-drained ridgetops near the rim of the gorge. And this trail is indeed near the rim of the gorge. If you look to your right, you’ll notice a huge valley. This is the upper reaches of what we know as Station Camp Creek, which empties into the Big South Fork River at Station Camp. What you’re actually looking at here is the place where Mill Creek, Andy Creek, and Middle Creek come together, at a site commonly referred to as Jake’s Place for Jacob Blevins, who lived there with his wife, Viannah West, in the late 1800s.

Mile 0.12: The trail begins to descend slightly. It leaves the laurel thicket for a brief stretch and enters a mature hardwood forest. The forest here is made up of scarlet oak, chestnut oak, white oak, red maple, sourwood, and blackgum, among other species.

Mile 0.19: It’s not so obvious now, with foliage on the trees, but if this were the cold season, when the trees are bare, you’d be able to see a powerline support tower on the horizon to your right. It’s part of the TVA distribution lines that supply power from the Wolf Creek Dam on the Cumberland River in Kentucky to Oak Ridge in Tennessee. You passed beneath those lines three times on your way in — twice on Leatherwood Road near the Big South Fork entrance outside Oneida, and again on Divide Road just before reaching the Twin Arches Road turnoff. The lines run southeast through the BSF, eventually crossing U.S. Highway 27 at New River and then going over the Cumberland Mountains at Brimstone before winding up at Oak Ridge.

Mile 0.22: The first steps come into view. Mile-for-mile, the Twin Arches Loop has more ladders and staircases than any other trail in the Big South Fork. This isn’t one of them, though. These steps are merely built into the hillside. There are much more impressive steps to come.

Mile 0.23: Rhododendron plants grow amid the mountain laurel on the left side of the trail. This is somewhat unusual, though it’s not the first time we’ve seen it on this hiking challenge. Typically, laurel grows on the well-drained ridgetops that receive partial sun, while its cousin, the rhododendron, grows in the moist, shaded lower-lying areas. That’s why rhododendron is usually found at the base of the bluff lines and laurel is found at the top of them. Obviously, there are exceptions.

Mile 0.26: The trail splits and the loop section begins. You can take either direction and you’ll wind up back here later. We prefer to hike the trail by taking the left fork and hiking in a clockwise direction. Immediately after turning left, if not for the foliage on the trees, you’d be able to see a dominant cliff line in the distance.

Mile 0.28: The trail arrives at its first ladder. These are steep wooden steps. Use caution with children and pets; to slip is to risk almost certain injury.

Mile 0.31: The trail has now arrived at the base of the bluff line, and will follow it to the arches.

Mile 0.35: Having left the mountain laurel behind at the top of the ladder, rhododendron is now the predominant understory shrub and can be seen in abundance along the trail. Both laurel and rhododendron bloom during the warm months — laurel in late spring and rhododendron in summer.

Mile 0.45: Notice the large valley to the left. This is Charit Creek, which eventually heads up near the intersection of Divide Road and Terry Cemetery Road. It empties into Station Camp Creek at Charit Creek Lodge in the valley below. One theory is that the creek got its name from a girl named Charity who drowned in the stream, but no one knows who this Charity was. Hemlocks now become very common along the trail. You’ll notice the painted dots at the bases of the trees, signifying that they have been treated for the hemlock woolly adelgid that currently infests the Big South Fork region and kills hemlock trees.

Mile 0.49: That huge cliff face that was visible from the top of the ladder is now much more clearly seen through the trees to the left side of the trail.

Mile 0.53: The first arch — the North Arch — comes into view in the distance.

Mile 0.58: Notice the honeycomb feature in the rock wall. This honeycomb is a type of weathering found in many rock faces, including sandstone and granite. It’s caused by the disaggregation of mineral grains through forces such as wind.

Mile 0.64: The trail arrives at North Arch. This is the smaller and least photogenic of the Twin Arches. It stands at 62 ft. high, with a span of 93 ft. and a ground clearance of 51 ft. You’ll walk across this arch on the way out. Beneath the arch is where the Twin Arches Inner Loop intersects with the Twin Arches Outer Loop. More on that later.

Mile 0.67: There is another set of steep wooden steps to the right, leading to the top of the arch. Skip the ladder and walk through the trees straight ahead. South Arch is just around the bend. Along the way, you’ll notice the other intersection for the Twin Arches Outer Loop.

Mile 0.72: The trail arrives at South Arch. When you look at photos of the Twin Arches, they’re usually taken at South Arch. This is the biggest of the two, with a deck height of 103 ft., a clearance of 70 ft. and a span of 135 ft.

Mile 0.77: After leaving South Arch and retracing your steps, you’ll arrive back at the stairs that lead to the top of North Arch. This is the way back to the vehicle.

Mile 0.8: The trail arrives at the top of the arch. The edges aren’t protected; use caution with pets and small children as you walk across the top of the arch.

Mile 0.87: The trail reaches the longest ladder or set of steps so far. The good news is that it’s also the last that you’ll have to climb.

Mile 0.88: At the top of the steps, don’t forget to turn around and admire the view. It’s a panoramic offering of the Station Camp Creek valley, and what a view it is.

Mile 1.06: The trail arrives back at the intersection. Continue straight ahead to retrace your steps to the parking lot.

Scavenger Hunt: Take some time to explore around the southernmost base of South Arch and see what you find. We’re looking for a passageway through the rock that’s informally known as “Fat Man’s Squeeze.” Yes, it is a squeeze. No, you won’t get stuck. The tunnel emerges on the south side of the base, and a footpath leads back around to the main arch. Take a picture of it and tag it with the #SpringHikingChallenge hashtag on social media to be entered into this week’s random prize drawing.

Make It Better: The 1.4-mile Inner Loop is great. But the 5.6-mile outer loop is even better! After you leave South Arch and return to the staircase leading to the top of North Arch, turn right onto the Outer Loop and complete the entire loop. You’ll re-emerge beneath the South Arch after five miles. It’s a moderate hike that includes about 750 ft. of elevation gain. Along the way, you’ll visit the picturesque Charit Creek Lodge, where you can have a trail lunch (consisting of sandwich or wrap, chips, trail mix, energy bar and drink) waiting on you if you book two days in advance at ccl-bsf.com. You can also find wine, beer, drinks and snacks. You’ll also visit the Tackett Bros. gravesite, where two teenage boys were buried after they died while attempting to escape conscription into the Confederate army during the Civil War, and Jake’s Place, which was discussed earlier. Along the climb back to South Arch, you’ll pass the site of the first industry in the Big South Fork – niter mining to make gunpowder (it won’t be noticeable from the trail).

Be Careful For: Steep staircases and unprotected rock ledges are the hazards on this hike. 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.

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
Hike #10: Kellogg’s Crack
Hike #11: Slave Falls
Hike #12: John Litton Farm
Hike #13: Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole
Hike #14: Twin Arches

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The hanging that created an uproar

Ben Garrett — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 19:04:51 GMT

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!

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The night Campbell Countians marched over the mountains for one of Scott County’s own

“Excitement.”

That’s what the newspapers used to call it when somebody killed someone and the natives got a little restless. “Lots of excitement up in Scott County,” a newspaper in Knoxville or Chattanooga might say when a killing riled up a community eager to see the killer brought to justice.

Those days — the 1880s through the 1920s — were the days of “Judge Lynch’s law.” That’s also an old newspaper phrase. Papers would throw the terminology around casually as if hanging an accused — but not convicted — person from a tree was a spectator sport. The papers would even predict when an accused killer was about to fall victim to “the excitement,” like ESPN analysts might predict the outcome of a ballgame today.

“Judge Lynch,” of course, was a reference to lynching — a kind of rural, small-town justice where folks didn’t waste time waiting around for judges and juries to carry out their proceedings and took matters into their own hands, usually breaking into the jail to take a prisoner out of it, marching him to the closest available sturdy tree, and hoisting him up by the neck.

And in those days, nowhere in East Tennessee did it as well — or as often — as Scott County.

Seven times between 1880 and 1832, someone awaiting trial — presumed innocent by the U.S. Constitution; presumed guilty by the mob — was taken from the Scott County Jail at gunpoint and sent to their maker. Nowhere else in East Tennessee could the vigilantes claim so many notches in their belts.

But in March 1896, the “excitement” that was roused in Scott County had nothing to do with the man doing the initial killing. Instead, folks were getting riled up because a mob had come across the mountains from Campbell County and lynched a Scott County man.

Yes, the Scott County man was accused of murder. Yes, Scott Countians had broken their own out of jail before and lynched him, and would again. But this was different. Sort of the same principle — much deadlier, of course — as “my brother and I can fight but don’t you dare pick on my brother.”

So when William Murphy was left dangling from a large tree less than a hundred yards from the jail, folks were riled up.

They were excited.

***

“It’s me — Joe Raynor; I’ve got a prisoner here.”

That’s what “Jailer Ellis” — we don’t know his first name because the newspapers didn’t concern themselves with his first name — heard in the middle of the night on Saturday, March 22, 1896.

We do know who Joe Raynor was. He was a deputy sheriff, who frequently herded prisoners to the jail in the middle of the night. Those were the days of moonshine liquor, bootlegging, and saloon brawls. There was always someone who needed arresting.

So Jailer Ellis thought little of it when Raynor announced himself with another prisoner. He simply opened the door. And found a gun barrel shoved in his face.

The guest wasn’t Raynor at all. It was a masked man, with plenty more masked men behind him. And he demanded the keys to the cell.

Jailer Ellis may have been outnumbered, but he wasn’t intimidated. “Not by a damn sight,” he said, and tried to close the door.

But the mob rushed him. As they did, his wife and daughter, eyes still matted with sleep, stumbled from their beds and discovered the masked men trying to overtake the jailer. His daughter grabbed the keys and threw them to the men.

William Murphy, the condemned man, pleaded for his life. “Oh, John,” he said, apparently recognizing someone in the mob, “don’t kill me; pray don’t let them kill me.”

He was an atheist, and an avowed disciple of Bob Ingersoll — at least that’s what the newspapers claimed, saying that “when he saw death staring him in the face, he prayed to God that his life might be saved, and promised to make amends for his misdeeds.”

When his prayers went unanswered and the noose was around his neck, Murphy was said to have pleaded that he be shot or stabbed or anything other than hanged.

But the rope was the preferred method of vigilante justice, and Murphy was left hanging from a locust tree just 80 yards from the jail, a note tacked to the foot of it warning passersby to not cut down the body until eight o’clock the following morning.

Judge Lynch had held court in Scott County once more.

***

It was three weeks earlier, in February 1896, that William Murphy had gunned down William Bowlin. Why? Who knows. The official accounts said that Bowlin was simply walking by Murphy’s house when he was shot. Murphy said there was an “old grudge” between the men, though his friends said they’d never known the two men to have a disagreement. Some said a woman might be involved. Others said Bowlin had information that would be harmful to Murphy’s reputation if it got out. The most likely reason appears to be that Bowlin had threatened to whip Murphy after accusing Murphy of making crude comments about his wife.

Either way, Murphy was arrested, denied bail, and placed in the county jail to await a trial that was scheduled for July.

But justice — that mountain sort of vengeance that passed for justice, at least — would not wait until the trees had greened and the corn was ripening.

Some newspapers placed the number of the men in the mob as high as 30. Others said the number was as few as 10. Tracks outside the jail indicated that they’d all headed back east on the Jacksboro Road — what is now S.R. 63 — leading Sheriff John Goad to conclude that they were from Campbell County. Someone inside the jail said the man Murphy had recognized as “John” was John Bowlin, brother of William Bowlin.

***

Jailer Ellis waited until the sun arose Sunday morning, as the mob’s note commanded, then cut down Murphy and carried his body into the jail. As word of the lynching spread, so did the anger — especially when folks figured out that the hanging had been committed by Campbell Countians. Before that Sunday was over, a group of men had gathered at the courthouse and drafted a resolution demanding that the governor offer a reward for the mob’s capture. It was signed by Sheriff Goad, County Judge W.H. Potter, and other leading men in Huntsville.

There had never been justice for a lynch mob in Scott County … and never would be again. But it was clear that this time was different. Not because anyone believed Murphy was innocent; he had confessed to killing Bill Bowlin. But, perhaps, because of the audacity of Campbell Countians to march into Scott County under the cover of darkness and kill one of Scott County’s own.

Before the week was out, Sheriff Goad — who had himself hanged a man a year earlier; but that was different, for Mike King had actually been convicted after killing a schoolteacher, and sentenced to death by a jury — had assembled a posse of two dozen men and set out for Campbell County. His mission: to bring those responsible for William Murphy’s hanging to justice.

The men divided up into groups. Some went north and picked up brothers John and Elijah Terry. Another went to Pioneer and picked up S.R. Pickering, William Brown, Riley Taylor, Francis Shoemaker, Andrew McClure, James Woods, and Joseph Day, with a promise of more arrests to follow.

Turns out, the “John” that William Murphy had pleaded with minutes before his death wasn’t a brother to Bill Bowlin at all, but a friend. His brother, Elijah, was released for lack of evidence, but John was bound over to court and hauled off to jail. A newspaper wrote that he “begged piteously” not to be placed in the cell that Murphy had occupied.

And the excitement flared again. The Chattanooga Daily Times wrote on March 28, 1896, that there was “great excitement” in Pioneer and at the Terry settlement north of there. That’s the way it was in the mountains, where an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth meant just that, and there was always a killing or some other misdeed waiting to be avenged.

And vengeance always seemed to turn up, whether from a hangman’s noose or the end of a gun barrel.

A year after William Murphy was lynched, in the spring of 1897, a Scott County man named Elswick Hughett started telling tales about a Campbell County justice of the peace — William Claxton — being a part of the Murphy lynch mob. So Claxton shot Hughett, killed him from ambush near the Rock House community east of Huntsville.

Two months after that, at the first of June 1897, Claxton was gunned down at the foot of Braden Mountain, located at the head of Rock House Creek.

Excitement raged again. Although the official word was that Claxton had been “shot by some unknown party,” everyone was sure enough of who it was that a newspaper a hundred miles away reported that Elswick’s brother, Henry Hughett, was the man who pulled the trigger.

The bodies were piling up now.

And on June 2, 1897, the Chattanooga Daily Times ominously predicted: “More murders may follow.”

That’s just the way it was in the mountains, where vengeance seeped out of the ravines like spring water from the ground.

Editor’s Note: Henry Hughett and another man, Mike Allen, were arrested by Sheriff John Goad and charged with William Claxton’s murder. However, the charges were dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Elswick Hughett (about 34 at the time of his death) and Henry Hughett were the sons of Delitha Hughett of Buffalo.

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Week #13: Gentlemen's Swimming Hole

Ben Garrett — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:19:39 GMT

Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole
Trailhead: Laurel Dale Cemetery
Trail Type: Loop
Payoff: River views, rock formations
Length: 2.2 miles
Elevation Gain: 1,035 feet
Difficulty: Moderate

We’re nearing the end of the Spring Hiking Challenge, and visiting the historic Rugby settlement for the second time with a trip to a destination that is among many people’s favorites: Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole. This is a trail that combines spectacular beauty with a subtle dose of history — subtle because you don’t even realize it unless you’re looking for it, but powerful once you know it.

This short, 2.2-mile hike begins and ends at the Laurel Dale Cemetery just outside Rugby. It begins with a downhill trek to the river to the popular (and historic) swimming hole, then follows the river beneath towering bluff lines to the Meeting of the Waters, then climbs back to the top of the ridge and follows the ridgetop back to the trailhead.

The Clear Fork River is arguably Scott County’s most beautiful stream. At summer flow, it offers many excellent places to swim or simply wade into the water, and Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole is one of those. Not only is it a preferred swimming destination among locals today, but it was where the men of Rugby went to swim (and bathe). Of course, that was the 1890s, and it would’ve been improper for the ladies to be in the same pool with the men, so they had their own swimming hole just upstream. Hence the name of this one: Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole.

After English author and social reformer Thomas Hughes founded Rugby as a home for second sons of English gentry, he visited in 1880 and awoke his first morning in the fledgling village to the sounds of young men gathering. “In a few minutes,” he wrote, “several appeared in flannel shirts and trousers, bound for one of the two rivers which run close by. They had heard of a pool 10 feet deep … and a most delicious place it is, surrounded by great rocks, lying in a corpse of rhododendrons, azaleas, and magnolias.”

That pool that Hughes wrote about was the Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole, and the trail we’re going to hike to get there is the same trail they built and used to get to the river nearly 150 years ago.

To get there, take S.R. 52 west from Elgin to the turnoff for Rugby Parkway, which is the old highway leading into and through the historic village. As you drive through the village, look for the sign for Laurel Dale Cemetery, and turn right onto Laurel Dale Cemetery Road (it’s the second right past Christ Church Episcopal). Follow the road a half mile to Laurel Dale Cemetery, where it ends at the trailhead. The trail will depart on the west side of the small loop at the end of the road.

Mile 0.01: The trail forks. Go left to hike the loop in a clockwise direction.

Mile 0.14: Note the huge hemlock tree on the right side of the trail. This is one of the biggest hemlock trees standing in the entire Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. Hemlocks have always grown in abundance in this region, and were important to the early settlers who chopped down many and used them to build their homes. There are several massive white pines growing along this section of the trail, as well.

Mile 0.20: The forest darkens as the trail enters a small stream drainage. This is the closest thing to an old-growth forest you’ll find in the Big South Fork, which was heavily logged in the 20th century. There are enormous evergreens — hemlocks and white pines alike — growing along this small drainage. Although it’s a wet-weather stream that is dry during the summer months, the hemlocks shade this drainage and provide cover for a variety of plant and animal life that thrive in these conditions. The same is true with almost every drainage in the Big South Fork region.

Mile 0.25: The trail descends down some rock steps. Be careful; these are slippery.

Mile 0.28: The trail enters a dense thicket of rhododendron. There are three species of rhododendron that grow naturally in the Big South Fork region, including Rosebay, Catawba, and Flame Azalea. (The Flame Azalea is relatively uncommon but a spectacular find when you happen across it, producing vibrant orange flowers in late spring … unfortunately, we won’t find that particular species along this trail.) The shaded, steep ravines of the BSF landscapes provide a perfect microclimate for rhododendron to thrive, often in the shade of the hemlock canopy.

Mile 0.30: As the trail winds its way to the river, it passes Witches Cave — which is really just a picturesque rock overhang along the right side of the trail. These rock shelters are common throughout the Big South Fork region, and this one pales in comparison to many, but you can imagine how early settlers from England and Boston felt when they witnessed these craggy sandstone rocks for the first time. Their only experience with the BSF had been disembarking from the train at Sedgemoor (Elgin) and riding a buggy west across the Rugby Road (which we now know as S.R. 52). Their trip to find the mysterious 10-foot-deep hole of water at the river was their first exposure to these spectacular gorges. Little wonder they conjured up visions of witches lurking in the shadows.

Mile 0.36: A spur trail leads left off the main trail. This is the way to Gentlemen’s Swimming Hole. It’s worth your effort to take the extra steps to the river’s edge. It’s a picturesque area with a small, sandy beach and a rapids that empties into a deep hole of water. You can swim here, or simply wade far enough in to get your knees wet. Either way, it’s a great place to cool off from the heat.

Mile 0.43: Back at the main trail, go left to continue the hike. For the next half-mile, the trail will squeeze between the river on the left and the bluff lines on the right. Enjoy the sights, sounds and smells — because the free-flowing water tumbling over all that rock creates a very distinctive smell that is especially noticeable during the summer months — of the Clear Fork. Because of the nature of this section of trail, there are many short ups and downs, giving the loop much of its elevation gain without being too strenuous.

Mile 0.90: Check out the maze of huge sandstone boulders in the river’s edge.

Mile 1.22: The trail reaches “Meeting of the Waters,” which is what the Rugby villagers called the place where White Oak Creek empties into Clear Fork. They considered these two separate rivers. Today, we consider one a small river and one a creek. There isn’t much distinction between them. If you close your eyes while the trail makes its turn away from Clear Fork and up White Oak, you’d open them and swear that you were still along Clear Fork and the stream had changed directions. Fun fact: There are two White Oak Creeks in the Big South Fork. Today, we call the other North White Oak to distinguish it. It empties into the BSF River below O&W Bridge, and the old railroad grade parallels it into Fentress County. This White Oak — South White Oak — drains part of northern Morgan County south of Rugby. These two streams are the largest tributaries of the Big South Fork River, besides Clear Fork and New River.

Mile 1.26: The trail passes beneath a towering cliff line.

Mile 1.31: The grunt-work part of the hike begins, and it’s this short stretch that earns it a “moderate” rating. This represents the steepest climb of the Spring Hiking Challenge, other than climbing the staircases at Yahoo Falls and Cracks in the Rock. It’s not too strenuous, but it does make you slow down and take your time on a warm summer day.

Mile 1.45: When you reach Sign Post 15, you’ve reached the top of the hill. Incidentally, these sign posts represent points of interest along the trail. You can pick up a trail guide that corresponds with them by visiting the Rugby Visitor Center before your hike. Here, at #15, the trail intersects with an old road trace along the Cumberland Plateau. It’ll follow this old roadbed back to Laurel Dale Cemetery, and the hike is mostly level from here on out.

Mile 1.88: Purple spiraea flowers grow along the trail.

Mile 2.08: The trail reaches a gate that once blocked vehicular access down this ridge. At this point, it intersects with one of Rugby’s trails and begins another uphill climb.

Mile 2.18: The trail arrives back at the trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: This week’s virtual scavenger hunt is a little different. We’re searching for the oldest identifiable grave (that is, a headstone with a legible date) in the Laurel Dale Cemetery. The old cemetery is worthy of exploration because of the history associated with it. It was the community cemetery for the Rugby settlement, and many of the village’s original residents are buried here. Finding the oldest identifiable grave might seem like a daunting task because there are more than 400 burials in this cemetery. But it’s pretty easy to identify the older parts of the cemetery by the condition of the stones. And here’s a hint: the grave we’re looking for was one of Rugby’s original settlers, who died during an outbreak of typhoid fever that hit the village hard in 1881. Take a picture of this headstone and post it on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to be entered into this week’s random drawing. (We’re running behind on announcing the prize winners … look for that in the coming days.)

Make It Better: Rather than another hike, try this: on your way back from Rugby, stop at Thelma Frogge’s Grocery on S.R. 52 just across the Scott/Morgan county line. Thelma opened this tiny general store in 1956 and has operated it continuously ever since. Yes, it’s still open! Yes, you can still get a bottle of pop here! It’s truly one of the last of its kind … and you’ll still find Thelma inside, running the store.

Be Careful For: There are no notable hazards on this hike.

Chickens of July: The murder of William N. Parrot

Ben Garrett — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 18:58:46 GMT

The chickens of July: The murder of William N. Parrot

Oneida, Tennessee — July 23, 1901

The heat that settled over Scott County in those first years of the twentieth century was not merely a matter of temperature. It was a living thing — thick and mean and patient — the kind of heat that made a man’s thoughts turn dark and small. Hollywood would later spin gold from the western territories, romanticize the dusty outlaws and wide-open spaces, but the men who lived through those days in the Tennessee mountains could have told you something the movies never would: the east could be just as wild. Life was cheap here. A man could lose it over apples (as Dick Hatfield would find out in the 1920s), and he could lose it over chickens.

William Nelson Parrott knew about chickens. He knew about most things that passed through Oneida, because most things passed through him. He owned The Oneida House — the town’s first motel, three stories tall, proud as a man could be in those days, with a restaurant inside and a general store below. He had come from Campbell County, the son of Ledford and Martha Parrott, and had moved to Scott County the way moths move toward light: following a woman. Her name was Lucy Katherine Byrd — folks called her Cassie — the daughter of Milton Asbury Byrd and Nancy Chitwood of Helenwood. They married in Roane County in 1896, and for a time, things were good.

Then came July 23, 1901. The heat had not broken for days.

***

There were three of them walking down the street that afternoon. James West was 21 years old, single, the kind of young man the county produced like a cash crop: lean and proud and quick to feel an insult settle on him. With him walked Barney Litton and Alvin Jeffers, though their names would matter less than West’s before the day was done.

West had sold Parrott some chickens. That was the thing at the black root of it all: Chickens. The two men had agreed on a price, and Parrott had paid him. But, apparently, the matter wasn’t settled.

Parrott stepped out from behind his counter when he saw them coming. “Come in,” he said to West. “Come in. I don’t want to hurt you.”

It was an odd thing to say to a man you were merely going to argue with about poultry.

Inside the store, the argument opened like a wound. The chicken coop, Parrott said, had weighed eighteen pounds. Litton heard him say it. West heard him say it, too, and something behind West’s eyes went hard and flat.

“Don’t you call me a damn liar.”

That’s what Litton heard West say. The words hit the air between the two men like a stone dropped in still water. Then West’s hand moved toward his pocket.

Litton and Jeffers recognized the particular electricity of a moment about to go terribly wrong. They ran — toward the post office, toward help, toward anywhere that wasn’t inside that store. The postmaster, a man named M.E. Terry, heard the shot and felt his legs carry him toward it before his mind had fully formed the thought.

He found Parrott on the floor. Shot through the right temple. The Knoxville Sentinel would later call him “a man of excellent character and industry” who “enjoyed the esteem of all who knew him.” The floor of his own store had drunk his blood on a Tuesday afternoon in July.

A pistol lay near the dead man’s hand.

***

West said he’d acted in self-defense. He said Parrott had gone for his gun first, that the whole ugly business had been started by the dead man. At a bail hearing weeks later, he told the court that Parrott had accused him of lying about the chickens, that he’d called Parrott “a very vile name,” and that Parrott had reached for his weapon first.

It might have worked, except for the child.

A boy had been standing in the street, watching through the store window the way children do — fearless in their curiosity, present at moments they have no business witnessing. He told a different story. West had called Parrott a hard name, that much was true. And Parrott had taken offense, saying, “Don’t you call me any such name.” But then West had immediately drawn his gun and fired. Just like that. Simple as weather.

The prosecution, led by J.C. Parker — whose own son, Sam, would one day be murdered in Helenwood, as if violence were a debt that collected interest across generations — argued that West had planted the gun that was found by Parrott’s hand. Had Parrott been holding it when the bullet found him, Parker’s expert witness testified, his dead hand would have locked around it in a grip that death alone could give. The gun would not have been lying loose on the floor. It would have been locked in that final, terrible fist.

The defense tried to paint Parrott as a man given to argument, a dangerous character. The Chattanooga News recorded that they failed.

West was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Five years. Five years for a man’s life, for a husband, for a father — proof enough, if proof were needed, that in 1901, in the hills of Scott County, the mathematics of death were calculated differently than we would calculate them now.

***

But here is where the story turns, where the darkness cracks and something unexpected comes struggling through.

Cassie Byrd Parrott buried her husband and sold The Oneida House. She could not stay. Some places become haunted not by ghosts but by memory, which is worse. The man who bought the business came from McCreary County, Ky. — a man named Eli Cooper, who brought with him his 13-year-old son, Horace Lafayette “H.F.” Cooper. Eli’s plan was modest: watch the store for a few days, find someone to manage it properly, move on. But young H.F. looked at the failing business the way a doctor looks at a sick patient. He diagnosed it, identified the “sore places,” and set about healing them. He made the store profitable in a year. He doubled the profit the next year. He doubled it again the year after that. H.F. Cooper grew into one of the most successful businessmen in Oneida’s history. Today, the community called Coopertown still carries his name.

And Cassie? She took her children and moved to Knoxville, where she remarried.

One of them was a boy named Paul. He was three years old the afternoon his father died. Three years old, which is old enough to see, old enough to feel the shape of a moment even if the mind can’t hold the words for it yet. He had been inside the store when his father died that hot July afternoon. He had watched it happen.

Paul Parrott grew up, the way children of tragedy sometimes do, into something remarkable. He opened a shoe store in Knoxville, and because he had his father’s sense of humor, beneath all that inherited sorrow, he kept a live parrot in the shop — a winking joke on his own last name. He began making children’s shoes. He called them Poll-Parrots. They grew and grew until they were everywhere, until the International Shoe Company bought them out, until Poll-Parrot shoes were what Air Jordans would one day become — the thing every child in America wanted on their feet. By 1929, the advertisements ran in papers coast to coast. A syndicated radio show followed: “The Cruise of the Poll Parrot.” And then, in the 1950s, Paul Parrott’s shoes became the title sponsor of “The Howdy Doody Show” on NBC, beaming into the living rooms of a nation that had no idea they were watching the legacy of a murder trial play out in thirty-minute increments.

***

Two men, H.F. Cooper and Paul Parrott. Two lives that grew enormous and good from a single act of terrible smallness — an argument about 18 pounds of chickens on a sweltering July afternoon, a gunshot, a boy left without a father.

Scott County was wild in those days. The West gets the movies, but the East had its own darkness, its own stories whispered over back fences and carried in blood from one generation to the next. A man could meet his end violently and unremarkably, and the newspapers would note it and move on, because there would be another killing soon enough.

But sometimes – not often, but sometimes – out of the worst thing, the seed of something that will outlast everyone involved gets planed in the dark soil of grief.

It happens that way. It really does.

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Week 12: John Litton Farm

Ben Garrett — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:36:42 GMT

John Litton Farm
Trailhead: Litton Farm
Trail Type: Loop
Payoff: Scenic landscapes
Trail length: 1.7 miles
Elevation Gain: 210 feet
Difficulty: Easy/Moderate

Each week of the Spring Hiking Challenge has highlighted the history of that week’s hike. But there are few hiking trails in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area with as much history as the Litton Farm Loop. Week 12 of the 14-week hiking challenge takes us to the John Litton Farm — one of only two preserved homesteads in the national park that are remotely located in the backcountry, away from vehicular access (the other is Charit Creek Lodge).

We aren’t hiking the entire, six-mile Litton Farm Loop. Instead, we’re making a short and relatively easy hike along an inner loop of sorts, combining the administrative access road with a portion of the hiking trail. This is a delightful 1.7-mile hike that combines the human history of the BSF with an all-encompassing tour of the park’s natural features.

We’re going to begin our hike near the end of the public access portion of John Litton Road. To get there: Enter Bandy Creek Campground, just like we did when hiking to Angel Falls Overlook a few weeks ago. Just past the registration kiosk, turn left toward Bandy Creek Pool. Continue onto the gravel road at the pool, which is Duncan Hollow Road. When the road splits at the TVA transmission line, turn right onto John Litton Road. In a few hundred yards, the road splits again. Stay straight to enter the field. At the far side of the field, where the road re-enters the forest, there’s a small parking area on the left. Park here. We’ll begin our hike by continuing on foot along John Litton Road.

Mile 0.01: Notice the hiking trail on the right. This is where the Litton Farm Loop Trail joins John Litton Road on its way back to Bandy Creek Campground. We’ll be completing our hike here. For now, though, we’re going to continue on the gravel road to hike this loop in a clockwise direction.

Mile 0.12: A gate blocks vehicular traffic. There’s another small parking area by the gate. The remainder of the road is used for administrative access to the Litton Farm. The small stream that begins to form on the right side of the road is the headwaters of the North Fork of Fall Branch. Fall Branch drains the Bandy Creek area along the east side of Bandy Creek Road.

Mile 0.19: The stream drops over a small waterfall and the character of the forest immediately begins to change as the drainage quickly widens. Rhododendron, hemlock, holly, and magnolia crowd the forest, and a rock bluff wall begins to emerge on the left side of the road.

Mile 0.27: The road reaches the bottom of the hill. The North Fork of Fall Branch crosses under the road via a culvert, and another small stream empties into it from the left.

Mile 0.32: Check out the large, dense colony of fan clubmoss on the right side of the road. Also known as “groundcedar” or “crowsfoot,” clubmoss isn’t really moss; rather, it’s a primitive vascular plant that relies on undisturbed, acidic soil conditions to provide a delicate groundcover in shaded understory areas of the forest.

Mile 0.36: The North Fork of Fall Branch passes under the road again. Look closely and you’ll likely see a large school of creek minnows in the small pool of water at the end of the culvert. The first of the old fields at the Litton Farm is visible here.

Mile 0.43: The old house that John Litton built comes into view, along with the original split rail fences. Walnut trees stand in front of the home.

Mile 0.47: The large, English-style barn comes into view. Like the home, the barn was built by John Litton sometime around 1900.

Mile 0.49: The hiking trail turns right. We’ll be coming back to this. Off the trail, just up the hill to the left and out of sight, are the old hog pens where General Slaven — who lived here after the Littons — kept his pigs beneath the bluffs.

Mile 0.54: A manmade earthen dam creates a small pond. The pond has mostly filled with silt and sediment over the years, but the water that remains is unusually clear, and it is home to a large number of aquatic and amphibian life, including small fish, bullfrogs, salamanders, and more.

Mile 0.57: This woodshed was built by General Slaven during the latter years of settlement on this farm.

Mile 0.58: We’ve reached the Litton home. Unlike the nearby Oscar Blevins and Lora Blevins homes, this one is open and can be entered. However, visitors should use extreme care to respect the fragile nature of this historic structure. Unfortunately, it is in a state of serious disrepair and will eventually be lost to the passage of time without a major restoration project. The siding is nearly completely gone, and the underlying felt that covered the walls is deteriorating, as well. Several of the glass windows are missing. Not too many years ago, you could still read the old newspapers that were used to paper the walls, but they’re just about completely gone now. Check out the torn linoleum that can still be found in the kitchen of the home.

Back outside the home, we’ll backtrack past the woodshed, the pond, and the barn to the hiking trail intersection. Notice the implements and other equipment in the barn, including the antique, horse-drawn mower!

Mile 0.88: The hiking trail cuts left through John Litton’s field. After a few feet, there’s a signboard that tells the history of the Litton Farm.

Mile 0.94: The trail crosses the North Fork of Fall Branch on a wooden footbridge. You may see more minnows in the stream.

Mile 1.01: The trail enters the forest and begins climbing the hill. This is a dark forest dominated by evergreens, mostly hemlocks and white pines.

Mile 1.14: At a switchback, the trail offers one last look at the Litton Farm. During the warm-weather months, the fields and tin roofs are barely visible through the foliage. Just ahead is a miniature staircase, which signals the end of the trail’s steep part.

Mile 1.19: The trail passes through a dense stand of rhododendron and mountain laurel that crowd the pathway from either side.

Mile 1.29: The trail re-emerges in the open forest. Check out the huge colonies of squaw vine growing here — or partridge berry.

Mile 1.43: The trail enters an old field that has been allowed to return to a state of reforestation. Notice how the forest type drastically changes, and how you can easily pick out the old field margins by the size of the trees growing here.

Mile 1.54: The trail reaches the edge of the newer field that is still kept clear by the National Park Service and Tennessee Division of Forestry.

Mile 1.72: The trail emerges at the gravel road where we parked.

Scavenger Hunt: This week we’re looking for a tiny scrap of newspaper that includes a partial headline about how a doctor helped “constipated folks.” Snap a picture and post it on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to be entered into this week’s random prize drawing!

Make It Better: If you’re looking for more than just a 1.7-mile hike, you can begin and end your hike at the Bandy Creek Swimming Pool, and hike the entire John Litton Farm Loop. This 5.7-mile loop features 465 feet of elevation gain and has a difficulty rating of moderate. An added bonus is Fall Branch Falls. From the parking lot at the swimming pool, the trail begins on the opposite side of the road. It follows Duncan Hollow Road for a short distance before turning and paralleling Fall Branch for a couple of miles. At the point where Fall Branch and the North Fork of Fall Branch intersect, the trail turns left to the Litton Farm. From the Litton Farm, it climbs the hill to the ridgetop, and then follows the gravel roads (John Litton Road and Duncan Hollow Road) back to Bandy Creek.

Historical Context: The John Litton Farm dates back to about 1900, when John Litton built a single pen 1.5-story timber-framed house with a stone foundation on a hillside overlooking the North Fork of Fall Branch. He also built a 2-story, English-style milk barn in 1900 that measures 32 ft. by 32 ft. Both structures remain intact. Later, General Slaven purchased the farm and built a 14 ft. by 7 ft. woodshed and an earthen dam for a pond. Both of those remain intact, as well. Slaven also built a hog lot with wood fencing at the base of a rock bluff in the forest outside the cleared area, which is also intact. A wrap-around porch was added to the home by Slaven, but has since been removed. Slaven also added a wood-frame addition to the home. Once modified, the home measured 29 ft. by 26 ft. Beneath it is a root cellar walled with hand-hewn sandstone. The entire farm encompasses 184 acres. John Litton was a grandson of James Taylor Litton, a justice of the peace who helped found Scott County in 1849. He married Elvira “Vi” Dawes and they had five children. John died in 1935 and Elvira died in 1945. Both are buried at the Katie Blevins Cemetery near Bandy Creek. Around the time that John died, General Slaven and his wife, Mary “Did” Miller, purchased the farm. General was a great-grandson of Richard Harve Slaven, the first settler of No Business, and Did was a granddaughter of Jonathan Blevins. They had three children. The Slavens lived at the farm until after 1974, when the federal government purchased the land for the Big South Fork and they were forced to leave. It is written that no one went hungry when they visited the Litton Farm, because Did always had plenty to eat.

Be Careful For: There are no notable hazards on this hike.

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What the mother-in-law knew: The murder of little Lonis Mullins

Ben Garrett — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:45:59 GMT

What the mother-in-law knew

Smokey Creek — September 9, 1900

The boy said his throat was burning.

That is where it begins, or where it ends, depending on which way you are standing when you look at it. A child’s voice, high and frightened, saying “My throat is burning up, he gave me something to kill me,” and then an hour and a half of the particular silence that falls when a small body stops working, and then the long terrible noise of everything that came after.

The child’s name appears in the historical records as Louis, as Oscar, as Lonis, as John — the newspapers of 1900 and 1901 could not agree on what to call him, which is perhaps the saddest fact in a story full of sad facts: that the boy at the center of it could not even keep his name straight across the pages that recorded his death.

He was eight years old. His last name was Mullins. His stepfather was a man named Riley Lowe.

That is what everyone agreed on. After that, agreement became scarce.

***

Riley Lowe had come to Tennessee from Kentucky 10 years before any of this happened, but he was from Tennessee in every sense. His great-grandfather was Mikel Low, the first settler of present-day Scott County, and the Lowe family had lived at Smokey Creek ever since. Still do, in fact.

Riley was, by all accounts, presentable. The newspapers – which had a Victorian habit of noting such things, as though a man’s face were evidence – remarked repeatedly on his “good appearance,” on how he was precisely the sort of man you would not expect to feed poison to a child. He had married a woman named Samantha Carroll, a woman who had been married before and had children from that marriage, the children bearing the name Mullins as children do when they belong to a first husband who has died or departed.

By the summer of 1900 they were all living together at Smokey Creek. The census that year recorded the boy’s name as Lonis Low. The other children in Riley and Samantha’s home were also listed with the Low surname.

Also living nearby, or perhaps on the same land — the records press them close together — was Samantha’s mother.

Her name does not appear prominently in the newspapers. She is referred to throughout as “the mother-in-law,” as though her identity has been entirely subsumed by her relationship to the accused, which is the kind of thing that happens to women in court records, then and sometimes now. What we know of her is almost entirely filtered through the testimony she gave and the things that were said about her by people who hated her for giving it.

She hated Riley Lowe. That, at least, no one disputed.

***

He had bought strychnine. This was established early and never seriously contested. He admitted it himself.

Strychnine in 1900 was not difficult to obtain. You went to a store and you asked for it and they gave it to you and wrote it down, because it had legitimate purposes — killing rats, mostly, the eternal rural project of keeping the vermin from the grain stores. Riley Lowe said this was why he bought it. He said it clearly and repeatedly, to anyone who would listen.

The strychnine was in the house.

The boy died on September 9, 1900, with symptoms that the attending physician — who arrived several hours after death and therefore conducted no autopsy, which would matter later — described as consistent with poisoning. The boy had, before he died, told his grandmother that Riley had given him something to kill him. That his throat was burning. That he was burning up.

The grandmother had heard Samantha’s voice, crying out from the house: “Run here, Riley is burning Lonis up.”

That’s what the mother-in-law told authorities. And by the time little Lonis was buried, Riley Lowe was in custody.

***

Here is what Samantha wrote to him, in July of 1900, after his trial:

“Dear husband I write you a few lines to let you know I am well and hope this will find you well.”

She had not been formally educated, in the way that mountain children of that era were educated — enough letters to make words, enough words to make sentences, sentences that tumbled out without much regard for the rules that schoolteachers would later enforce. The letter is phonetic, approximate, and urgent: “I would luft to see you awful well.” The children, she said, wanted him to “hurry and come back home.”

And then, the heart of it:

“You know my mother caused all this trouble and that I would never have been against you if it had not been for mother persuading me to mistreat you.

“She sed that I could live without you and she sed I mite live on the place and that some one would help me along.

“She has done sed that if I didn’t hold my tongue she would put me off the place.

“Don’t let mother know I wrote you any letter.”

She signed it “from your wife until death” and asked him to tear it up, and he did not tear it up, and it survived, which is the way of letters that are meant to be destroyed — they persist, they surface, they become the thing that everyone reads.

What to make of it depends, again, on where you are standing.

A wife who believed in her husband’s innocence, writing in secret, at risk of being turned out of her home, to tell him that her mother had manufactured the case against him — this is one version.

A wife who had seen what her husband had done and was now, in the aftermath, caught between her mother and her marriage, trying to thread a needle that had no thread — this is another.

The letter does not resolve this. Letters rarely do. They tell you what people wanted to say in the particular moment of saying it, and they tell you nothing reliable about what those people actually knew.

***

The trial began on Monday, May 13, 1901, in Huntsville, in the circuit court of Scott County.

The prosecution was handled by W.H. Potter, H. Clay James, and Assistant Attorney General Holloway. The defense was handled by Daniel Jeffers & Son. Judge Hicks presided.

The mother-in-law took the stand and told what she had seen and heard: the cry from the house, the burning child, the dying declaration of an eight-year-old boy who said Riley had given him something to kill him. She told it, the defense later argued, with malice. With a manner toward the defendant that no neutral witness would have shown. She had said, before the boy died, before Riley was ever arrested, that she would one day cause him serious trouble. This was established. This was, in fact, central to what came next.

But the jury did not know what came next. The jury knew only what it heard in the courtroom in Huntsville, and on Wednesday, May 15, 1901 — two days after it started — they returned a verdict.

Guilty of murder.

Riley Lowe looked, a reporter noted, “very much worn and haggard.” He had been confident of acquittal. He did not expect to be found guilty. He was stunned.

He appealed immediately, and lost immediately. The sentence was handed down two days later: death. Judge Hicks set the hanging for July 12. He would become the second man in Scott County’s history to be legally hanged.

***

Riley Lowe was taken to Knox County Jail in Knoxville to await execution. There, on July 2, 1901 — 10 days before he was scheduled to die — a German Lutheran minister named Rev. J.A. Lauritzen baptized him. Lauritzen had been coming to the jail every Sunday for six weeks. Riley Lowe went into whatever water a jail can provide and came out the other side with his death sentence intact and his soul squared.

He had filed an appeal.

He was 35 years old. He had that “good appearance” the newspapers kept referring to. He insisted, to anyone who would listen, that he had not killed the boy.

***

The Tennessee Supreme Court had five judges. They listened to E.E. Houk and Sam Epps Young argue for Riley Lowe’s life, and they listened to General Pickle argue for the state, and then they went away and thought about what they had heard.

They reversed the conviction in November 1901.

The grounds were the mother-in-law: her prior statements of malice toward the defendant, her manner on the stand, the Supreme Court’s conclusion that a witness who had announced her intention to cause a man serious trouble before a crime had ever been charged against him was a witness whose testimony required harder scrutiny than the circuit court had applied. The case was remanded. A new trial was ordered.

Riley Lowe, in the Knox County Jail, was reported to be “one of the happiest men” the facility had seen in a long time. He told the Knoxville Sentinel that his mother-in-law had always hated him, that he had seen her opportunity and taken it, that his wife had been kept from writing to him — that Samantha had to “steal out” to communicate with him at all.

He was returned to Scott County. He insisted he would be acquitted when he got his new trial.

***

The second trial came in May 1902. The jury assembled and heard the evidence and could not agree. They reported several times that they were deadlocked. Then they came back with a verdict.

Not guilty.

Riley Lowe had been in jail continuously since September of 1900 — a year and eight months — and now he walked out of the Scott County Courthouse into whatever light was falling on Huntsville on that May day a free man by the accounting of 12 people who had heard everything and decided it was not enough.

The Chattanooga News called it “one of the most celebrated and hotly contested cases ever tried at this bar.”

The boy in the ground had no comment.

***

Now comes the part that history renders in the flat, affectless language of census records and cemetery headstones, which is sometimes the most haunting language of all.

Riley Lowe — “Rollie,” his family called him — was later killed by former Sheriff Frank Hughett and was buried at the Phillip Lowe Farm Cemetery at Smokey Junction.

Samantha outlived him considerably. She died on Oct. 6, 1943, which means she lived through two world wars and the Depression and the whole grinding transformation of the twentieth century, a woman who had written a secret letter in 1900 and asked her husband to tear it up and he hadn’t and the letter had become evidence and none of it had mattered in the end — or mattered in ways that don’t appear in official documents.

Her headstone says “Carroll.” Now Lowe. Carroll, her maiden name, the name she had been born with, and the name she apparently returned to. The 1910 census lists her as divorced. The 1920 census and every one after lists her as widowed. Her children continued going by Carroll, too.

Her mother — the mother-in-law who was at the center of it all — was Angeline Mason Carroll, married to a man named Huston “Huse” Carroll. She died in 1915.

What she said on that stand in Huntsville in May 1901 — “I heard my daughter cry out, I went to the house, the child told me he had given something to kill him, the child died” — those words are in the record. Whether they were true, whether they were the truth as she understood it, whether they were something else — the record has no opinion.

The Supreme Court of Tennessee had an opinion. Two juries had opinions. The first jury decided one thing and the second decided another, and in the gap between those two decisions, a man spent a year and eight months in jail and was baptized by a German Lutheran minister and wrote letters and waited and got out and lived the rest of his life in Scott County.

The boy — Louis, Oscar, Lonis, John, all the names the newspapers gave him and took back — was eight years old. He was buried somewhere in that mountain country but no one knows where. He doesn’t have a headstone to identify his grave. He never got justice, which makes this one of the saddest murder mysteries in Scott County’s history. Most mysteries don’t end in mystery. This one does.

***

There is a letter. It survived because it was not torn up.

“I would not have mother know I wrote you for nothing … From your wife until death.”

***

The valley at Smokey Creek still exists. The creek still runs. The cemeteries still hold their dead without commentary, the way cemeteries do, the headstones tilted slightly with age and frost, the names sometimes worn to suggestions.

Somewhere in that ground is Riley Lowe.

Somewhere else, nobody knows, is the boy.

The mother-in-law in another place, and Samantha in another.

What happened in that house on September 9, 1900, when a child’s throat began to burn — who stood over him, who fed him what, who knew and who didn’t, who lied and who told the truth —

That is a room the record does not enter.

It never did.

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.

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Hike #11: Slave Falls

Ben Garrett — Wed, 27 May 2026 14:37:14 GMT

Slave Falls
Trailhead: Sawmill
Trail Type: Out-and-back
Payoff: Waterfall, rock formation
Length: 2.46 miles
Elevation Gain: 220 feet
Difficulty: Easy

We’re beginning the final month of the Spring Hiking Challenge with a visit to Slave Falls, and a hike along one of the more under-rated trails that can be found in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area.

Slave Falls Loop, located in the Divide Road area of the national park, is a treasure that is often overlooked simply because it is overshadowed by the nearby Twin Arches Loop. But this is a beautiful trail that can hold its own with any hike in the Big South Fork in terms of the sheer natural beauty it offers, which is why we chose it to kick off the final month of this hiking challenge.

The entire Slave Falls Loop is 4.4 miles in length, featuring 383 feet of elevation gain. It isn’t a difficult hike, but its length would earn it a difficulty rating of moderate. We’re offering the entire loop as an option to “Make It Better,” but for the purposes of completing the challenge, we’re only asking for an out-and-back hike to Slave Falls and the nearby Needle Arch. Both are impressive, and can be hiked via an out-and-back route of 2.46 miles featuring 220 feet of elevation gain, with a difficulty rating of easy. The reward for completing the entire loop is the trifecta of natural features on this route: Indian Rock House.

This is our first trip to the Divide Road area since the hiking challenge began in March. Seasoned hikers know that Divide Road is a dayhiker’s paradise, and the various trailheads along Divide Road are starting points for backpackers making multi-day trips into the backcountry.

This particular hike — Slave Falls — begins at the Sawmill Trailhead. To get there, take S.R. 297 west to its terminus at S.R. 154, turn north onto S.R. 154 and continue to Divide Road, then turn right onto Divide Road. Take the first right, which is Fork Ridge Road, and drive past the Middle Creek Equestrian Trailhead, then watch for the signs for Sawmill Trailhead. There is ample parking, and the trail is well-maintained.

Mile 0.00: The trail starts by following one of the old logging roads that are prevalent in this area, from the mid 1900s when this was the site of a major logging operation (hence the name, “Sawmill Trailhead”). The trail is surfaced in red gravel, and treks through a lush forest that has recovered nicely from a couple of generations ago, when it was stripped of its timber.

Mile 0.10: The spur trail from the trailhead reaches the actual Slave Falls Loop. Turn right to head toward slave falls.

Mile 0.16: The trail enters a beautiful hemlock forest with a rich understory of ferns and other perennials that thrive in shaded conditions. This is one of the best examples of a hemlock forest that would fundamentally change the entire landscape if the hemlocks are wiped out by the hemlock woolly adelgid pest that is currently infesting hemlocks throughout the northern Cumberland Plateau region. There are also enormous white pines mixed in with the hemlocks, creating a dense evergreen forest.

Mile 0.35: You begin to see the destruction from the devastating Memorial Day weekend storm in 2024 that knocked down thousands of mature hardwood trees in the Divide Road area. The storm caused damage all the way from Pickett State Forest to the Bandy Creek area. It is often called a tornado, but the National Weather Service declined to survey the area, believing the damage was instead caused by straight line winds.

Mile 0.45: Check out the enormous beech tree growing on the right side of the trail. Also, a tributary of Mill Creek comes into view for the first time. It is this stream that will create Slave Falls as it empties into the gorge.

Mile 0.54: The trail crosses the stream on a wooden footbridge.

Mile 0.73: Thick stands of mountain laurel surround the trail. This stretch of the trail is especially beautiful earlier in May, when the laurel is in bloom.

Mile 0.85: You can hear Slave Falls, though you can’t see it.

Mile 0.89: The canyon that the falls dumps into opens on your left.

Mile 0.98: The trail forks. Stay straight to go to Slave Falls. It is here that you’ll turn right to complete the entire loop later on.

Mile 1.03: The trail forks again. Go left for Slave Falls.

Mile 1.06: The trail descends over small rock ledges to the base of the bluff line.

Mile 1.09: The trail enters a rock shelter that is fronted by a small, wet-weather waterfall.

Mile 1.28: After you pass between the bluff line and a huge boulder, the trail rounds a bend, and the roaring sound of falling water becomes obvious. Slave Falls is just ahead. Slave Falls drops 70 feet into the gorge, creating one of the tallest waterfalls in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. A huge rock shelter opens behind the waterfall, and the spray field from the waterfall supports a rich and diverse habitat of plant life. There is a fence around the observation area that is not intended to protect hikers so much as it is to protect the sensitive plants, which can be easily disturbed and trampled if hikers venture off-trail to scramble to the base of the waterfall.

From the waterfall, retrace your steps to the last fork in the trail, at the top of the bluff line.

Mile 1.9: The trail reaches the fork where the Slave Falls Spur left the main trail. Turn left here to continue to Needle Arch. The trail will travel the top of the ridge for a short distance, before dropping slightly below the ridge top to the arch itself.

Mile 2.15: Arrive at Needle Arch. This arch stands 13 feet tall and spans 35 feet, making it one of the more impressive arches in the BSF. There’s a sign asking hikers not to climb on the arch. Please obey this request so that the arch is not damaged.

Beyond Needle Arch, the trail continues into the Middle Creek gorge and connects with the Twin Arches Loop at Jake’s Place, which was the old Jacob Blevins homeplace. This is a backpacking route that provides a connection to Charit Creek and Twin Arches, and points beyond. We’re not going any further than Needle Arch, of course. From here, we’ll retrace our steps to the trailhead — unless you choose the “Make It Better” option and complete the entire loop.

Make It Better: When you’ve reached the first split in the trail, which was Mile 0.98 on your way in, and will be Mile 2.43 on your way out, turn left. As spectacular as the first half of the Slave Falls Loop is, much of the rest of the loop is uneventful, which is why we’re adding it as simply an option for this hike. At Mile 2.47, there are barriers that once blocked vehicles from traveling beyond that point (vehicles are no longer allowed this far in). For the rest of the way back to Fork Ridge Road, the trail will follow an old road trace. At Mile 2.53, the storm damage from Memorial Day weekend 2024 becomes obvious again. Here on top of the ridge, without the terrain to provide a natural shelter from the wind, the damage is much more obvious than it was earlier in the hike. You can see how it fundamentally transformed the forest. At Mile 3.11, the trail crosses Fork Ridge Road. At Mile 3.18, the trail enters another road trace and joins a multi-use trail that is also used by horses. At Mile 3.27, the Slave Falls Loop turns right off the multi-use trail. Again, the storm damage becomes prominent. Because the shade-providing canopy of the mature hardwoods is gone, the undergrowth is growing at a much quicker rate along this section of the trail, and it is overgrown and in need of trimming. If you decide to hike the entire loop, be sure to apply insect repellent to ward off ticks! Notice how bigleaf magnolias are absolutely dominating the forest here in the absence of the mature hardwoods that were knocked down by the storm. Literally thousands of them are growing along this stretch of trail. At Mile 3.69, the trail reaches an intersection. Turn right to continue on Slave Falls Loop. At Mile 3.93, the trail enters a beautiful stand of ferns and rhododendron. Indian Rockhouse is just ahead. From Indian Rockhouse, the trail will travel back to Sawmill Trailhead.

Scavenger Hunt: We’re looking for a huge hemlock tree that is located along the route. There are lots of hemlocks, of course, but none will be bigger than this one. You’ll know it when you see it. It’s located along the spur trail to the waterfall, and the trail passes between the tree and the bluff line. Snap a picture and post it on social media with the hashtag #SpringHikingChallenge to be entered into this week’s random prize drawing!

Historical Context: Slave Falls takes its name from the fact that the rock shelter behind the waterfall was once used to hide runaway slaves. There were very few slaves owned in this area in the antibellum era. As a result, the famed Underground Railroad routes were not prominent here. Still, there were a few runaway slaves who sought freedom in the North by traveling through the rugged terrain of the Big South Fork region. Very little information is available about this particular part of the BSF region’s history, and the name of Slave Falls is mostly oral legend, handed down through the years by word of mouth.

Be Careful For: There are several foot bridges along the trail that can be slippery when wet.

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Clay and Blood: The Frank Williams Murder

Ben Garrett — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:45:31 GMT

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.

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Week 10: Kellogg's Crack

Ben Garrett — Wed, 20 May 2026 20:20:49 GMT

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.

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He walked the wrong road alone

Ben Garrett — Fri, 15 May 2026 19:40:48 GMT

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.

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Week #9: Angel Falls Overlook

Ben Garrett — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:38:53 GMT

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.

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

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The tragedy of the Jerome Boyatt saga

Ben Garrett — Sat, 09 May 2026 15:55:18 GMT

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.

From left: Deputy Floyd Winningham, Sheriff George Winningham, Sheriff Willie Winningham, and Jerome Boyatt. (Computer-aided reconstruction of original portraits.)

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Week #8: Cracks in the Rocks

Ben Garrett — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:46:22 GMT

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.

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

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Deputy sheriff was first from Scott County to 'ride the lightning'

Ben Garrett — Fri, 01 May 2026 19:30:13 GMT

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.

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Week #7: Buzzard Rock

Ben Garrett — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:06:38 GMT

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.

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

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Week #6: Burnt Mill Loop

Ben Garrett — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:39:16 GMT

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.

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Murders in the Heartland: The Apple Orchard Killing

Ben Garrett — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 23:57:45 GMT

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.

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Week #5: Northrup Falls

Ben Garrett — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 23:49:45 GMT

Photo: Nathan Szwarc - https://www.theoutbound.com/tennessee/hiking/hike-to-northrup-falls/

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.

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Murders in the Heartland: The lynching of Berry Bowling

Ben Garrett — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 12:29:18 GMT

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.

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Hike #4: O&W Bridge

Ben Garrett — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 23:11:29 GMT

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.

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