Kentucky Reckoning

My roots are showing. Again.

Between family research and reading my friend's book, Cumberland Bride, Kentucky has been on my mind lately. I love the place and wish I could spend more time there, but I can't live there. The cost of living and familial conflict are far too high.

It seems my family and I aren't the only Kentuckians who left the state for those reasons. A book titled Hillbilly Elegy was released in 2016. It has an Amazon rating of four-and-a-half stars with well over 11,000 reviews. I haven't read it yet, but judging from the description, the story of the author's family appears to parallel that of my own. My grandfather moved his family from the Cumberland Plateau in the 1920s for a better life and an opportunity to work on the railroad in the northern part of the state and in Ohio.

In addition, I recently read an essay contained in a liberal (I roll mine eyes) response to Elegy. As with the author of Elegy, the story of this author's family parallels my family's down to the town in which we grew up. Our grandparents were part of the Appalachian out-migration, mine from Whitley County, hers from neighboring Laurel, though my grandparents left before WWII. Her grandmother was eventually placed in the nursing home in which several members of my family lived out their final years and others worked. Like me, she attended church downtown where a fiery preacher screamed God's wrath without mentioning redemption through Christ. (The Law guides and convicts us. Jesus fulfills its requirements for those who believe. Is that so hard to say?)

Reading it was a bit surreal. What I found fascinating though was the shared behaviors and attitudes of our families. The addictions and unwillingness to discuss their lives back in the Cumberland Plateau. Though my mother was born outside of the Plateau, she apparently adopted her siblings' attitudes about the region in which their entire family lived for nearly 200 years. I once asked why we never visited our great aunts there. Though she and her siblings spoke of the ladies with great fondness, my mother replied something to the effect that she didn't want to have anything to do with those hillbillies (at the time, we didn't know we were descendants of Squire Boone through Sarah.) As they covered the roots of their hair when the real color began to emerge, so did she and the others do their best to hide the roots of their culture and lives when those experiences and characteristics began to manifest themselves.

My generation of the family could never understand our parents and their attitudes. Elegy and the essay opened a door of understanding, and I hope to learn more.

The Killing of Lee Smith

Digging into ones family history often leads to unpleasant or heartbreaking surprises. While researching an elderly woman's family tree, I discovered her mother had delivered a baby out of wedlock before my friend was born and that the baby had died as an infant. I also learned a female ancestor of another friend was an inmate in the state mental hospital (though in those days, women were institutionalized for a variety of causes not related to mental illness.)

When I began to research my own family tree, I knew my great grandfather, Lee Smith, had been murdered. I'd heard the story often while growing up, though my aunts only knew a few details--that Lee had been ambushed and killed by a man, possibly over a women. After I began my research, I found nothing on the case until a fellow member of a genealogy group passed along a link to a newspaper archive site. What I found there and on newspapers.com, along with a request for court documents, led to a few sickening revelations.

From these articles, I learned the following: On November 11th (the 14th according to the indictment, but the article was dated the 12th) Lee Smith was walking near the train depot in downtown Williamsburg, Kentucky around 7:00 PM. Since it as November, it would have been dark at that time of day. And with the average temperatures in the upper 30s at night, the temperature was likely in the 40s by that time. While walking, he was shot in the back and left to die on that dark, cold street.

Google Street View: Looking down Main Street. Old L&N Depot is on right. 

A twenty year old man by the name of Giles Carroll was spotted running from the scene on that chilly dark night. Giles was born in Claiborne, Tennessee in August of 1880. His home on the 1900 census was listed as Court House, Whitley County, but he lived with his mother and step family. From the census I learned he was a farm laborer, as many were back then in that region, and that he could read and write.

From the articles, I learned that in 1901, he worked in the coal mines. For in April of that year, he nearly died--and a fellow worker did--when a load of shale suddenly fell from the above.

And yet, seven months after miraculously surviving that catastrophe, he chose not to extend that same mercy to another man. As the article relates, "After going a short distance, (Carroll) turned and ran back...entering a store very warm (in appearance I assume) and appeared to be much excited." The article ends by stating Lee and Giles had had a quarrel earlier in the day.

Giles Carroll was arrested and held without bond.

Thanks to a genealogy group that focuses on the area, I found a link that would allow me to order court papers. I did so and received the indictment, which I transcribed.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky

Indictment for Willful Murder
vs
Giles Carroll

A True Bill
E.N. Steely, Foreman of Grand Jury

Jan 15, 1902
(Name of clerk unreadable)

Witnesses:
James Mat Smith, Bob Thomas, Crit Goins, Mike Maloney, Milburn Moore, Charles McFarland, Bill Thomas, Bill Rhoden, Jake Stinson, Geo(?) Johnson, Dr J.D. Adkins, Lyza(?) Vaughn, Judy or Trudy (what looks like) Bowlin or Bowtin, Curt Walker, (Tim?) Martin, Mrs Mary Johnson, Matt (unreadable), unreadable-(at Arthur(?) Johnson, Evert S(unreadable)

The Grand Jury of Whitley County, in the name and by the authority of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, accuse Giles Carroll of the crime of willful murder committed in manner and form as follows, viz:

The said Giles Carroll on the 14th day of November 1901 before the finding of this indictment and in the county and state aforesaid, did unlawfully feloniously, willfully and of his malice aforethought kill and murder Lee Smith, by shooting and wounding him the said Smith with guns and pistols, loaded with power, lead and balls and other hard and explosive substance, from which shooting and wounding the said Smith did then and there die.

against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
James N. Sharp
Commonwealth Attorney, 28th Judicial Dist of Kentucky

According to jury instructions, the charges also included voluntary manslaughter, which, at that time, was defined as, "The willful – that is intentional felonious killing of another, without malice aforethought, not in necessary or apparently necessary self-defense, but done in such hate and passion, created by such provocation, as is ordinarily calculated to excite the passion to beyond control. Murder was defined as felonious, and willful-that is intentional-killing of one person by another with his malice aforethought, not in necessary or apparent necessary self defense."

Since the jury was given the option of voluntary manslaughter, they could decide if the murder was committed in the heat of the moment due to some provocation, namely, the quarrel the men had earlier in the day and whatever caused it. However, since Carroll ambushed Lee in the dark and shot him in the back with weapons (plural) that he'd taken the time to load with gunpowder, lead, balls and other hard/explosive objects, this indicates premeditated murder with malice aforethought.

The Verdict:

We the Jury find the defendant Giles Carroll guilty of murder and fix his punishment in the state penitentiary for life.

However, he served only eight years and was paroled. Why? I don't yet know. Nor do I know the actual motivation for the killing. He later married, but it doesn't appear that had children or descendants who could discuss the case, if they were even willing.

So I have more questions to answer. I hope to someday, even if I don't like the answers I find.


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Newspaper clippings are from chroniclingamerica.loc.gov and newspapers.com. Names are highlighted as they were search terms.

From Whence I Came

I've been involved in genealogy research for years. The bug began after hearing my uncle relate details about a great great grandfather that he found in the National Archives during a trip to D.C. Prior to that, the only thing we knew about the family was where they had lived before migrating to the northern part of the state.

I didn't have the resources to dig into our roots back then. That changed with the advent of personal computers and the internet. Even then, research was slow, and it depended on what information I could get from others on email lists and what I could find on genealogy software. I hit several brick walls. When I began working at an international corporation, I had to put it aside altogether.

The bug returned several years ago after I began to see commercials for Ancestry.com's ethnicity DNA test. Intrigued, I asked my husband for a test for Christmas. The results and a subsequent monthly subscription to public records available on Ancestry's site changed my perception of myself and my family. I solved a long-time mystery on my paternal side, and my volatile, hate-filled, drama-loving maternal side began to make sense.

My entire maternal line lived in the Cumberland Plateau along the Pottsville Escarpment in SE Kentucky, and they are everything outsiders believe a Kentuckian to be. Caricatures non-residents developed from their knowledge of the blood feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. However, while my "people," as my aunts called them, were often involved in litigation with others, they kept the actual feuding within the family.

As was typical back in the day, my grandparents had numerous children. Some inherited the cold, stoic, heartlessness of my grandfather's line, and others the emotional volatility and tendency to commit adultery from their mother's (a tendency that skipped generations injured by a parent's betrayal, but which was taken up with glee by an occasional offspring.)

Unfortunately, my mother inherited such destructive traits from both sides. While some of her siblings simply got angry and cut other family members out of their lives for a decade or two, my mother caused one raging blow up after another and pitted family members against each another (even her own children) in a constant rage formed by the warring sides within her. She caused more injury in her long life than good, and I never understood it until I learned about the two sides of her family.

James Balwin, author of Go Tell It On the Mountain, wrote, "Go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road again and tell the truth about it. Sing or shout or testify or keep it to yourself: but know whence you came."

I haven't read the book yet so I don't know the context, but for me, as a Christian who has experienced forgiveness and who has been taught to forgive, going back into my family's history and getting a glimpse of their hardships, their lives, and in some cases, their pain gave me a greater understanding of my "people" and the ripple effect their behavior had on my life.

I feel more connected than I ever have, and more objective about and compassionate for a family that once frustrated me to no end. I'm even still curious about them and would like to learn more. I plan to take a trip to the region in which they lived for over 200 years and, "travel their road." In doing so, I hope to learn even more about the ancestors and places from whence I came.

Hurricanes and Reading - The Cumberland Bride

Google's security measures are a bit too stringent at times, which prevents me from signing onto Blogger. I finally remembered to do so at a device Google recognizes and can now update the blog.

Hurricane Florence recently slogged into North Carolina. In the decade I've lived here, never have I experienced a tropical event that lasted so long. That storm did not want to leave, and for four days it battered the coast. The damage was extensive. And then came the flooding. We were far enough inland to escape the brunt of the storm, but not to avoid it entirely. As a final insult, Florence dumped a huge amount of rainfall on us on her way out of town, flooding our street (but not our house.) She joins Cornwallis and Sherman as guests not welcome in this state.

As of this writing, Tropical Storm Michael, which made landfall near Panama City, Florida, as Category 4 Hurricane Michael, is flying toward us. Praise God, sometime in the night the storm shifted and the worst of it will skirt to the west of those most affected by Florence. We should just get some rain. If the winds want to uproot any plants or trees, it's welcome to pull up my half-dead gardenias because my husband insists they're okay.

During all this hurricaning, I spent a lot of time reading. I'm in the middle of Rebel Yell, a book about the life and military career of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, but I put it aside when a historical novel written by a friend of mine was released.

Cumberland Bride, by Shannon McNear, is set along the Wilderness Trail and in Kentucky, my home state and the place where my entire maternal line lived for over 200 years. When she told me she was writing it, the history and genealogy geek in me nearly burst. Numerous, if not all, of my direct ancestors would have taken the trail to and through the Cumberland Gap to reach their eventual home in Southeast Kentucky.

Those who know me know I'm not a romance reader, and while the book is a romance, the story focuses on a group of settlers moving into Kentucky and the guide hired to take them there. Shannon is an excellent writer and historian. The details and facts she wove into the story were fantastic. She provided a vivid glimpse of what settlers (including my family) would have seen and experienced during the difficult journey. Whether or not one is a romance reader, it was a good read. I highly recommend it.