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Fort
Underwood at Dry Branch,
Is
near Olive Hill, Ky., nearly 100 years after the death of George Underwood.
A version of the Hatfield-McCoy feud took place in the westernmost
section
of Carter County and extended over into Lewis and Rowan counties.
Called
the Underwood War, it pitted the Underwoods against the Holbrooks and
Stampers,
and though the latter group followed its vow to pluck out the
Underwoods,
root and branch, everyone at the time came out losers.
There were
many
versions of the War printed in the local newspapers at the time. The
Portsmouth
Times of the day reported the following:
Writing
from this distance, with only the colored stories of the friends of each
clan
to guide us, it is difficult to form a clear opinion as to which of the two
warring
families was to blame... Throughout all the years the Holbrooks and
Underwoods
have been committing murder the Holbrooks were as handy with the
deadly
weapons as the Underwoods...
In 1877, Boyd Countians read the following about the continuing feud:
Viewed in light of recent events, the neighboring county of Carter is
highly
suggestive to the uninitiated of general anarchy and confusion, a place
where
snakes stalk rampant and Underwoods and Stampers meet in deadly battle
three
times as day.
Pieced together here is a generally-accepted version of the War,
following
reports in contemporary newspapers, a compilation by Coates, and
modern
explorations by Ronald Burchett and Charles J. Pelfrey:
George Underwood, Virginian by birth, came to the upper reaches of
Tygarts
Creek about 1847, bringing with him his wife and four sons, Alfred,
Jesse,
Elvin, and George Lewis. Old
George, born in 1810, was six feet tall,
rawboned,
squareshouldered, and inclined to be in fights at election time --a
common
practice. He was a Whig, a Union
man, and a Republican, and those
political
attachments may have been more responsible for the friction than
anything
else.
The
roots of the fight may have been planted before he arrived, for John Stamper
and
George Penland were in a court suit as early as 1845. But the ultimate sin
of
the Underwoods, or for which they were blamed, was one which they learned and
practiced
with vigor during the Civil War--the taking of horses.
Alfred led a
raid
on Maysville during the war, pillaging residences and stores of Southern
sympathizers
while a provost guard (Union) looked the other way.
George had a strong reputation himself and made the newspaper often.
In
1872,
Big Sandy Herald reported him active at a meeting of Radicals
(Republicans).
Prior to that time, apparently, he had been wounded in Olive
Hill
by one of the Tyree boys. That
family apparently held a tenuous
relationship
with the Underwoods, for Zachariah Tyree had early land suits with
George
but appeared on the political stump with him after the shooting.
In
1874,
the Herald said Alfred and Jesse, "two notorious outlaws who have probably
stolen
more in Kentucky than any other ten thieves, have stolen horses in Kansas
and
gone in the direction of the Indian Territory." These hints at local
reputation
come from an opposition paper, give a look at how the Underwoods were
viewed
by their contemporary foes five years before the great battles.
George had a nephew by marriage, John Richards Tabor, a card player.
With
help from his uncle, he rented a small farm nearby in conjunction with John
Martin.
In 1877 those two were accused of horse-taking.
Soon afterward one of
the
Stampers missed a horse he prized and blamed it on one of the Pendlums, who
was
then killed from ambush. On his way
to the wake, George, too, was ambushed
and
shot eight times, but escaped. He
lost one eye and was crippled for life.
Later
that day, apparently, the same shooters called George Lewis Underwood from
his
home and shot him as he appeared unarmed in the doorway of his cabin.
He
would
lay abed for two years.
Claib Jones sided with the Underwoods, saying he was called there by Dr.
John
Steele to tend Lewis. "The
Stamper party sent word they would burn my
house
and kill my children; I sent back word if they had no houses they could
talk
about burning mine... When our men went out and came back, our password was
'another
crow has fallen'. It went on and
one morning seven crows were killed
before
breakfast." (Author's note:
the figure is unsubstantiated.)
After that, old George healed, Tabor ran away, and Elvin joined the
fight,
with help from Martin. Those two
took to the bush with intent of
vengeance
and quickly two from the other side were killed from ambush.
Both had
boasted
of killing a Pendlum. Elvin made no
concealment of his involvement in
the
latest assassinations. Matters
became so raw Gov. McCreary sent weapons,
equipping
J.N. Stewart and 40 local guardsmen and telling them to keep order.
The
guns were kept in a room in the courthouse at Grayson.
Now Jesse came back from Iowa, where he had gone to avoid arrest over
horsestealing
charges in Kentucky and Kansas. Before
he left, he had been shot
by
one of the Holbrook sons. With force, he arranged a sort of peace, then
started
back westward by wagon. His family
was overtaken in Lewis County, where
the
band tried to kill him, but he got one of them, a man named Ruggles.
Jesse
was
wounded and returned to Grayson, charged with murder, but was later
acquitted
because the make-shift posse had either incorrect authorization or
insufficient
identification.
Martin withdrew from the neighborhood and Elvin tried to go back to
farming,
but it was too late. He was shot
down in the presence of his two
daughters
(grand daughters of David Davis and Allice Kilgore pictured above) who
were
dropping seed corn ahead of his planting. There were sporadic minor
shootings
for two months, and then on August 22, 1879, George Lewis Underwood
died
of his two-year-old wounds. It was
breaking the point in the feud.
Within days Squire Holbrook was shot down in his own yard and Jesse was
credited,
along with Claiborne Jones, with the shooting.
Then all hell fell on
the
Underwoods. William died of a
gunblast through a window as he ate supper in
his
Rowan County home. George turned
his back when friends told him to get out
of
Kentucky and on October 9, as he went outside his fortress home to pick up
firewood,
his enemies waited until his arms were loaded and then shot him near
the
door. Tough old George was helped
inside by the womenfolk, and word went
out
he was abed. A week later, Jesse
went to Fort Underwood to see about his
father,
but was cut down as he passed through the dog-trot between house and
kitchen.
The women kept pouring water on him to keep him alive, but he died
that
evening (Oct. 16).
Two explicit newspaper accounts tell of this time of horror.
The first
comes
from the Iron Register quoting the Greenup Independent:
George; Mrs. Parish, his sister-in-law; Jane, his daughter; Elva's Mary
(remember
Mary and her sister saw their father, Elvin murdered in the cornfield)
and
Mrs. Edna Griffith were in the house. The
women folks had been sitting up
with
Jesse's corpse, waiting anxiously for help and protection from the county
authorities
whom they had prayed for it.
Jesse's body was rotting and filling with stench the home of his father,
whose
own body was commencing to decay; the atmosphere inhaled by the children
and
wives was poisoned by the fearful vapors arising from the beloved ones.
It was ten o'clock at night Sunday evening when suddenly from 25 to 30
men
with blackened faces surrounded the house demanding admission in order to
search
for Claib Jones and John Martin, and assuring George that neither he nor
any
of the women folks should be hurt. The door was then opened.
Fifteen of
them
entered, two of them with cocked guns which they
kept
ready for service while they stayed. George
was sitting on the side of
this
bed.
The talk was about the incidents of the Underwood War and the men stayed
nearly
an hour. They uncovered Jesse's corpse and making jokes about the
unfortunate
dead, they laughed rudely and coarsely. Finally,
after having
secured
all the arms in the house one of the gang said, "Let us bring the
meeting
to a close." Another then
asked George to show him his latest wound,
and
when he stooped over to show them his arm, one of the murderers emptied his
gun,
loaded with slugs and shot, into George breast, piercing his body, the hole
being
as large as a man's fist. Another of the assassins then shot him in the
back
of the head, and 25 minutes later George was a corpse.
The powder of one
of
the shots burned Jane's dress.
Added is this chastisement printed as the end of the article in the
Portsmouth
times:
Be it ever said to the disgrace of Carter County that when the Judge
ordered
the sheriff to go with a posse of men to bury the dead, only two of many
summoned
would agree to go and the attempt was abandoned. Finally, one man in
the
Underwood neighborhood did go and bury the dead when the assassins had left
the
scene.
The above newspaper articles were reprinted in George Wolfford's
"Carter
County,
a Pictorial History", published by WWW Company, Ashland, Kentucky.
For
those interested in another side of the story, here is a letter to the
editor,
written by the infamous Jesse Underwood, and published in the 9 Oct 1879
(very
close to the time of his murder) in "The Flemingsburg Democrat":
"I
have been a silent listener to all that editors and local editors have seen
cause
to write concerning the so-called Underwood War, I consider that name
unjust.
It would be more appropriate to say the war on the Underwoods, if it
should
be called a war at all. I consider
it downright murder, at least on
their
part, the other is quite different. They
commenced the shooting and
killing
without a cause, and killed two men and seriously wounded another and
threatened
the whole family before the Underwoods ever raised a gun.
They then
had
two men killed in arms. There was a
peace effected in which I
arrived
in time to take a part. The
Underwoods considered the shooting at an
end.
Two years passed and Elvy Underwood was murdered by two men while quietly
at
work in his field surrounded by his little children. I trailed the two men
direct
within two hundred yards of Squire V. Holbrook's house, as near as I dare
go.
One of the tracks corresponded exactly with that of Squire Holbrook's.
Not
content
with what they had already done, Squire Holbrook, his son Mildred and
two
others waylayed the road for me one whole day about one-half mile from our
house.
Your readers have already learned their leader's fate and how the
followers
murdered Wm. Underwood, unsuspected and unawares, for he had ever
labored
for peace and never raised arms against the enemies of his family.
Next
comes
the shooting and wounding of David Wilson, one of Holbrook's band.
Your
kind
readers have a right to censure whom they choose for this deplorable state
of
affairs on Tygart. But one thing is
certain, I have labored hard to prevent
this
terrible work, for there is nothing I prize so high as peace and quiet.
(signed)
Jesse Underwood"
Additional
folklore says that the "Regulators" forced their way into the house
and,
after making certain that Jesse was dead and after murdering George, they
ordered
the womenfolk to cook them a meal, which they ate, in full view of the
bodies.
Then they gave an ultimatum to the women, saying that they had 24 hours
to
get out of the county. The women,
who must have been pretty brave, defied
them
and remained. Jane, whose birth
name was Melissa Jane was later changed to
Rebecca
Jane, when she left Carter Co. to
join other family members in Elkhart,
Polk
Co., IA.
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