Movie Star Pictures

When I was a little girl every once in while Mom would get out a little 5x7 box that was about an inch thick. It had a blue lid. Inside were pictures of movie stars that she had collected as a girl. I don't remember who they all were, but I remember the look. They were black and white.

Minks for Everyone

Janice remembered when these pictures were taken at her home on Millstone. She remembered Aunt Stella asking for her mink to wear before the pictures were taken. It actually belonged to Aunt Atha, but there was a lot of laughing and teasing as they were gathering for this picture.

Sitting are Atha and Laura. Standing: Stella, Willie and Nettie.

In this picture, taken the same day is Lake, Granny (Nancy Alice Hall Bentley), Laura and standing, Atha, Stella, Nettie, Edna and Willie.

What wonderful pictures.

Georgia Peaches

Some pictures are a story of their own.

One of the things we used to beg mom to let us do when we visited Kentucky was to walk down to the forks from Granny's and get something from the store there. We loved picking through the candy. It was a big deal to get a quarter or dime and another big deal to actually get to walk down the road by ourselves.

At home we never left the yard to play baseball with the neighbors who lived one field away from us without permission. At that, Mom could stand on the front porch and look over and see us unless we were on the far side of their house. Mostly we played baseball in their side yard or our front yard. Getting to walk down to the forks was a big deal.

Uncle Willie and Aunt Edna owned the store at the forks for a number of years. Their daughter, my first cousin Janice, has been sending me pictures over the past week. One of them was after Uncle Willie had returned from Georgia where he had picked up a load of peaches. (No wonder the food and produce was so good coming from that store.).

Uncle Willie looks the same in this picture as he does in all of the ones I have seen even as the guys in the truck play a prank on him, but Aunt Edna is cracking up. I thought this picture was a jewel. Janice doesn't know who the men in the truck are, but Edna is on the left of Willie and Dolly Killen is on the right. Dolly was the wife of Edna's first cousin, Arthur Bates.

Look how pretty Aunt Edna is. Didn't they make a wonderful couple?

The Murder of James Bates Part 2

I told you what I knew about the killing of James Bates, the brother of Martin Van Buren Bates and Eliza Agnes Bates.  It was actually more about the aftermath of that killing.  I received information from cousin Lois about what she and her brother, Orville, learned when they were researching in the early 80's.

•  I can see that you did not receive my mail long ago telling you part of the story and the reason for the killings by MVB. I wish I knew what you have learned so I would not repeat it. While MVB was away in the service his brother James "Jim" Bates, who was married to Elizabeth, parents of Nancy Bates, (later married Andy Wright and became parents of my father, Jim Wright). Jim Bates had a bucket of gold and somehow heard there was a gang of men coming to take it from him. He went out alone searched and found a place the gold would be safe. When he got home, Betsy asked him to tell her where it was hidden. He refused because if she knew and they threatened to kill him she would tell to save his life.
  
  
  
  Some say he was cradling oats when they came while my mother told me they were in their home that night when they came. He was taken across the road and up a hill (small mountain) with Betsy following, begging and pleading with them to not kill him. They told her if she followed any more they would kill her. Jim Bates told her, "Go home. Someone has to take care of our children." They took him to the top turned left and went into a hog lot where wild hogs lived. They used every means they could to make him tell where the gold was and he would not. This is from memory and I like to tell what they did to him. Will dig that out later for you. They said you could hear his screams over the entire area for a long time.
  
  
  
  After awhile a man came riding up and was angry that after all that had been done to Jim he had not talked. He waved his hand and told them to kill him and he rode away. They left his body in the hog pen where they found him in daylight partially eaten by the hogs. There is much more to this story and I am not trying to keep you in suspense. I don't feel well enough to get all of the names that were involved that night. Some I remember without looking.

Lois and Orville talked to so many people who knew about things that happened first hand or had learned the stories from those who knew them first hand.  I will post more details when Lois has a chance to go over the notes she and Orville took.  In a few weeks I will combine these two blogs so that the entire story is together and the details are correct. 

Everage / Etheridge

Our oldest Everage relatives may acutally have been Etheridge due to spelling errors by Census takers and other public officials.  The oldest known in this line is Thomas Etheridge who was born in 1605 in England. Next in line were Thomas Etheridge, then Marmaduke Etheridge, Solomon Ehteridge, Abner Etheridge wo was born in 1695 in Virginia.  His son, Abner was listed as Etheridge and Everage.  For years I never knew who he had married, but I knew a sad little story about her. 

Abner left his family in North Carolina to serve in the Revolutionary War.  While he was gone it fell to his wife to care for the farm and care for their four children, Mary Ann, Joseph M., Solomon and Nellie Everage.  Apparentley, it grew too much for her.  One day when the older children were out in the fields, she tied the young ones to the bed and walked away.  She was never seen again and assumed to have fallen over a cliff and died.  I know you could think of her as being weak, but it always touched me as how said it was that she couldn't face the challenges when so many women in the family have been strong mothers.

The four children ended up coming to Letcher county with other early pioneers.  Mary Ann had two children from an unknown father. 

These children ended up

The Murder of James Bates During the Civil War

John Wallis Bates was elected to sheriff in Russell County (now Wise County), Virginia.  He married twice.  His first wife was Lavina Light.  They had five children.  They divorced, and Levina moved to Missouri.  He married again to Sarah Waldrup and they moved to Letcher county. 

Sarah was 14 years younger than John.  I always thought that he must have had a bit of a roving eye.  Later, I found divorce records with the right names, but the dates seemed off. In them Lavina was the one who caused the divorce.  John was granted a divorce and able to marry again.  Lavina was divorced but not allowed to marry again.  She never did as far as I could find.  I am not sure that that divorce record was theirs, but it made me think about him a bit differently.

John and Sarah had 12 children:  John Wallis Jr, Margaret "Peggy", Martha Irby, Elizabeth Agnes (my great great grandmother), Jesse, James, Robert "Robin", Uriah, Sarah, Henderson "Hen", Mary Jane and Martin Van Buren Bates.

John Wallis Jr. married Elizabeth "Bett:" Hall, the daughter of Gunsmith Billy Hall and Margaret Martha Johnson.  They had 15 children.

Margaret "Peggy" Bates married William Payne Johnson.  They had 10 chidren.

Elizabeth, known as Eliza Agnes, married Joel Ellis Wright, son of Joel Martin & Susannah Wright.  They had 7 children, one of whom was William Jesse Wright, my great grandfather.

Jesse Bates married Ibby Victoria Berry.  They had three children.

James married Elizabeth "Bessie" Adams.  They had six children.  He served in the Confederate army.

Robert "Robin" Bates married Elizabeth Catherine Bentley, the great granddaughter of Daniel Benltey and Nancy Jane Lewis.  They had 13 children.

Uriah Bates married Letty Adams.  They had two children.  Uriah Bates was a private in the Confederate army during the Civil War.  He was in Company F, 5th Kentucky Infantry. He was listed on the sick roll as of April 30, 1862 and in the hospital. He died of measles at Holston. He is buried in one of the 14 graves marked with a memorial marker on a farm at Gate City, Virginia.

Sarah Ann married William Mullins.  They had seven children.

Henderson "Hen" Bates married Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Roberson.  They had six children.  He served in the Confederate Army and rode with General John Hunt Morgan in June of 1864.  He was a Captain in Company D  13th Kentucky Calvary. He died in September 1870 from wounds he received while serving in the Confederate Army.

Mary Jane Bates never married and had no children.

Martin Van Buren Bates first married Anna Swan and then Annette Weathersby.  He was known as the Kentucky giant.  He met her while going on a ship to England to tour Europe. 

The story I wanted to tell was about James.  He served in the Confederate army as a Sergeant, Company F 5th Company mounted infantry under the command of Captain Ben E. Caudill. While he was on furlough for the purpose of procuring horses for the Confederates, he was captured by the home guard.  He was tied to a tree and tortured to death with bayonets, a slow and agonizing death.  His family was forced to watch him die.


From a story written by John Lucas, a distant relative of the Bates, what happened is told:

• "When his brother, Martin Van Buren Bates, found out that the local Unionists had captured James, tormented and murdered him, he was enraged.  He gathered his men and searched out the murderers. One by one they were captured. Some were roused out of their beds at night. Others were found hiding in hilltop caverns. Some were ambushed on Rock House Creek and locked in it under close guard. Then their wives, parents, grandparents and children were rounded up and driven to the mouth of Big Hollow and kept there around campfires all night. The children ranged from about 12 years old down to babes in their mothers' arms. Some of the wives were pregnant.

• Two slender black oaks grew a dozen feet apart. A pole was lashed to the trees about 10 feet up. A round beech log was cut, stripped of its branches and placed on the ground beneath. Eight nooses hung down from the pole.

• At dawn, the Rebels roused the sleepers, who threw fresh wood on the fires. At the sight of the dangling ropes the women began to wail. The giant appeared on his giant horse, his giant sword and pistols gleaming, his black eyes shining with contempt and hatred. His men appeared out of the gloomy mists herding the prisoners before them, each man's hands bound behind his back.

• The prisoners were placed on the log, and a noose was dropped around each shrinking neck, the men pleading for their lives. Their relatives begged the giant to be merciful. The giant sat on his great horse for several minutes while dawn slowly brightened the sky. The fire crackled, adding its gleams to the soft light of the new day. The killers began to hope a little; then the giant raised his hand in a signal. Two men gave the log a shove and it rolled down the hill. The eight bound figures dropped a few inches and choked slowly to death. With swords and cocked pistols the women and children were kept at bay. None could render aid.

• The "Yankees" were a quarter of an hour dying. The giant told the people not to touch the dead or take them down from the gallows. They were to hang there and rot by the road, their corruption warning all passersby of the consequences of killing a Bates. If anyone violated his order, he would die in the same way. Absolutely no mercy would be shown. In addition, his family would be destroyed, his house burned, his stock killed. "Take warning," the giant said. "because no other warning will be given!" Then he and his men rode away, leaving the dead to swing in the wind and their kin to mourn them through a monstrous nightmare.

• The bodies turned to skeletons before the giant came back, only rattling bones were left for burial."

After this, Martin  could not stay in Letcher County.  John Lucas said,  "When those children got old enough they would have killed him without a doubt. He moved away when the war was over and didn't tell people where he went, either. You know what his vengeance was like. We can't even guess what those children would have done to even the score when they got to be grown men."

I haven't placed John in the family yet.  I do have a John Lucas who was the son of Noah Holbrook and Siller Bates.  I don't know if that is the right person or not.  He was alive while Martin was alive, but I am not sure how much first hand knowledge he would have had of the incident.

[FNB Chronicle, vol 9 no 3, 1998 http://www.tngenweb.org/scott/fnb_v9n3_giant.htm]

A Husband's Love

John Isom Adams was the son of Benjamin Adams and Nancy Holbrook.  Benjamin was the son of John Hobbs Adams and Lettie Simpson, my 5th great grandparents.  Benjamin was the brother of Jane Adams who married Benjamin Webb. They were the parents of Lettie Webb who married Archelous Craft.  They were the parents of Chunk Craft.  That makes John Isom Adams my first cousin five times removed.

John married Sarah "Sally" Craft.  She was the daughter of James Washington Craft and Druscilla Hammons my 4th great grandparents.  Sally was the sister of Archelous Craft.  She was my g-g-g Aunt.

If you are trying to keep score, that means they were first cousins once removed through John Hobbs Adams and Nancy Caudill.  They were third cousins through Benjamin Caudill & Mary Elizabeth Adams as well as John Adams & Ann Caudill.  And they were husband and wife.

While the Civil War was being fought, Sally was ill.  John wanted some gun powder to kill a squirrel to make something for her to eat.  Gun powder was very scarce.  A bomb had been dropped by General Humphrey Marshall's army.  John tried to open the bomb for the gun powder.  It exploded in his hands and totally blew him up.  He died  on March 10, 1863.  Sarah died on March 26th.  This story was reported in the John J. Dickey Diaries by John and Sarah's grandson, the oldest son of Joseph Adams and Sarah Bates.