xt79p843rd91 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt79p843rd91/data/mets.xml Whitaker, Fess, 1880- 1918  books b02-000000026 English Executive Printing, c1918. : Pikesville, Ky. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Noland, Stephen, 1818- History of Corporal Fess Whitaker. text History of Corporal Fess Whitaker. 1918 2002 true xt79p843rd91 section xt79p843rd91 













  History of

Corporal



ess



Wz/hitaker



I
i



i

 
This page in the original text is blank.

 

















































   COPYRIGHT 1918
   FESS WHITAKER

































THE STANDARD PRINTING CO.
     INCORPORATED
  LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY



 
































































CORPORAL FESS WHITAKER
February 12, 1898, to August 22, 1904

 














          AUTHOR'S PREFACE



A     MONG the people of Letcher County no other
      man has so remarkable history as Fess Whit-
      aker; none other is so well worthy of being
carefully studied by all who find pleasure in the past
history and particularly by Letcher's own people. In
the winning of friends he stands first; in the upbuild-
ing of the county his influence has been strongly ex-
erted; as a soldier on the battlefield he stands firm.
While the moonshiners and ku-klux were provoking
the country in my early boyhood as though led by an
inscrutable hand were finding their way over the
mountains and preparing to establish themselves as
the outguard of civilization that they might become
the possessors of all the sons of Letcher County, the
good mountain mothers, almost unaided, not only
stood like a wall of fire to forbid such conduct of the
men, but made good their footing, which soon after-
ward made their loving Christian homes a pleasure.
  The strong characteristics of the men and women
who, with unexampled courage, endurance and patri-
otic devotion achieved so much with so little means
and in the face of obstacles so great, could but impress
themselves upon the people of Letcher County. From

 




History of Corporal Fess Whitaker



the first mothers they have escaped that sign of
Athenian decadence, the restless desire to be ever
hearing and telling some new thing to show what
good people Letcher County has.
  This book claims to be but an epitome of the His-
tory of Fess Whitaker; but it will be found to contain
a general account, to which interest he has taken by
an uneducated man, special and particular incidents,
etc. The adult or educated mind will read far more
between the lines than is found in the book. The
author trusts that he has imparted to the short stories
something of that spirit which should be impressed
upon the people whose minds and character are still
in the formative state-an admiration of their own
country and a pride in its past, the surest guarantees
that in the future her fair fame will be enhanced, her
honor maintained and her progress in all right lines
be steadily and nobly promoted.



6

 












      HISTORY OF CORPORAL
           FESS WHITAKER



F ESS WHITAKER was born June 17, 1880, in
    Knott County, Kentucky. Knott County is lo-
    cated in the mountains of Kentucky between
the Big Sandy River and the north fork of the Ken-
tucky River. There are no railroads in Knott County,
but there is lots of fine coal (what is known as the
Amburgey seam), and lots of fine timber. Hindman
is the county seat. Knott County has fine churches
and schools and good roads, and, no doubt, the best
farming county in the mountains.
When I was only six years old my father swapped
farms with Tood Stamper and put the Whit-
akers together in Letcher County and the Stampers
together in Knott County. My mother was old Kelly
Hogg's daughter, and in time of slavery my Grand-
father Hogg swapped a foolish negro to Mr. Mullins,
of Knott County, for a good farm worth 10,000 to-
day, known as the Black Sam Francis farm now. Mr.
Mullins thought lots of his little negro and called him
his Shade, meaning that he could rest and the negro
could work. But when the greatest man that ever has
been elected President of the United States of Amer-
ica, Abraham Lincoln, said slavery was not right and



 




History of Corporal Fess Wh/titaker



released the shackles from four million slaves,



Mr.



Mullins lost his farm and his little negro "Sam Hogg
Mullins," too.
  When I was six years old my parents went back to
Rockhouse, a tributary to the north fork of the Ken-



REV. JIM T. WHITAKER
Pastor Indian Bottom Church



tucky River, now one mile from the little town of
IPlackey, or the old Indian Blottonm Church. The
same year that my parents moved to Rockhouse my
father, who was the late I. D. Whitaker, Jr., died. He
was the. son of S. A. Whitaker, known so well in Ken-
tucky and Missouri. After the death of my father



8

 




.9



IKentucky Ivioiintaibt Life



my mother was left



with eight poor



little



orphan



children to raise, six boys and two girls.



The bovs'



names are very funny; they are, according to name
and age: Fred and Fess, Little and Less, Gid and Jim,
and all the rest. And all the rest were the two girls,
Julia and Susan.
  .Mv mother was left with a very good farm of about
125 acres, and the Rockhouse Creek ran right through



the center of it.



During those days every spring we



had what was known as big tides. The late Bill Wright
was the greatest logger and splash-dam  nan in the



mountains of Ii
father died Mr.



lentucky.



The next year after may



Wright had five big



splash-damns in



the head of Rockhouse and Mill Creek and had
between ten thousand and fifteen thousand big poplar
saw logs in the dams, and when he turned those five
dams loose there was no land or fence left below. So
that same spring he cleaned our farm on both. sides of
Rockhouse.and in about ten days here he came with.



twenty-eight big, strong mountain men,



beddin g-



the logs that lodged. I will never forget what hap-
pened. They were all eatin' dinner at 1mnother's. and



one man, by the name of Sol



Potter, wvas eatin!



onion blades and he got choked and got his breath all
that evenin' through the onion blade, but b3y good
luck Mr. Potter is a real rich man in coal land below



Hemphill leased



to Parson Brothers and Big



Montgomery, and in that bunch of log-bedders was



Henry Potter, 'of



Kona, another rich man of the



mountains, and a brother to Sol
brother-in-law of ex-Jailer Hall
owner of the logs and dams, was



Potter and also a
[. Mr. W\Vright, the
, murdered bv Noah



Reynolds just above his homel, now Seco.



all



big



Jim



Rev-nolds

 




10      History of Corporal Fess WTX1hitaker

was sent to the penitentiary for life and served
seven years and was paroled by Governor Beckham.
Reynolds is now a Baptist preacher and lives
in Knott County. The Southeast Coal Compan7
is now operating on Mr. Wright's land at Seco, Ky.
   After the big tide and all the rails gone and big, saw-
 logs laying out in the bottoms in the corn in April,
 we had no money, so us boys finished making the crop
 and minded the stock out of our corn with the dogs
 until fall. There was no such a thing those days as
 wire fences, and in the fall we went to the mountains
 and cut and hauled in rail timber and made rails back
 out of big white oak trees or black oaks worth 25
 per tree now. We would cut and saw the cuts to
 make the rails out of about eight feet, would split and
 burst them open with two good wood gluts and iron
 wedges and a good old seasoned hickory mall, weigh-
 ing- about thirty pounds. After we got our corn and
 fodder laid up for winter the people would go many
 miles to an old horse mill to get cornmeal ground.
 Everyone would take their turn grinding-. Thev
 would put their horse into the mill, put their corn in
 the hopper and then get a switch and start the old
 horse around. And in about one hour he would have
 about one bushel of good meal. There were onlyl
 three miills within fifty miles square. Old Levi
 Eldridge had one on Rockhouse, and old Pud Breed-
 ing had one on Breeding's Creek, and old Fighting
 George Ison one on Line Fork.
 When I was eight years old my mother started me
 to an old water mill with two bushels of corn to get
 neal and put me on an old mule named "John," put
a spur on my right heel to make the old mule go if

 




             Kentttcky Mountain Life           11

he took the studs. So I was just going across Burton
Hill and, like a boy, I wanted my mule to trot, so I
applied my spur and he started and I began to bounce
around on the saddle, and the tighter I clinched my
legs' the faster the old mule got, so he ran through a
big ivy and laurel patch and threw me off. By luck I
only got skinned up a little bit, so I finally caught old
"John" and took off my spur and got back on the old
mule. It was a very cool, frosty morning, so I went
up about two miles to where the late 'Esquire Whit-
aker lived and I got down to warm. I hitched my old
mule to the gate and fixed my corn on better and went
into the house. After I got warm I went back out
and got on my old mule and went on to the mill at
Ben Back's. I got down to take my corn off and
there was no corn, so I' took back down the road
huntin' for my sack of corn.. I went back to where I
warmed and there I found my sack torn all to pieces.
While I was warming the old cows pulled it off of my
saddle and the hogs drug it over a cliff of rocks and
eat it all up. So I went home and mother sure did fix
my back, and then we shelled another sack of corn
and mother took it, because it was noon and no bread
and a houseful of children and no bread to ea)t.
  I never spoke a word until I was nine years old. I
only clucked and motioned for what I wanted. Lots
of people thought I was an idiot because I could not
talk. I may have looked like one, for I was a little old
country boy that never cut my hair in those days only
about twice a year, and I wore a big checked cotton
shirt and old jeans pants made by mV mother and old
yarn socks, and 70-cent stogie shoes with brass toes.
This was my winter suit and my summer suit was'
only a big yellow factory shirtfand no hat'or shoes.



 



12



History of Corporal Fess



  At the age of ten I was taken by my mother and
uncle, Gid Hogg, to Whitesburg, Kv., the county seat
of Letcher County, a distance of about eighteen miles.
We rode an old mare named "Kate," without any
saddle, and when I was taken off I could not walk I
was so stiff, and that made everybody think I was an



idiot sure enough.



So when Judge H. C. Lilley



opened court on Monday, February 12, they taken



THE AUTHOR, AGE 10



me before the judge.



The judge ordered old Black



Shade Combs, then the sheriff, to summons twelve



jurors and two doctors.



One doctor thought I had



been born an idiot, and Dr. S. S. Swaingo, of Jackson,
held out that I was all right of mind, and so the case
was put off until 10 a. m. Tuesday. Then Dr. Swaingo
got old Dr. McCray and gave me a thorough exam-
ination.; The doctors found by examining my neck,



4



IT'hitaker

 




            Kentucky Mountitn Life            13

where the small tits in one's neck are, that the tit
in my neck had grown together. After the doctors
cut the fit loose in my neck I began to talk and to
have a good joke. The doctors took me to a one-horse
barber shop and had my hair cut and fixed me up and
presented me on Tuesday morning to Judge Lilley,
and he was surprised beyond reason that I was Fess.
So that was Fess's first miracle. Later on they have
all been worked out to the present.
  When my mother took me back home everybody
was surprised and people came miles and miles to see
the boy that was so much talked about and to see the
boy that had been made to speak after ten years of
worthless tongue.
  I was put in school at the age of ten years and was
known as the funny schoolboy. The children would
all laugh at me because I could not talk plain, but it
did not take me very long to learn how to stand ahead
in my classes. I was very fast to learn in all the books
they had those days except arithmetic. \The first
school I ever went to was in an old log house dobbed
with mud, with an old-fashioned chimney made out
of mud and sticks of wood. The' late NV. T. Haney,
who was murdered on-the head of Little Carr, of
Knott County, for 30.00, was the teacher. He was
known one day as being the best-read man and no
doubt the best educated man in Eastern Kentucky
those days. He was the 'father of John Haney, of
Chicago, the expert railroad man, and the stepfather
of George M. Hogg, one of the leading men in Fast-
ern Kentucky. Mr. Haney, after hearing all of the
children's lessons in the afternoon, would lay down



in an old country wash trough for a nap of sleep.



The

 



14      History of Corporal Fess W'Vhitaker

trough was made out of a fine large yellow poplar,
eight feet long, and hauled out of the mountains with
a yoke of steers. The log was hewed square on one
side with a sixteen-inch broadax, then eight inches
left at each end and the remainder was hulled out to
a big trough, then two holes were bored in the bottom
of each end of the trough and four wooden legs, made
by hand, were driven into the trough and set up. In
the inside of the trough at one end at the bottom was
a hole bored and a pin made to fit so that it could let
the water out. The water was "hit" and put in the
tub and when the "wimnen" began to wash they would
have what was known as battling sticks and they
would apply the water and soap on the clothes and lay
them on the eight-inch end of the trough and begin
to battle. The old troughs have about all played out
of fashion, as the galvanized tubs were brought in and
have taken the day; still there is many a one used up
to the present day. The soap they used those days
was the best of soap. The men folks would cut and
haul in out of the mountains so many white oak and
hickory trees. They would cut and saw them up and
pile them up in a big pile and burn them to get the
ashes. After the ashes were cooled off they took them
and poured them1 into a guib called those days that
was sitting on some boards that the gunm was made to
lean on. After staying nine days, on the old moon, wat-
er was poured in the gumn on the ashes and the red lye
began to drop and run out of the bottom into another
trough, made like the washin' trough but smaller.
After the lye leaked out good and got all the strength
out of the ashes, the lye was put in an old country
fashion pot and the hogs' guts that had been washed
and dried and strung on a pole in the corner of the old

 



            Kentucky Mountain Life            15

chimney was taken down and put in the pot with the
lye. The lye was so strong it soon ate up the hogs'
guts and boiled to a jelly-like substance and taken off
and put in old big round gourd raised on the farm.
The gum that held the ashes was a hollow tree cut
down and burnt o'ut inside and sawed into about four-
foot lengths for gums.
  The'second school that I went to was taught by
little Sammie Banks, of Big Cowen. Sammie boarded
with my mother, and after the five months' term of
school was out Preacher Jim Caudill made up a sub-
scription school at the mouth of Rockhouse at 1.00
each .and mother signed for five, and she had no
money, but had a good nerve. The first week I went
mother took me up in her lap and tried me in arith-
metic where the teacher had me, and I'knew nothing
about it. The teacher was pushing me too fast.
Mother told me that she would try me one more week
and if I could not do anything in the arithmetic bar
the next Friday that she would give me a good whip-
ping. So the next Friday came and I had not learned
anything, so I played off sick about 11 o'clock that
morning at school and went out of the-schoolhouse
and began to play off crazy, and my sister Julia, now
Mrs. J. D. Stamper, of Big Springs, Tex., ran after
mother. There being no medical doctor within forty
miles, they brought a charm doctor, Andy C
who rubbed me and charged mother five dollars for it
and claimed I had been poisoned very bad, so by Mon-
dav I was ready for school. And mother told me what
would happen Friday if I could not do anything with
my arithmetic. So I tried, and Friday evening mother
tried me and I was in long division, but I could not
do anything. She got me up in her lap and tried her



 



16



History of Corporal Fess



best to show me, but all in vain. So she put me down
and laid the book upon the table and took me by the
hand and led me to a large cedar tree and broke her
a good switch and began whipping me. She whipped
me until she gave out, and sat down on a large rock-
pile to rest and stood me up and talked to me. while



    EDDIE BROWN
The good-natured schoolmaster



she was



resting. After she got through



resting she



raised and gave me the same dose again; then she
took me back in the house and got me up in her lap
and began to show me about my lesson, and it jumped
in my head like a falling star, and from that time until
the present date I challenge the State of Kentucky
in the arithmetic. That was my second miracle.
  The third school I went to was taught by Eddie



Hill, in a new log house, with no



Whitaker



...



Brown, on Burton

 




1enhtucky JVfottntain Life



chimney and no floor in the house and a big fire in the
middle of the house. I always had the rest of the clhil-
dren beat by this time. I was twelve years old and
past and had begun to get to be a pretty mean bov on



account of so many people picking at me.



Eddie



Brown, the teacher, told us children if we were not



good children that the "Old Bugger



come and get us.



So the



come the next school.



and Wesley
school, and



Man" would



"Bugger Man" sure did



I was thirteen years old then,



Banks had been employed to teach the
by this time the school had the name of



having the meanest lot of boys in it of anv other school
in Letcher County. I was called the leader. There were



four of us called bad-Mason Whitaker,



tar, Print Ison and myself.



Ben McIn-



Mr. Banks took charge



of the school on July 5, and all the children's parents
came in to see the new teacher. So the teacher got



up to talk and open his school.



He was a very homely



mountain man, and the first thing he said was: "This
school has an awfully bad name and I understand that
Mr. Eddie Brown teached this school last vear and
told you all that the "Bugger Man" would come if vou



were not good school children.



Now, I am the 'Bug-



ger Man.'"
When he said that every child threw its eyes on him.
  "Next one I call their name please come around to
where I now stand," said the teacher.
  The first name called was Tress, then Print. Mase



and Ben.



So we all went around to where the teacher



was and he said: "Boys, I have bin told that you four
boys have bin very bad boys in school, so I am going
to turn a new leaf."



. 17



 



18



History of Cor poral FessW



  My heart was in my neck, for I knew that Mr.
Banks had already brought in twelve long green oak
switches before opening school.
    "Fess," said he, "it's reported to me that you are
the meanest," and he took me by the hand and sure
did like to beat me to death, and when he got through



UNCLE WESLEY BANKS
The "Buggar Man" school master



with me he told me to take my seat.



Then he took



Print next and gave him the same, then Mase, and
while he was whipping Mase a large splinter flew off
fhe switch and across a twenty-foot house and stuck



in under the shoulder blade of. the back of Less,



a



brother of Fess.



Then he had to take a pair of old



home-made tooth pullers that had been made in a



Whitaker



 




-19



A enttucky ilottntaint Life



blacksmith shop by big Jim Back, of Caudill's Branch,
and pull out the splinter. After all that he gave Ben



the same dose as he did us. He then said



that the



school had opened, and gave us our lessons. He only
had to apply his new rule once. After the free school



the same old
subscription



Baptist preacher,
school again that



Jim Caudill,



winter.



My



  CRISS BROWN
The wooden pistol hero



mother had rented
Cumberland River,



part of her farm
and he had eight



the name- of Criss, was very bad. I



to Joe Brown, of
bors, and one, bv
\Aong during the



second week Criss done something and the teacher
Vent to whip him and he bucked on the teacher, so the
good old teacher, about sixty years old, put the whip-
ping off until he could'see the-father of Criss. So that



was
got



out
up a

 



20      History of Corporal Fess- Whitaker

night Criss made him a wooden pistol and wired a big
forty-four cartridge hull on the end of it and made
a fuse hole in the end of it and filled it with black
powder and drove a stick in on the powder and took
it with him to school. The teacher had seen the boy's
father and told him about the trouble and the father
said to be sure and whip him, so he called for Criss to
come around and get his whipping, and instead of
going up he ran out of the house and the teacher fol-
lowed him, but all in vain. So the teacher came back
into the schoolhouse and sat down in the chair and
started giving out a spelling lesson. The schoolhouse
was on old-fashioned log house dobbed with mud, and
some of the mud had fallen out of the cracks of the
schoolhouse. With his big forty-four cartridge hull
loaded he sighted it right at the teacher's old bald
head and struck a match and touched it to the fuse
hole and the old wooden gun went off and the wooden
bullet struck the old man right in the head. He
jumped up and dismissed the school, very badlv scared
and bleeding, and never did teach another school. So
the next year- they got the "Bugger Man" teacher
again and everybody came out to see him open his
school the same as they did before.
  Wesley Banks, at the age of thirty, did not know a
letter in the book and began going to school, and at
the age of thirty-three received a third class certifi-
cate and began teaching and now ha-s taught forty-
six schools in Letcher County thirty-seven years in
succession without missing, and very near whipped
every boy in Letcher County. He was at one time
called the best teacher in Letcher Countv.

 




Kentucky Mountain Life



  At the age of fourteen I became head of the family,
as my older brother, Fred, became grown at the. age
of sixteen and, there being no father to make him
mind, he ran around the country one year, doing no
good. At the age of eighteen R. B. Bentley, with both
legs off, then County Court Clerk of Letcher
County, took him into his home and finished his edu-
cation for him. He is now a well-to-do-farmer and
stockman of Richmond, Ky.
  After I became head of the family mother went off
one Sunday and myself and the four younger boys
run a year-old colt in the stable and we had just killed
some hogs, so we got the hogs' bladders off of the
hogs' guts and blew them tup and filled them up with
white beans and they sure would rattle. So I tied three
bladders to the colt's tail and opened the door and
turned the colt out. There was a large apple orchard
all around the barn, it being about four acres square.
So the colt started, its tail in t'he air, then under its
b)elly, then between its legs, scared to death, and just
simply burning the wind. "Pon my honor," when it
got to the other end of the orchard it turned to come
back and its tail hit an apple tree, causing one of the
bladders to burst. Talk about jumping! The colt went
up in the air about ten feet, and when it hit the ground
it made an awful funny noise and started for the barn.
Us boys got out of the way and when it got within
ten feet of the barn it made a long jump for the door.
band just as it went to go through the door it struck
its hip against the side of the door and knocked one
of its hips out of place.



21I

 



22      History of Corporadl Fess Whitaker

  just as soon as mother came home the other boys
told on me, so I sure did get some more of that oak
tea just like Weslev Banks gave me, and my mother
sure was mad.
  My mother was a Hogg before her marriage, and
sure could whip and whip with a good constitution.
I am now fifteen years old and in school and the best
attendant in Letcher County. There were about
twenty young men and thirty young girls in mv class.
The school was mostly composed of Bankes, Isons,
Fraziers, Caudills, Backs, Hoggs and Whitakers.
Burton Hill is located about two and one-half miles
from the mouth of Rockhouse. It is a beautiful place
and about twenty acres square and all level, covered
with large black pines, cedars, ivy and laurel and lots
of mountain tea grows there. It lies in the bend of
Rockhouse Creek, and the creek runs very near all
around it. It is now owned by Less, brother of Fess,
of Amarillo, Tex. That is where the late Wesley Col-
lins and Daw Adams built the first church in the
lower end of the county. And the first preacher I ever
saw was then.
  Mother had washed us all Up and put a clean shirt
on us boys and taken us up to church. Mr. Collins
opened up the church like the old Regular Baptists do
nowadays. After church was opened Mr. Adams was
the first preacher. He was then about forty years old
and had been married seven times and stood about six
feet and four inches on the ground, and holds the
world's champion horse-swapping medal.' He had
two big long cowboy spurs, one on each foot' and his
boots had the pictures of the moon and stars on top
of them. So Mr. Adams opened the song book and



 





Kentucky Mountain Life           23
























                                   1



 




24



History of Corporal Fess



gave out an old-fashioned song and asked evervbodv
to help sing, and after the song he took his text. Don't
remember just what it was, but according to his faith
Adams xvas carried off in a trance and he was squat-



ting and velling
doctrine is from



and said' "Brothers and sistern, if this
the Lord it's all right, and if it's from



      DAW ADAMS
Mountain Champion Horse Swapper



Daw A. it's no good," and about that
those two big cowboy spurs into his



time he drove
thighs and he



gave a great yell and everybody had to laugh. So Mr.
Adams never got up to preach any more from that
day until this, but he is a good old Baptist Christian
and professed a hope a few years ago and was bap-
tized at Mlayking, Ky., where he was born and reared
tip. Mr. Adams belongs to one of the largest genera-



Whitaker

 




             Kenht ckv Ii1ountain Life         25

tions in the country and is well liked and thought of
by everybody. His great-grandfather came over here
the same time that Daniel Boone did, and Boofie
settled at Kona and Adams at Mayking. Those days
times were rough in Letcher County; a moonshine
still was in very near every hollow and a blind tiger
everywhere. And Adams was a big-hearted fellow
and fell on the church that day to get to skin some
good old man out of his horse or mule.
  Mr. Collins, the other preacher, died some years
ago in the asylum at Lexington. H-e died in good
faith and died a regular Baptist, and belonged to a
large generation of people and good parents. O)ne of
his sisters sailed from New York on February 23.
1918, as head of the Salvation Army, in France. You
will always find the Collins' trying to live in the faith
and always doing something good for their neighbors.
Those were the first preachers I had ever seen. I had
never been taught anything about churches or Sun-
day-schools, but since that day I have seen all kinds
of churches.
Just before the end of school the late Elijah Banks,
who lived on the head of Montgomery Creek on the
north fork of the Kentucky River that empties into
the river in Perrv County, in the great coal fields of
Eastern Kentucky, had four grown boys in school, so
they set in begging my mother to let me go home with
them on Friday evening, and at last my mother con-
sented to let me go. So after school was out Friday
evening we all started for Montgomery Creek, about
eight miles through the mountains.
  We went down to the 'mouth of Caudill Branch at
the three big cliffs of rock, up Caudill Branch to the

 




26      History of Corporal Fess Whitaker

mouth of Whitaker Branch, and up Whitaker Branch
and across a big mountain well covered with white
oak, chestnut oak, red oak and chestnuts and three
big coal veins under same; No. 3 veins four feet thick,
No. 4 veins six feet thick, and No. 7 veins seven feet
and eight inches thick. Over in head of right-hand
fork of Elk Creek down we go, and down that fork
to the mouth at Uncle Dave Back's and th.en up a
steep hill to the top, and there we found a nice level
country, 2,097 feet above sea level, and one of my
father's sisters lived there, Aunt Peggie Dixon. All
of them came out to see me, and after we left there we
went around through the flat woods, and as we went
through the flat woods the Banks boys told me that
Thomas Gent, a big, rough nineteen-year-old boy, had
knocked out Press Hensley's black cow's eye and they
wanted me to whip him and they would give me
twenty-five cents for it. I told them I would do it. I
had the twenty-five cents on my mind, and it was my
first piece of money to get, should I win. I made up
mv mind to win. So now we were around in the flat
woods to where Press Hensley lived. The Banks bovs
called out Hensley and asked about his old black cow
getting her eye knocked out. He went on and told all
about it, and it sure did go in on my brain, so we had
to go down a little steep place through a big chestnut
orchard to where the G. boy lived. I went in and
asked where the boys were and the old folks said that
they were around in the Rich Gap field. 'That pleased
the Banks boys, so just as we got in sight of the field
I met Thomas, a very big man, weighing about 140 or
150 pounds. I asked him about knocking the cow's
eye out, and, like a mountain man, he said he did. Just
as he said it I struck him in the stomach with my left'

 




             Kentucky Mountain Life            27

hand and on the chin with my right hand and he
struck the ground, and onto him I went and into his
face. I skinned it in a thousand places and I got up
and asked for my price of twenty-five cents, which was
gladly paid. We all went on rejoicing over the hill
to where the boys' father lived.
I never had a better time in my life than I did on that
trip, and I also won a title in the fighting ring. The
boys' father had thirty-six big, fat bee gums and he
got an old rag and tied it on a stick and set it on fire
that made a smoke and then took it and robbed a bee
gum and taken out a dishpanfull of fine linn honey.
Aunt Bettie Ann, now dead, had plenty of good home-
made sugar all molded out in teacups and she gave
me plenty of it. Thle0; boys' father told me all kinds
of big war tales and country tales. He sure was a
great hand to tell tales, and good company.
  We 'all went wild-hog -hunting on Saturday and
caught two big wild hogs, then that evening us bovs
all went down Montgomery Creek about three miles
to Wash Combs' to a big country dance. There were
about twenty girls and boys and a good banjo and
fiddle. They sure could dance some of that old coun-
try dancing. Along about 11 o'clock they all got to
courtin' They laid across the beds and hugged each
othrtthose days. That was the style. After all the
beds Wvere full and no more room on the beds to court
they would sit in each others' laps and hug each other.
I went, to sleep and they put me on a pallet on ,the
floor in the corner of the house. At, 4 o'clock in the
morning the boys woke me up and we all went bacK
up to the, boys' fa t h er's.



 






History of Corporal Fess



WVhitaker



                  MATILDA WHITAKER
The author's mother. Born February 13, 1848. Died October 30, 1918



28

 




29



I Kentuicky Mountain Life



  So Sunday evening we all went back over the
mountain to o-ur school. That was one great trip that
will never be forgtten, and my first trip away from
home. I. learned on that trip to have a nerve and to
have faith in mnyself.
  After the free school was out my mothter took me
up to old Shade Combs', sixteen miles up on Rock-
house, to a winter. school. Shade Comnbs was.a first
cousin to my -mother, and he remembered the time
when he was the sheriff and they had brought me to
Whitesbg.u rf-to try and get me on the county, and we
had some good jokes about it. Mother staved all
night and next morning she putt me in school. Pro-
fesso