Days of Darkness (27 page)

He went to Tom Baker for advice. “You go ahead and teach,” said Baker. “I'll see you aren't bothered.” He then sent out word that anyone giving Professor Burns trouble would have to answer to Tom Baker. Burns had no more trouble, though he did have to whip some of his larger pupils, just to establish a pecking order.

Tom was obviously a power—possibly
the
power—in county school matters at the time. Letters from him to the governor and to newspapers at the time of his trial for killing the Howards show that he had little formal education. His spelling, grammar, and punctuation were atrocious. The fact that he could not express himself well or defend himself in writing probably made him more aware of the importance of schooling and increased his desire to improve his children's education.

Whatever his true nature, Thomas Baker was not the simple murderer that newspaper accounts painted. It would be interesting to know when and how he acquired the nickname Bad Tom. The
Courier-Journal
and the
Times
of Louisville, as well as the newspapers in Lexington, referred to him as Thomas, as did members of the White family in their letters to Governor W.O. Bradley. It was only after his death that he became commonly known as Bad Tom.

Still, it is hard to escape the fact that he was pretty bad, if no worse than others involved in the Clay war. From the time he was fifteen he was in one kind of scrape or another and proved early on that he was not a man to be trifled with. But he was not an uncomplicated mountain killer, the type sometimes found in other mountain feuds. He was a large man, like his father, with cold gray eyes and a truculent expression. He was not given to small talk. At the time he was involved in the troubles with the Howard family, a young woman who had just returned to Clay County after receiving her teaching certificate applied for a teaching job and was told she would have to get the approval of Thomas Baker. With a young woman friend, she rode up Crane Creek to the Baker home, only to find it ringed by armed men. “I was scared to death,” she wrote later, “especially when we were stopped by men demanding to know what we wanted, but I decided that since we had gone that far we might as well go on.”

She found Tom standing on the porch of his home, unshaven, red-eyed from lack of sleep, with two armed men sitting on the steps in front of him. She said she was looking for Mr. Thomas Baker.

“I'm him,” said Tom.

She made her pitch for the teaching job, explaining her background and qualifications and showing her certificate. Tom stared at her steadily as she talked. When she finished, he nodded.

“All right,” he said. That was all. She had the job. One of the armed men motioned toward her horse.

“Thank you,” she quavered, smiling. Tom didn't return the smile.

On an earlier occasion, a young man named John Fouts had the same experience. Riding up to the Baker home, he asked, “Are you Mr. Baker?”

“I am,” said Tom.

“Well, I'm John Fouts and I'd like to have a job teaching. I'm certified, and I've got good recommendations.”

Tom looked at him for a minute. “Hell with the recommendations,” he said. “You can have the job. We'll see if you can teach.”

Apparently that was enough. No one seemed to care to question Tom's authority to hire, fire, or settle school matters.

Not all of the years following the Civil War were violent. After the election-day shooting described by Burns, things were relatively quiet in Clay County, at least among the principal feudists, until 1893, when the Garrards backed Granville Philpot for the state legislature. The Philpots, who were said to be “thicker in Clay than blackberries in June,” lived up to their billing, and Granville won. The Whites and Howards charged irregularities and tried to have the election thrown out, but without success. During the succeeding years, local elections saw both the Garrard-Baker and White-Howard factions score victories, though the Whites and Howards usually held the edge.

Still, the years between 1893 and 1896 were among the calmest Clay was to know for a while. There were reports of a major battle in the western part of the county, and there is still a legend that so many men were killed near a store there that the ground still turns red when it rains. But the battle, if it actually took place, was not reported. And during the time there were no major confrontations between Whites and Garrards, Bakers and Howards.

But this relative peace was not to last, and it was, apparently, very relative. When the Reverend John Jay Dickey arrived in Manchester, he wrote that to be allowed to preach in Clay County was the answer to his prayers. Within a month he was confiding to his diary his dismay at “the poisonous atmosphere of hatred and violence in the air.”

The Reverend Dickey was surely one of the most interesting—and most admirable—men involved in the early days of the Kentucky
mountains. He had previously preached in Breathitt County, where he founded not only a church but a school, which developed into Lees Junior College, and established and published the
Jackson Hustler,
the county's first newspaper. He also taught and preached in Owsley County, which he found badly in need of salvation. But he had heard that the word was even more badly needed in Clay and could hardly wait to begin God's work there.

It was not to be a totally happy experience. He had difficulty getting enough money from the state church even for his daily needs, and he was never able to persuade Clay Countians to build the church he planned. But for almost ten years he kept detailed diaries of his work in the mountains, and they remain the most reliable—and the most fascinating—history of the period. But he had not counted on the level of violence in Manchester, where he found he often had to hold prayer meetings in the afternoon because people were afraid to go out at night, even to church.

How much of the violence was due to liquor is hard to estimate. Dickey told of seeing Will White, then a deputy sheriff, shoot up Anderson Street while drunk, and he mentions that Anse Baker had been drinking when he “shot up the street and no one did anything.” (Actually, Anse was later arrested and tried but acquitted.) It seems to have been a legitimate expression of frustration or high spirits to have a few drinks and walk down Main Street shooting off a few rounds. Few people were hurt, but it kept a lot of county people from coming in to trade. Kentucky historian Thomas D. Clark blames whiskey for much of the Clay trouble and much of the mountain violence in general.

At the height of the troubles, Dickey noted that both Whites and Garrards were “drunk all the time,” or “killing themselves drinking.” The reverend was inclined to exaggerate when it came to dancing and drinking, though there is no doubt that drunkenness was common. As Tom Walters pointed out, the people did not learn to use liquor socially, in part because the better class of wives would not serve it in their homes. But that didn't keep people from drinking it in great quantities. Manchester was voted dry in 1898, but the vote apparently made little impact on habits. There are hints that Bad Tom Baker made and sold illegal liquor, though in a letter to the newspapers he referred scornfully to a man who testified against him in court as a bootlegger. Tom exchanged gunfire with George Hall, who had been a federal revenue agent, though the shooting may have had other roots. Tom also had a reputation for consuming his share of the local moonshine and had an unpredictable temper when he did. Tall, taciturn
“Big Jim” Howard, on the other hand, was known to be a teetotaler, a devout churchman who would not use even tobacco and enjoyed reading the Bible.

The mountain affection for drink was not surprising. After all, these people were accustomed to making, selling, and drinking the powerful white corn liquor, regardless of sermons. It was an easy and profitable way to dispose of their corn crop; it was far easier to carry ten gallons of moonshine into town than to haul a wagonload of corn, and it brought more money. Like the Pennsylvania farmers whose home manufacture of liquor brought on the Whiskey Rebellion, the Kentucky frontiersman considered his use of his own corn crop none of the government's business, and resented, in principle and in practice, government efforts to interfere with free enterprise. This defense of individual freedom continued long after the frontier had been settled.

The trouble was that the uncut moonshine was powerful—it was usually sold at over 120 proof—and seemed to drive the mountain drinker crazy. Mountain men liked to boast of their ability to hold their liquor, but there is little evidence of this. Theirs was often a lonely, monotonous, hard life, and a few drinks of the local product were usually enough to unleash an explosive rage against the boredom and frustration of their everyday existence, an effort to express their vague longing for a richer life.

Considering the physical difficulties involved, Clay Countians traveled quite a bit—to Knoxville, Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati, even to New York. They subscribed to state newspapers and available magazines. National events were of intense interest and generated hot debate. The Reverend Dickey devoted a week's space in his diary to events culminating in the Spanish-American War. His attitude was not one of Christian pacifism. He denounced the brutal Spanish for their oppression of the sweet-mannered Cubans, praised the McKinley administration for its patience in dealing with the Spanish bullies, and applauded when the U.S. reacted to the dastardly sinking of the battleship
Maine
by declaring war. Clay County males added their approval by rushing off to join the colors, though few of them got to see much action before the war faded with the fall of Santiago, and most did not give high marks to Cuba upon their return. Dickey, however, was staunch in his support of the war and declared that the Cubans and Filipinos would “forever be grateful to the U.S. for giving them their freedom,” a bit of chauvinism that proved somewhat premature.

Clay Countians were also intensely concerned with state politics.
In 1891 Garrards, Whites, and other prominent citizens traveled frequently to Frankfort to observe and take part in the politicking and to hear the oratory attending creation of the new state constitution. Four years later there was wild jubilation in Clay when the first Republican governor in Kentucky history, William O. Bradley, nicknamed “Billy O.B.,” was elected. Having a Republican governor did not help Republican Clay County, though; the roads remained uniformly bad, and for his part the governor, before he left office, was probably sick of Clay Countians, who were forever causing trouble and forcing local judges to write and ask for the protection of state troops.

Encouraged by the election of Granville Philpot to the state legislature and the success of the Philpots in a series of gunfights south and west of Manchester, T.T. Garrard, in the spring of 1897, called a meeting of the Garrards, Bakers, Webbs, McCollums, and Philpots and decided to make a frontal attack on White control of the courthouse by running Gilbert Garrard for sheriff, believing that, with the prestige of the Garrard name, they could get all of the Democratic votes and substantial support from Republicans and independents dissatisfied with the Whites.

The Whites, behind the leadership of Judge B.P. White and his son Beverly, called a meeting of their own. Counting on the support of the Howards, Halls, Benges, and Griffins, they chose Beverly White to run for sheriff and James Howard to run for tax assessor. It was a good ticket. Beverly White was, according to the Reverend Dickey, a hard man but relatively sober, while Jim Howard was a quiet nondrinker and, though not particularly popular, well respected. A member of a large family living near the head of Crane Creek, Howard had gone to school in Manchester, studied law for a while, taught school, and served as county school trustee. He clerked in Hill's drygoods store to supplement his income and help support his wife, the former Mary Reid, and their three children.

It was a tense, bitter race, though election day was relatively free of gunplay. Bev White and Jim Howard won, and, though George Baker was elected county attorney, the courthouse remained under White control.

But there were signs that the old family lines were weakening. Shortly after the election, John G. and Gilbert White moved to Winchester. The old family salt works were no longer very profitable, and both men were interested in developing new businesses. They were also interested in farming on a larger scale than Clay's narrow valleys permitted, and were naturally attracted to the rich, rolling Bluegrass
land. John G. was also interested in the mercantile business and soon became a thriving merchant. In making the transfer to Clark County, the Whites were setting a pattern in which, throughout the twentieth century, successful Eastern Kentuckians would migrate to the scenic, more affluent Bluegrass.

But life in Clay was more than violence. Roads remained a main concern. There was recurrent speculation that the railroad was going to run a spur from London to Manchester, but the dream was always deferred. How much difference a rail line would have made is uncertain. A spur built in 1914 to haul coal out of the county for war purposes brought only a spurt of prosperity. The fact is that the economy of Clay County never recovered from the decline of the salt industry caused by the Civil War destruction. There were no other sources of income to maintain the wealthy status of the big families and to furnish well-paying jobs. The relative depression that followed the Civil War undoubtedly contributed to frictions and the feuds.

During the week of August 7, 1897, Dickey noted with approval that groups of Clay Countians made the journey over to London to attend the Laurel County Fair which, he said, was a great success. But the “poisonous atmosphere” of which he frequently complained was not improved when, two weeks before the election, Deputy Sheriff George Hall, a former revenue officer, and Holland Campbell met John and Anse Baker and Charles Wooten on the road near Manchester. The White-Howard faction had scheduled a meeting in the courthouse that day, and Hall, suspecting that the Bakers might be planning to disrupt it, asked them where they were going. The Bakers felt that their destination was their own business and said so. Another version has it that Hall suspected the Bakers were on their way to testify before the grand jury. Someone started shooting. (At the time Anse was under indictment for shooting up the street in Manchester.)