A Trip To the Gallows in East Tennessee

By Dr John McElhaney

This book gives the actual account of murders that received the death penalty with the facts of the case and the events of the hangings. The facts are real with the actual names of the victims and the perpetrator along with the sheriff, judges that sentenced them and others that were involved. The hangings listed here cover a period of about forty years in East Tennessee. One of the men that was hanged build the scaffold he was hanged on for someone else two years before. One of the men that was hanged had the rope to break twice so he was hanged three times before he was dead. Some of the most horrendous murders ever committed are detailed here. Twenty-nine hangings, nine are black men and twenty are white, sixteen are single hangings, five are double hangings, and one is a triple hanging.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr John McElhaney
• Release date: Jun 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463333464

Dr John McElhaney

Dr John McElhaney Graduated sums cum laude with a Th.D. He has pastored churches in Tennessee and Florida for almost fifty years. He has been Married to Margaret Leffew for forty seven years and they have three children, eight grandchildren and two great grandchildren. His passion is writing, preaching and teaching the sacred scriptures. He is available for speaking engagements by appointment. You may contact him by E-mail at [e-mail] , by phone at 423-836-7231 his mailing address is 1104 Christianburg Lane Sweetwater, TN. 37874

Book preview

A Trip to the Gallows

In East Tennessee

Payday for Murder

Some of the most horrific murders in east Tennessee and the penalty paid by swinging at the end of a rope

Dr. John McElhaney

Copyright © 2018 by John McElhaney

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2018

Your ISBN:

978-1-387-91437-1

This book is dedicated to my three children, Melissa, Gary, and Justin who have brought me so much joy for all the years they have been on earth, I thank God for the privilege of being their father.

Introduction

Jack Hunt

Ike Fain

John Armstrong

Andrew and Will Upton

Andy Taylor

George Rose

John Webb

John McPherson

Ananis Honeycutt

Nicholas Berry

John Nance

Joseph Harris

Samuel and Milton Hodges

Clarence Cox and John Stanley

Buddy Wooten and George Mapp

Mynatt Leach

Hiram Hall

Pleasant Wynn and Catlett Tipton

Robert Sims

William Mays

Joe Delp, John Evans and Henry Judge

Calvin Logston

Introduction

Murder: The unlawful taking of another person’s life. Murder is the worse crime a person can ever commit, it is the single crime that is to always carry the death penalty if it is intentional. There are killings that would not fall under the category of murder. There are times that a person is killed by what we call accidental means, no one intended to hurt anyone but because of circumstances beyond our control someone died. This is not a crime, even though it is always bad when a life is taken. There are killings that are self-defense that are not murder, no one wanted to kill, but to protect another life it was necessary to take a life. There is another kind of killing that we will be looking at in this book and that is capital punishment, the taking of a life because the person has intently taken another person’s life.

Capital punishment was issued by God in the book of Genesis, when he established human government and it was to be carried out through the courts. It was given for all nations to abide by because it was before Israel became a nation. There are laws that were specifically for the nation of Israel, but this law of capital punishment for murder is given as a law for all nations. It is to show us how precious life is, and to take a life is the worse thing you could ever do. Man was made in the image of God and to attack and kill him shows you are striking out at God. Genesis 9:6

Today people are intrigued with murder. We have all kinds of TV shows that deal with murder and the solving of the crime. I personally like murder mysteries, but I don’t like American television. American television is to far out to remotely resemble reality, so I watch only British television. I love the British murder mysteries. They are very realistic without the filthy language. I also like the British court shows as they try cases in the Old Baily. The two British networks I watch are, Brit box and Acorn television with the great shows like Midsummer Murders which is my favorite with DCI Barnaby. Then you have other great programs like Vera, a DCI, Inspector Lewis, Morris, and on and on it goes.

I am a lover of history as well, that’s one reason I choose to write this book. I am not a fan of fiction and never read fiction. I only read books that will increase my knowledge and strengthen me spiritually. I have thousands of books in my library and none of them are fiction. As we go on this journey together into the past and discover some sad truths that you probably do not know about, I hope you will enjoy the history you are about to discover.

What I am going to give you on the pages of this book is the absolute truth, this is not a sensationalizing of some things that happened in the past or does it have things added to make it more attractive to the reader. What you read in this book is the whole truth with the real names of the real persons and all the information has come from genuine court documents, newspaper articles, historical records, etc. We will not attempt to make a person look any worse than they are or any better than they have proven themselves to be. Just the facts.

We are going to give you several actual cases where murder has produced the death penalty. We will show the motive, murder, and punishment. We will go back to the mid-1800s to begin and end in the early-1900s. WE certainly will not be able to cover all the cases on record because there are thousands throughout the USA, but I am going to look at a few surrendering counties in Tennessee. We will look at Monroe, Roane, McMinn, Loudon, Knox, Fentress, Union, Washington, Sullivan, Cumberland, Handcock, Unicoi Hamilton, Anderson, Grainger and Franklin counites in east Tennessee. Over about a 50-year period.

Being as we are dealing only with these counties in Tennessee, let me give you this bit of information. The death penalty was carried out by hanging until 1916 then it was by electrocution after that. From 1782 – 1960 there were 335 executions in the state of Tennessee. Of the 335 executed 213 were black, 102 white, 2 native Americans, and 17 unknowns. We can see the injustice in this picture, but even worse is the number from 1901-1960. During these 59 years there were 173 executions in Tennessee, 119 were black, 54 white. Again, it looks like the injustice for blacks only grew worse in the 1900s. We are talking about court ordered executions, this does not take in the great numbers of lynching’s that were performed without any trial at all.

As we look at the cases that I will use it the book we will see that there is nothing about a murderer that would stand out differently than any other person. You would never believe that a person would be a murderer before the fact. People ask, what makes a person a murderer? We need to realize that we are all susceptible to murder, it is not because we could not do it, it is that God has protected us from doing it. All people are evil in their heart, and that evil can come out in many ways that are bad. So, don’t brag about the fact that you have not murdered anyone, because you could do it any day.

In the early days the hangings took place in the city where the trial took place in the county where the murder was committed. Only later when the electric chair was put in play did the execution take place in Nashville at the prison. When the execution was carried out at the prison, many of the bodies are buried there at the Old State Prison, the family would not, or could not take the body back to their hometown for burial.

Chapter One

Jack Hunt Hanged December 18, 1877 in Madisonville, TN., for the murder of his wife.

Jack Hunt’s father was a well-to-do man that lived in Monroe county TN. He owned a farm and was a very honest, hardworking, respected man. He had several sons and some daughters, Jack was the youngest and had been allowed to do as he pleased most of his life, which led to him becoming wild and reckless in his living. He spent a lot of time drinking and carousing. Jack was a fine looking young man that always looked clean and neat in his grooming. The last thing you would ever have thought was that he would do something as evil as cold-blooded murder. But, the thing you can never see is what is in a person’s heart. We know from the sacred scriptures that man has an evil heart, that means that all of us are susceptible to doing all kinds of evil.

Jack’s father had an old man living on his property as a tenant farmer named Clem Davis, who was a fine hard-working man by all who knew him. Mr. Davis had a beautiful teenage daughter named Margaret Ann Davis. Jack began to see Margaret Ann for the beautiful young lady that she was, they begin to talk to each other and this led to Jack wanting to marry her. She was only seventeen years old in 1874 when they decided to get married and Jack was only about 21. Jack’s father and Mr. Davis did not think it was a good idea for them to get married because they were too young. Soon they decided to allow them to go ahead and marry because they seemed to be so set on it. So, on the