Month: January 2016

Original Sin

Posted on by brian1902

The Cumberland settlements in the 1780’s were no place for the timid. Killings were an almost daily fact of life, but the violence was almost always from the outside aimed inward. The ongoing war between the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and others against the European interlopers camping on their ancestral hunting ground claimed hundreds of lives, and given the external threat, violent crime between the settlers was very rare.

One or the first (if not the first) known murder in Nashville, involved an old campaigner. Little is known about Solomon White other than a few brief mentions in various sources. He was one of the “Over the Mountain Men” of Watauga who fought with John Sevier at King’s Mountain in 1780. By 1783 he had migrated to the Cumberland country and had claim on a land grant on Red River in what is now Montgomery County south of Guthrie, Kentucky.

Solomon evidently had a temper. The Records of the Superior Court of North Carolina contain the only known record of his crime, which is laid out in the quaint legal language of the day. On June 13, 1786, “being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil,” White took a “cutting pole of the value of six pence,” and used it to hit John Harris over the head with it, killing him instantly. [Incidentally, if anyone knows what a “cutting pole” is exactly, let me know. I’m stumped by that one. Drop me a comment if you know.] 

He was indicted for murder, and at his trial in November, 1788 he plead not guilty, and “put himself upon God and his Country.” The proceedings were heard in the first courthouse, an eighteen foot square log house near the old fort on “The Bluffs.” After weighing the evidence the jury found White not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter. Shortly thereafter he was brought before the bar and asked if he had anything to say “why sentence of death should not be passed against him.”

What followed was straight out of English common law, which most of the settlers were familiar with. White pleaded “Benefit of Clergy,” which was granted. Originally, this was a Medieval practice in which the accused proved he could read and write, thereby moving his case from the civil courts into the ecclesiastical courts (in those days, literacy was almost always the realm of the clergy.) In time, however, it came to be used as a “legal fiction,” and a handy way of granting a lesser, but still severe, punishment for a first conviction. If the prisoner was ever brought before the court again, he was also conveniently marked as a repeat offender. In White’s case, he was to be branded on the palm below the thumb with the letter M, signifying manslaughter.

With the exception of the word “State” in the place of “King,” the sentence was carried out exactly according to English judicial procedures: “It is therefore ordered that the said Solomon White be continued at the bar of the Court and there be branded on the brawn of the left thumb with the letter (M) and that the iron be kept thereon until the said Solomon White express the words God Save the State and that the sheriff of Davidson put this sentence in ixecution [sic] immediately in presence of the Court.”

For his sake, one hopes Solomon White was a fast talker.

Branded
Branding – In actuality, I doubt anyone was ever this chill while this was being done to them.

Something’s Afoot

Posted on by brian1902

Some of these stories defy logic. Case in point…

December 26, 1864: Nashville was hopping with holiday cheer as well as a celebratory mood. Just ten days earlier, the Union army had won an overwhelming victory over Hood’s Confederate forces outside the city. Many of the combat veterans were in a mood to blow off some steam, and headed into the “jungle” (as one editor called it) of downtown to look for trouble.

As could be imagined, they were a rough bunch and used to rough ways. It was the thankless task of the Provost Marshal’s office to run herd on the boys in blue when they got too out of hand in their fun. Drawn from the many units stationed around the city, these forerunners of the Military Police had to be prepared to deal with all manner of issues as they patrolled their beat.

However, I’m not sure anyone could be prepared to deal with (much less explain) the antics of Private William A. Davidson.

Davidson was a hardened veteran serving with Co. L, 5th Iowa Cavalry, and had just put in a grueling few days’ service chasing Hood out of Tennessee. The morning after Christmas, he was hauled into the Provost office on Cedar Street (now Charlotte Ave.) carrying three odd boots under his arms – none of which had mates.

Seems the little Irishman has a strange “mania” to collect boots that don’t belong to him, and has been arrested three times in the last few months for the same crime. On one occasion he was sentenced to a month in jail and given a stern lecture upon release. Within hours, he was back in custody, carrying another stolen boot.

Lt. Parks of the Provost had run-ins previously with him, and when he spotted Davidson with the purloined footwear, his mouth dropped open. The officer quickly recovered, and  made a shrewd bargain with his suspect. If Parks released him, could Davidson go out and steal the mates to the boots, so that they know where they came from and have all the pieces together at headquarters? Drawing himself up with as much dignity as he can, Davidson responded, “Lieutenant, if you let me off this time, if I don’t bring you the mates of these boots before night, may I be damned!”

Davidson departed on his “mission.” Like any good cop, Parks put a tail on him, apparently hoping to draw out “Mr. Big” and find out where he was getting his supply. In the meantime, the papers advertised that the owner of the three orphan boots might collect them at the Provost office. A grateful soul appeared the following day and claimed his property,  while the newspaper speculated that Davidson would be back with more stolen boots by nightfall. If he was, there was no mention of it. Apparently he ducked his tail and made it back to his unit in the field.

A glance at the records of the 5th Iowa Cavalry yields the fact that Davidson was 22, born in Ireland, and enlisted in the regiment at Ft. Heiman, KY in 1862. He served for the rest of the war and proves a reliable soldier when under arms, seeing action in several campaigns. Despite his odd obsession, he was awarded an honorable discharge at Nashville on June 9, 1865. Apparently he was a good enough trooper that his superiors overlooked his strange hobby.

So what happened to Davidson after his discharge…who knows? Perhaps some diligent researcher combing the newspapers of the Midwest from the 1860’s and ’70’s might yet uncover another chapter in what must be one of the strangest one-man crime waves of the century.

 

A Pair of Loafers

Posted on by brian1902

Difference

One of the interesting things about research is that you never know where the sources will take you.

The Nashville Union gave the following brief notice in its April 9, 1840 issue: “MURDER: James Claxton stabbed a man by the name of Moses Parks at a house of ill fame in this city on Tuesday. Parks died immediately, and Claxton made his escape.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune shed little additional light on the case, except to take a shot at the character of both men: “They were both loafers.”

For a long time these two brief articles were all I could find on the incident. However, a little searching in the Tennessee State Penitentiary Records and the Circuit Court Minutes at the Tennessee State Library filled in the blanks. What the sources reveal provides an unusually rich slice of the world of gamblers, ladies of the evening, and – yes – “loafers” who could be found in the back alleys of pre-Civil War Nashville.

Jim Claxton was 21 at the time, born and raised in Nashville. 5’9 1/2″ tall, 167 lbs. with black hair, hazel eyes and a dark complexion, he had first been a horse jockey, “until too large.” Thereafter he “followed the River,” working as a deckhand and fireman aboard the many boats plying the Cumberland. He also seems to have been a rough customer, with scars on the left cheek, left leg, and left arm, and had at one point been “Shot in the left arm & leg.” Intriguingly, his mother is said to have kept “a house of ill-fame” on “Vinegar Hill” in Nashville (on the bank of the Cumberland, near the present-day intersection of Adams and Van Buren Streets.) Whether her establishment was the one where the fight happened is not mentioned.

On April 7, 1840 – as loafers often do – he was drinking with cronies in the brothel of Judy Young in Nashville when Moses Parks stormed into the place. Earlier, he’d had a fight with Parks and witnesses edged towards the exits as the two faced off. Parks accused Claxton of ripping his shirt earlier, then reached out and tore the ruffle off the front of Claxton’s own shirt, saying, “Now we are even!”

A “hurt and afraid” Claxton responded “[Expletive] Yes we are!” before pulling a clasp knife from his pocket with a blade “about the length of his finger,” and stabbed Parks in the chest. Parks died very shortly thereafter while Claxton made a hasty getaway. He was soon apprehended and taken to jail, charged with murder.

Tried on May 12, 1840, he was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, and sentenced to 5 years at hard labor in the State Penitentiary. He appealed to the Supreme Court of the state and was granted a hearing. Four days before Christmas they rendered their verdict: Even though the Judge made questionable remarks to the jury during his instructions, the high court ruled he had not actually committed an error. The verdict stood, and the same day Jim Claxton entered the prison on Church Street to start his five year sentence.

He didn’t make it. Like many another, he fell victim to the horrifying conditions within the hell hole that was “Old Red Top.” On March 18, 1844 he died of “marasmus,” or acute malnutrition. To put it another way, just three years into his sentence, the once robust young man had died of starvation.

In a sense, James Claxton and Moses Parks were both tragic nobodies, living and dying in the shadows of Jacksonian Nashville. But the their case serves as a peek into their squalid world, and allows us a more thorough view of the “have nots” as well as the “haves” of the city on the Cumberland in the 1840’s.

It’s also a lesson that not everything is out there on the net…sometimes ya just gotta dig.

All Around the Town

Posted on by brian1902
The grave of Gen. Thomas Overton is to the left. On the right…somebody’s soul. I didn’t catch their name.
And what self respecting cemetery would be complete without a creepy gate?
Less than an acre. It’s hard to believe that at one time there was nothing but woods and fields as far as the eye could see.

Nashville, like many cities, has a checkered relationship with its past. History often makes way for the new, and what remains is often hidden beneath layers of modern development. There are plenty of hidden slices of the past around the city, often in the most unusual locations. Every week, I’ll try to share some of the sites that this project has brought me in contact with.

First up, we have the Soldiers’ Rest Cemetery. This tiny plot is all that remains of the plantation of Gen. Thomas Overton (1753-1824), a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Overton served for  seven years with Washington’s army, originally in the 9th Virginia Regiment, and later with the 4th Continental Light Dragoons, seeing action at places like Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown, as well as wintering at Valley Forge. He moved to Tennessee around 1804, and founded a farm not far from that of Andrew Jackson. The two struck up a lifelong friendship. In fact, Overton later stood as Jackson’s second in his duel with Charles Dickinson in 1806.

The cemetery today stands in a small lot surrounded by houses and businesses near the intersection of Donelson Avenue and Old Hickory Boulevard. I visited it the day after Halloween, and was greeted by a coal black cat who followed me around the entire time, just…watching me. After thanking him, I doused myself and my car with holy water and took my leave.

This little plot once stood close to Overton’s mansion, appropriately named “Soldier’s Rest,” which was the centerpiece of his sprawling plantation. What brought me here? Well, in the fall of 1819 Overton’s place became the scene of a remarkable drama when his overseer was murdered by one of the slaves who worked on the farm. During the ensuing investigation, the slain overseer’s wife was accused of conspiring with the slave to kill her husband.

So what happened next?

Well, that’s why I want you to pick up a copy of the book when it comes out 🙂

For more information about Overton, here’s his page on the great oracle Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Overton

Greetings, and Welcome!

Posted on by brian1902

Hello, and welcome to my corner of the ‘net.

The purpose of this blog is to promote my upcoming book, “Murder and Mayhem in Nashville, Tennessee,” due to be published later this year. In these pages you will find some of the lesser known (some would say hidden) pieces of history that took place in the streets of Nashville, and the fields and hills surrounding it. I’ll be sharing interesting tidbits I’ve come across during my research that I think bear repeating.

If you’re from Nashville or not, if you’re new to the area or an “old timer” like me, or if you just like unusual stories about the past, come right in. You’re about to enter a world of gamblers, convicts, highwaymen, outlaws, bootleggers, and other colorful characters that once left their mark on the town. And if you have any comments or questions, send them along. I’d love to hear from you. All I ask is to keep it civil – we’re all here to learn.

So pull up a stump and make yourself comfortable. It should be a wild ride.

More to come. Stay tuned…