Sunday, December 8, 2019

Did Charles Lindbergh, who in 1927 became the first man to fly the Atlantic ocean, once land his plane in Albany?


The late Johnny Thrasher, a former teacher and principal in Clinton County, wrote to Clinton County News in 1975 to tell about the time that the first airplane landed in Albany. The year was 1919. No one remembered the name of the pilot but, according to Thrasher, a history of Lindbergh tells the story of the famous pilot running out of fuel and having to make an emergency landing -- in a small town in southern Kentucky.

Thrasher was the principal at Albany Elementary in 1919 and also taught the 7th and 8th grades. Zel Davis taught the lower grades and W. M. Watkins was the high school teacher. The school was located beside the fairgrounds where Truck Rack-It Inc. is now located.

"One day we heard a roar and the students seemed frightened. Suddenly, one of the students, Roscoe Armstrong, jumped from his seat and screamed that an airplane had landed in the field near the school."

"About that time, an elderly lady who lived nearby ran to the door and screamed "The world is coming to an end!" The students jumped up from their seats and ran out the door. The old lady who had warned us the world was coming to an end had fainted and fallen to the ground just outside the door. The students were so excited to get to the airplane that they ran right over her."

After the pilot had found some fuel he attempted to take off but in the process hit an object which damaged the plane. The next day the wings were removed from the plane and it was hauled away.

The children trampling over the lady who thought the end of time was coming probably only led more to her belief that it was true. In reality, it was the end of the world for the youngsters as they has known it, and the beginning of a new world much different from what they had known before. It was the beginning of the air age.

Could the pilot have been Lindbergh? Thrasher wrote that his account of having landed in Southern Kentucky in 1919 after running out of fuel and then damaging his plane while trying to take off and having to haul the plane out makes it very probable that he was the pilot that scared the daylights out of young and old alike in Albany 100 years ago this year. And then, there is the photo. True or not, like the 'All for Benny' pitch, it makes for a great local story.

Friday, December 6, 2019

The Day the Civil War Came to Albany, KY, Pt. 2 (The Making of Champ Ferguson)


When the Civil War finally did come to Albany, word spread quickly throughout the area of Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee. Allegiances were soon declared. "Everybody of military capability was expected to go to war," wrote Cordell Hull. "It really did not make so much difference which side he fought for. He had the privilege of selecting his own side, but he could not lie around the community, shirking and dodging. He had to go out and fight."

With the military-capable soldiers gone off to war, the region was left vulnerable to guerilla warfare. Despite the presence of home guards, which were left behind to defend their counties, the area became a gloomy no-man’s land, where bands of armed men from both sides roamed freely, spreading violence and bloodshed, ravaging homes and farms, stealing horses, livestock, food, money and anything else they could get their hands on.

"The land was full of robbery and murder," wrote David Sullins in his book, "Seventy Years in Dixie." "Bands of the worst men seized the opportunity by scouring the country by night, calling quiet old farmers to their doors and shooting them down in cold blood. It was the reign of terror, war at every man’s door, neighbor against neighbor. Neither property nor life was safe by day or night."

An incident involving twin brothers, Alexander and Floyd Evans, and their younger brother, Stokley, of what would eventually become Pickett County, came to play a major role in most of the Confederate guerilla warfare that took place in this area. It just so happened their sister, Amanda, was married to a cousin of Union guerilla Tinker Dave Beaty.

The incident I am speaking of began one day in the fall 1857, when the three brothers made their way from Fentress County across the state line to Clinton County to purchase hogs from Ben, Jim, and their brother...Samuel "Champ" Ferguson. He had been born in 1821 near Elliot's Crossroads, the main road leading into Clinton County from Tennessee (intersection of highways 969 and 1076 at Maupin). Floyd left a note for payment with the Fergusons and arranged a meeting in Albany to complete the transaction. When the Fergusons went to collect the money, Alex told them that Floyd had skipped town with the money. Champ and another man filed a lawsuit against Floyd.

As time went on and Floyd still had not been seen or heard from, the Ferguson's got it in their heads that the Evans’ were pulling an elaborate hoax to get out of debt. They decided that whenever Stokley or Alex were around they would take their horse as payment and eventually caught Alex in Clinton County and stole his horse.

Champ dropped the lawsuit filed in Clinton County Court on July 5, 1858 after Floyd had returned and secured his debt. Around the same time, Alex filed charges against Champ for his horse thievery. Alex and Stokely were said to be furious with Champ for stealing their horses and trying to claim it was a repossession by a creditor, when Floyd was the one who owed the money. They began speaking about it in public, which Ferguson took as threats on his life.

As fate would have it, on August 12, 1858, Ferguson and the Evans brothers all showed up at a camp meeting on Lick Creek in Fentress County. When Ferguson got on his horse to leave, the Evans' began throwing rocks at him. As he rode off, they gave chase. Realizing his young mare could not outrun their horses, Ferguson dismounted and took off on foot. Floyd Evans came up, still throwing rocks, and Ferguson picked them up and threw them back.

About that time, Constable Jim Reed rode up and when he tried to arrest Ferguson for stealing the horse, a fight broke out that resulted in Champ stabbing the constable to death. The story goes that Fentress County Justice of Peace James Zachary charged Champ with killing Reed, but made a deal with him that he would be released if he agreed to help the Confederacy. Champ, of course, agreed. It could also have been that Champ wanted revenge on the Evans' and Taylor's, who had strong Union connections, and chose to fight for the Confederacy for that reason.

After the war, Champ Ferguson became one of only two Rebels to be tried and convicted of war crimes. He was charged with fifty-three counts of murder, although he claimed he killed over 100 soldiers and pro-Union civilians. He was hanged on October 20, 1865 in Nashville.

During the war, rumors abounded that Ferguson commited his atrocities to get revenge against the Union for the raping of his wife, Martha, and daughter, Ann, by Union soldiers, who supposedly then stripped them naked and made them run through the streets of Albany. However, during his testimony, Ferguson dismissed the story as untrue. There was also the rumor that he sought revenge on the Union for the murder of his son, but in reality Ferguson’s only son and his first wife, Eliza Smith, both died from disease in 1845. The tent meeting and subsequent encounters with the Evans brothers is what Ferguson himself testified to in court as being the real reason why he entered the war.

By the way, Stokley Evans was shot and killed by unknown Confederate troops on August 3, 1862. Since his wife had just previously died during childbirth, their orphaned children who remained were sent to live with his sister, Amanda, and her husband, Pleas. On a personal note, just after the war, she became a member of my church, Clear Fork Baptist Church, but in 1968 she and fifty other members left to organize Beech Bottom Baptist Church.

On a more personal note, Pleas Beaty (short for Pleasant) was the nephew of Union guerilla Tinker Dave Beaty's father, George, who was my fourth great grandfather.

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

In The Service of a President


In the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of the Department of Library Special Collections at Western Kentucky University is a letter addressed to George W. Burchette, a civil war soldier born in Clinton County, Kentucky, who was once in the service of one our nation's greatest presidents and later recognized by another.

George Washington Burchette was born on August 27, 1843 to John Calvin and Polly Branham Burchette. He was the grandson of Icil Burchett. On September 29, 1861, soon after the Civil War began, George enlisted in the Union Army's 12th Kentucky Cavalry, where he became a 1st Sergeant. He served until July 24, 1865. Although he fought in battles at Mill Springs, Fort Henry, Perryville and elsewhere, it is what he did at the war's end that he became known for.

The story begins just after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, which occured on April 14, 1865, less than a week after the Civil War ended. A funeral train, known as The Lincoln Special, was set up to transport the president's remains from Washington D.C. to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, where he was to be buried. There were no television cameras or radio broadcasts in those days, only newspaper and telegraph. The Lincoln Special brought the slain president to the people. It allowed the nation to mourn together in a way that neither telegraph nor newspapers could do.

Following his assassination on April 14th, over the course of 20 days, the train made 14 stops, retracing the route Lincoln had traveled from Springfield, Illinois to Washington D.C., as the president-elect on his way to his first inauguration, more than four years earlier. Millions of Americans came to view the Lincoln Special along the route and to participate in ceremonies and processions that were held at each stop. Most wept.

The train left Washington, D.C. on April 21 and traveled 1,654 miles through Baltimore Maryland, Harrisburg and Philadelphia Pennsylvania, New York City, Albany and Buffalo New York, Cleveland and Columbus Ohio, Indianapolis and Michigan City Indiana.

Before going on to Springfield, the train stopped in Chicago, where 1st Sergeant Burchette had been chosen as one of 24 men who would serve as Guard of Honor for Lincoln's body as it was taken from the train depot to Cook County Courthouse to lie in state.

When the funeral train arrived at Chicago's Park Place, a signal gun was fired, and the tolling of the bell on the courthouse announced the news to the citizens, but thousands upon thousands of people were already congregated in the vicinity of the funeral arch. They stood in profound silence and reverently uncovered their heads as the coffin was borne to the dais beneath the grand arch, while the great Western Light Guard Band performed the "Lincoln Requiem," composed just for the occasion. Thirty-six young lady pupils of the high school, dressed in white and banded with crape, then walked around the bier and each deposited an immortelle on the coffin as she passed. The coffin was then placed in a hearse, prepared expressly for the occasion, and the funeral cortege passed out of the Park Place into Michigan avenue, and fell into procession.

John Carroll Power, an historian who served as the first custodian of Abraham Lincoln's tomb, described the procession this way: “It was a wilderness of banners and flags, with their mottoes and inscriptions. The estimated number of persons in line was 37,000 and there were three times as many more who witnessed the procession by crowding into the streets bordering on the line of march, making about one hundred and fifty thousand who were on the streets of Chicago that day to add their tribute of respect to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.”

The body of Abraham Lincoln lay in state at the courthouse for 28 hours, ending on May 2 at 8pm. Power wrote: “The coffin was then closed and carried to the hearse. The Light Guard Band performed a requiem as the remains were being transferred. An immense procession, bearing about three thousand torches, was already in line, to escort the remains to the depot. At a quarter before nine o’clock, it moved to the time of numerous bands of music. While the preparations for starting were in progress, the choir continued to sing funeral dirges, and twenty-four Sergeants of the Veteran Reserve Corps (including 1st Sergeant George Washington Buchette) stood around the funeral car with draw swords. At half-past nine o’clock, the funeral cortege moved slowly out of the depot to the strains of a funeral march by the band, while the bells of the city tolled a solemn farewell to all that was mortal of Abraham Lincoln.”

U.S. Sanitary Commission activist Mary A. Livermore recalled: “There was none of the hum of business; none of the rush and whirl and hot haste that characterize Chicago, but closed stores, silent streets, and sadness resting on all faces. Flags bound with crape floated mournfully at half-mast. Black draperies shrouded the buildings. All talk was low and brief. Many wept as they walked, and on the breast or arm of all were mourning badges. All nationalities, creeds, and sects were ranged along the route to be taken by the funeral cortége, or stood amid the solemn pageantry and funeral splendor of the great procession.”

The train left Chicago to the sound to tolling bells. As it crossed through Illinois towards Lincoln’s home town, it passed large bonfires, large crowds and banners that read, “Come Home" and “Go To Thy Rest.” At Springfield, the coffin was loaded into an elaborate hearse pulled by six black horses in feathers and mourning blankets and bearing a silver plaque engraved with “A. L.” and taken to the state house. There, in the Hall of Representatives, where Lincoln gave his famous “House Divided” speech, approximately 75,000 people filed silently by the coffin as a band played hymns sung by a choir of 30 vocalists. The next morning, Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest at Oak Ridge Cemetery.

George Washington Burchette was 22 years old when President Lincoln was assassinated. Being a member of the funeral guard brought him much notoriety back home in Cumberland and Clinton counties. After the war, he was appointed to oversee a group of 40 men who assisted the sheriff's of both counties in getting rid of bushwackers. He went on to become one of the Burkesville community's outstanding citizens and was elected state senator of Clinton and Cumberland counties.

When he died in 1935, just four months shy of his 92nd birthday, Burchette was Cumberland County's last surviving Union soldier and the last surviving member of the 24 men who had been chosen as guards for President Lincoln's while it as in Chicago and subsequent trip to Springfield. A few weeks before his death, Burchette received a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the letter, dated March 8, 1935, the president wrote "My dear Mr. Burchette, I am informed that you were a member of the funeral guard of Abraham Lincoln in Chicago and I am glad to send you this note to extend to you my personal greetings and my best wishes for your welfare. Very sincerely yours, President Franklin D. Roosevelt."

George Washington Burchette died at noon on April 18, 1935, one month and 10 days after receiving that letter. A funeral was held the following day at his residence and he was buried at Burkesville Cemetery. After his death, the letter was placed in the Department of Library Special Collections at WKU, where it can be seen today.

At the time of his death, Burchette was survived by his children: Georgia Bow, Sada Williams, Nettie Bryson, Della Brown Johnson, and William and Edward Burchette. Della was the mother of Oscar "Boss" Brown and other children. His grandfather, Icil Burchett, was killed by civil war guerrillas at his home in Clinton County. His great-grandfather, John Burchett, was a revolutionary war soldier in Virginia.

The photocopy of the letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to George Burchette is courtesy of Library Special Collections, WKU.



Long may our Land be Bright with Freedom's Holy Light

Officially, the Continental Congress declared its freedom from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, but after voting to approve it, a draft do...