Biographical Information: Will Mathis Autobiography

The following autobiography was dictated by Will Mathis to an unnamed news reporter. Copies of this autobiography were sold to support the Mathis family after the execution of Will Mathis.

LIFE OF WILL MATHIS

I, Will Mathis, wrote the following statement:

Came to Lafayette County, Mississippi, in 1897, worked for Jesse Barry from May until July. I then went down on Yocona, in the neighborhood of Whit Owens, got acquainted with him and went into partnership in the distilling of liquors with him. Married Cordie Owens, a daughter of Whit Owens, in November, 1898, she made me a good wife. She is a Christian woman.

I cannot remember the times she has sit by my side and begged me with all the love and tender feeling that a wife could have for a husband to quit my wicked ways, she has offered to work the field, if I would let whiskey alone, she never would get mad. It made no difference what I did, I never would let my wife work in the field, I employed a negro to work for us. She never washed but a few times in her life, I always treated her kindly. I feel safe in saying that we got along in our short married life as well as anyone ever did. My life was very promising.

We had two children, both of them were boys, one is dead. We found him dead in bed one morning. He was seven weeks old. My eldest son, Baxter Clelon, was born August 24, 1899.

In February, 1899, the revenue officers went to Whit Owens’ house to capture a still that he and I were running in a large cellar under Owens smoke house. They got there about ten o’clock in the evening, Owens went out in his night clothes to where the officers were (he thought it was someone had come to buy whiskey). They told him their name and business, Genie Anderson took him in the house to put on his clothes. They then went into the hall and had started to the smoke house to get the still. Owens cut loose from Anderson with a pocket knife and returned to the house, the officers bid him halt, but he kept going, they then fired at him, as he ran in the door, his wife (Owens wife) slammed the door behind him. Owens then got his gun and shot at the officers. Several shots were fired. I was living four hundred yards from his place, heard the shooting and women screaming. I ran down to find out what was the matter. When I got to the gate the officers halted me. Owens said for me to come in, if the officers hurt me he would kill every one of them before he stopped. I ran in the house, the officers shot at me two or three times as I went in the yard, Owens shot at them. The officers started to leave, and were going through the house, Owens went to a back window and began firing on them again. They fired back but kept going. After they got off Owens told me to help the women to move the still out of the smoke house. He guarded the house, and we moved the still off and then carried off about twenty gallons of whiskey Owens had in the house. We then poured out the beer in the lot. Owens turned the hogs in to eat up the meal that was in the beer, and root it up in the dirt so it could not be detected. We then hauled off the beer stand and pumped the cellar full of water. The officers shot thirty-five bullet holes through the house, all of his family were in the house, his wife, and seven children. They were running around the house screaming all of the time of the shooting, the clothes hanging in the house were shot into holes.

We came to Oxford, made bond but the grand jury failed to find any bill, so we got off of that charge. Ever since then Owens has proved a giant to the revenue officers, and has waylaid the road side every time he knew them to be in the county.

In November, 1899, Owens heard the officers were coming to get a still that we had, he got George Mask (his son-in-law) and I to go out to the still, when we got there it was dark, we found a

hickory stump on fire near the still, Owens saw the sparks flying up, he thought it was the officers striking matches around the still, he and Mask had shot guns, I had a winchester. They shot at the sparks about six times, I never shot at all, I was to shoot when the officers fired so I could see the blaze of their guns. But we found out soon there were no officers there to shoot.

In 1899, I saw Owens’ plan would not do. I sold out my interest in the still for half it cost me, I then moved off of his place a mile and half distance from him. I went into business without any partner. I ran a still about eight months, had good luck, but the officers captured it soon after that.

In the fall of 1900, I went with four other men to Whit Owens’ to get some whiskey, when we got there, we found we found Owens and the negro each armed with a breech loading shot gun.

They halted us, said they were looking for the officers that night. We got our whiskey and left as soon as we could. Orlander Lester and Bill Jinins (a brother-in-law of Lester’s) were the negroes that were Owens.

After the boys and I got back to my house we decided to sit up awhile and see if we could hear any shooting down at Owens’, so we killed a chicken, cooked and eat it. It was about twelve o’clock when we heard four big guns fire in the direction of Owens’, we were certain the officers had come and they had gotten into a fight, one of the boys and I mounted our horses and rode down there to see if anyone had gotten hurt, but found the crowd was breaking up, and only fired their guns for sport.

One Sunday morning, my wife asked me to go with her to her fathers (Whit Owens), I told her that morning as we went along I thought it best for me to get out of that neighborhood, I thought sometime there would be a lot of men killed some night and it would be laid on me, it would break me up if I succeeded in getting out of it, I went on to state how things were the night before, I could have left there with about seven hundred dollars, I wanted to go to Texas, my wife begged me not to sell out and leave there, she had never been off from her people and she did not think she could stand to leave them and go so far. I told her I would not take her away, but I was afraid she would see a day she would wish I had gone to Texas when it would be too late.

In the year of 1900 in December the federal Jury found a bill against me.Whit Owens came to Oxford in January 1901 and found that it was true that they had a bill against me, he got Dan Welch to come with him to see me, told me about it and asked me to move to his place and not to give up, he said I could make the whiskey and he would do the selling, and if the officers came after me he would die before they should carry me off, that where I was living was so far from him the officers could take me off and he never know it, and could not be any protection to me, I would not go. I spent the night with Dan Welch and went to Oxford the next morning, saw Frank Mattews the U.S. Marshal, and asked him if he had any papers for me, he said he had, I make my bond, my bondmen signed it, and I returned home feeling much better than I would have felt dodging around. In the year of 1901 I bought another distillery and set it up, and went to making whiskey again, I had success for five months. I then laid my still and promised my wife I never would make or sell anymore whiskey.

In the summer of 1901 Will Stripling got me to come to Oxford and get mettle to make counterfeit money. He said we would make it on halves. I got enough to make sixty or eighty dollars, I got about forty dollars. After thinking over it I got afraid to use it, I showed it to a friend one day, he said if I was afraid to pass it, if I would let him have it he would pass it, I have him several dollars of it and told him he had better be careful about passing it or he would get into trouble, he remarked he did not care, he had just as soon leave the state as not. So he passed the money, I was with him one day and he got up a game of cards, the one he was playing with wanted to play across, Pruett asked me to be his partner in the game, I told him I would play with him but would not take any part in the betting, he said all right he would do all of the betting, he passed the counterfeit money on the boys he was playing with, they found it out and began telling it that Pruett and I passed a lot of bad money on them, it made me mad, I got on my horse and went to see the boys, and gave one of them a thrashing, should have given the other one the same, but he got away. They made out papers against me for passing bad money on them. They also go papers against Pruett, he swore he borrowed five dollars from me, spent it and gave the remainder back to me.

I was bound over in court until the grand jury found a bill against me. The grand jury found on against Pruett also. When the jury met they found five or six different people Pruett had passed counterfeit money on. So there were five bills which will more than send him off.

In 1898 Arlandus Lester caught a white girl. They arrested him and put him in jail, he stayed there eight months, Whit Owens bonded him out, employed a lawyer for him and got him out of his trouble, he (Arlandus) has been with him ever since.

In August, 1901, the officers arrested Arlandus Lester for making whiskey and put him in jail, Whit Owens again bonded him out in October, land began planning to get the witnesses out of the way that billed Lester.

The second Tuesday night in September the negroes had a church festival. Owens stopped work that evening, gave Lester a lot of buck shot, sent him to George Mask for his gun, Owens told him to go through the woods and get to the church about dark, hide himself in a good place so he could shoot and kill a negro named Walter Jones, who had Lester arrested, and billed for making whiskey. Lester did as Owens told him, when Walter Jones came to the church and walked out to one side to take a drink of wine, he was in a few feet of Lester, he (Lester) fired at him, Jones turned around as he fired, most of the load him Hamp Williams, a negro, and killed him dead, four shot hit Jones in the shoulder. They had a coroner’s inquest over the body of Hamp Williams, the negroes swore there was not a white man on the ground, that a negro did the shooting, also said they saw the bulk of him and it looked about the size of Lester, and they believed it was him but could not be sure of it.

On the 16^th of November U.S. District Attorney Montgomery made out papers against me for selling whiskey, he came to arrest me and take me to Oxford and get out papers against me for killing Hamp Williams and shooting Walter Jones, something that I did not have anything to do with at all.

The next day I heard it and went to the church where the dead negro was and saw him. I went down to Whit Owens’ the next day and he and Lester told me that Lester did it, and if anybody said anything to me about it for me to tell them that Lester was in the bed sick that night; that Mr. Owens told me that Lester had a chill about two o’clock and had to stop work, and Mr. Owens wnet down to his house that night after supper to see how he was and found him in the bed with a high fever, and I knew that Lester didn’t kill the negro.

November 16, 1901 one Saturday evening about sunset, John and Hugh Montgomery came to my house to arrest me on a charge of distilling. They read the warrant to me, I asked to let me finish cleaning a hog I had just killed. They said they would, and got off their horses and went around where I was engaged in cleaning the hog. Arlandus Lester was helping me with the hog. Hugh Montgomery asked his name, I told him he was a Threlkeld negro, I thought Hugh had a warrant for him killing Hamp Williams.

About that time Bill Jackson came up, and I asked him if he could go on a bond for me; he said he would. I asked him if he would go and get Taylor Moore to help him make the bond, he said he would but he didn’t believe Moore would come to town before morning. I then asked the Montgomerys to wait until morning to come to Oxford. Hugh Montgomery didn’t want to wait, but John Montgomery said he was willing to stay, and told Hugh if he didn’t want to stay he could come back, that he would stay and come to town with me the next morning. Hugh Montgomery said he didn’t care, he would stay too; that it was about dark and we would have to come all the way in the dark.

By this time Arlandus Lester had got the hair off the hog, and we hung the hog up to dress it, Lester went to get a bucket of water to wash the hog down, but he never came back; he thought the officers wanted him, too, by me telling his name was Threlkeld, and he knew the talk was that he killed Williams, so he went to Whit Owens and told him that the officers were at my house and were going to stay all night. Owens told Lester to go up to George Mask (Owens’ son-in-law) and kill the officers; that they were after me for killing the negro, and that they shouldn’t carry me to Oxford for something I never done.

Lester got Mask’s gun and went back to Owens’. Owens got his gun and they started up to my house. Mrs. Owens commenced crying and told Owens’ she would alarm the country if he went, so Owens had to go back; he gave Lester a handful of shells loaded with buckshot, and told him to be sure and not let the officers get away. Owens told Lester to slip around the house and shoot the officers by the fire, and to tell me to alarm the neighborhood and tell that I believed it was somebody trying to kill me and made a mistake and killed the officers, and for Lester to come on back and not let anybody see him. Owens said everybody knew I never had a shotgun. When Lester go back to my house we were eatin supper, about nine o’clock. We were late about supper on account of having the hog to attend to. My wife had to attend to the lard, and then she was longer about fixing supper on account of having company. John Montgomery sat at the head of the table, Hugh Montgomery sat to the right of John at the side; Bill Jackson sat to the right of Hugh; I sat to the left of John Montgomery, facing Hugh, with my baby in my lap feeding him. We all eat supper and enjoyed ourselves fine, John Montgomery and myself kept up a big laugh all the time, tell jokes; John told a heap of war tales and funny things that happened after the war.

We got through supper. I carried them into the sitting room to the fire. I had been busy and didn’t get in any wood; the fire was getting low; I told them to have seats that I would get some wood and make a better fire. I asked Hugh if he cared for me carrying my pistol out with me, told him that I had been waylaid by Jim Pilcher and his brother, that they had said they were going to kill me, and I always carried my pistol when I stepped out at night. Hugh said he would be like me and to carry my pistol on, he didn’t care. As I stepped out in the yard, I heard some one say "s-h-h", in a low whisper; I asked who it was; he said "s-h-h" again. I thought it was somebody trying to get to kill me; I thought there were two of them and it was one telling the other to shoot. I pulled my pistol and fired in the direction where I heard the whisper. After I shot I never heard anything more. I asked again who it was and never got any answer, I turned a bad dog loose I had tied to the tree I was behind and told him to "catch ‘em"! The dog went right on to him; he threw his gun down and jumped up a little sappling and called to me to stop my dog, and told me who he was; it was Lester; he said he had come to help me finish my hog. The officers ran to the door but found it was Lester and went back to the fire. When they went back Lester picked up his gun and told me that he had been there some time trying to get a chance to kill the officers, but some of my family was in the way all the time; he said he tried to kill them at the supper table, but could not shoot for him to do as I have stated already. I told him he should not do it at all, that the officers were friends of mine and just doing their duty as officers; he kept begging me to let him kill them. My wife came out to where we were and Lester said to her, "Miss Cordie, oughtn’t Mr. Will let me kill them, your pa said for me to do it; see, here is a hand full of buck-shot he game me to kill them with; you know he keeps buck-shot all the time". My wife said "I don’t doubt pa sent you here to kill these men, but if that is all he knows, Will knows his business better than pa, and I will tell you right now, you are not going to hurt those men." I told him n, and for him to go and get some wood and chop it up and bring in and make a fire; he went and got the wood. Me and my wife went back in the house; she cleaned away the supper table, and I went and sat down and commenced talking with John and Hugh Montgomery about a case I was to have in the Federal court. John Montgomery was a witness for me in that case.

Lester brought in the wood and made a fire. Lester and I then went out and took down the hog and cut it up and carried it in to the dining room and spread it out on the table to cool until morning. It was then about ten o’clock. Bill Jackson got up to leave; he was going after Taylor Moore to come the next morning and come to Oxford and make bond for me. Jackson’s mule had got a loose; Lester and I helped him catch his mule. Lester told Jackson what he wanted to do and asked him if I oughtn’t to let him do it; Bill Jackson said no, and "don’t you let him do it, Will, for it will cause you trouble as long as you live if you do." I said "no he shan’t do anything of the kind." Jackson got on his mule to leave. The negro got his gun and started off; he wanted a pint of whiskey and stopped at the corner of the house until I could ge the officers off to bed so I could get it for him. I went in the house and asked the officers if they were ready to go to bed; they said they were. I carried the lamp into a back room and set down on the front railing to hold the light for them to go to bed. John Montgomery go in the bed at once; Hugh seemed to be slow in getting in the bed. Hugh Montgomery had a pistol of mine that he and McAdams, a U.S. detective had taken from me in August, 1901 when they arrested me on the charge of passing bad money; they put me in jail, I stayed a few days before I made bond, they gave the pistol to the jailor to give me when I got out, but Hugh came back and go the pistol from the jailor the next day. When I got out on bond I asked the jailor for my pistol; he said Hugh Montgomery came and got it and carried it to the court house; I went to the district attorney and asked him about it, he said McAdams carried it to Washington, and I couldn’t get it. I was told by a cousin of Hugh Montgomery that Hugh had my pistol, so I asked him the night he came to my house about it before he went into the house; he said McAdams had it and he had no right to it and he would see about getting it for me, but as Hugh pulled off his clothes to go to bed I saw him pull off a shoulder scabbard with his coat with my pistol in it; he laid the coat and pistol under the pillow together; he pulled a pistol out of his pants pocket and threw it down and pulled off his pants, then placed the pistols under his pillow and got in bed; as he got in the bed I asked him to let me see the pistol he pulled off with his coat and seemed to be so particular with; he said he would show it to me some other time; I told him he had shown me the other pistol and I wanted to see that one; he said I couldn’t see it then; I told Hugh he had told a damn lie about McAdams having my pistol, that the pistol he had in that scabbard was mine and I was going to have it; Hugh Montgomery threw a pistol on me and said he would carry me to Oxford that night, and told John Montgomery to get up. Lester Heard the cursing over the pistol, jumped in at the door of the big room and killed Hugh Montgomery, and then shot and killed John Montgomery; neither of them spoke after they were shot.

I told my wife to get up and leave there, that I didn’t want her to witness any such. We started off; Lester asked me to help him carry the men off and bury them; I told him to get the one that sent him, so my wife and I went down to her pa’s; Lester went down there with us and called Mr. Owens up and told him that he had killed the officers and I wouldn’t help him bury them and he would have to go and help him; Owens commenced putting on his clothes. When Owens started in the house to get ready to go to my house to help Lester with the dead men Lester gave him a lot of buckshot shells and said, "here is your shells, I didn’t have to use but two loads of them." Owens took the shells and the gun Lester had and carried them in the house and put them away. He got ready and we started back to my house. Then asked me if I had a shove; I told them I did not; Lester went up to Owens’ lot and got one of Owens’ shovels and carried it up to my house to bury the men with.

As we were going back to my house Owens found out that Bill Jackson had been to my house and had gone to get a bondman for me. Owens said that if Lester had told him that he wouldn’t have sent him to kill the men, and said he wished he had come on with Lester started out to the lot to catch my mule to leave; Owens asked me where I was going; I told him; he asked me if I wasn’t going to help bury the men; I told him no, that wasn’t my job; he asked why it wasn’t; I told him because everybody in the county knew that the men were at my house and that there would be men there before day looking for them, and that I had sent Bill Jackson after Taylor Moore to make bond for me, and it didn’t matter where they put them they would be found and the one that buried them would be tracked up with bloodhounds. I went on to the lot to catch my mule but found him gone; I got Hugh Montgomery’s horse and saddled him and went back to the house and started in to get my pistol Hugh Montgomery had; I met Mr. Owens coming out of the large room, and Lester was putting a straw of bed on top of them; I went back in the side room where the men were killed to get my pistol, found my pistol and two others and a pocketbook with three dollars in it; I picked them all up and carried them off with me; that is all I carried away from my house. I saw that they intended to burn the house; I went to my bureau and got some clothes that belonged to my dead baby and gave them to Mr. Owens and told him to take care of them, and started out.

The negro picked up a chunk of fire and threw it over in the corner of the house. Mr. Owens said for him to wait a while and made him put the fire back in the fire-place.

As I got on the horse to leave Owens asked me to wait and take the other horse, too; they got the horse and saddled him, and brought him to me, and I carried the horse about two miles and I stopped him: I went on to George Jackson’s and called him and told him what had happened at my house, that the negro had killed the officers and that I wanted to make arrangements to prove my self away from home that night; George said all right he would help me, so he put on his clothes and got up behind me and we rode Hugh Montgomery’s horse to Curty Hall’s, a cousin of Hugh Montgomery, and turned the horse aloose. We then went to Bill Jackson’s to stop him from getting Moore to make bond for me. We got to Bill Jackson’s just before day and called him, and I told him about the negro killing the men and I wanted to prove myself away from home; Bill said all right, he would do anything he could for me; he said we had better go to his brother-in-law, Kin Vines, and make arrangements to prove I stayed there that night; Bill Jackson said he would swear he was at my house and I got away from the officers about sundown, and he stayed and helped finish the hog, and came on to Kin Vines and found George Jackson and myself there and some other boy that was going to swear I was there and had been there ever since seven o’clock that night, and that they knew I was not at home at the time the shooting took place at my house.

On Sunday morning November 16^th, Dan Welch, a neighbor living close by, discovered my house was burned down; he got a crowd and went to the house and found the Montgomery boys about burned up; he poured water on them and put them out and telephoned to Oxford for the officers to come; he thought it was Bill Jackson and myself that were burned up; that a crowd of negroes had come and killed us and set the house on fire to take revenge from the shooting of Jones and Williams, but as soon as Montgomerys’ people got there they said it was John and Hugh Montgomery. Hugh Montgomery’s brother knew him by a gold tooth, John Montgomery’s son knew him by a small piece of his shirt that was lying under him that never burnt, and a pocket-knife he found that he recognized as his father’s.

The remains of the Montgomerys were carried to their homes, Hugh to Pontotoc and John to Oxford, where they held a coroner’s inquest over him for several days. On Sunday evening, November 17^th, George Jackson and I went to Whit Owens’, got there about dark. I intended to come on to Oxford and give up; Whit Owens said for me not to do it, that they would mob me as soon as they found me; that everybody believed I killed the men and burned them and it wouldn’t do for me to give up at all; he said for me to fight till I died, not give up at all for the would mob me, and get as many of them as I could; Owens said, "I have got your winchester in the house, do you want it?" I told him yes; he had the gun brought to me, and Jackson and I went back to Dutch Bend, close to Jackson’s house, and slept in a cotton house that night.

On Monday morning George Jackson went home to get our breakfast; when he got back to where I was he told me that the officers got Bill Jackson the evening before and carried him to Oxford jail. We ate our breakfast and then went down in Yocona bottom and stayed in a cotton house that day and night, for it was a wet day.

Tuesday night I heard that the officers were looking for me that day, and that they had sent for a pack of bloodhounds.

On Wednesday night George Jackson and I stayed at John Stewards’s. Steward told me that they had put my wife in jail, and that the negro Lester had told enough on her to break her neck, so on Thursday morning I told George Jackson I couldn’t believe that my wife was in jail but I was going down to Whit Owens and see what I could hear, and if it was so about her being in jail I was going to her and do all I could to get her out of jail; so I left Jackson and went down in the neighborhood of Whit Owens’, and ran right up on a crowd looking for me; they were in two hundred yards of me, and they saw me. I walked across Yocona bottom, about one-half mile: they put the dogs on my trail; I went into Lancaster’s field, where he was at work, and asked him if he knew anything about my wife being in jail; he said she was, and the negro had told enough to hang her, and for me to swap out with the officers when they came on me, for they came to kill and burn me; I told him that I intended to and it wouldn’t be long, for they were after me with blood-hounds and wasn’t more that a half mile from there; I left Lancaster then. I decided to come to my wife if there was any chance and try to get the officers to let her loose; I went right back across Yocona bottom and got a horse from Ed Wiley; I rod it a pieced, turned it loose and got another horse, rod it about a half mile, got off of it on to another horse and never touched the ground. Right there I fooled the dogs and got away from them; I went on to Dallas, about six miles, and gave up to Squire Oren Brown, and was brought to Oxford on Friday morning; There were over a one hundred fifty men in the crowd that brought me to Oxford. The deputy sheriff asked me if I had anything I wanted him to tell my wife; I told him no, I could tell her myself; he said I never would get to the jail where she was; I asked him if he wasn’t going to protect me; he said if talk would do any good he would, but he would not fight for me, and he didn’t think I would get to jail, and when I got to Oxford and saw the angry crowd I didn’t think so either.

They carried me before the coroner’s jury as soon as they got to Oxford with me. I made a statement before the jury, taking things on myself that Whit Owens and Arlandus Lester did themselves; I was afraid to tell the truth on them for fear the angry crowd would take them out and mob them, and while taking them take my wife, too; mobbing wasn’t any too bad for them if I had thought the crowd would let my wife alone, but if a mob had gone in that jail while she was there, if some drunk one had said, "let’s take the damn woman, too the whole crowd would have been in for it, for a crowd of men that will go into a mob don’t care for anything, just as soon do one thing as another, so I begged for the rest in order to save my wife.

The officers arrested George Jackson the same morning I left him; they asked him about me; he wouldn’t tell anything at first, but a crowd gathered around him and told him that there was enough to make him talk, that they had enough evidence against Bill Jackson (his brother) to hang him; so they got him to tell where I said I was going, so they brought him to Oxford and put him in jail.

The Federal court met in December, found bills against me, and my wife, Owens and Lester, and Bill Jackson and George Jackson, but after they got the bills, decided to let it go before the circuit court to be tried; so Judge Lowry called a special term of court to try the Montgomery murder cases.

The court commenced December 30, 1901, and lasted two and a half weeks; the jury found a bill against Owens, Lester, Bill Jackson and myself for murder; found a bill against George Jackson for staying with me and bringing me grub, but didn’t find a bill against my wife; I went before the jury and begged for her, and innocent woman.

Lester was the first one tried, the jury returned a verdict "guilty as charged" in thirty minutes from the time they left their seats.

I was the next to be tried; I had no lawyer; the judge appointed a young lawyer who never had any criminal cases in court. He took charge of the case and did the best he knew, they summoned the jury and we went into trial. Lester was the first witness put on the stand against me; he swore I sent him after a gun and he went and got it for me and gave it to me, and Bill Jackson and I went out and talked awhile, and then I showed the officers a bed and they laid down, and Bill Jackson got his mule to leave, and I sold him a bottle of whiskey and sent him in the room where the officers were to get a corn cob to make a stopper for the bottle, and while he was getting the stopper, that Bill Jackson and myself shot from the other house and killed the officers, and that we all left then; Jackson went home; my wife, Lester and I went to Owens, and Owens, Lester and I went back to my house, and I dragged the men off of the bed and set the house afire, and he and Owens had nothing to do with it, which was a positive a lie as any one ever did swear, for he did the killing himself and he and Owens dragged the men off of the bed and set fire to the house, and I did not have anything to do with it, as I have already stated.

George Jackson was the next witness; he swore I came to his house after the killing and called him up and told him I was in trouble, and asked him to go with me and he did so, and he kept begging me and finally told him that I had killed the men, that Lester was to do it but his nerve failed him and I had to do it myself, and that after I killed the men I piled rails on them and set the house afire, and I guess they were burned up before then, and that I was going to sell Hugh Montgomery’s horse I was on and get money and leave and he begged me out of the notion of doing that. He said he stayed with me and kept me from leaving so the officers could catch me, in order to save his brother, which was a positive lie. After I left him on Thursday morning the officers arrested him and he wouldn’t tell them anything about me until they made him. Lester and Jackson were the only witnesses that hurt me in my trial. I went on the stand stated the same as I have already stated about Lester doing the killings and Owens furnishing the shot and going to my house.

My wife was put on the stand and swore the same that I did.

The next witness was Mrs. Jennie Standifer, who swore that she came in jail with Mrs. Elkin to talk and pray with me, and I asked her to go to Lesters cell and ask him to tell the truth and then come back and tell me what he said; "I killed them but Mr. Mathis told me to," and she went back and told me Lester said he did the killing.

Vick Richmond, negro in jail, went on the stand and told that Lester told him that he did the killing.

The lawyers spoke, and the jury was out forty minutes and returned a verdict of "guilty as charged."

Bill Jackson was tried next; Lester swore the same thing he did in mine; my wife and I swore the same I have already stated. Jackson made a statement to the jury; he said that I left about dark and he stayed at my house until ten o’clock and then left, and that I never came back at all unless it was after he had gone, which contradicted my wife and I, his own witnesses, and made the negro’s evidence stronger. If Jackson had stayed off the stand or told the truth he would have come clear. He was found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary for life.

Whit Owens was tried next; he had a fine team of lawyers to defend him. Lester swore that Owens gave him the buckshot to kill the men with, and told him not to let them get away, and that after the men were killed Owens went to my house and helped dispose of the bodies, and carried some bed clothes and a gun to his house.

Tom Ragland swore that he and an officer went into Owens’ cell and asked him what he did with Hugh Montgomery’s watch, and that Owens told him he hid it under his barn, and they found the watch were Owens told him.

Dick Matthews swore that Owens told him about a year ago that if the revenue officers didn’t stop coming out there that a lot of them would get killed.

They tried to get me to go on the stand; I wouldn’t do it’ I couldn’t afford to swear a lie for him and I would not swear his life away on account of my wife.

The jury found him guilty but recommended the mercy of the court.

The court wasn’t satisfied and they tried Owens again on the charge of murdering Hugh Montgomery. The evidence was the same, only they had three new witnesses, who made the evidence against him stronger. One was Deputy Sheriff Will Ivy, who swore as he was coming to the court house from jail with Owens and Lester that Owens told Lester to stick to him and not give him away. The other witnesses were Dr. Baird and John Hope, who swore that they heard Owens talking to Lester from his cell one night and that Owens told Lester not to give him away and not to tell where he got his gun and shot. The jury found a verdict of "guilty as charged," and he was sentenced to hang on February 14^th, the same time that Lester and I were to hang. His lawyers appealed his case at once.

A few days before I was to hang my wife got enough money to appeal my case. My lawyer tried to get the record but the first lawyer I had never took a copy of the evidence. My case was affirmed and I was sentenced to death June 14^th.

I commenced making and selling whiskey at the age of twenty-one, followed it six years. I found it the worst life a man could lead. He is thrown in all kinds of company and soon becomes fit for nothing; he will neglect his farm work and pay all of his attention to his whiskey business. I followed it six years, tried to save some money but it took all the money I could get to keep off bills and keep my still running. I always worked in with some of the jury men and they kept me posted on what was going on in the grandjury room; I paid their hotel and whisky bills; I never was tried for making whisky, but my money came easy and went freely, and I am a poorer man today than I was when I commenced fooling with whisky; it causes a man to be on a dread all the time. Whisky is the worst curse on earth, it causes more trouble than anything else; I feel safe in saying that two-thirds of the men that have been brought to Oxford jail for the last six months has been on account of that demon stuff; I have seen several good men sent to the U.S. penitentiary for selling and making whisky; they left wife and children to grieve after them; they were all good and honest citizens.

Oh, had I just stopped when I dissolved partnership with Whit Owens in place of buying another still and keeping on in my sinful way. I could have been a free man today and wouldn’t have to pay for the deeds of others with my life. I can’t blame any one buy myself for if I had led the right kind of life officers never would have been sent to my house.

Knowing that I have got to die on account of that demon stuff and for the deeds of others that can still enjoy life and have of being with his family again, and there is George Mask, Owens’ son-in-law, that furnished Lester the gun to kill the negroes with…(ineligible)…and made more whisky than I ever did, who never has

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