All who remained were quickly shot dead (part 2 of 2)

continues from here

Photo above: Still from play ‘Red Fox: Second Hangin,’ Appalshop Roadside Theater’s first full length production, which toured the US from 1976 to 1989.

Soon Mullins started to Kentucky with several barrels of whiskey accompanied by his family. Taylor was notified, and scanning the route of the party, selected a lonely spot on top of Cumberland Mountain, known as Pound Gap, for a general slaughter.

He secured the services of two brothers, young and reckless mountaineers,
Calvin and Henan Fleming, to assist him in the murders. Within less than ten paces of the road over which the wagon must pass, they prepared a pile of stones several feet high behind which they would be hidden from view, and to avoid the suspicions of the wary moonshiners, brush had been heaped over the stones.

It was on May 14, 1892, that Taylor and the two hired assassins, hid behind the rocks and waited the approach of the wagon. At a few minutes before one o’clock the party approached the ambuscade.

Jane Mullins, a daughter-in-law of the distiller, walked in front of the wagon, while within the vehicle were Ira Mullins, his wife, his son Wilson Mullins, and John Campbell, the driver. Following it were Greenberry Harris, a hired man, and John Mullins, a fifteen year old son. They were assured that no officers were near, and apprehended no danger otherwise, until a shot was fired, a horse fell dead and three masked men, of familiar figure, suddenly rose and commenced firing with repeating rifles upon them.

The daughter-in-law and the infant son fled, and escaped injury, though many bullets pierced their outer clothing. All who remained, and the horses, were quickly shot dead, and old Mullins’ body was mutilated with many other shots from Taylor’s rifle. The savings of the murdered family, about $1,000, was upon the person of the mother. This was taken and the conspirators escaped to an inaccessible part of the mountains.

The alarm spread quickly, and many people were on the ground within an hour or two. Mrs. Mullins was found shot through the knees and breast; her husband had received nearly a score of bullets in the head, shoulders and thighs; John Campbell was struck six times; Greenberry Harris and Wilson Mullins were shot through the heart.

To follow the murderers was impossible. There was no trace of their whereabouts for weeks, when, occasionally, Taylor would be heard going along the highways, accompanied by several armed men. He was finally hidden in a loft of his son’s house in Norton, Virginia, from whence he was secretly put aboard a freight car and hidden among the freight. The railroad company’s detective was on the lookout, and arrested him at Bluefield, West Virginia.