Appalachian History

Ira Mullins Family Massacre aka “Killing Rock Massacre,” Dr. Taylor Hanging and shoot-out with the Fleming Brothers Kentucky Explorer [Letcher County, KY], October 28, 1893 (part 1 of 2) Dr. Marshall B. Taylor was hanged at Wise Courthouse, Virginia, at 2:20 this afternoon, October 27, 1893, for the murder of the Mullins Family. Last night [...]

Please welcome guest blogger Jim Rada. Rada writes the monthly local history column for the Cumberland Times-News and has had four historical novels published that were set in the region. He writes his own blog on historical subjects at historyarchive.wordpress.com, where this post originally ran. It’s been said that hell hath no fury like a [...]

“Curt Jett was a member of the Hargis clan in the Hargis-Cockrill feud. Once he was under sentence of death, but the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed the verdict and he accepted a life term without appeal. That was for the killing of James Cockrill, July 20, 1902, near the courthouse at Jackson. He claimed [...]

Few records of the Glen Alum [WV] payroll robbery exist, but in 1959 the late O.H. Booton, retired ‘Daily News’ staff writer, wrote to Charlotte Sanders from Macon, Ga., recalling the August 1914 incident he covered in person. Booton spent 42 years as a newsman in Mingo County. Here is his story of the robbery: [...]

THE GREENVILLE [SC] DAILY NEWS – April 15, 1910 MYSTERY SHROUDS THE KILLING OF BEN ALLEN. Did Mill man commit suicide or was he Murdered? MAN ARRESTED AND NOW IN JAIL. J.C. Lindley, who boarded at dead man’s home, 204 Hammett Street, Poe Mill, was arrested by Deputy Sheriff John Hunsinger and will be held [...]