"Memoir" by Robert Hicks--Book/Manuscript Review

Robert Hicks, Photo by UMWA Local 5895

For those of you who ever actually read the list of "Books I Have Read Lately" which has been located at the bottom of the page on this blog ever since I have been blogging, you might have noticed lately that I had added "Memoir" by Robert Hicks to that list of books.  I used the term "book" somewhat expansively in reference to that particular work as I sometimes to do documents, manuscripts, and other unpublished sources of information which I believe could be useful to another student of Appalachian Studies or of some particular subject covered by some writing I have read.  I have always hoped that at least a few of my readers might choose from time to time to read some of these listings.  This particular manuscript can only be found in one place on earth so far as I know and that is the Wayland Historical Society in Wayland, Kentucky, where I have been doing some research recently.  If you decide to try to locate and read this manuscript, you will need to travel to Wayland to see it.  But the bright side is that the Historical Society has a relatively broad policy about access to their holdings and the copying of those holdings.  

I had two different reasons for choosing to read this 50 page manuscript: 1) my ongoing research involves the town of Wayland and the Elkhorn Coal Company which built the town and owned it until about 1970; 2) Robert Hicks was a distant cousin of mine and was raised in a holler called Bruce near Mousie, Kentucky, where my father was also raised.  Robert Hicks served as the fifth president of UMWA Local 5895 in Wayland, KY, and his son, Bobby Ray Hicks, still serves as president of Local 1741 which was merged with Local 5895 sometime after coal mining ended in Wayland and the number of active UMWA members dwindled. As his biography in "Twentieth Anniversary...of Local Union 5895 United Mine Workers Of America 1933-1953" states: "Robert Hicks started work in the mines...in 1919" and served his local union, the town of Wayland, and the greater community in a variety of ways as Financial Secretary and President of Local 5895 and as Police Judge of the City of Wayland.  

When I read this memoir, I was able to learn some previously unknown information about my extended family and the area in Mousie where they lived and many of them are buried.  I also learned more about a man named John "Bud" Wicker who had been a school teacher and elected official in the area around the turn of the twentieth century.  This was particularly important to me since a treasured family member who developed dementia late in life had fixated on John "Bud" Wicker at times during the severe deterioration of their dementia.  As a well known and well loved caretaker would walk through the house this person would often say, "There comes that SOB John "Bud" Wicker".  Their caretakers knew nothing of John "Bud" Wicker but I had at least heard of him during my childhood and knew that he had been well respected in the county.  His photo and a warm remembrance of him is included in the memoir and I immediately copied that page and mailed it to the caretaker of my family member.  It seems that the family member, in their dementia, had fixated on their old grade school teacher after they could no longer recognize their caretaker and we all found it quite humorous as some of these dementia stories can be.  Secondly, I was able to learn the original source of one bit of information about my paternal grandfather, Charlie Hicks, which I had found repeated in another more questionable source.  Robert Hicks had also included in the memoir other somewhat more lengthy information about my grandparents: 

"I remember on several occasions, Joe and I would go up to Uncle Charlie and Aunt Betty's to stay all night.  Uncle Charlie was somewhat of a rhyme maker.  He was all the time making a rhyme on someone and we just loved to hear him.  Aunt Betty was always working with her loom weaving cloth to make her children clothes, or she would be spinning wool on her old spinning wheel to make wool thread to knit their stockings.  She was also one of the old midwives who caught babies from under persimmon trees, or got them out from among Uncle Charlie's bee gum stands.  Uncle Charlie was always talking about his "honey money" and his old woman.  He must have had at least seventy five bee gums and an old mule called Jim.  He would start out on Old Jim and say, "Come on Jim, we're going to Lackey or maybe Garrett."  He would start out singing "Tell Mother I'll Be There".  That's an old Baptist song.  At breakfast he would have a big bowl of honey and we boys didn't care too much for honey.  All we wanted was that big bowl of gravy.  I think that gravy was the greatest thing the old people ever learned to fix.  It it hadn't been for gravy, many folks would have starved to death.  We would eat every bit of it and even scrape the skillet clean.  That was a big skillet too."  (Robert Hicks, "Memoir" page 7)

It was wonderful for me to read that somewhat lengthy remembrance of the paternal grandparents I had never known personally or heard hat story in its entirety.  I had known that Grandma Betty was a midwife until she was about seventy-five and I had also known that  Grandpa Charlie kept seventy-five or a hundred stands of bees until he was about eighty and peddled honey among the coal camps by mule back even at that advanced age.  It also reminded me of a story my father Ballard Hicks used to tell about going to Jackson in his childhood with Grandpa Charlie and at least one of his brothers.  It was the first time they had seen cement sidewalks and Daddy always said that his brother kept looking at the poured concrete sections of the sidewalk until he finally said, "I sure wish I knowed where they got these big flat rocks.  Pap could sure use some of them to set his bee gums on."  

Elizabeth "Betty" & Charlie Hicks

Robert Hicks also made one short reference to my maternal great-grandfather Hence Hicks, who was murdered in 1935, by saying that he had been an oxen driver in a local logging or farming operation.  But he only made one short reference to the United Mine Workers of America to which he apparently had devoted several years of his life and had obviously inculcated union thinking into his son to the point that Bobby Ray Hicks also became a UMWA official.  That failure to discuss the UMWA left the readers of his memoir without many key elements of his life's work I am certain.  But this book is well written with only minimal linguistic errors considering it was written by a relatively uneducated man.  That skillful writing is also one more testament to the fact that the Hicks genes seem to carry some propensity for producing people who like to write or "make a rhyme" as my grandfather, father, and myself have done along with Robert Hicks.  If you are a descendant of some of the Hicks family living around Mousie Kentucky, you will benefit from making a trip to the Wayland Historical Society and reading the "Memoir" of Robert Hicks. 

The Murder Of Hence Hicks

 

 

Hence Hicks was born on January 9, 1875, in Knott or Floyd County Kentucky and was murdered while working in a field on his farm on Ball Creek in Knott County on February 7, 1935. The Knott County Sheriff at the time, Henry Sturgill, quickly arrested six men.  Two of them, Estill Conley and Elisha Bolen, were eventually convicted of the ambush murder and sentenced to life in prison.  This writer has done extensive research in the morgue of the Floyd County Times at the library of the Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, and in the office of the Circuit Court Clerk of Knott County in Hindman, Kentucky.  The staff of both institutions deserve the utmost in appreciation for their professionalism and assistance in this project.  The Floyd County Times is the only extant newspaper which was covering Knott County at the time of the murder and trials of the two perpetrators.  The records available do an excellent job of covering the basic details of the murder investigation, and court proceedings other than the fact that this writer could not locate a record of the actual testimony before the grand jury or the circuit court jury.  The newspaper records are located in the Floyd County Times between March 1, 1935, and August 1, 1935.  A later effort will be made to obtain Kentucky Department of Corrections records for the perpetrators although this writer holds considerable doubt that they can be located or released to a non-family member of the inmates even if they are found. It is currently unknown to this writer if a Freedom Of Information Act Request could elicit the records from the Department of Corrections.  But it is worth a try and would be very interesting to know if either of the perpetrators actually served their full sentence. 

Hence Hicks Tombstone Photo by Saving Records For Our Future On Find A Grave

According to the newspaper records, the Knott County Sheriff Henry Sturgill almost immediately arrested six men primarily because they suddenly had money and had previously had none.  "The report received here says that Estill Conley had until the day following discovery of Hicks' body been prevented by lack of money from marrying a Fitzpatrick girl, but soon thereafter gave a friend money to go to Hindman and procure a marriage license. Floyd County Times, March 8, 1935." The newspaper and verbal stories this writer heard during his childhood from both his parents, Ballard and Mellie Hicks, and his maternal grandparents, Woots and Susie Hicks, all agree that Hence Hicks had hidden in his hatband a sum of money which all sources agree was $4,100 dollars.  That was a phenomenal sum of money for an elderly farmer in Knott County to have had in early 1935 in the heart of the great depression.  Franklin D. Roosevelt had only been inaugurated as President on March 4, 1933, and the work of economic recovery was still in its relatively early stages.  The newspaper describes Hence Hicks in very positive terms in every story about the case.  He is variously described as  having accrued the money "...from hard labor and strict frugality..." To put it bluntly, Hence Hicks had managed to scratch $4,100 out of the hard, rocky ground of Knott County during the Great Depression and to own his own farm.  The newspaper further describes Hence Hicks as "...a peaceable citizen and held the respect of all who knew him."

The newspaper story of March 8, 1935, discussed the murder in both graphic and extensive detail.  "A 22 caliber rifle bullet had been fired into the back of his head, the missile passing through his brain and emerging above his forehead.  Authorities believe he did not see his slayer.  The murder aroused considerable feeling in Knott County, it is reported, and an investigation was immediately begun by officers.  When five or six men were found in possession of money, a circumstance strange to them, they were nabbed as suspects...Circuit Judge John W. Caudill here said that a detective should be placed at work on the case which has many babbling(sp) aspects and Knott County officials are expected to follow his suggestion"

 

The photo above is of the Chaffins Family Cemetery in Rock Fork near Garret, Kentucky, just off Kentucky Route 80 where Hence Hicks is buried in the upper right corner of the graveyard.  His wife and one of his sons are buried in the same spot with similar obelisk tombstones. 
 

 The March 1, 1935, edition of the Floyd County Times was actually the first print mention of the murder.  It states that Estill Conley and Elisha Bolen were denied bond and that one of the other four who had been arrested was released under $5,000 bond which was a relatively large amount of bond money at that time.  All the other suspects had been released and none other than Conley and Bolen were ever tried.  The March 1, 1935, story also states that a grand jury investigation would begin the following Monday.  That story continues to say that Hence Hicks had been a former resident of Garrett in Floyd County.

The Knott County Circuit Court records state that on March 26, 1935, the case was called for trial.  Attorneys for both defendants entered motions that the cases be separated and Judge Caudill sustained that motion.  The Commonwealth Attorney O. C. Hall elected to try Estill Conley first and a jury was seated composed of the following men: John Back, Bob Everage, Lester Day, Victor Allen, Joe Richie, Bill Day, Alex Hale, John Sparkman, Punch Everage, and Monroe Thomas "...which exhausted the regular panel.  It is ordered by the court that Henry Sturgill, Sheriff of Knott County, summons enough persons to complete the jury.  Thereupon came Henry Sturgill, Sheriff of Knott County and turned into court the following: John Watts and Charley Perkins, which completed the jury, who was accepted by the parties, empaneled sworn to well and truly try the issue and a true verdict render according to the law and evidence."  The Court Reporter was listed as Hassie Hicks without any comment as to whether or not that officer of the court was or was not related to the victim.  The indictment was read by the Commonwealth Attorney O. C. Hall and court was adjourned for lunch.  Some unspecified evidence was introduced by the Commonwealth and the trial was adjourned until the following morning.  At 7o'clock (presumably 7pm), the jury was given the case.  On March 29, 1935, the trial was concluded and the jury returned a verdict against Estill Conley of guilty of murder and set the sentence as life in the State Reformatory.

"The April 5, 1935, edition of the Floyd County Times reported that on the previous Friday Conley had been convicted, sentenced to life in prison, and "removed to the Clark County Jail at Winchester for safe keeping."  The paper reported that the Commonwealth Attorney O. C. Hall presented evidence that "...two sets of tracks led from the place where Conley and Bolen were working splitting rails to the spot on the Hicks farm where the aged farmers body was found, and that these tracks returned to the scene of their work.  It was also shown that Conley, before the slaying of Hicks a man known as near penniless, had on the day following the discovery of Hicks' body a sum of money.  Semi-expert testimony claimed that the 22 caliber bullet taken from Hicks' head was fired from a rifle found in the home of Silas Conley, the defendant's father.  The defense offered no testimony." 

There are two highly interesting points made in the above cited testimony which would most likely not stand up to perusal by a jury in today's world.  First, the evidence cited about the tracks is not discussed with respect to weather conditions on the day of the murder.  Was it muddy, rainy, or snowy on that day in the first week of February 1935?  And, secondly, what on earth is semi-expert testimony?  Was there actually enough science anywhere in America for an expert in 1935 to testify to a match between a bullet and a gun?  Hence was this writer's maternal great-grandfather and it is my sincere wish that the men who actually killed him were convicted of the crime, that none of the other four who were originally arrested but never prosecuted were not culpable in the murder, and that all guilty parties were afforded a fair trial under the legal rules and case law of the time.  But those two aspects of the reported testimony would, in most modern day courtrooms, indicate some degree of reasonable doubt.  But at the same time, the reports this writer heard during his childhood were always related in terms of the certainty that the parties eventually found guilty of the murder were actually the correct perpetrators and were justly arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced.

During the course of the court proceedings, Judge Caudill did choose to rule in favor of the defendants and separate the proceedings against the two.  He also ordered that the defendants be transferred out of the Knott County Jail due to concerns for their safety.  On March 30, 1935, the court record reflects that Judge Caudill ruled "that Estill Conley is now confined in the Knott County Jail on a charge of murder, and it further appearing to the court that there is danger of mob violence for the the defendant to remain in said jail, and it also appearing that the said jail is insecure and not a safe jail in which to keep prisoners, it is now ordered that the said Estill Conley be transferred to the Clark County Jail in Winchester, Kentucky, for safe keeping and the jailer of Clark County, Ky, is ordered and directed to receive said prisoner and to keep him until further orders of this court." 

 To that degree, it can be said that the defendants were afforded a fair trial with the exception that their defense attorneys did not present evidence in favor of their possible innocence.

When Elisha Bolen's trial began in July 1935, the Floyd County Times reported on July 19, 1935, that Estill Conley, 22, testified against his co-defendant and "...threw a bombshell into the defense of his accomplice, Elisha Bolen, 19, when called as a witness...Conley told what is purported to be the full story of the aged farmer's assassination, naming Bolen as the man who fired a rifle bullet into the farmer's head.  Bolen, too was given a life penitentiary term.  Circuit Judge John W. Caudill passed sentence on the two Wednesday.  Bolen suggested that the two take a .22 caliber rifle across the hill to the Hicks farm on Ball Fork and trade it to Hicks, Conley said.  Conley's story continued, "Let's kill the old ____ and take his money."  Thereupon Bolen from behind a large rock nearby fired a bullet through Hicks' head, ran to the body, removed Hicks' money, and gave Conley $43, the confession stated. It was said that the fact that had not Conley, whom the jury held to be equally guilty, already been given a penitentiary sentence, both would have been condemned to the death.  Two jurors held out for the chair."   

The jury in the Elisha Bolen case was made up of Kin Gibson, Bud Noble, Wiley Jent, Bud Madden, Orville Amburgey, Maryland Amburgey, Sam Terry, Lawrence Williams, Roosevelt Honeycutt, Preston Terry (who is the paternal grandfather of this writer's cousin/brother Jack Terry with whom this writer grew up), Lula Allen (the only woman mentioned in the entire proceedings), and Jerry Combs.  The Sheriff Henry Sturgill further summoned Henry Blair and George B. Combs to complete the jury.  Once more after the conviction, Judge Caudill ordered that the convicted inmates be removed from the Knott County Jail because "...said defendants are in danger of being removed from the Knott County Jail by mob violence."  The defense of Elisha Bolen attempted to mount a defense for their client which proved fruitless.  Elisha Bolen was also convicted of murder and sentenced to life in the Kentucky State Reformatory.

Working on locating the documentation of this murder of this writer's maternal great-grandfather Hence Hicks has been highly interesting, and educational.  It is a shame that the actual testimony is not found in the records available.  But after 83 years, it is a miracle that the records available could be found at all.  This has been a rewarding experience and this writer feels closer to Hence Hicks despite having visited his grave on several occasions.  Further work will be done to locate more records and if possible this story will be updated in the future.  

The March 8, 1935, edition of the Floyd County Times contained some further information which might be helpful to those who are researching the Hicks genealogy.  The story states that the body of Hence Hicks was taken to Rock Fork near Garrett, KY, and burial took place on the Sunday after the murder in the Chafins Cemetery.  The funeral was preached by Reverend Marion Chafins and Reverend Melvin Allen.  Survivors are listed as "his widow" and several children, two brothers, Green and Alex Hicks of Garrett, KY, and a sister, Mrs. John Click, of Alphoretta.  The cemetery is located near Garrett, KY, on Rock Fork just off the four lane of KY Highway 80 beside the Rock Fork Freewill Baptist Church.   The grave is in the left rear corner of the cemetery not far from the fence and marked by the obelisk tombstone in the photo above.  There are a total of 20 Hicks' buried in that cemetery with marked graves.  It was the belief of this writer at the time this blog post was actually written that at least two other Hicks', the two children of Woots and Susie Hicks, who died in childhood, might have been buried in this cemetery in unmarked graves. Further research has proven that to be untrue. Their names were Edgar Hicks and Ella Hicks and they are buried in the Collins Cemetery #1 on Kentucky Route 7 south of Wayland at what was historically known as Collins Branch but, due to E911 has now been named Muddy Branch Road.  That cemetery is located on a knoll across Beaver Creek and across the railroad tracks about a half mile to a mile north of the Knott County line.  There are also several other members of the extended family buried in that cemetery including Rachel Moore Collins, the first wife of Hence Hicks and the grandmother of the two children.

 

The Louisville Courier Journal of September 30, 1936 reported that the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled on an appeal of Elisha Bolen's life sentence and upheld the conviction and sentence.  Thanks to Joe Clark of the Carter County, Kentucky Genealogy group on Facebook for doing some digging and posting a clipping from that paper about the ruling.  

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My Appalachian DNA

For several years, my wife and I talked intermittently about having our DNA analyzed but never seemed to get around to it.  Finally, last summer, we both sent off DNA kits to Ancestry DNA.  After about six weeks, we got the results back and much like everyone else who has DNA analysis done, we found a couple of surprises.  I had heard a far too common Eastern Kentucky rumor, prevarication, and old wives' tale that my paternal third great-grandfather, Aulse Hicks, had been the son of a man named Charles Renatus Hicks, who had been the first mixed blood chief of the Eastern Band Of Cherokee.  There had always been two schools of thought about this purported connection.  Most of us who had done much in depth genealogical research leaned strongly toward the opinion that there was far too insufficient proof to justify the common belief and there was too much geographical distance between the well known homes of Charles Renatus Hicks in Spring Place, Georgia, and the area of Western Virginia from which Aulse Hicks emigrated to Prestonsburg, KY, about 1790 to 1810.  In the misguided attempt to connect Aulse Hicks to Chief Charles Renatus Hicks, various people had tried to change Aulse's first name from Aulse to Austin or Augustus despite the fact that every piece of paper he ever signed in Floyd County Kentucky as a minister and well known man had been signed Aulse.  There has also never been found a list of the names of the children of Chief Charles Renatus Hicks which listed either an Aulse, Austin, or Augustus.  In my own mind, I was clearly convinced that the connection between the two was purely the work of too many overly active imaginations which wanted to fulfill the oft repeated Appalachian fantasy of "being descended from a full blooded Cherokee Indian".  I freely admit that as I learned more about Chief Charles Renatus Hicks I grew to respect him highly as a successful man in a difficult world.  I would have loved to learn that I was descended from a man who was the first mixed blood Chief of The Eastern Band of Cherokee, who was bilingual and wrote and spoke both English and Cherokee, acted as a primary interpreter for the tribe and the US military, served as a primary sub-chief for many years, owned one of the largest private libraries in the country as an Indian, and died as the Primary Chief of the tribe.  But I knew better and my DNA analysis proved me correct.  

My Father, Ballard Hicks, Photo By Roger D. Hicks

At this point, I will burst bubbles of fantasy for many descendants of Aulse Hicks and other Hicks' in Eastern Kentucky that they are "descended from a full blood Cherokee Indian".  My genealogy is Hicks on both sides.  My father was Ballard Hicks, a second great grandson of Aulse Hicks with the documentation to prove it.  My mother was Mellie Hicks, the granddaughter of Hence Hicks, whose name I have also seen misspelled and misconstrued in various ways in order to support the Chief Charles Renatus Hicks fantasy.  I have seen Hence Hicks mistakenly identified as being named Henderson or Hensley when I knew numerous people in my childhood who knew him well. He was a well known ambush murder victim in 1935 and every public record about him calls him only one name, Hence Hicks.  Both sides of my family were in Knott County in the late 1700's to early 1800's.  I have always said that I am lucky I wasn't born with a square head and that I suspect that if the truth can ever be proven it is highly likely that "grandpa" came through the Cumberland Gap alone.  By that I mean that I suspect that our original ancestor to emigrate to Kentucky came into the region very early in the settlement process, had a large family which dispersed widely, and eventually converged again to intermarry a few generations later after all family memory and the nearly non-existent record keeping of the time had completely forgotten about any family connections three or four generations in the past.  

Now let's get to the results of the DNA Analysis and burst some of those bubbles.  The first, and most painful bubble to be burst involves Native American DNA.  I, Roger D. Hicks, well-documented third great grandson of Aulse Hicks and a Hicks on both sides,  have absolutely no Native American DNA.  The major aspect of the analysis that was not a surprise also confirmed what most Eastern Kentucky genealogists have believed for years.  Ninety-eight percent of my DNA came from Europe and seventy-seven percent of it came from Great Britain and Ireland.  That was no surprise whatsoever.  But there were a couple of other minor surprises and two fairly major surprises left in the DNA. I have seven percent DNA from Scandinavia.  I also have two percent DNA from the Iberian Peninsula and less than one percent each from Finland/Northwest Russia and Eastern Europe.  But the bigger surprise was that I have less than one percent DNA from each of Southern Asia and Nigeria.  Since I have learned of the connections to Southern Asia and Nigeria, I have tried to imagine just how that interaction took place at a time which must have been at least eight or ten generations in the past, roughly two hundred years or more.  With most of my DNA coming from Europe and Great Britain in particular, someone in my far distant bloodlines had to be a bit of a world traveler.  Was an ancient grandfather a sailor who followed the canvas to points in Africa and Asia?  Was an ancient grandmother a slave who was raped by a slave trader?  Or did a pair of my distant ancestors both find themselves stranded in isolation somewhere in a place and time where the most logical response for their own good was to assume an interracial marriage?  I doubt that I will ever find the answers unless the religion of some group of my ancestors or another is correct and we all end up in a common hereafter either sitting around a cooking fire in the darkness, sailing a common vessel on seas yet unknown, or sharing iced tea on a shady porch and telling the stories in whichever place of exactly how we all came to be.  Sorry about all those bubbles!  

Woots Hicks Cemetery Photo by Roger D. Hicks