This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: CabinSue Surnames: Hill, Evans Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.kentucky.counties.garrard/3922/mb.ashx Message Board Post: This is a very long letter so I will split up in sections. Bear with me. I had to write down in shorthand and then transcribe. My library does not have one of the new digital readers. Thank heavens, I took two years of shorthand in school, in this case, it came in handy. >From the Louisville Daily Journal - Sep 2, 1850 To the Editors of the Louisville Journal Garrard Co., Ky Aug 24, 1850 Gentlemen: A correspondent of Boyle county, is in a communication to your paper in May last, having, as I conceive, done me a great injustice in his attempt to give an account of the difficulties between Mr. Hills and myself and family. I feel it due to us that the facts as they really transpired, and as they have been_______upon judicial investigation, should be given to the public. When the communication alluded to made its appearance, a friend of mine who was cognizant of all the facts addressed a letter to the writer telling them first in detail, and, having every reason to hope the proper correction would be made without laying me under the necessity of clearing my name before the public, I have remained silent, when perhaps justice to myself would have demanded an earlier notice of the matter at my hands. For the last twelve or thirteen years, I have had reason to believe that the Hill family had hostile intentions toward me, not I belive on account of any personal dislike for me on their part, but were prompted to it by one or two others, who had mistreated and assaulted me in the most brutal and dastardly manner, and who, writhing under their own shame and the fierce chastisement of public indignation, have in their malice instigated and brought about all the difficulties between the Hills and myself. Up to a little over a year ago, however, no serious demonstrations had been made. In July, 1849, one of the Mr. Hills gave a public dinner in Garrard county, the public generally were invited. I was waited upon by two of the family and especially requested to attend. Believing it an overture of friendship and an offer on their part to heal wounds, which they had inflicted contrary to their own convictions of right, to gratify the malice of others, more wicked and designing and less magnanimous than they, I willingly and gladly grasped the olive branch of peace, and went, where I was never more politely and respectfully treated. Indeed, I conceived that the Hills, one and all, treated me with more attention and kindness and were at greater pains to render me agreeable than any guest in attendance - all, as I at the time supposed, to evince to me the sincerity of their professions, and were unsuspectingly so received by me. In the evening, I was preparing to leave for home, and a friend, who was going with me, requested me to wait a short time, to whic! h I assented. By the time he was ready, it was thick dusk. We started in opposite directions for our horses. On my way to my horse, I was told that the Hills and their party, some fifteen or twenty in number, were preparing to make an attack on me. I replied that such could not be the case - that they had invited me there and had manifested none but the kindest feelings toward me, that all old difficulties, or something to that effect, were healed. Believing that my informant was mistaken, I thought nothing of it, mounted my horse and rode up within about twenty yards of the company to await the return of my friend who had gone after his horse. While sitting on my horse, one of the Hill party called to me and asked me if I was going home. I told him I was. He replied that he had a word with me, and walked up to my horse, I stooped toward him, and while he was pretending to whisper in my ear, I received a violent blow on the back of my head, from what I afterward ascertained to be a piece or iron. >From the position in which Jesse Hill stood - one had invited me there - I felt confident that he must of struck the blow, which has since turned out to be true. He immediately advanced close to my side, and I asked him why he had struck me. He denied it, but said he could do so damned quick if I wanted him to. I begged him not. He said he would give the damn old scoundrel a few rocks anyhow. And he and the Hill crowd immediately fell to and commenced pelting me and my horse with stones and clubs. I was driven in between a fence and a tobacco house, where they kept up a shower of stones and other missiles, some of them hitting me with sticks, and one of them hit me several severe blows with a large dogwood fork. By what means my horse carried me out of this place it is almost impossible to conceive, as he must have jumped over the fence, which was very high, or have passed between the fence and the corner of the house, a narrow defile said not to be more that two fee! t! wide. He, however, escaped with me, or I should beyond all doubt have been killed there. My horse started off with me down a hill, the crowd still after me, keeping up their blows. Exhausted from fatigue and the loss of blood, I fell from my horse, unconscious of my condition. My son, who by this time, had come to me, took me up on the horse, and by shrinking and dodging through the timber and around the hill, they lost me, and gave up the pursuit. Several pistols were fired at me during the time, and the crowd kept up a general cry of kill him, kill him, etc. I was taken home by son and a neighbor, my jaw-bone and several of my ribs broken, my head cut to the skull in a great number of places and my body literally beaten to pieces. I was confined to my room for six weeks and never expected to recover from the effects of the beating. End 1st part. Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.