Читать книгу Singing From the Gallows: The Story of "Bad Tom" Smith - Wayne Combs - Страница 8

Tom Smith was born on October 13, 1859, in the tiny Perry County community of Carr’s Fork, which would later become a part of Knott County after that county was formed from part of Perry County in 1885. Although Tom became an outlaw, he came from a respected family. William Smith was born in England and came to Virginia when it was still a colony in the eighteenth century. He married Betty “Eunice” Ritchie, also from England, shortly after arrival. Their son, Richard, was born March 6, 1771 in Virginia. After their father’s death, Richard and his brother John moved to an unsettled part of Kentucky. Their mother stayed in Virginia to handle the plantations left by their father. Richard probably came to Owsley County, Kentucky by way of Pound Gap, Virginia in about 1792, along the route known as the Daniel Boone Trail. Richard then settled in the Lotts Creek area of Perry County before moving to Pigeon Roost, on Troublesome Creek, at Ary. According to Henry P. Scalf, in his book Kentucky’s Last Frontier, Richard Smith owned 38,577 acres of land in 1796 through Eastern Land Titles. Richard was a Primitive Baptist Minister for forty-five years. He was said to preach hellfire and brimstone sermons, then sneak out back of the meeting place to take a swig of whiskey. According to Owsley County, Kentucky court records, Richard Smith’s brother, John, was later appointed his guardian.

Richard Smith married Elita “Alicia” Combs in 1792, when she was twenty. Richard Smith, Jr. was the first of their fourteen children. He married Mary Polly Kelly and moved to the Carr’s Fork area of what was then Perry County. The couple had eight children. Tom was the next to the last. His brother, Jeremiah, had died at only a year and a half. The patriarch of the family, Richard Smith, Jr., known as “Dick” to his family and friends, was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, less than three years after Tom’s birth. Tom’s mother, Mary Polly, had not been the same since receiving the news that her husband, a Union soldier, had been killed accidentally by his comrades in a “friendly fire” accident. Life had been hard as Mary Polly had no choice but to raise seven children by herself.

Hazard stretched up and down the North Fork of the Kentucky River. It was an isolated community. The natural barriers of the rugged Cumberland Mountains made traveling by wagon, mule, or horseback difficult. The railroad had not yet come to the craggy hill country. A decision had been made to extend the railroad to Jackson in Breathitt County, some thirty miles away, but that would be the end of the line.

Not many people traveled long distances in the Cumberland Mountains in the later part of the nineteenth century. However, those who did had no trouble finding accommodations. Hospitality was one of the virtues that mountain people both practiced and relied on. No matter how rich or poor a family was, it was a point of honor to offer shelter, food, and drink to any stranger that appeared at their door. This was a habit carried out by nearly all mountaineers. The practice is believed to have originated in the Scottish Highlands, where it is still in place today. Many of the mountain folk in Appalachia were descendents of the Scottish immigrants. When a friend or a stranger appeared at a cabin door, he could expect to receive the best the family could afford. A failure to accept a family’s offer of hospitality was considered an insult.