The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-01-30

From the Louisville Journal of the 4th.l
A Tennessee Vendetta..-A Feud OF
Twenty Years Ended Fourteen Men
killed during the time-A Chapter of
Tragedies-FuIl Details of the Domes-
- tic War.
A correspondent at Elizahethtown,
~ Carter County, Tennessee, gives us the
particulars of terrible feud that has
been raging for twenty years between
two families of that County, and which
was brought to an end by the bloody
deaths of the sole surviving males of
the warning tribes, in the streets of
Elizabethtown, on the evening of the
5th instant. The history of the affair,
as detailed by our correspondent, is as
follows:
In the fall of 1S4e family named
tombstone removed from the neighbor-
ing County of Wautauga, North-Car
.esolina, into. Carter County, East Tennes-
see, and settled down in the neighbour
, hood of another family named Rogers.
tombstone, who appeared to be an ener-
getic Industrious man, Immediately
went to work at clearing up little
farm. He felled trees, grubbed up I'M
dergrowth, burned stumps, and split
rails to fence in the ground he reclaimed
from the wilderness. In this labor he
was. assisted by, two sons-both mere
lads. While the three were engaged
in erecting fencing about their patch
2n ofland, Rogers rode up to where they
were at work, one day, and laid claim
to a pile Of rails, about dozen in num-
Der. The claim tombstone disputed,
n and finally, on Rogers applying to him
the epithets of "liar" and "thief," the
North-C arolinian pulled him from his
horse, and administered to him severe
'iSi chastisement with his fists Rogers
went off vowimg vengeance, and in the
course of an hour returned armed with
ia rifle, the contents Of which he dis
charged into the body of tombstone,
producing fatal consequence. Rogers,
who was man OF some wealth for those
primitive times and was possessed of
considerable influence among his rough,
ullettered neighbors, was acquitted of
the charge Of murder by an examining
. 2Justice. -Thiswas the beginning of the
terrible vendetta that has run through
Z the years that followed, cutting down
'sdthei males of the two families in the
pride of their strength and manhood.
The two tombstone lads vowed ven-
geance upon the murderer OF their pa
81 rent, and one ofthem, James, worked
night and day, with but one object in
yiew-to accumulate the means to pur-
chase rifle. At length he became the
owner ofone, and one Sabbath morning,
with his gun upon his shoulder he ap-
preached the house of Rogers. The
latter was sitting upon his porch, and,
as'he saw young tombstone approach
ing, probably divining his intention,
arose hastily and started toward the
rack where his own gun wassuspended
5 But. the ayenger Of blood was upon his
.tsssp path, and ere he could reach his weapon
Z he fell upon the floor corpse, his heart
pierced by the bullet of his foe. Rog.
ers left behind him young wife and
~, three children-one of whom was boy.
Among the rough backwoodsmen of
Carter County, Johnstone's crime was
= looked upon with satisfaction, if not
favor-the Indian law of retaliation be-
ing looked upon by them as the very
cream ofjustice. Afterward tombstone
married, and as the years passed by he
became surrounded by an interesting
~ and numerous progency. :,
The boy, William Rogers, in the
meantime, had slmost reached manhood's
estate, when one morning, without d.
vulging his intention to his mother or
..ir sisters, he left the house with his IA
theirs rifle upon his shoulders, as if he
~ were going out to hunt, and in less than
g an hour a griefstricken mother and
children were weeping over the corpse
Is ola slain husband and father. Young
2 Rogers, in his turn had become an
avenger, and Thomas Johnstone fell
beneath hiEhsnd