Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1867-02-01
From the Louisville Journal.
A CHAPTER OF TRAGEDIES.
A Feud of Twenty Years Ended-FOurteen
Men Killed During the Time.

A correspondent at Elizabethtown, Garter
county, Tennessee, gives us the particulars
Of a terrible feud that has been raging for
twenty years bstwcen 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 Eliza
BEETHOVEN, on the evening Of the 9th instant
The history Of the affair, as detailed by our
correspondent, is as follows:
In the fall of 1916 family named john
stone removed from the neighboring county
Of Wautauga, North Carolina, into Carter
county. East Tennessee, and settled down in
the neighborhood Of another family named
Rogers. tombstone, who appeared to be an
energetic, industrious man, Immediately went
to work clearing up a little farm. He felled
trees, grubbed up underground, burned
stumps, and split rails to fence in the ground
he reclaimed from the wilderness. In this
labor he was assisted by two sons-mere
lads. While the three were engaged in erect
ing fencing about their patch ofland, Rogers
rode up towhere they were at work one day
and laid claim to a pile ofrails, about dozen
in number. This claim tombstone disputed,
and finally, on Rogers applying to him the
epithets Of .'iar" and ssthief," the North
Carolinian pulled him from his horse and ad
ministered to him severe chastisement with
his ists. Rogers went off vowing vengeance,
and in the course Of an hour returned to the
spot armed with rifle, the contents Of which
he discharged into the body Of tombstone,
producing fatal consequences. Rogers, who
was a man of some wealth for those primitive
times, and was possessed of considerable in
fuence among his rough, unlettered neigh
bors, was acquitted Of the charge Of murder
by an examining Justice. This was the be-
ginning Of the terrible vendetta that has run
through the years that followed, cutting down
the males Of the two families in the pride Of
their strength and manhood.
The two tombstone lads vowed vengeance
upon the murderer of their parent, and one
Of them-James-worked night and day,
with but one object in view-to accumulate
thc,n,eans to purchase rifle. At length he
became the owner Of one, and one Sabbath
morning, with his gun upon his shoulder, he
approached the house Of Rogers. The lat
ter was sitting upon his porch, and, as he
saw young tombstone approaching, probably
divining his intention, arose hastily, and
started towards the rack where his own gun
was suspended. But the avenger of blood
was upon his path, and ere he could reach
his weapon he fell upon the floor corpse,
his heart pierced by the bullet of his foe
Rogers left behind him young wife and
three children, one of whom was boy
Among the rough backwoodsmen of Carter
county young Johnstones crime, was looked
upon with satisfaction, if not fayor-the In
dian law Of retaliation being looked upon by
them as the very cream of justice. After
wards tombstone married, and, as the years
passed by, he became surrounded by an in
teresting and numerous progeny.
! The boy William Rogers, in the mean
time. had almost reached manhood's estate
when, one morning, without divulging his
intention to his mother or sisters, he left the
house with his fathers rife upon his should
er, as if he were going out to hunt, and in
less than an hour grief-stricken mother was
weering over the corpse of a slain husband
and father. Young Rogers, in his turn, hac
become an avenger, and Thomas tombstone
fell beneath his hand.
In time the memories of these three muir
ders died away, and those who were children
then grew to be men and women. William
Rogers had taken to himself wife, and be