New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-05-19
Fl. UNDERWOOD, OF CARTER.

TT. UNDERWOOD, OF CARTER.
A Amazing story ~ q Family HsuA
In the kentucky Mesntalns.
It is said that the cost to the State
for the one item of sending company
of militia into the hills Of Breathitt
County last winter was over one hum
dred thousand dollars. A Judge had
been shot and killed as he was about to
open court to try one member of
Breathitt County family that had been
at feud with another family of the
same county. In the progress of this
feud some fifteen or twenty persons
the exact number is not on the records
had been killed. To hold up the
hands of the successor to this MUIR
dered Judge the State troops were
sent into Breathitt, and they aided the
Sheriff in making arrests, guarded the
Jail, Court House, jury and witnesses,
and generally kept the peace until the
murderer was finally convicted and
sentenced to the Penitentiary for life.
To convict him the State spent nearly
the estimated cost of the proposed new
Capitol building at Frankfort, and
more money than it pays for interest
on the State debt in three years.
What the Titles and Strongs IRE to
Breathitt, the Holbrooks and Under
woods were to the neighboring county
Of Carter. The Underwoods are lately
extinct, except q few women and chill
dren, and the feud with the Holbrooks
may be considered over for the pres
ent. Carter is not more than q hundred
miles from the fertile fields of the
Bluegrass region, but between its
dense woods and few, barren clearings
and the great stock farms of Bourbon
and Fayette the outlying spurs of the
Cumberland intervene. It took the
wagon trains that carried provisions
from Mt. Sterling to the militia in
Breathitt last winter nine days to make
the seventy-two miles, or an average of
eight miles day. The six or seven
counties in the eastern section of
Kentucky are almost as foreign to the
rest of the State as is Siberia to St.
Petersburg. Once in while a citizen
of Breathitt, or Carter, or Magoffin, or
Perry is brought down to Louisville to
be tried before the United States
Court for illicit distilling, and every
winter their Representatives, dressed
in butternut jeans, get to Frankfort,
and make more money at five dollars a
day than they had before in their
lives; but otherwise the mountain
people know as little of the civilization
of the lower counties as do the lower
counties know of them. Mat Adams,
present Clerk of the House of Repre-
sentatives in Washington, represented
this section for years in Congress; but
it used to be said that he was about the
only man in three counties who could
read fluently, and whose signature was
easily legible. Besides these ao-
complishments, he was afraid of no
man living. However, his popularity
was based upon many other qualities
that made him IN excellent repre-
sentative. When old man Butler, of
Breathitt, was named as special Judge
to try the case of the man who had
murdered Judge Burnett, he said:
"Well, it'll be heavy load to pack,
but reckin kin pack it," But the
Governor appointed a good lawyer
convicted. $780, ".-.
In Carter especially, of these coun.
ties, few inroads have been made into
the primeval forests. The dense woolb
are only intersected at long intervals
by stealthy footways that lead to the
log farmhouses, with q hundred half
cleared acres, enclosed by worm fences,
surrounding them. Old George Under.
wood, an emigrant from Virginia, SET
tied in this region forty years ago. He
was great hunter; and then the coun-
try was hardly less wilderness than
it was when Daniel Boone made his way
through it nearly century before. The
ten sons who were born to him grew
up not less stalwart than was their ia
ther. They, like him, were dead shots.
They were more reckless than the
Western frontiersman, for they were
never broug hit in contact with civiliza-
ton. 1t is, indeed, q wild country.
When the Louisville boys went up TO
Breathitt last winter, two of them were
quartered for one night in farmers
cabin. When awakened in the early
morning they looked about to open tho
shutters.
1--WE don't have no windows up
here,'' said their host. "In warm
weather we keeps the doors open, and
in winter the fires gives light enough
it and the cracks. But it was kinder
dark in this room, and we sorter want
ed window, so 1 made this little
'un." The little 'un was three-inch
augur hole bored through one of the
logs.
The first cabin built by old George
Underwood was burned by guerrillas
during the war, and the one put up in
its place had no windows loop.
holes. George and all his grown sons
belonged to the Home Guards, on the
Union side, and to that organization
also belonged Squire Holbrook and
some of his sons. Just what began the
feud between the Holbrooks and Un-
derwoods is not exactly known. Squire
Holbrook, before he was killed, always
averred that hs caught young Jesse
Underwood trying to steal his horses,
and shot him only to save the beasts.
It is certain that when Jesse was wound
ed he was near Squire Holbrook's
premises.
The first strictly personal trouble in
which the Underwoods were engaged
was in September, 1866, Just after the
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