The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-03-11
9uaersou gmteIItgeussn.
. TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.
Trapped In a charneI House.
Philadelphia Times.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn, Feb. 1915
has been asserted that in the annals
of modern crime nothing more atrocious
or more diabolical is known than the
wholesale murders now being attributed
to Holmes, the monumental insurance
swiudler, but that there is nothing
new under the sun in crime is shown
by the authentic story of a charnel
housein the East Tennessee mountains,
where for years and years men and wo-
men were murdered and their bodies
either burned or buried, while their
m%urderers walked not only unsuspect-
ed, but respected through the land.
Thrilling indeed are the tales Ct carly
life in East Tennessee, but this per.
haps is the most. thrilling of all. l
heard it around a camp fire one SUM
mer night about three years ago while
hunting in the Cumberland mountains,
while the fire fickered out and the
moonlight came to play fantastic trick;
among the shadows Of the foliage and
to throw a ghostly veil over the land
scape far below in the valley.
But the morning dawned a pearl Of
beauty bathed in a sea Of thaspeeuliar
pink and purple to be seen nowhere
else combined in such a perfect picture
Of color as among the Tennessee
mountains. I went with eagerness st
the invitation of our guide to see this
charnel house where human lives had
been ruthlessly sacrificed to appease
an araricious greed for gold, and to
view the spot where the bodies of the
victims had been buried and lost to
their friends forever.
With it's windowless walls the howell
was drcary and %uninviting enough in
itself, but situated as it was on a
bleak, abandoned farm, now the prop:
of the Cumberland Land Company, Of
which j. II. Lorely is manager, it was
to me positively repellant, and | could
not but pause with a shudder at the
threshold over which many a foot had
stepped never to return, and where
the waves Of d~ampened oders from
the interior were suggestive of nothing
so much as the gauesomeness of tue
grave.
The house was a low, one-storied
structure, originally erected as a
smoke house for the curing Of country
hams, but subsequently converted into
a chamber Of death and an abode of
horror. At the time of the murders
there was situated in front of it, but
about so yards distant, a co%mmodious
frame house built in the old Southern
style of architecture, which secured
roominess at the cost of cosiness, but
that dwelling had been destroyed by
fire during the war and only the black
ened, tottering chimneys remained to
mark the ante-bellum home Of the mar
who was probably guilty of more dia-
bolical murders than any man that
ever stepped on Tennessee soil.
James Allen was this man. name.
He settled in the neighborhood about
1910, and a few years after that began
to run a road house FOR the accommo-
dation of men travelling through the
sparsely settled country. 1t so hap
pened that the house was located at a
spot which made it very convenient to
travellers passing either North or South,
East or West, by the two big roads
that crossed each other nea that point.
Aliens family consisted of his wife
and two grown daughters, who were
considered in those days Of primitive
education to be very accomplished
girls, and we're certainly attractive in
face and form.
In 1949 and 1850 considerable ez-
citement was created in the neighbor-
hood by the discovery of oil. Pros
pectors and spectators began to pour
into the section from the vicinity Of
Knoxville and Nashville and from
Kentucky, hoping to find q gusher,
and it may be added, incidentally, that
many of the wells then discovered,
but undeveloped for lack Of convenient
transportation facilities, have within
the last year, owing to the rapid ad-
vance in the price cf crude oil, been
opened again, and a number are nov
being worked with profit to the owners.
Among those who struck o paying
well at the time of this story was one
DR.. Hickman, from Nashville. The
product Of his well, hauled by wagons
forty miles to the Tennessee River,
over the rough mountain roads, and
thence slowly transported to Nashville,
began to make him rich. Every six
months he made a trip to the Capital
of the State to receive payments for
his shipments, the amount sometimes
approaching$1Q, 600. On each Of these
trips Hickman found it convenient to
stop going and coming at the Allen
and as early as the returning
second visit he had fallen in love with
one of the londlori's fair daughters,
and in a spirit of. efectionate conf
dence he told the family what a rich
thing he had in his oil well and how
he expected to come back from Nash
vile on the next trip loaded down
with gold.
When the too con6dipg gentleman
stopped at the house about six months
afterwards on his third trip to Nash
vile he Was literally received with
open arms. The young ladies were
most attentive, and almost affectionate,
while the landlord and his buxom
wife were too polite AID considerate
for anything. The visitor was fatter-
ed beyond measure, and when he drove
away he promised with pleasure to
their pressing invitation and
stop with the family several days on
his return.
But the settlement of his business
in Nashville detainedh him longer
than he had planned, and the Aliens
we're not expectingh him when he arrived
at the road house late one night.
Everyone had retired, and, after par
of a cold lunch, he was inform
ed by his host that the house was
crowded, and that it was then too late
to make a place for him except in the
stone house, which had been specially
fitted up for just such emergencies.
no alternative Hickman politely
consented to sleep there, and the host
led the way with a lantern. The door
was fastened by a paddock and clasp,
which Allen unlocked, and, telling his