The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-19
RED STAIN OF MURDER
sparkling Rivulet With a San.
culinary History.
AN EARTHLY PARADISE
Families Killed in a Deadly Feud Over a
Line Fence - Details of the
Late Meadows-Bilyeu
Tragedy.

| given unenviable notoriety to one of the
most secluded sections of the Ozarks-
the Bull creek region. For more than 10
years this beautiful little northern tri-
butary of White river has been asso-
clated with remarkable series Of hom-
| icldeS as the criminal records at Ozark
and Forsyth will long bear evidence.
! Bull creek, like all the streams south
of the Ozard watershed, has d swift,
clear current, never muddy except for a
| rev hours after heavy rain. 1t ripples
| down the mountain slope in a south
westerly course, winding about between
the most picturesque bluffs and joining
Bear creek near Walnut Shade in fancy
county, about four miles from White
river. The whole length of the creek is
about 30 miles,
| This sparkling rivulet, whose recent
| history has been so sanguinary, rises
| just south of the town of Sparta The
| Springfield & Chadwick railroad curves
around the breaks of the divide"
where the head springs of Bull creek
gush out Of the mountain sides Where
the narrow plateau separating Swan
creek and Bull ends and the sleeper
descent of the mountain begins the
White river branch of the Frisco termi-
mates. The road will some day be ex-
tended into the farther Businesses of the
Ozarks when the timber around Chad
wick is exhausted.
The country through which Bull creek
flows is heavily timbered and the
abundance of pure, living" water all
along the course of the stream made
this section of the Ozarks very attract
i've to the early immigrants of east Ten
nessee, who came to southwest Mis-
souri, by thousands soon after the hunt
ing grounds of the Delaware and Usage
Indians We're opened for settlement
Nearly all of the pioneers of the Bull
creek country came from the western
slopes of the Cumberland mountains.
These hardy people, so fond of frontier
solitude, found very congenial homes
in the little fertile bottoms and coves
bordering the stream There was plenty
OF hreWood, everlasting water, bound
less range" and big game" These
natural blessings constituted the earthly
paradise of the east Tennessee noun
taineer who crossed the Mississippi riv-
err 70 years ago to escape the encroach-
ments of civilization and the early Bull
creek settlers would not have exchanged
their little strips of tillable land with
the surrounding wilderness of range
for the choicest prairie claims in the
state. In fact these cabin-builders re-
jected the rich table lands around
Springfield and of their own choice
sought homes along the streams be-
cause the country farther down the
mountains was more like 'old Tennes-
see"
The first settlers of the Ozarks often
had but little stock of any kind, and
yet their ideas of the area of wild pas
turage necessary for a COW or horse
were wonderfully extravagant. If
homesteader had milk COW and a half
dozen head of hogs he wanted square
mile of range for his stock. Such were
the considerations that led the Bull
creek pioneers to take claims along the
tortuous courses of this stream.
The Tennesseean brought with him
to the new country the instincts and
traditions of his fathers. The early set
tiers of the Ozarks were hospitable and
brave, always ready to divide the last
crust with a friend or fight to the death
foe. The ancestors of the present in
habitants of Bull creek were more dis
posed to settle their differences in a
fistic encounter. "A fair fight" always
meant in those days a trial of physical
strength. ''The best man" of the set
tlement was he who had vanquished all
rivals in the ring. Fighting was often
provoked by the mere ambition to Sc
cure this coveted honor. To decline a
challenge to fight was the greatest dis
grace that the early Bull creek settlers
knew.
1t is not strange that such antece-
dents and surroundings should have
made the Bull creekers of to-day fight
ers. Many of these people who figure
in deadly feuds are not really criminals
in their inclinations. They get mixed
up in neighborhood family quarrels and
use Wfnchesters and shotguns under
circumstances which would have led
their fathers into the ring for "a far
70 fnIxr in,
volved in the bloody combat with the
Meadows faction, have never been GRIM
inals. The records Of neither Christian
nor fancy county show any charge
against these people. They have been
ordinary citizens, some of them well es-
teemed for their good chara cter. Strdng-
ers have always found them hospitable
and courteous They are high tempered
and combative when provoked. Had the
family been more dispersed over the
country the recent fatal encounter
would perhaps not have occurred. Such
numerous and complicated family re-
lations as the Bilyeu kinships will al
most inevitably produce neighborhood
strife. With such people the closest ties
OF birth are not always bars to bitter
emnities, as was shown by the fact that
Steve Bilyeu's daughter Mrs. Tabor,
had not been in her fathers house for
many months before the battle over the
line fence. The awful tragedy renewed
the friendship between the stricken wife
and mother and her estranged daugh-
ter, however, and over the bodies of
their common dead in the little Bull
creek home Mrs Blyeu and Frances
Tabor embraced each other and bewail-
ed their terrible loss. That scene the
day after the killing, when the two wo-
men met as friends in the presence of
so many kindred and neighbors to weep
over the shocking consequences of the
family feud was picture of grief and
penitence such as no artist could por-
tray.
But while the Bilyeus are not natur-
ally bad people, and the victims of the
late tragedy were led into the unequal
battle by their instructive readiness to
resent an insult, and to follow the
promptings of neighborhood feud, the
Bull creek country has produced a very
large percentage of crime within the
last 10 or IL years for its popula ton, 1t
was up this little stream that the Bald
knobber organization worked north