The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-02
WHERE TERROR ALWAYS REIGNs
A Part of Kentucky That is Cut off by
 Bend in the Mississippi

nave been produced by the turns anc
 twists of the Mississippi river none +
 stranger and none so terrible in it's re
 suits as that in Madrid Bend" where
 the great stream, turning north from
 Island Mo- 10, sweeps across the line
 from Tennessee into Kentucky, rounds
 into the Missouri shore, and then
 sweeping southward, cuts the line again
 to Tennessee. Thus it cuts off a sec
 ton of Kentucky from the rest of the
 state and even from the county tc
 which it belongs and, wrapping around
 it coil of it's own wild waters. holds
 1t aloof from law and order, from right
 and Justice and clings to it as the last
 resort in which may thrive the out
 lawry and crime which half d century ago were rampant along the whole riv-
 CT. There is probably no other place in
 America to-day in the heart of culti- vated country where human life Is held | so cheap as In this little region that lies
 opposite New Madrid, Mo-, and pays it's
 taxes at Hickman, Fulton county, Ky.
 This is Kentucky Point, the home of
 the Darnell- Watson~ feud. in which
 more than forty men are said to have pSSii NiiiSN' T iOQl NloC eNiii ipoue
 seven miles long, it is settled as thickly as any farming region in eastern Ken
 lucky, produces enormous crops of cot ton. which employ hundreds of pickers,
 and is always a. scene of activity. Yet
 1t has neither court nor constable, jail
 nor jailer, and acknowledges no law
 that does not accord with it's own mo-
 tions of justice. Many months have
 elapsed since sheriff visited this re-
 zion, and many years since he took
 prisoner out from 1t to stand trial at
 the Hickman court house.
 Yet week seldom goes by that some man is not killed by fellow somewhere on the Point. With the Mississippi on every side but one and Missouri across it, and with Tennessee on the fourth side, the murderer is ceptain of easy es- cape before sheriff thirty miles away could be notified and come to the scene. The state line runs but short distance south of Hickman, but from the capital down stream to Kentucky Point, in Madrid Bend, is more than twenty-five miles. Overland there is no direct pas sage, for the intercepting region of Missouri lies along the Bayou St. John and James Bayou, which are impass- able swamps, and which have them selves been the home of terrible lawless- ness. By land through Tennessee Is al- most as impossible, for it is cut by Bedford loke and the surrounding swamps and bayous. Only the water route, therefore, remains for the sheriff or officer who would go from Hickman to the Point, and to travel on this he must either use a sl<iff or wait for a steamer, which may be a week in con- ing.
 Why, I haven't been down there in months" said Sheriff StubbIefield re- gently. There is never any trouble down there now This idea that there is a killing there or knife scrape ev- cry few days is nonsense. If there was I would have been notified"
 Down on the Point however, informa- tion was easily had that three men had been killed within ten days. No one had taken the trouble to notify the sheriff, as it was considered that the three were well done away with.
 They aint really been what yall might cal killin'," said a resident of the Point. They was feller killed up toward Bessie Satday night that they come nigh notifyin' the sheriff about Teller got off the boat f'om Cairo. No- body never did know who he was He got to gambin' with a Bessie feller an with him an the Bessie feller killed him. Folks kinder thought to let it drop, for the stranger certainly did say the first word.
 '"They was another feller died last week, too but you wouldn't jes' call that killin He got shot up some @. week ago Saturday in little scrap at Slough landin', but he didn't die none till Wednesday, so I dunno as you'd cali 1t killin'' i
 Further inquiry added to this list the 1 murder of negro by white man to whom he had been impudent. It is 1ard to get Kentucky Planters to go in i 70 ancient history, but all admitted that | here had been. two lynchings during he year, one of q negro for robbne a | oeddler, the other for no cause any one ,ould remember. When the Civil War anne the Confederate Army seized New Madrid and Island No. 10 and fortified :. hem, and Commodore Foote spent 0 ong campaign getting his vessels trough Bayou St. John and the neigh boring woods to cut them off. At the lose of the war, when peace came to he rest of the country feud came to Kentucky Point. General Daruell set led on the Tennessee side of the line, n the west of the Point, and Robert L. Bob' Watson--on the side. Families of Lanes and )onaldsons settled the east side eud which originated in quarrel be- Vatsons against the ane-Donaldsons, nd war broke out. General Darnell was
 Confederate and Captain Lane was a Jnion veteran, but North and South ere forgotten in the arming and or anizing of rival forces. In a short inc each had from seventy to eighty len under arms and keeping within all, and for long time neither ven lred away from home without his )rce. Meetings were frequent and always atal Both sides formed ambushes, re- orted to every kind of treachery and illainy to obtain their ends, and at st the end was reached when the last | ane and the last Donaldson were dead, nd when General Darnell and all but ne of his sons were killed. This last ( ,n, Dick Darnell was shot this year, nd with him dies his side of the Oar nIl-WatSOn clan Of tbe Wa tSOnS