The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1914-07-03
TRIAL MAY BE end
OF LAST Big FEUD
DAUGHTER OF A SLAIN MAN
BRINGS THIRTEEN MEN
INTO COURT.
DOZENS OF FEUDISTS KILLED

With Rifles Now Shifts Where thu
Law Is the Weapon. Faithless Wife
Cause of Beginning of Trouble.
LEXINGTON, Ky.-With the
opening of the trial OF thirteen men
charged with conspiracy to assassi-
nate Ed Callahan, the Breathitt colin-
ty feud leader, the final chapter in
Kentucky's last great feud will prob
ably be written.
Fins" of the mountain warfare
comes after dozens of feudists have
been killed, others have been sent to
the penitentiary and dozens have
been driven to other states, so
that there are scarcely enough first
class fighting men on either side to
make a real good scrap.
The thirteen men accused of con-
spiracy to murder are: ''Red Tom
Davidson, Thomas Deaton, Govan
Smith, William Deaton, Willie Dea-
ton, Ashbury Mcintosh, Dan Deaton,
Doc Smith, James Deaton, another
Thomas Deaton, John Clare, John
Johnson and John Deaton.
In addition to these men twenty
three others, charged with perjury in
that they attempted to prove an alibi
for the thirteen others, must face
trial in hearings which are expect
ed to last through a special term of
seventy days in the circuit court at
Lexington, where the cases were re-
moved. Three men, Fletcher Deaton,
Bob Deaton and Andrew Johnson,
are already sentenced to serve life
terms in the penitentiary for having
killed Callahan, who was shot on the
morning of May 8, 1912, as he was
walking close to the front window of
his store. The reports of three rifles
from the near by hills told whence
the deadly bullets had come.
Woman Follows SIayers.
Callahan, ran into the store at the
sound of the shots and Selling a re-
volver ran out into the road, which
runs Just under the mountain. She
saw three men running from a hid
ing place on the hill. Mrs. Gross
assisted her father to his home,
which was only few feet away, but
connected with the store by high
board lstockade, behind which Gala
han daily went to and from his home,
knowing his life was momentarily in
danger from his feud enemies.
He died a few nights later with
members of his family about him.
Mrs. Gross at the dying mans bed
side swore to kill her fathers STAY
ers, but in his last breath he begged
her not to continue the feud and she
promised.
Kneeling beside the bed also was
the woman who was the real cause
of the trouble-Mrs. Callahan, who
had deserted her feudal husband sew
eral years before to elope to the
West with John Smith, man whom
her husband had been accused of en-
pIoying to assassinate men opposed
to him in the feuds, and who had
confessed on the witness stand
Ed Callahan, with Judge James
Hargiss, had employed him to
help murder DIR. D. E. Cox and James
Cockrell in Jackson. One of the last
sentences Callahan uttered was for
giveness to his wife.
AS the weeks went by after her
fathers death and no apparent at
tempt was made by the officials to
uncover the men who had killed him
Mrs. Gross, but % years old, decided
to run the men down herself. So
she began with an investigation into
the doings of the Smith, Deaton and
johnson factions.
Attacked With Butcher Knife.
The real trouble between Callahan
and the allied families began when
Mrs. Callahan, firing of John Smith
came home to her people, the Dea-
tons. and they begged Callahan tc