Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-26
ONCE NOTED KILLER
NOW TOWN PASTOR
Conversion of FeudaI Slayer
Brought About by Effort
of Invalid Woman.
BY A. B. MACDoNoLD.
~ - Ut = % w FIT
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
LEXINGTON, KY, March 26
(N.A.N.A In the century-old Baptist
Church in Union City, KY, the Rev.
Curtis Jett put out his right hand to
greet me, and I saw the thumb and
forehnger were gone.
Curt" Jett, the preacher, was once
the notorious feudist of Breathitt
County, wild dog of the mountains, "
killer OF men in broad daylight on the
court house steps. When he was sent
to the Kentucky Penitentiary to serve
at the same time two life sentences for
the murder Of two men, he refused to
work in the prison shops. When they
whipped him to force him to work, he
deliberately cut off his thumb and fore
finger so he could not work. 1t was
the very forefinger he used to call
proudly his trigger finger" 1t had
launched the bullets that slew nobody
knows how many men.
Prison guards said he was the worst
and widest convict that ever came to
the Kentucky State Prison. They tried
to take the terror from the mountains.
They stripped him and tied him as one
would a wild animal and dashed him
with whips, starved him, hung him by
his wrists in the dark of a dungeon
CELL but they could not break his spirit
nor tame him. For 10 years he was q
rebel convict and a wild man.
And then-an invalid woman who
had read of him sent him a Bible and
wrote him letter and said:
From now on, every day, every
night, will be praying for you. When
you lie down, when you rise, always,
you will know that bedridden woman
Is praying that you will find peace"
She wrote him each week, begging
him to read the Bible she had sent him.
One night, In the silence and loneliness
Of his cell, the wild dog Of the noun
tains," as they had named him, fell to
his knees and prayed for the first time
In his life.
For the next i've years in prison he
read and studied the Bible He got to
know It almost by heart. They set him
to teaching the Bible class on Sundays.
After serving is years and 6 months
he was paroled, and the other day the
congregation Of the little Baptist
Church in Union City, which was
founded 11s years ago, licensed him TO
preach.
Feud Took 100 Lives.
There found him, with his charm
ing wife, and went with them
TO their log cabin home on Clear
Greek, where It winds through the hills,
and sat by their fireplace, and as the
logs cracked and the sparks sailed up
the chimney he told me the story Of
his conversion, how he was born
again." and likened his case to that
Of the apostle Paul, who had helped
stone Stephen to death, but afterward
became preacher of the Gospel.
To realize how radical was the change
In Curt Jet, one must know of the
clan wars, vendettaS and feuds Of
Breathitt County, "the dark and bloody
ground" in which more than 100 men
were slain and in which Jet was one
Of the darkest and bloodiest figures.
There have been many Of these clan
wars in Breathitt County, and they
merged and overIapped one into an
other. 1t is hard to say where one feud
began and another ended.
In one of those feuds a member OF
the Jet family was shot down at night
as he was out in the open boiling
sorghum molaSses To escape from this
vendetta, Jets father moved out Of
Breathitt County and took farm near
Union City court" Jet was then
years old. He grew up to be six feet
tall, rough, whisky drinking, pistol
toting rowdy, and he went back to
Breathitt County and Joined his uncles
and his cousins in q new feud they
were then waging. which came to be
known as the Hargis-Cockrell- Cardwen
feud.
~ KEW CUT a race GOWn uldA
Gnal of Jackson, the county seat. Jerry
Cardwell, a railroad detective, was the
Republican candidate. The Hargises-
John, James, Ben and Alex-Demo-
Gratis, put a candidate in the field
against Cardwell.
"City Of Sudden Death"
John Hargis and CardweH met on q
train and began shooting at each other.
Hargis was killed Later Al Little, a
friend of Cardwell, was killed by Jesse
Fields, and then Fields was slain by
Nose Feltner, Hargis man.
About that time curt" Jet arrived
In Jackson and Joined the Hargises, who
were his uncles. Jackson with only
1000 population, was then known as the
"City Of Sudden Death" so many men
had been shot down there.
Judge James Hargis, curt" Jets
uncle, was king Of the Hargs clan. He
was the wealthiest man in the county.
He and his brother owned the Hargis
Mammoth Department Store in jack
son, which was separated by muddy
street from the county court house.
James Hargis was a candidate for
county Judge. His friend, Ed Callahan,