Hazel Henderson recalls the stories she heard growing up in the Tuckasegee area about the Hooper-Watson feud, about the Hooper and Watson families "bushwackin" each other, murders related to the feud, and the role bootlegging and drinking possibly played in fueling the violence.

• Creator
  • Henderson, Hazel
• Contributor
  • Coggins, Jason M.
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 2014-11-12
  • Date: 1860s;
  • Date digitized: 2015-03-03
• Extent
  • Duration: 0:47:29
• Subject - Topic
  • Autobiography
  • Henderson, Hazel -- Interviews
  • Hooper family -- Anecdotes
  • Jackson County (N.C.) -- History -- 19th century
  • Vendetta -- North Carolina -- Jackson County -- History
  • Watson family -- Anecdotes
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 474/574
• Identifier
  • HL_HIST474_Coggins_Henderson_2014-11-12
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library

1 Transcript: Hazel Henderson Interviewee: HH Hazel Henderson Interviewer: JC Jason M. Coggins Interview Date: November 12, 2014 Location: Tuckaseegee, NC Length: 47:30 START OF INTERVIEW Hazel Henderson: --Creek. There was two men killed-- Ambushed. Not but about a mile from where uh Aubrey was raised. Uh up that road. And of course uh what it happened over, it people just had to assume. They was all, they, they drank then you know and they had uh almost friends, good friends, that get together and get to drinking and for some reason something would go wrong and somebody would do something and then these things happened. But, I couldn't remember when that happened. Uncle Bud came riding his horse early on Monday morning and uh bringing the news over from Pine creek and we lived on the other mountain there. And everybody was really stirred up about a thing that happened like that. Of course they had two suspects and they was convicted and they was, done time. And that was just the only two that happened as I remember of. That was so shocking and disturbing because see we knew these people Jason Coggins: Right 2 HH: And we also knew the suspects. We knew them all (chuckle). We couldn't believe that this could happen. And then it took quite a while for the, the law to get out there. And, and Preacher Tucker sat with the men, the dead men. And uh but we didn't, the people didn't do like they would do today. Today they would just swarm all over, I think. But then they was respectable and they, they knew they couldn't uh be a hinderance, so they just JC: Stayed out of the way, and let. HH: stayed out of the way. And the preacher just sat there with the man. JC: Urn I guess, I'll ask you what stories do you remember about the Watson's and the Hoopers. HH: Have I heard? JC: Yeah what stories have you heard? HH- Well, just for some reason they just started "bushwackin" each other. And I guess you'd say "bushwackin" because, one would be killed and then, then they would ,, retaliate from the other side and want to kill a me,mber of that family. And it went on and I on and it just, I don't know how many people, but I have always heard that. And here in Tuckaseegee uh up there in the bottoms there below aunt Lizzes's I've heard there, one was boarding the river then with his wagon and he had a load of lumber. And, he was just shot driving his horses and he just fell back on the wagon dead. Horses went on to his house, took him on home. Which he just lived up the river a ways. And then of course I don't know the out on Pine Creek, I know of a place another one was killed. But I have never known the members, how many members and who started that killing. 3 JC- I remember you talking another time about the uh, the incident on Pine Creek, about there being a stain in the rock or-- HH- Yes that's there they told me uh, we walked to the post office, and we walked down this road, and this rock was uh, a big rock with uh mostly white and it had a big brown stain on it. And they told us that man there he was killed and that was a blood stain. Maybe they told us that because we was kids but they did tell us truly some he was killed there. But we, I never step on that rock. I really respected that rock. I, I walked on the other side and I believe that could be possible but of course now I know it was probably a natural stain on the rock JC: Right Iron in the rock or something. HH: Laughs. But, and then the last Watson's name was Leander. And I've seen, I went to his house to see because I had been told in in his older days he got real uh disturbed and shot his door facings, with a shotgun. He just sat there with his gun and I mean, people was afraid to go around but for fear that he might shoot them. But really they was shot. It looked like, if I know what a shotgun blast looks like, they was shot. So uh I guess when he got older he may, he might a got a little bit, you know. But because he was a very small boy and his brother saved him by setting him out the window when they come in I guess maybe the last time to ki, and they just wiped them out about it. I've heard this. JC-Right 4 HH: The people that and he still they still I think lived in North Norton out where they I guess where he might a lived his the rest of his days. I guess. I forgot what they call that little place out there but you know as, as the tales go by you don't know what part ofthem is facts or if its mixed up you or you just know some people got killed. JC- Right, where do, where do you urn where do you remember first hearing any stories about it from? HH- I guess all my life (laugh). JC- Family members. HH: Yes. People used to talk more. And you know we didn't have TV then and neighbors would uh. It was a habit our neighbors a coming to our house a lot and talking and of course we being children we was interested in these tales until bed time and they made us go to bed. JC- That might have been where all the good tales got told. HH: But that's that's where I heard all this talk from the Stiwinters our close neighbors and they had lived in that valley many years. We was newcomers there. And just when they'd come up and talk about a lot of things when they was running cattle on the mountains, and uh just things we was interested in. JC- Did you ever uh did you ever hear anything that would have gave you any kind of hint as to what stated the whole thing. HH- What started this? 5 JC: Yeah. HH- Not exactly I don't know if anybody knew exactly. It was just kind of an old on going thing. I don't know how long I think it lasted for maybe maybe I don't know maybe 2 or 3 years. It wasn't just one big battle and it was longer JC- I have heard a couple different versions. Uh Heard some people say that it was politics because it was right around the civil war. And some folks say it is republican and democrat. And urn Frank and Dorthy said a little bit of that but they said two that it was like children in a school yard where they started out with small stuff and it just kept escalating until it was out of control. And they said that they thought that it was kind of kind of just one ofthose things were it started one had shot a dog and then the other one had burned haystacks, I think. HH- Well that would mean it went on for years and true what I said about when children are setting back listening uh they're listening at their parents and sometimes these, these feelings uh with their kids grow strong and they hold them. And, and when there's no use to. I've heard, I've heard they thought politics had something to do with it. Uh people was still biter over the civil war and the ones that favored the union and the confederates they just had a uh natural conflict there. And I've heard it was uh each family they didn't want the families to interact and then they started just not having nothing to do with each other and it just snow balled until it was a bad thing and it could have been that simple. And I have also heard that maybe uh something they thought or they did, maybe they thought that there might be a, a marriage maybe in the family or uh a romance or something and the family was not having that either. It could have been a number of things. Especially when they already had a disagreement for each other. (pause) I think today people are more broad minded and willing to uh to uh settle things and not not take it to uh well politics will never be that but they used to be much more. I can remember when Election Day come. They never knew at the polls somebody was going to drink and maybe bring a gun. So uh the Sherriff had a busy day. 6 JC- That's urn with everybody I've talked to. You said the thing about drinking,that's something that seems to come up a lot when I was talking to Frank and Dorothy. They had talked about people in the area bootlegging whiskey. Even back then that they didn't have- if you ran a small farm you didn't really have a way to make money I mean you could feed your family and do fine on that but you couldn't buy anything because you didn't have any money. And they said that a bunch of people urn and they were talking specifically about the Hoopers and Watsons but said a bunch of people sold made and sold liquor as a way to make extra money and they seemed to think that that kind of contributed that people was drinking a lot of the time and, and so they made maybe worse decisions then they would've if they hadn't been drinking so much. Have you heard anything about that or seen any of that that you can remember? HH- Well of course anytime uh alcohol can cloud your better judgment regardless but I don't know if there was any drinking in this shooting. I've never heard that drinking was the cause of it. Could have been. But I've just heard how it happened. But I know back in that day there was a lot of drinking. And when they had a trial or something downtown uh they'd always be somebody get some whiskey into it. And uh it was hard to have a good trial. (laugh) 7 JC-Right HH: And I, When I listen to aunt Mary talk about my family My great granddad was a big- Some trials had a big hand in it uh people just went they was so interested and they didn't have a, a they wanted to be there so it so there would be a big crowd if somebody was going to have a tough time in court. JC- Right. HH: And they wouldn't above sometimes the judge wasn't above taking a little drink either.(laugh) I've heard that and I believe it. JC- Urn see now you. HH: But anytime you know if people drink they they are more likely going to make a bad judgment. But I think they have already made it they just bring it out. Alcohol just loosens their tongue and lets them say things that they wouldn't say if they didn't or wouldn't do. JC: And you're you're not connect to either one ofthe families are you. Your- HH: to Geroge? JC: -to the Hoopers or the Watsons you're not related? HH- No only by marriage to the Hoopers. JC: Urn lets see here, did you, and you said you heard these mostly as a little girl. What was your impression? Were they like ghost stories, or did they have maybe a warning in them to-? HH: What was my--? JC: Impression, how did you feel about them? HH: -about, about a thing like this? Oh I believed it. And I thought it was bad very bad, very unnecessary. JC: Do you think, did you relate that to any of the stuff that was going on around you at the time? HH:No. JC: No? It's just stuff that happened a long time ago? 8 HH: No I still today am interested like and I've been to Fort Smith Arkansas, I've been in the old court house, old jail. Because ofuh as many men as judge Parker hanged you know 88 in ten years, 5 in one day. All of these things uh was so harsh I mean judgment was just brought down boom. And, and a lot of innocent people didn't get a chance. And it was the same way if uh you got an ambush well they was a ambushing all over this country. Because uh that was just the way of they believed in an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. They do it to you- they just believed that. That was the way they done. And sometimes maybe it was necessary to save your own life. JC: Can you urn, can you think of any other, maybe not the Watsons and the Hoopers, but any other examples of, of people I guess bushwhacking one another or, or anything like that? Of this kind of- you know I get mad at you and lay up for you and- 9 HH: Well, No I think not. I think uh the bushwhacking is done in a different way it's still going on but it's done in a different way. (laugh) You still have bushwhacking and ambushing (chuckle) I've been ambushed a few times. JC: Urn was any of that stuff did you ever hear about some of that stuff from when you were a little girl? HH:Was what? JC: Did you ever hear about any of that stuff from when you were a little girl? Maybe when you were young did you know of anything like that? HH: Actually I didn't hear as from my parents they was a listen to because they was they didn't know these things and like when you go into a new community and you hear these things uh you sometimes wonder if you are in the wrong place. (laugh) Because your we went into a valley of Republican and uh it had been that way for many years and my daddy was a, a Democrat. And you, you know they didn't uh- for a while there I can well remember my parents a talking about uh trying to, to uh just keep a low profile and be welcomed and wanted to be welcomed and the children to walk to school and be uh and everything be alright. Which we were accepted and everything was alright, we's all good friends but at first uh it was not that way. Uh they didn't uh you had to be real careful and not to, not go on somebody else's property. And uh we was told to not do that. As we went to school we could take a newer way and walk through uh on other people's property and to get to school you know we had to walk from you know from where the old home place is. Do you know where the Tom Fox turn is where you make that big uturn and go back up to North Norton 10 JC: I think so right there urn. HH: That's as far as the school bus come. So it was tempting to walk through these other people's property but we didn't. We did a little bit the Stiwinters which they uh after we quit uh we found out uh how they felt about it but then they told us we was welcome to walk there we could walk. But people was for a while they was really kind of cold shouldered about really being to friendly. JC; So they was kind of suspicious of you as an outsider for a while? HH: Probably, probably was. And we didn't want to do anything to make them have any reason to say well their trouble. And we didn't want that. JC: Right, reputation was very important. HH: Learned if they said anything we was very polite and listened and when we got home told our parents and they said well don't do it again. But it got alright uh we it was one of my best friends was was one of them and well, I say one of. One of them, one of them that I had more we went places together; we mobbed up and walked to church. I mean a whole big group of us I mean a bunch. We uh had parties build a big bonfire and had weenies and marshmallow roasts and stuff like that just for the fun of it. You know just we had nothing else to do just the young people, so we flt in ok. But at the beginning my mother worried she didn't uh she was concerned and soon in a year or so we got the school bus and we didn't have to walk that far. The worse thing about walking in the evenings the boys got to picking on the girls and rubbing rag weeds in our hair when the rag weeds bloom doing that and the bees nests under the road banks you know where they got this and going ahead and having them all stirred up to jump on us when we come (laugh) We'd be in a bunch and then they'd the boys be in a bunch but they would do that and leave us a crying and uh fighting and the bees after us some times (laugh) 11 JC: Well do you think that was picking on you or was that some way to flirt with the girls? HH: They was entertaining theirselves. Is what they was doing because they, they had I think a real fun time with that. (laugh) And my brother was into it. JC: He was a uh- HH: He was into it. When you make a practice and you bother a bee and you are going to be walking by there he is not going to wait for you to bother him he will come out and bother you. And the first thing you know Bang he's got ye. The boys thought that was great fun. Then we had longer hair you know and if a bee gets in your hair its tangled up so you can't ou you can't get away I mean you're your more than likely your going to be stung. JC-Right. So that was just mean? HH: But there was a bunch of young people up there a bunch. Today I don't see it they but most all of their uh. Oh at Halloween they might pull tricks on somebody but nothin damaging and bad. Not like happened here you know. They drove a truck in the river. JC: I didn't. When did that happen? HH: Yea drove it right out in the river. Uh the truck was took from uh, I don't know who the truck I don't know who these people over here but uh Sunday morning it was just sitting in the river right down here. JC: This was recently? 12 HH: No. It was not. No uh They told me it was no accident No way it was drove in there (JC-Right) But they got finger prints and they've got they've got a suspect but as far as I know nobody's been arrested. But I mean things like that the young people never or our group never done things like that. JC:Right. HH: Now one time the boys Aubrey's uncle his wagon he had uh that he drove around his horse and wagon they put his wagon up on top of his barn had a, a shed I guess you call it. JC:Right. HH: And the, the boys all got around and got it got it up there and put it on that (laugh) and when next morning when he went down to milk his cow there his wagon was sitting there on his barn! And just aggravating have fun. JC: It uh urn. Seems like in a community that small it'd be hard to get away with any of that stuff HH: Oh they didn't get away with it. (laugh) They didn't get away they was and actually I think they got it off without tearing it up and he said breaking his shafts he said now that they've got it up there how they going to get it down. But they got it down. 13 They all got under it, and I don't really know they might've used boards to roll'd it up there. But they just made that up to do that just for the fun of it. But not destructive things. That would be worse. I think all and all the young people was good or our group was. But soon after this pot business come in- JC: Right. HH: -and they that ruined everything. JC: Now you said urn You said earlier that when you and Aubrey first moved down here to Tuckaseegee that you felt like there was still some hard feeling's between the Hoopers and the Watsons. HH: I've never felt uh. I think we were recognized but it never bothered us a lot and we never was just confronted with it but uh we was uh I guess what they called and outsider we wasn't running you know with the flow like these that had been here because these people had been here always you know they come in here probably with land grants. JC-yea that's- HH: And uh sometimes when people are like that they just like to keep things like they want them. JC: Right. HH: But it never bothered us much we uh well it didn't bother us at all I guess because we bought this lot and uh we didn't do anything not even drill a well for about 5 years. But the man wanted to sell the property and we bought it but he also wanted us not to say anything you know to get the talk out and his father to hear about it he said after my dads gone uh I don't care. But just uh how people are you know they never know what a new family's going to do. JC: Kind of upset the thing? The way, they're afraid that it'll 14 HH: They just don't know what you you might do and their afraid, but they didn't have to worry about us because when we wasn't working we had some spare time we, we was probably gone on off somewhere else entertaining ourself. And we didn't uh, well still today uh I know all these people are nice and they invite me to their luncheons and things but I'm just not much of that uh ladies luncheon and things I've always been so busy. And didn't uh but I guess in every community it's like that but uh things have to go on and things can't stay, well who would want them like that JC: Right. What urn I know you, I talked to uh When I was talking to Frank and Dorothy urn another topic that that was pretty interesting that just came up was Frank had talked some about working on the dams for uh Thorpe dam and then Bear and Cedar Cliff HH: Yeah. JC: -and these things. And I know that you and Aubry had traveled a lot when ya'll first had got married urn doing construction work on dams and some bridges and stuff. How did that come about how did ya'll get into that sort of (HH- about what now?) How did ya'l; get into the- HH: Construction business? JC: Yeah. 15 HH: Uh Aubrey was uh operator for heavy construction uh bulldozers and uh earth moving that they uh needed a lot uh and they was building they's have all kinds of floods you know up in the Western part ofthis country- JC: Right. HH: Missouri River and uh flooding uh all the way down and they was a building dams and uh we couldn't he couldn't get a job they's no jobs like that going on here then. And uh we decided to go there, and we went and he was hired and uh it was more money and a job. JC: Right HH: And we had decided that we just had to get away were we could make a uh, we wanted to, to get into a business of our own and we needed money to get our down payments and get started so we just went to work and for about 10 years well it was 10 years uh we, we worked. And we saved our money. JC: So there just wouldn't a way. Staying here there just wouldn't any way to make the the-- HH: No. Of course we'd never thought we'd ever settle in Tuckaseegee had no idea of settling in Tuckaseegee but when we come back uh up at Pine Creek we was up there about not even a year till we seen we didn't want to be there. That we started looking for somewhere to uh to move out and get a better uh drift of things were we could do better cause nothing was ever happening around there I mean uh you didn't uh you you couldn't well you lived but that after that they wouldn't nothing much left. 16 JC: Just too isolated, too HH: It but, but we had a good all in all we had most a good time like that but we didn't spend a lot of money but we went out and uh but a movie and a hamburger on Saturday night was a treat for us. We didn't have to spend a lot of money. I always got a job went to work. And was always uh lucky enough to uh to uh get a job and it was my place when he was transferred on up the river to another dam to uh find us a place to live. We I hated to go in a strange town and to do that and that country was a little strange then to. But you just had to go a looking for signs and looking in the paper and if you found uh they was not a bunch of apartments and stuff built there people was a renting parts of their house they' s if they had a 2 story house they'd rent the upper part to you. I remember one time we did that but I never liked that. I didn't want to uh I wanted to be you know I didn't like the idea of, of living in the house with somebody you know of course they'd make it into an apartment you know you'd have your own kitchen and everything but still you had to enter you know sometimes they put up a stair on the outside and made so you could come in up above. And but still walking on the floors and all you knew that they was very noisy for the people down stairs. Most of them was a lot of Catholic people JC: Which there's- HH: but we made it and a if it wasn't it was quite an experience. They was Indians there then that did not speak English. JC: That was that was in the 'Dakota's right? HH: Yeah but and a Mt. Rushmore was not finished they was a working on Mt Rushmore. JC: You said that urn that you kept a job to what kind of jobs did you get? 17 HH: Me. Uh different jobs from uh from a candy store to Sears, restaurant work. The best job well I guess the restaurant thing if you got good tips was good. But I couldn't work at night because well I did for a while until I got a upset with it and then I was afraid to go back to the restaurant and that was in Pierre's in a Silver Dollar down on Main Street where on the weekends a lot of cowboys come in and they tipped generously. Generously. And it was a big thing for the waitresses because uh they we knew that they was going to and they come and really but they was kind of a some of them drinkers to and, and I was young and uh I had to quit and then the uh the manager offered if I would come back I could have they'd get the police to take me home when I worked nights on the weekends but Aubrey wouldn't let me do it. Then actually I wasn't too brave either. JC: Was some ofthem men give you a hard time, or-? HH: Not at the restaurant no they didn't allow nothing like that at the restaurant they done that at the theater. Uh have you cut that off? JC: No its still on I can cut it off if you want me to. HH: Well it was just a- we decided that I should not be back out there after night. JC: Right HH: So I quit. But it was a pleasant that job and an easy job. JC: Well when you moved back here urn had you noticed any big changes did much- was it different then when you'd left? HH: Oh yes. Yes. JC: How was it different? 18 HH: It seemed more remote and backwoodsy and uh more like it hadn't changed a lot. JC: So it hadn't changed as much as- HH:No. JC: -you and Aubry had changed. HH: I had changed. JC: I understand that. HH: And uh it and for a woman to get a job she was almost you couldn't they was no jobs here. JC: So would you say that urn that women weren't treated the same here as they were treated in other places at that time? HH: Not really I don't think not really I think the women uh was more a uh I don't know exactly how to say this. They was doing more things and uh then the women here of course the women here had nothing they could do but their home work. 19 JC: well there was, I know that a lot of the people were farmers and that working at home on the farm that's a lot of that was a lot of work. HH: It its pure work. Its all work and no fun just about. And it was very it and naturally it was uh we was used to more people and uh entertainment and stuff being more having working with other people it seemed kind of dead and you know blaa JC: Right. HH: And but still uh we knew to that hen we settled down it'd be in the mountains. JC: It was still home? HH: It was still home. It would be in the mountains, but I could so plainly see the uh the difference that the lack of opportunity for our area. I'll put it like that. Because definitely we just there was no opportunity and if you got a way from here you you found opportunity. If you wanted to work you got a job I never failed. JC: Right. HH: And uh we was able to a we saved our money and always with the idea of what we was going to do. And we had to get something to make some money. And we never wanted to uh find ourself out looking to be the bank to come and take our equipment or stuff. JC: Right. HH: Now Aubrey's daddy feared that worse than the Civil War. 20 JC: Why do you think do you think that-? HH: He was afraid uh he knew we'd been save'n money all this time uh ever bit we could. And he was afraid we'd invest everything and lose everything. JC: Do you think that came from the depression? That he was afraid of it that way? or HH: My mother was the same way. My daddy not so much. If he had listened to her he would have never owned grass mtn and big mtn. Because she was afraid she was afraid they would lose the 30 acres and the home (JC- Right) and that was all we had. And uh I can remember hearing them talk about it and I could hear her afraid for him to do it and he was a talking about doing it and he wanted to do it and he would have to go in debt and she said I I rather not take a chance on it. With this big family and I think I don't want you to do it. But finally I reckon he persuaded her and she was still afraid she was afraid of debt. Aubrey's daddy was a afraid of debt well both of them and see they was brought up right in that time when this country was terrible. JC: Right the yeah. HH: And if you wasn't afraid of debt the small debt was uh you couldn't even handle no way to do it here. It was just a land of no opportunity. And it still is. JC: Well urn back to the Watson Hooper feud can you think of anything urn that we haven't talked about that I ought to add to this. HH: As to do with the uh- JC: The Watson's and the Hoopers. 21 HH: The Watson and Hoopers no I just heard what everybody else heard. And I guess I was more uh tuned into it. I will say that. Because somehow uh the history, I read a lot of books about southern Appalachia I've got a books that Fox Fire books now their good books to read you get some good information from them about life in this country. And it was really hard. Uh if people uh they was used to almost everything they had to eat except in salt and sugar and coffee they had to grow. And if they didn't grow it they didn't have it so it made a hard and it and there heat in the winter and the insulation poorly built homes and hard to heat and, and many people I am sure really suffered from cold and actually lack of food. And today of course were still behind. JC: You get to, you travel a lot so you get to compare the area to a lot of other other places- HH: yeah. JC: -around the country. HH: I think I believe though still we're a good place to live. JC: Urn lets see here is there was there anything about that or anything else that you would like to add to the thing. HH: No I reckon not. JC: Alright then. HH: I'm just like all the other folks. Now we just know about the same things. Of course all the peoples been here longer much longer than I have. I don't know what they know. And they don't let me know (laugh) 22 JC: Well alright, well I thank you Hazel I'm going to turn this thing off. .. END OF INTERVIEW

Hazel Henderson recalls the stories she heard growing up in the Tuckaseegee area about the Hooper-Watson feud, about the Hooper and Watson families "bushwackin" each other, murders related to the feud, and the role bootlegging and drinking possibly played in fueling the violence.

• Creator
  • Henderson, Hazel
• Contributor
  • Coggins, Jason M.
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
• Date
  • Date interview: 2014-11-12
  • Date: 1860s;
  • Date digitized: 2015-03-03
• Extent
  • Duration: 0:47:29 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 22 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Autobiography
  • Henderson, Hazel -- Interviews
  • Hooper family -- Anecdotes
  • Jackson County (N.C.) -- History -- 19th century
  • Vendetta -- North Carolina -- Jackson County -- History
  • Watson family -- Anecdotes
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 474/574
• Identifier
  • HL_HIST474_Coggins_Henderson_2014-11-12_audio
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library

1 Transcript: Hazel Henderson Interviewee: HH Hazel Henderson Interviewer: JC Jason M. Coggins Interview Date: November 12, 2014 Location: Tuckaseegee, NC Length: 47:30 START OF INTERVIEW Hazel Henderson: --Creek. There was two men killed-- Ambushed. Not but about a mile from where uh Aubrey was raised. Uh up that road. And of course uh what it happened over, it people just had to assume. They was all, they, they drank then you know and they had uh almost friends, good friends, that get together and get to drinking and for some reason something would go wrong and somebody would do something and then these things happened. But, I couldn't remember when that happened. Uncle Bud came riding his horse early on Monday morning and uh bringing the news over from Pine creek and we lived on the other mountain there. And everybody was really stirred up about a thing that happened like that. Of course they had two suspects and they was convicted and they was, done time. And that was just the only two that happened as I remember of. That was so shocking and disturbing because see we knew these people Jason Coggins: Right 2 HH: And we also knew the suspects. We knew them all (chuckle). We couldn't believe that this could happen. And then it took quite a while for the, the law to get out there. And, and Preacher Tucker sat with the men, the dead men. And uh but we didn't, the people didn't do like they would do today. Today they would just swarm all over, I think. But then they was respectable and they, they knew they couldn't uh be a hinderance, so they just JC: Stayed out of the way, and let. HH: stayed out of the way. And the preacher just sat there with the man. JC: Urn I guess, I'll ask you what stories do you remember about the Watson's and the Hoopers. HH: Have I heard? JC: Yeah what stories have you heard? HH- Well, just for some reason they just started "bushwackin" each other. And I guess you'd say "bushwackin" because, one would be killed and then, then they would ,, retaliate from the other side and want to kill a me,mber of that family. And it went on and I on and it just, I don't know how many people, but I have always heard that. And here in Tuckaseegee uh up there in the bottoms there below aunt Lizzes's I've heard there, one was boarding the river then with his wagon and he had a load of lumber. And, he was just shot driving his horses and he just fell back on the wagon dead. Horses went on to his house, took him on home. Which he just lived up the river a ways. And then of course I don't know the out on Pine Creek, I know of a place another one was killed. But I have never known the members, how many members and who started that killing. 3 JC- I remember you talking another time about the uh, the incident on Pine Creek, about there being a stain in the rock or-- HH- Yes that's there they told me uh, we walked to the post office, and we walked down this road, and this rock was uh, a big rock with uh mostly white and it had a big brown stain on it. And they told us that man there he was killed and that was a blood stain. Maybe they told us that because we was kids but they did tell us truly some he was killed there. But we, I never step on that rock. I really respected that rock. I, I walked on the other side and I believe that could be possible but of course now I know it was probably a natural stain on the rock JC: Right Iron in the rock or something. HH: Laughs. But, and then the last Watson's name was Leander. And I've seen, I went to his house to see because I had been told in in his older days he got real uh disturbed and shot his door facings, with a shotgun. He just sat there with his gun and I mean, people was afraid to go around but for fear that he might shoot them. But really they was shot. It looked like, if I know what a shotgun blast looks like, they was shot. So uh I guess when he got older he may, he might a got a little bit, you know. But because he was a very small boy and his brother saved him by setting him out the window when they come in I guess maybe the last time to ki, and they just wiped them out about it. I've heard this. JC-Right 4 HH: The people that and he still they still I think lived in North Norton out where they I guess where he might a lived his the rest of his days. I guess. I forgot what they call that little place out there but you know as, as the tales go by you don't know what part ofthem is facts or if its mixed up you or you just know some people got killed. JC- Right, where do, where do you urn where do you remember first hearing any stories about it from? HH- I guess all my life (laugh). JC- Family members. HH: Yes. People used to talk more. And you know we didn't have TV then and neighbors would uh. It was a habit our neighbors a coming to our house a lot and talking and of course we being children we was interested in these tales until bed time and they made us go to bed. JC- That might have been where all the good tales got told. HH: But that's that's where I heard all this talk from the Stiwinters our close neighbors and they had lived in that valley many years. We was newcomers there. And just when they'd come up and talk about a lot of things when they was running cattle on the mountains, and uh just things we was interested in. JC- Did you ever uh did you ever hear anything that would have gave you any kind of hint as to what stated the whole thing. HH- What started this? 5 JC: Yeah. HH- Not exactly I don't know if anybody knew exactly. It was just kind of an old on going thing. I don't know how long I think it lasted for maybe maybe I don't know maybe 2 or 3 years. It wasn't just one big battle and it was longer JC- I have heard a couple different versions. Uh Heard some people say that it was politics because it was right around the civil war. And some folks say it is republican and democrat. And urn Frank and Dorthy said a little bit of that but they said two that it was like children in a school yard where they started out with small stuff and it just kept escalating until it was out of control. And they said that they thought that it was kind of kind of just one ofthose things were it started one had shot a dog and then the other one had burned haystacks, I think. HH- Well that would mean it went on for years and true what I said about when children are setting back listening uh they're listening at their parents and sometimes these, these feelings uh with their kids grow strong and they hold them. And, and when there's no use to. I've heard, I've heard they thought politics had something to do with it. Uh people was still biter over the civil war and the ones that favored the union and the confederates they just had a uh natural conflict there. And I've heard it was uh each family they didn't want the families to interact and then they started just not having nothing to do with each other and it just snow balled until it was a bad thing and it could have been that simple. And I have also heard that maybe uh something they thought or they did, maybe they thought that there might be a, a marriage maybe in the family or uh a romance or something and the family was not having that either. It could have been a number of things. Especially when they already had a disagreement for each other. (pause) I think today people are more broad minded and willing to uh to uh settle things and not not take it to uh well politics will never be that but they used to be much more. I can remember when Election Day come. They never knew at the polls somebody was going to drink and maybe bring a gun. So uh the Sherriff had a busy day. 6 JC- That's urn with everybody I've talked to. You said the thing about drinking,that's something that seems to come up a lot when I was talking to Frank and Dorothy. They had talked about people in the area bootlegging whiskey. Even back then that they didn't have- if you ran a small farm you didn't really have a way to make money I mean you could feed your family and do fine on that but you couldn't buy anything because you didn't have any money. And they said that a bunch of people urn and they were talking specifically about the Hoopers and Watsons but said a bunch of people sold made and sold liquor as a way to make extra money and they seemed to think that that kind of contributed that people was drinking a lot of the time and, and so they made maybe worse decisions then they would've if they hadn't been drinking so much. Have you heard anything about that or seen any of that that you can remember? HH- Well of course anytime uh alcohol can cloud your better judgment regardless but I don't know if there was any drinking in this shooting. I've never heard that drinking was the cause of it. Could have been. But I've just heard how it happened. But I know back in that day there was a lot of drinking. And when they had a trial or something downtown uh they'd always be somebody get some whiskey into it. And uh it was hard to have a good trial. (laugh) 7 JC-Right HH: And I, When I listen to aunt Mary talk about my family My great granddad was a big- Some trials had a big hand in it uh people just went they was so interested and they didn't have a, a they wanted to be there so it so there would be a big crowd if somebody was going to have a tough time in court. JC- Right. HH: And they wouldn't above sometimes the judge wasn't above taking a little drink either.(laugh) I've heard that and I believe it. JC- Urn see now you. HH: But anytime you know if people drink they they are more likely going to make a bad judgment. But I think they have already made it they just bring it out. Alcohol just loosens their tongue and lets them say things that they wouldn't say if they didn't or wouldn't do. JC: And you're you're not connect to either one ofthe families are you. Your- HH: to Geroge? JC: -to the Hoopers or the Watsons you're not related? HH- No only by marriage to the Hoopers. JC: Urn lets see here, did you, and you said you heard these mostly as a little girl. What was your impression? Were they like ghost stories, or did they have maybe a warning in them to-? HH: What was my--? JC: Impression, how did you feel about them? HH: -about, about a thing like this? Oh I believed it. And I thought it was bad very bad, very unnecessary. JC: Do you think, did you relate that to any of the stuff that was going on around you at the time? HH:No. JC: No? It's just stuff that happened a long time ago? 8 HH: No I still today am interested like and I've been to Fort Smith Arkansas, I've been in the old court house, old jail. Because ofuh as many men as judge Parker hanged you know 88 in ten years, 5 in one day. All of these things uh was so harsh I mean judgment was just brought down boom. And, and a lot of innocent people didn't get a chance. And it was the same way if uh you got an ambush well they was a ambushing all over this country. Because uh that was just the way of they believed in an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. They do it to you- they just believed that. That was the way they done. And sometimes maybe it was necessary to save your own life. JC: Can you urn, can you think of any other, maybe not the Watsons and the Hoopers, but any other examples of, of people I guess bushwhacking one another or, or anything like that? Of this kind of- you know I get mad at you and lay up for you and- 9 HH: Well, No I think not. I think uh the bushwhacking is done in a different way it's still going on but it's done in a different way. (laugh) You still have bushwhacking and ambushing (chuckle) I've been ambushed a few times. JC: Urn was any of that stuff did you ever hear about some of that stuff from when you were a little girl? HH:Was what? JC: Did you ever hear about any of that stuff from when you were a little girl? Maybe when you were young did you know of anything like that? HH: Actually I didn't hear as from my parents they was a listen to because they was they didn't know these things and like when you go into a new community and you hear these things uh you sometimes wonder if you are in the wrong place. (laugh) Because your we went into a valley of Republican and uh it had been that way for many years and my daddy was a, a Democrat. And you, you know they didn't uh- for a while there I can well remember my parents a talking about uh trying to, to uh just keep a low profile and be welcomed and wanted to be welcomed and the children to walk to school and be uh and everything be alright. Which we were accepted and everything was alright, we's all good friends but at first uh it was not that way. Uh they didn't uh you had to be real careful and not to, not go on somebody else's property. And uh we was told to not do that. As we went to school we could take a newer way and walk through uh on other people's property and to get to school you know we had to walk from you know from where the old home place is. Do you know where the Tom Fox turn is where you make that big uturn and go back up to North Norton 10 JC: I think so right there urn. HH: That's as far as the school bus come. So it was tempting to walk through these other people's property but we didn't. We did a little bit the Stiwinters which they uh after we quit uh we found out uh how they felt about it but then they told us we was welcome to walk there we could walk. But people was for a while they was really kind of cold shouldered about really being to friendly. JC; So they was kind of suspicious of you as an outsider for a while? HH: Probably, probably was. And we didn't want to do anything to make them have any reason to say well their trouble. And we didn't want that. JC: Right, reputation was very important. HH: Learned if they said anything we was very polite and listened and when we got home told our parents and they said well don't do it again. But it got alright uh we it was one of my best friends was was one of them and well, I say one of. One of them, one of them that I had more we went places together; we mobbed up and walked to church. I mean a whole big group of us I mean a bunch. We uh had parties build a big bonfire and had weenies and marshmallow roasts and stuff like that just for the fun of it. You know just we had nothing else to do just the young people, so we flt in ok. But at the beginning my mother worried she didn't uh she was concerned and soon in a year or so we got the school bus and we didn't have to walk that far. The worse thing about walking in the evenings the boys got to picking on the girls and rubbing rag weeds in our hair when the rag weeds bloom doing that and the bees nests under the road banks you know where they got this and going ahead and having them all stirred up to jump on us when we come (laugh) We'd be in a bunch and then they'd the boys be in a bunch but they would do that and leave us a crying and uh fighting and the bees after us some times (laugh) 11 JC: Well do you think that was picking on you or was that some way to flirt with the girls? HH: They was entertaining theirselves. Is what they was doing because they, they had I think a real fun time with that. (laugh) And my brother was into it. JC: He was a uh- HH: He was into it. When you make a practice and you bother a bee and you are going to be walking by there he is not going to wait for you to bother him he will come out and bother you. And the first thing you know Bang he's got ye. The boys thought that was great fun. Then we had longer hair you know and if a bee gets in your hair its tangled up so you can't ou you can't get away I mean you're your more than likely your going to be stung. JC-Right. So that was just mean? HH: But there was a bunch of young people up there a bunch. Today I don't see it they but most all of their uh. Oh at Halloween they might pull tricks on somebody but nothin damaging and bad. Not like happened here you know. They drove a truck in the river. JC: I didn't. When did that happen? HH: Yea drove it right out in the river. Uh the truck was took from uh, I don't know who the truck I don't know who these people over here but uh Sunday morning it was just sitting in the river right down here. JC: This was recently? 12 HH: No. It was not. No uh They told me it was no accident No way it was drove in there (JC-Right) But they got finger prints and they've got they've got a suspect but as far as I know nobody's been arrested. But I mean things like that the young people never or our group never done things like that. JC:Right. HH: Now one time the boys Aubrey's uncle his wagon he had uh that he drove around his horse and wagon they put his wagon up on top of his barn had a, a shed I guess you call it. JC:Right. HH: And the, the boys all got around and got it got it up there and put it on that (laugh) and when next morning when he went down to milk his cow there his wagon was sitting there on his barn! And just aggravating have fun. JC: It uh urn. Seems like in a community that small it'd be hard to get away with any of that stuff HH: Oh they didn't get away with it. (laugh) They didn't get away they was and actually I think they got it off without tearing it up and he said breaking his shafts he said now that they've got it up there how they going to get it down. But they got it down. 13 They all got under it, and I don't really know they might've used boards to roll'd it up there. But they just made that up to do that just for the fun of it. But not destructive things. That would be worse. I think all and all the young people was good or our group was. But soon after this pot business come in- JC: Right. HH: -and they that ruined everything. JC: Now you said urn You said earlier that when you and Aubrey first moved down here to Tuckaseegee that you felt like there was still some hard feeling's between the Hoopers and the Watsons. HH: I've never felt uh. I think we were recognized but it never bothered us a lot and we never was just confronted with it but uh we was uh I guess what they called and outsider we wasn't running you know with the flow like these that had been here because these people had been here always you know they come in here probably with land grants. JC-yea that's- HH: And uh sometimes when people are like that they just like to keep things like they want them. JC: Right. HH: But it never bothered us much we uh well it didn't bother us at all I guess because we bought this lot and uh we didn't do anything not even drill a well for about 5 years. But the man wanted to sell the property and we bought it but he also wanted us not to say anything you know to get the talk out and his father to hear about it he said after my dads gone uh I don't care. But just uh how people are you know they never know what a new family's going to do. JC: Kind of upset the thing? The way, they're afraid that it'll 14 HH: They just don't know what you you might do and their afraid, but they didn't have to worry about us because when we wasn't working we had some spare time we, we was probably gone on off somewhere else entertaining ourself. And we didn't uh, well still today uh I know all these people are nice and they invite me to their luncheons and things but I'm just not much of that uh ladies luncheon and things I've always been so busy. And didn't uh but I guess in every community it's like that but uh things have to go on and things can't stay, well who would want them like that JC: Right. What urn I know you, I talked to uh When I was talking to Frank and Dorothy urn another topic that that was pretty interesting that just came up was Frank had talked some about working on the dams for uh Thorpe dam and then Bear and Cedar Cliff HH: Yeah. JC: -and these things. And I know that you and Aubry had traveled a lot when ya'll first had got married urn doing construction work on dams and some bridges and stuff. How did that come about how did ya'll get into that sort of (HH- about what now?) How did ya'l; get into the- HH: Construction business? JC: Yeah. 15 HH: Uh Aubrey was uh operator for heavy construction uh bulldozers and uh earth moving that they uh needed a lot uh and they was building they's have all kinds of floods you know up in the Western part ofthis country- JC: Right. HH: Missouri River and uh flooding uh all the way down and they was a building dams and uh we couldn't he couldn't get a job they's no jobs like that going on here then. And uh we decided to go there, and we went and he was hired and uh it was more money and a job. JC: Right HH: And we had decided that we just had to get away were we could make a uh, we wanted to, to get into a business of our own and we needed money to get our down payments and get started so we just went to work and for about 10 years well it was 10 years uh we, we worked. And we saved our money. JC: So there just wouldn't a way. Staying here there just wouldn't any way to make the the-- HH: No. Of course we'd never thought we'd ever settle in Tuckaseegee had no idea of settling in Tuckaseegee but when we come back uh up at Pine Creek we was up there about not even a year till we seen we didn't want to be there. That we started looking for somewhere to uh to move out and get a better uh drift of things were we could do better cause nothing was ever happening around there I mean uh you didn't uh you you couldn't well you lived but that after that they wouldn't nothing much left. 16 JC: Just too isolated, too HH: It but, but we had a good all in all we had most a good time like that but we didn't spend a lot of money but we went out and uh but a movie and a hamburger on Saturday night was a treat for us. We didn't have to spend a lot of money. I always got a job went to work. And was always uh lucky enough to uh to uh get a job and it was my place when he was transferred on up the river to another dam to uh find us a place to live. We I hated to go in a strange town and to do that and that country was a little strange then to. But you just had to go a looking for signs and looking in the paper and if you found uh they was not a bunch of apartments and stuff built there people was a renting parts of their house they' s if they had a 2 story house they'd rent the upper part to you. I remember one time we did that but I never liked that. I didn't want to uh I wanted to be you know I didn't like the idea of, of living in the house with somebody you know of course they'd make it into an apartment you know you'd have your own kitchen and everything but still you had to enter you know sometimes they put up a stair on the outside and made so you could come in up above. And but still walking on the floors and all you knew that they was very noisy for the people down stairs. Most of them was a lot of Catholic people JC: Which there's- HH: but we made it and a if it wasn't it was quite an experience. They was Indians there then that did not speak English. JC: That was that was in the 'Dakota's right? HH: Yeah but and a Mt. Rushmore was not finished they was a working on Mt Rushmore. JC: You said that urn that you kept a job to what kind of jobs did you get? 17 HH: Me. Uh different jobs from uh from a candy store to Sears, restaurant work. The best job well I guess the restaurant thing if you got good tips was good. But I couldn't work at night because well I did for a while until I got a upset with it and then I was afraid to go back to the restaurant and that was in Pierre's in a Silver Dollar down on Main Street where on the weekends a lot of cowboys come in and they tipped generously. Generously. And it was a big thing for the waitresses because uh they we knew that they was going to and they come and really but they was kind of a some of them drinkers to and, and I was young and uh I had to quit and then the uh the manager offered if I would come back I could have they'd get the police to take me home when I worked nights on the weekends but Aubrey wouldn't let me do it. Then actually I wasn't too brave either. JC: Was some ofthem men give you a hard time, or-? HH: Not at the restaurant no they didn't allow nothing like that at the restaurant they done that at the theater. Uh have you cut that off? JC: No its still on I can cut it off if you want me to. HH: Well it was just a- we decided that I should not be back out there after night. JC: Right HH: So I quit. But it was a pleasant that job and an easy job. JC: Well when you moved back here urn had you noticed any big changes did much- was it different then when you'd left? HH: Oh yes. Yes. JC: How was it different? 18 HH: It seemed more remote and backwoodsy and uh more like it hadn't changed a lot. JC: So it hadn't changed as much as- HH:No. JC: -you and Aubry had changed. HH: I had changed. JC: I understand that. HH: And uh it and for a woman to get a job she was almost you couldn't they was no jobs here. JC: So would you say that urn that women weren't treated the same here as they were treated in other places at that time? HH: Not really I don't think not really I think the women uh was more a uh I don't know exactly how to say this. They was doing more things and uh then the women here of course the women here had nothing they could do but their home work. 19 JC: well there was, I know that a lot of the people were farmers and that working at home on the farm that's a lot of that was a lot of work. HH: It its pure work. Its all work and no fun just about. And it was very it and naturally it was uh we was used to more people and uh entertainment and stuff being more having working with other people it seemed kind of dead and you know blaa JC: Right. HH: And but still uh we knew to that hen we settled down it'd be in the mountains. JC: It was still home? HH: It was still home. It would be in the mountains, but I could so plainly see the uh the difference that the lack of opportunity for our area. I'll put it like that. Because definitely we just there was no opportunity and if you got a way from here you you found opportunity. If you wanted to work you got a job I never failed. JC: Right. HH: And uh we was able to a we saved our money and always with the idea of what we was going to do. And we had to get something to make some money. And we never wanted to uh find ourself out looking to be the bank to come and take our equipment or stuff. JC: Right. HH: Now Aubrey's daddy feared that worse than the Civil War. 20 JC: Why do you think do you think that-? HH: He was afraid uh he knew we'd been save'n money all this time uh ever bit we could. And he was afraid we'd invest everything and lose everything. JC: Do you think that came from the depression? That he was afraid of it that way? or HH: My mother was the same way. My daddy not so much. If he had listened to her he would have never owned grass mtn and big mtn. Because she was afraid she was afraid they would lose the 30 acres and the home (JC- Right) and that was all we had. And uh I can remember hearing them talk about it and I could hear her afraid for him to do it and he was a talking about doing it and he wanted to do it and he would have to go in debt and she said I I rather not take a chance on it. With this big family and I think I don't want you to do it. But finally I reckon he persuaded her and she was still afraid she was afraid of debt. Aubrey's daddy was a afraid of debt well both of them and see they was brought up right in that time when this country was terrible. JC: Right the yeah. HH: And if you wasn't afraid of debt the small debt was uh you couldn't even handle no way to do it here. It was just a land of no opportunity. And it still is. JC: Well urn back to the Watson Hooper feud can you think of anything urn that we haven't talked about that I ought to add to this. HH: As to do with the uh- JC: The Watson's and the Hoopers. 21 HH: The Watson and Hoopers no I just heard what everybody else heard. And I guess I was more uh tuned into it. I will say that. Because somehow uh the history, I read a lot of books about southern Appalachia I've got a books that Fox Fire books now their good books to read you get some good information from them about life in this country. And it was really hard. Uh if people uh they was used to almost everything they had to eat except in salt and sugar and coffee they had to grow. And if they didn't grow it they didn't have it so it made a hard and it and there heat in the winter and the insulation poorly built homes and hard to heat and, and many people I am sure really suffered from cold and actually lack of food. And today of course were still behind. JC: You get to, you travel a lot so you get to compare the area to a lot of other other places- HH: yeah. JC: -around the country. HH: I think I believe though still we're a good place to live. JC: Urn lets see here is there was there anything about that or anything else that you would like to add to the thing. HH: No I reckon not. JC: Alright then. HH: I'm just like all the other folks. Now we just know about the same things. Of course all the peoples been here longer much longer than I have. I don't know what they know. And they don't let me know (laugh) 22 JC: Well alright, well I thank you Hazel I'm going to turn this thing off. .. END OF INTERVIEW