[Granville-Hough] 12 Oct 2009 - Lost Thornton Boy 4

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

  Lost Thornton boy (continuation).

Some definitive information comes from a McAlpin descendant, Martha 
Miller. The Jasper W. Thornton gravestone in Harmony Cemetery shows 
1881-1899, which indicates an 18-year old boy, or man, if one prefers. 
The gravestone for W. J. McAlpin in the same cemetery shows 28 April 
1876 – 24 Oct 1904, which indicates a 23 year old man at the time of the 
tragedy. Another account of McAlpin’s death shows year 1903. (This 
establishes definite times of the events.)
Martha’s recollection of the story is that McAlpin was leader of a gang 
of young men who had lost confidence in Thornton. McAlpin and Thornton 
were last seen leaving Harmony Church together, then McAlpin later came 
back with the horse and gun which he claimed to have purchased, and he 
told Thornton’s parents that Thornton had decided to go to Louisiana to 
visit an uncle there. The body was later found, Bill was arrested, tried 
in Jones County, and acquitted as noted above. (This places the event in 
the Harmony Church Community, near Mize.)
Martha had heard both versions of the death of “Little Bill;” one, when 
he got off the train, and the other on the streets of Mize. In the Mize 
version, Bill and his friends had ridden into Mize on their horses one 
afternoon, shooting their pistols and terrorizing the people all 
afternoon. No one was hurt in this display, but as Little Bill rode home 
north out of town, shots rang out from all sides; and “Little Bill” fell 
dying. In the context of this story, the words, “Tell ‘em who shot me,” 
makes sense. It meant tell his friends or fellow gang members. There was 
only one block of houses going north out of Mize, but no one could ever 
be identified who knew anything about the assailants.
Martha had never heard the story of the death bed confession in Chrystal 
Springs. It comes back to me that I also heard that story from my older 
brother, Dueward Hough; and he was pondering what validity there could 
be in a death bed confession. His question was, “How could this fellow 
have been there?” It did not fit the image we had in our minds of 
McAlpin riding behind Thornton and shooting him in the back of the head. 
However, it does fit into the concept of a gang killing as remembered by 
Martha Miller. In year 2005, we can admit that tellers and retellers of 
the story for over 100 years have embellished it with their own 
imaginary or erroneous details. Nobody’s version is uplifting to the 
human spirit.