[Granville-Hough] 9-12 Oct 2009 - Thornton and McAlpin Boys - Email Discussion

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Lost Thornton Boy – A Beat 3 Drama.

One of the saddest and most terrible stories I heard in my childhood in 
Beat 3 of Smith County, MS, was that of the lost Thornton boy. Perhaps 
he was a young man, but the story always specified Thornton boy. I heard 
it from my grandfather, Jim Richardson, my father, Lisha Hough, and from 
others I cannot recall. The characters involved were young Jasper 
Thornton (Thornton boy), young Bill McAlpin (McAlpin boy), a spotted 
white horse, probably the elder Bill McAlpin (McAlpin father), and a 
clever Lawyer. This is a story which can be researched in the newspapers 
of the day and the court records of counties adjacent to Smith County. 
(The Smith County court records probably burned in the last court house 
fire, but files of the “Smith County Reformer” probably exist.) It is up 
to partisan descendants and relatives of the characters to do that 
research. The time would be between 1886 and 1913, as Jim Richardson 
lived in the upper Cohay community 1886-1904, and Lisha was in that 
community until 1913. Part of the search for Thornton boy took part in 
the Upper Cohay community. It is not clear in my memory whether it was 
Lisha Hough or Jim Richardson who took part. (We now know the event was 
in 1899, and it could have been either one or both.)
This drama took place in the Lower Cohay Community near Mize. I recall 
that the division between the upper and lower communities to be roughly 
at the Ace Johnson bridge. They were actually in separate beats, or 
county divisions. Beat 3 was the southwest fifth of the county with 
center at Mize, while the Center Beat held the County Seat at Raleigh. 
Early settlements had been on Cohay Creek, which extended from near 
Raleigh down past Mize and on into Cohay Beat of Covington County. The 
creek bottoms had the only land fertile enough to support farming, other 
than Leaf River, and they also had water. The sandy plains, or hills, 
were covered with longleaf pine timber but were not fertile. These hilly 
pine forests were part of the open range where deer, cattle and hogs 
grazed. Roads generally followed the ridges, with extensions down into 
the creek bottoms to fords across the creeks. Old Indian and game trails 
followed the creeks into all their branches. If you got lost, you could 
follow a game trail until you reached a road, but it might be several 
miles covered with chiggers, snakes, ticks, and mosquitoes, all of which 
made a living on game trails. Getting lost was not uncommon, but it was 
always serious business.
The story as I, Granville Hough, recall it handed down, follows. 
Thornton boy was the much-indulged son or young man from a well-known 
and fairly well-off farm family. The family had been pioneers in the 
County and held land near Mize. McAlpin boy was of the same age as son 
of a Confederate veteran who had moved into Beat 3 just before the Civil 
War. The families were neighbors, and their children roamed the nearby 
Piney Woods and creeks together. McAlpin boy was not as fortunate as 
Thornton boy as his family was not able to give him everything he 
wanted. In spite of some economic disparity, the young men were best of 
friends.
Thornton boy prevailed upon his family to give him a pony and a pistol
so he could hunt in the woods, shoot targets, or play soldier, as some
might call it. (The pony was said to be white, with spots, unlike any
other in the community, and easily recognized.) Thornton boy could not
wait to show his friend, McAlpin boy, these new acquisitions. Thornton
boy went over and demonstrated his riding skill, but the boys really
wanted to shoot the pistol. They decided to ride into the Piney Woods so
they could shoot the pistol without disturbing the old folks. So off
they rode double into the woods, with Thornton in front and McAlpin in
back, presumably to hunt or shoot targets.
Late that day, McAlpin boy returned with the pony and gun and the story
that when they fired the gun, the pony bolted and threw McAlpin off,
then ran through the brush with Thornton boy. McAlpin said he followed
in the brush and eventually found the pony and the gun, but no Thornton
boy. He said he had searched all day and had then come home. Of course,
McAlpin father notified the Thornton family and all the neighbors. At
dawn the next day, the community organized a search party and went into
the area McAlpin boy indicated they had been. McAlpin boy did not join,
pleading fatigue from his efforts of the previous day. When the search
party was out of sight, McAlpin boy was seen on a spotted white horse
carrying a shovel and going in the opposite direction.
The search party had fanned out through the piney woods and along the
branch creeks, but had found nothing, not even recent horse tracks.
Gradually the suspicion grew that there might be foul play, or that
Thornton boy might be injured or dazed wandering along the old trails
miles from home. This is when the search spread into the upper Cohay
settlements where Richardsons and Houghs lived. The word went out to
check out each buzzard column. (After feeding on a dead carcass,
buzzards would circle in the upward air currents to gain altitude before
heading back to their nests along Cohay creek. Their columns gave an
unerring indication of a carcass in the woods below. When a search party
got under a buzzard column, the odor of carrion led it to the carcass as
surely as it did the buzzards. It might be either a wild animal dying a
natural death or a dead domestic animal dragged away from a barnyard
into the woods.) The upper Cohay searches seemed to have concentrated on
these buzzard columns. It was about the fourth or fifth day when a
buzzard column led to Thornton boy. His body had been thrown into a
briar patch and someone had thrown shovelfuls of earth over the body to
cover it. The marks of the shovel were all around. Wild scavengers and
buzzards had consumed most of the body, but the skull showed a large
hole in back of Thornton boy’s head.
Everyone put together his or her own sequence of events, with the
universal conclusion that McAlpin boy had done the terrible deed through
jealousness, covetousness, or whatever motive one might prefer. McAlpin
father had the most intense and agonizing anguish a father can have. In
any trial in Smith County, McAlpin boy was going to be hanged publicly
until he was dead, dead, dead. What was McAlpin father to do? First, he
mortgaged everything he had in order to hire the best lawyer of the
area. (I cannot remember for sure who Clever Lawyer was, but the name
Anse McLaurin comes to mind as the default lawyer in desperation cases.)
Clever Lawyer asked for a change of venue because of the certainty of
how a Smith County jury of peers would vote. The trial was moved to an
adjacent county (I recall Jones County) because McAlpin had served for
some time in a Confederate unit from that county. Clever Lawyer was an
expert in how juries were selected in each county where he practiced. He
knew that the judge of Jones County would try cases on schedule even if
he had to send the sheriff out on the street to bring in adult males to
sit as jurors. With the change of venue in hand, Clever Lawyer sent
McAlpin father to visit all his old Confederate buddies in Jones County
to tell them his sad story and to ask them to show up on the day of the
trial. Now, McAlpin father had been an honorable and brave soldier and
part of their “band of brothers.” They could not refuse.
On the day of the trial, a surprising number of citizens previously 
empaneled sent word that they were sick, or that there was a 
communicable disease in their family, or that they had to attend a 
funeral that very day. The judge turned to the Sheriff and ordered him 
to empanel non-related adult males who had showed up for the trial. The 
judge was soon able to seat a jury, most of whom just happened to be 
former Confederate soldiers from the company in which McAlpin had 
served. Just one juryman ex-buddy could have hung the jury, but there 
were enough to give a clear “NOT GUILTY.” So McAlpin boy returned to 
Smith County, scot-free. This ends the story as I, Granville Hough, 
recall it. (Martha Miller remembers the Jury aquitted McAlpin, as the 
only thing it heard was circumstantial evidence.)
Trivial Question: “Did McAlpin boy get to keep the pony?” No one said; 
however, McAlpin boy is said to have grown into a swaggering bully 
around Mize, especially shunned and feared when he got drunk. So it 
would have been in his character to keep the pony. Actually, if he 
admitted he did not find the pony or get it legally from Thornton, his 
whole fabrication of an alibi became suspect. A former Mize schoolmate, 
Harold Hopkins, has kindly provided me with the names of Jasper Thornton 
as the victim, “Little Bill” McAlpin as the accused, and Bill McAlpin, 
Sr, as the father (or grandfather). Harold also remembers the story 
quite differently. What he heard in childhood was that McAlpin and 
Thornton were travelling together to some unrecalled destination when 
the tragic events occurred. McAlpin returned with the horse and claimed 
he had purchased it from Thornton.
Harold also recalls that many people believed “Little Bill” was guilty 
and were literally up in arms about it. At some time later, “Little 
Bill” McAlpin was shot dead by unknown assailants in or near Mize. Part 
of the story is that when “Little Bill” was shot down, he grimaced and 
said, “Tell ‘em who shot me,” then expired. With the situation as noted 
here, these words made no sense. Art McAlpin was told by a relative that 
years later, someone in Chrystal Springs had made a deathbed confession 
to killing Jasper Thornton. Art was also told that “Little Bill” was 
killed when he stepped off a train at the Abel siding of the Laurel 
Branch which was about two miles west of Mize.
The death story of “Little Bill” is new information to me. I must have 
heard it in childhood but it did not remain in my memory. I often heard 
it said about another McAlpin boy whose mis-behaviors were well 
documented that he was trying to act like “Wild Bill McAlpin.” I 
probably mis-heard the name and it should have been “Little Bill.” Or 
the person talking could have confused “Little Bill” McAlpin with “Wild 
Bill” Sullivan, another Beat 3 character of similar disposition and 
equally violent behavior.
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. Thornton4, 10 Jul 2005.

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Granville, I'm sure you've seen this version before. Did you know it's 
on the Internet? Here 'tis. Harold

Wild Bill Sullivan: King of the Hollow - Google Book Search 
<http://books.google.com/books?id=HnCcwJ9Ds9QC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=little+bill+mcalpin&source=web&ots=aTEQogZYDK&sig=nQ5Vpzlc48O2ko0rZ34Rbbh7Brg>

(GWH: I had the book and read the story, but it had mentioned no 
Sullivans: so I had no one to tie it to. I sort of forgot all about it 
and gave the book away. Looking at the story again, it does support the 
gang theory, with the possibility of a gang member dying later in 
Chrystal Springs. Another point of interest is the statement that it was 
"about 5:00 pm on the 29th day of search. This would account for time to 
publish the known facts in the Smith County papers and to get people 
from miles away to get involved in the search (as in Upper Cohay and 
Little Cohay). There is some preciseness about W. Beavers finding the 
body, beheaded and knifed but near some briers. This coincides loosely 
with other versions. The date of Little Bill's death and the number of 
shots in his body differ from his gravestone, but may be more accurate. 
One inconsistency is the gang's singing "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All 
Here." According to Google, that refrain became popular about 1917 as 
part of "Alabama Jubilee." .

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Granville,

My Grandfather was Zollie Bill McAlpin, he was brother to Farrell, 
Drummonds, and the rest. My father is Arthur C. McAlpin Sr., his 
brothers are L.C. and Zollie "Bill" McAlpin Jr..
Every telling of the "Little Bill" McAlpin tale, that I've come across, 
is a little bit different from the rest -- everyone seems to tell it a 
little differently.
Other than yours -- which I like, by the way and I think closer to the 
truth -- and the account that appeared in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger on 
the 18th of December 1949 (I looked up the date) by Harold Hopkins, 
there was an account of the story published a few years back in 1980 in 
a book called /"Wild Bill Sullivan: King of the Hollow"/ by Ann Hammons 
of Titton, Georgia. You can look it up at Amazon.com and actually read 
her account on line. She apparently got the story from her father Virgil 
M. Howell.
As to it being Abel or Mize where "Little Bill" was shot, others have 
always told me Mize, and Mrs. Hammons' book says it was Mize, but in the 
newspaper article that Harold Hopkins wrote back in 1949, he says it was 
Abel. I don't know who Mr. Hopkins' source was, but because it is the 
earliest account of the story, I went with it.
Billie Jean McAlpin Hughes of Mize told me a few years back -- and I 
called her last night to confirm this -- that her father, William Enos 
McAlpin (son of Jesse Napoleon McAlpin) told her that a man in Crystal 
Springs confessed to the Thornton killing, as well as others, before he 
died. Billie Jean's husband, Harlon Hughes, confirmed this as well, but 
neither could remember the name of the man from Crystal Springs, but 
William Enos McAlpin had known the man's name and had shared it with 
them, but they can no longer recall it.
When I find the time I hope to delve into the this story further, I find 
it all very fascinating.
Granville, if you have any stories -- that you'd be willing to share --- 
about growing up in Low, I'd love to hear them. Except for my two 
remaining Great-Aunts, the rest of the family are gone now, and it's 
getting harder for those who are left to recall the stories they heard 
as children. Alas, I wish I, or someone, had started long ago collecting 
these family stories, but....
Thank you for sharing yours with me. I enjoy hearing from you.
Take care, Art McAlpin

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On Jul 5, 2005, at 4:45 PM, Granville Hough wrote:

*I'm glad there is a version of the story where someone else admitted 
they did the deed? I never heard that.
About the place Little Bill was shot and killed, Harold thought it was 
in Mize. I never heard or remembered the story of his death at all. I do 
remember a siding named something like Abel. That may not be it, but it 
is close. I lived at Low, next stop toward Mize was Milton, and there 
was another stop which I believe was something like Able. I have no idea 
why anyone would stop there. I would guess Birds and Hughes families 
lived near there. The family of Drummond's wife was one of the families.
If someone else confessed to the Thornton killing, the plot becomes more 
complicated. When was the deed? whoever did it?
How was Thornton killed? shot, bludgeoned, stabbed, or strangled? what 
was the motive? It is said there is no statute of limitations on murder. 
I guess that is why we pursue the truth today. By the way, which of the 
children was your father? or grandfather. I best knew Beatrice, Etha, 
and Farrell in the home. The others had established their families and 
moved away, but I knew them all. When I got back to MS two years ago, I 
saw the McAlpin Reunion Center and thought it was the greatest idea. I 
had never seen a family reunion center like that. It is where Drummond 
lived when I was quite young. With my regards, Granville.

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Cousin Granville:
I hope this finds your health improved.
I was wondering if this Thornton Family was the same as the one that 
Cousin Edna Gieger Thornton married into. She is the Methodist preacher 
that along with her husband Elwood, wrote the Gieger Book which details 
the location of Jessie and Tabitha (Martin) Gieger's gravesites on the 
banks of the Okatoma, south of Collins?? Last I heard, she was in an ALZ 
nursing center in Nashville or Memphis...I had written to her but got no 
response...Her niece, Beverly Burton of the Houston area, told me that 
she didn't remember anyone. That was several years ago, so she may have 
passed on.
I enjoy your posts...Gerry.

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I did not know the Thornton family very well, but I can say this about 
the ones I knew near Mize. They were Methodist and lived in Methodist 
communities. The family included some early leaders of Smith County and 
descendant families were always involved in Politics. We always said, 
somewhat privately, if the Thorntons has spent more time working on 
their farms and less time on politics, they would have done better. But 
I now think we just had Baptist prejudices. As an aside, Great Uncle 
Cyrenus Hough married a Thornton as his second wife, and they had a 
large family before moving to LA and AR. These were handsome and 
intelligent children, so we have good opinions on that branch of the 
Thornton family. With my regards, Granville.

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God has two dwellings, one in heaven 
and the other in a meek and grateful heart. Isaac Walton.