[Granville-Hough] 10 Oct 2009 - Lost Thornton Boy part 2

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

  Lost Thornton boy (continuation)

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. (continued)