MR. HOPKINS TELLS STORY OF REVEREND WARREN
STANDOUT WILD TURKEY HUNTER OF HIS DAYS

There are some recollections and history of the Rev. H. Clay Warren who lived and died near Hickory Tree.

Uncle Clay, as the youngsters of his period knew him, settled on Sellers Creek, and was a farmer and Free Will Baptist preacher. For many years he had charge of several churches and preached in many groves.

Married first to Sarah J. Elliott, Uncle Clay was the father by this union of Matt, Tennessee, Lella, Torn, Lucrette and Eli, all dead now except Lella and Tom of Bristol. A son, Hobert Warren, by a second wife, Sarah J. Sharrett, still lives at Eaton, Ohio.

Uncle Clay sometimes preached on top of Holston Mountain at a place called the Rye Patch. On one trip returning down the mountain afoot, he found two very young people. Henry S. Carrier and Susie Hinkle waiting for him. After he handed him a marriage license, he pre-formed the marriage ceremony and pronounced them man and wife.

The first member of the church and the first man he baptised, was J. H. Hopkins now known as Preacher Bob Hopkins of Bristol, Tennessee.

This writer remembers the Carter county people wanted him to come to a place called Pierce's School House, to hold a service meeting. I was only a teen-ager but he asked me to go with him as I had some acquaintance there.

It was almost the appointed hour before we arrived on foot, across the mountains and was nearly dark. He sug-gested we go on in the school house and when we did we discovered several people had already arrived. They kept coming until the old school was well filled.

After services we decided to go home with one of my uncles, Joe Elliott. Well, Uncle Joe loved to hold up the morals of his neighbors and going along the old mud road he began to praise his country, telling the preacher they had such nice people, nobody drank or used cursed or profane language and that everybody would treat you real nice.

About the time he got the preacher interested, there were a bunch of young men behind us who got into a quarrel and in a few minutes one of them was using plenty of curse words, so Uncle Joe, the preacher and a grandson of Uncle Joe, known as Little Joe Robinson, who was then studying medicine, stopped and waited until the cursing crowd came up with us.

The preacher was the first one to say "boys, ought you all to be ashamed, fussing with each other, and don't you know you will have to ask the good Lord to forgive you is you receive that forgiving Spirit"? They all seemed to heed the preacher's nice talk except one. He seemed to be loaded with the evil spirit and said "pre-acher if you just knew what that d--- fellow said to me it would be different". Then Little Joe, the young doc-tor took matters up for the preacher. He just walked right in to the face of the man and said "fellow you should be ashamed to talk that way along the public road and in front of a good preacher", and just kept lecturing until he lost his own temper and said "if I hear one more word like that out of you I will knock h--- out of you". Well, anyway, the fussing stopped.

Preacher Warren was one man of the Hickory Tree Sec-tion loved by all groups of people and was not known to have an enemy.

He was a cook in the Civil War, and after that was found so useful in the neighborhood, he built large to-bacco barns and fired cured tobacco. He also built a large log house that is still standing.

Uncle Clay was known as the best wild turkey hunter of all the section. His method of hunting turkey was unlike now. He would bait them at different places and after the turkeys found the bait he would build blinds from which to shoot them. He generally killed two to four at one shot.

Another way he would bait then was this. He would bait one place continually with oats or corn until tur-keys began coming in large numbers. Then he would dig a trench and fill it with bait. At the upper end of the trench, he would build a pen from six to eight feet square and cover the top with heavy timber, weighting it down with rocks. In the center of this he would put plenty of bait. This led the turkeys to follow the trench to the edge of the pen, their heads close to the bait on the ground, and on into the pen. After eating their fill, they straightened up but did not have sense enough to lower their heads and get out of the pen.

Many turkeys were caught in these turkey pens and at one time, Uncle Clay caught 14.

He also hunted with his rifle hardly ever missing. On one occasion, he crippled a bird in the mount-ain flats at a place called the Tar Kill Gap, breaking one of the turkey's legs. The bird was not able to raise to fly, but could use the one good leg with his wings to make good speed. Uncle Clay followed it but had a two mile chase before he could run it down.

The number of turkeys he killed in his time was estimated at 100. The old "hog" rifle he used in hunting can still be seen at the home of his son T. C. Warren, 222 Cedar Street, Bristol.

This writer has also killed a few turkeys. I recall one of my turkey hunts that I am sure I can never forget. There were three of us boys together, Bill Wawood, Tom Warren and myself. When we found the trail of a large gang of turkey tracks in the snow near the top of the Grandfather Knobs, the trail finally left and crossed Low Gap Branch, and onto another large knob called then the Grandmother Knob.

I had followed them before and knew the route they had gone and when we got between the two knobs, they had to cross the main road about half way between where my father lived and Warren1 s father lived. So when we reached the road, I acted unfair with the other two boys, I told them "if those old turkeys are going in that direction I'm going on home", knowing that as soon as I got out of their sight I could take a nigh cut and get a mile ahead of the other two, and by doing so could have it all to myself.

My plan worked good. When I ran across the trail, I looked in the direction it led and saw the turkeys going over the top of a ridge not two hundred yards ahead of me. I soon got in sight where they were going down a steep hill and fired at a large hen.

I never knew how long I was "dead". Anyway, when I came to life I did not even know where I was and it looked to me as if there was a half gallon of blood at the end of my nose. My right shoulder seemed to be broken, but I finally got to my feet again. I locked for my old single barrel muzzle loading shot gun, but no gun could I see. My first thought was that someone had stolen my gun while I was "dead". I looked for tracks in the snow bat no tracks were there but my own.

So I was completely puzzeled as to what had become of my gun. I walked a few feet back to the top of the steep ridge, and about that time the sun shone out good and clear. I happened to look about 30 yards down the bill and I saw something bright. Going to it I found my gun lodged over a log, the hammer clear back in the last notch, the guards on the stock nearly off and the barrel bent badly.

I finally got down off the knob in the direction of where my turkey ought to be, finding plenty of feathers and blood. I followed this slow and at the foot of the place where the turkey had stopped and died, there was a man's track.

Whoever it was that got my turkey I never knew even to this day. I did well to get home, much less follow a wild turkey thief. But I can say from that day to this I have never taken advantage of any hunter, and never will I keep a secret from two hunting partners. But Tom Warren is still living and if he never reads this he may never know.