DARK “TEXAS” A PART OF SULLIVAN COUNTY

There is a place in Sullivan County called Texas. It is a long deep hollow south of Riddle's Creek, and in this gulch a number of families have lived.

My first trip to Texas was in 1892, when in the month of June at about 9 o'clock at night a runner came through our neighborhood asking for a volunteer who would go to a Texas in a time of need. Occupants of a house there had quarreled over a dog being allowed to come into the house and one of the men in the family had been killed. When my two elder brothers and I arrived at the house the man was not yet dead, but he lived only a few minutes. He was said to have been killed with a stick of stove wood, and there were two other men involved as defendants.

I stayed there until the next day and helped carry the corpse to a wagon, which conveyed the body to the home of the widow. At the trial, held in Blountville, one of the defendants was sentenced to the penitentary and the other was set free.

The second trip to “Texas” was made for a similar cause, and only a short time afterward. Again a young fellow had run to us from a distance of about five miles, and told us that another man was killed in the very same place, and no person would venture to go inside. I quit my work in the field and started on my way toward Texas. When I came to the house, it was told me by the family that the mad man had cut his throat with a razor. Two other men arrived soon after I did and the three of us washed and shaved the dead man, stayed until the corpse was prepared for burial, and we helped carry him out of the place called “Texas”. But during that night, the women who were trying to prepare burial clothes had no experience in making these garments and they asked for a volunteer to go to the home of Mrs. D. 0. Shipley, about three miles away in order to get the clothes finished. I agreed to go. On this trip we had to feel our way along the path on a very black night and we cane back, likewise groping, hearing sounds, seeing curious objects, but fortunately we did not believe in ghosts.

After that trip I thought I would never take another to “Texas”, but I changed my mind about 30 years later, when I heard that a terrible fight had occurred in the "lower part of Texas" and a man was badly hurt. The doctor of the neighborhood told me about the man, and said he had tried for three days to get someone to go there with him and had no success. So I told him I would go. Wounds on the man were severe, and I helped the doctor dress them.

I truly hope I will never have to go to Texas on such circumstances again, but in our younger days we boys very often were called upon to serve as undertakers. The writer does not know how “Texas” ever got its name but I have often thought it's name should have been “Kentucky” instead.