Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

g-""" -MM vim jj The Ku-I H?MM -WM MM T-rMft (By MRS. S. S. UNDER. Member Union, S. C., C The Ku-Klux Klan was the title ol a secret organization, which existec after the close of the War Between tin States, from 18li(> to 1872. It first became known as an activt organization in Tennessee in 18l>1 when Gen. N. B. Forrest was tlx originator, and they had used the Ku Klux to suppress the impudent aix obstreperous negroes who had begut to be abusive to the white people am committing crimes and depredations the governor of the State, Win. G Brownlow, called upon the Unite* States military authorities to suppress violence and public disturbance in tlx State, which were traced to this or ganization. At the close of the war various so cieties of a political character wen formed in the States of Alabama, Mis sissippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky North and South Carolina, Tennessei and Texas, under the names of th< Knights of the White Camelia, White Brotherhood, Constitutional Unioi Guards, Pale Faces, Invisible Fmpires Invisible Circle, etc.. all of which wen eventually lost in the broader scope and mote powerful and permanent in fluence of the Ku-Klux Klan. The Southern people had to have senne form of secret society to com bat the aggressive influence througl the efforts of the carpet-baggers am scalaways, socalled radical leaders, in triguing in the interest sof the per petuation of the power of the Repub Mean party in the Southern States, am throughout the action of the 14th am lath amendments to the eonstitutioi of the United States the Southern white people were endangered in thci homes and its social relations, th< emancipated blacks being considerei in the light of a race angered by lonj and bitter servitude, now armed an* equipped by law and public sentimen of the carpetbaggers, and only wait ing opportunity for an uprising am to grasp the balance of power amoiv. me nign spimeu people to wnom tne> hail been slaves for more than t\v< centuries, hut in justice to some of tin colored people many of them wen trusty and faithful to their old mas tors and mistresses. The oath taken by a member of th? Ku-Klux is as follows: "I, (name1 before the great immaculate Judge 01 Heaven and Earth, and upon the hoh evangelists of Almighty Clod, do, 01 my own free will and accord, sub scribe to the following sacred, bind . / , ing obligations: 1st. I am on th< side of justice and humanity and con stitutional liberty, as bequeathed t( us by our forefathers. 2nd. 1 rejee and oppose the principles of the Rad ical party, 3d. I pledge aid to i brother of the Ku-Klux Klan in sick ness, distress or pecuniary embarrass moot. Females, friends, widows am their households shall be the spuria object of my care and protection 4th. Should 1 ever divulge, or cuusi to be divulged, any of the secrets ol this order, or any of the foregoing ob ligations, I must meet with the fear fill punishment of death, and traitor' doom, which is death, death, death a the hands of the brethren." These oi> ligations were faithfully canicd oui and disobedience of the orders of thi chiefs of the Klan was actually vis ited with death. The members of th< order were obliged to deny their mem nesses in a court of law, awl wen obligated to clear each other by then testimony in such cases or when act ing as jurors. Tis said that at one time there wen r.r.0,000 members of the Ku-Klu\ Klai in the Southern States, of which num her 40,000 are said to have been ii Tennessee. For an account of the Ku-Klux Klai in Union county, in which we, at members of the Win. Wallace chapter are most interested, I am ureally in debtcd to the chief of the Klan in thi; county, our fellow citizen, .1. (!. Long Sr. The first instance that occurred i> Union cour.tv wa 'he killinu* "f a no gro, Andy McCravey, by tt party o men then designated as "Slicker-.' sometime in December, Ami; was accused of having set fire t< Henry Furgison's gin house, therein destroying it and its contents, and a that time of the year held consider able cotton. Andy was killed m Dutchman's creek near the road about midway between the home o Aaron Smith and Major Klihu Smill.li Ilis mother, Mary McCravey, swor out a warrant at the instigation o her young master, John W. McC'ravej for Linear Under. FJiphas L. Lindoi Sum Sumner, their father-in-law, am a young man living with Linear I n <l"r at the time l?v the name of Fran' W o-ton. Frank Weston was reall the only one of the party arrested tha was guilty, although the others woi in ympathy with the organi'/.atioi Andy McCravey wa one of the games negroes the Slickers had to ronton with, as he fought them to the lasl so they had to kill him. Amongs other disorderly crimes was the whip ping of a white man, Klias Harrisoi who lived about r?00 yards across th Union county line in SpartanlSur county, near E. L. Linder's old honru He was whipped for buying seed col ton at night from negroes. "Truth is stranger than fiction" i an old adage, and it seems rathe singular to me that I should have bee appointed to write a paper on th Ku-Klux Klan when the first men ai r?*"" ?MM """"y ^ Oux Klan jj < r?>ft(M -mix Mix ??M>nr-?1 t of William Wallace Chapter. U. D. C. )ctober 17. 1916.) i |C ., . I m i J. GIDEON LONG, SR.. 1 Chief of l)en No. 500. ; * h rested and thrown in jail in Union county should have been my husband's a * father, E. L. binder, his elder brother, t ^ Linear binder, and their father-in-law, n " Sum Sumner. During the time these c men were incarcerated in the jail, my v ' informants thinks in February, J the jail was without lire or methods ? of heating, and no beds or cots were t supplied them. They were given some e old dirty blankets and the bare doors a 1 constituted their beds. It was bitter e 1 cold, and Sum Sumner beinjr an old t I man past 00. Col. I. G. McKissick, a I warm personal friend, hearing of their I arrest, brought to them in broad day- t light, through the main street of Un- s j ion, his only feather bed and some t j quilts. These were placed in front of 3 him and he was riding his old gray J horse. This act of kindness was never a forgotten by them nor their descend- t ants, and they remained his life-long ta j friends and in the words of the poet, r r "Though lost to sight, to memory c j dear." His wife, Mrs. Sallie McKissick (nee Sallie Foster) and Mrs. Cor- 1 1 nelia binder were girlhood friends and F I Limestone college mates. I r About this time two negroes, Dan * . and Sam Thompson, were lynched over ^ ^ {near the Thompson gold mine in Bo- P . gansville township, as they had made , violent threats and abused old man P . Berry Jones, who was an old bachelor, ' with no near relatives to protect him. t This old bachelor was supposed to be c possessed of considerable means, and ' j. had money hid, they thought, and the I' , negroes had threatened him boldly if r j. he did not give them the money or a something to compensate them, they a would take his life. a , There were numerous warrants ^ . sworn out against the white citizens J5 y about this time for participating in * ( those administrations of corporal pun- ' . ishment, but they eluded arrest, among f t them being Frank and Anthony Shand, . who escaped to Arkansas and never n . returned. ! During the time that Sum Sumner, 1 Linear hinder and Eliphas hinder and . Frank Weston were confined in the jail ^ numerous kindnesses were shown f them bv friends and well wishers. One j( - was a five-gallon jug of home-made j - peach brandy sent them by Col. .los- ^ < eph Cist and many other dainties. Af{ ter several weeks' confinement these ^ - men were given a preliminary hear- p t ing. hieut. Shorey told them if they'd ^ pay him $100 apiece nothing would ^ - come of the case, but they did not acj cept his proposition and were dis- Q - charged and owed their acquittal (j - largely to Mrs. Stoud and her sister, then 14 and 10-year-old girls, as witr nesses and Steadman and Arthur as (j - attorneys. j When the Slickers were returning ^ ^ from the killing of Andy McCravey , they stopped at Jno. W. McCravey's . house and failing to get him to the , door, fired several shots from their Winchesters into the door. The place s is now owned by Will l'rown, who is ^ a second cousin of I*r. I.indcr, and I j have had the pleasure of putting my ' fingers in the bullet holes. It is quite j, a pretty country home and is only a -hurt distance over the line in Spar- ( tanhurg county. > There was hardly a family in those days in I'nion county that did not have ( ,. a representative connected with the | !. Slickers, now merged into the Ku- j, Klux Kan in some form or other. j Mr. Jim Fernandez and his son. , ' Harry Fernandez, Asa Smith, his son. v Hilly Smith, Lliphas Smith, Sum Sumner. Dolphus (Jregory, I >. Cist and < numerous others were constituted as a portion of the Slickers, and they * f ( f^ ( ; /7S\ i / " \ 1 k j \ ' 1 s - - - ir J. GIDEON LONG, SR., n > ie One of C'apt. Townnend'a 16-Year- ( --1 Old Itoya. I vere organized to keep the negroes in subjection and to protest the white vomen and children. One of the tenets if the order was that no person of olor could belong to it. To several icgroes where they were impudent or nisbehaved, they administered cor>oral punishment. Ex-Sheriff J. G. Long, Sr., organzed the first Ku-Klux Klan in Union ounty. Mr. J. Bank Lyle, who was l teacher at Limestone Springs, S. |C., vas the Grand Cyclops of South Carilina and then resided at Limestone Springs, S. C. He also organized the "iorth Carolina Ku-Klux Klan. J. G. Long, Sr., sent his Knight lawk or courier, Dr. Charles Sims, iow of (^owpens to Limestone Springs o get the full data as to the organiation of the Ku-Klux Klan in Union ounty, which county was larger than t is now, as it comprised the present Jnion county and a part of Cherokee county. Dr. Charles Sims irought the creed, signs, even the :rip, and the first den was organized it Jonesville, S. C., and was called )en 500. They kept up the organizaion until it was disbanded, and ob- . treperous negroes either had tn ho. lave or leave the county. Mr. Long begs to differ with the uthor, Thomas Dixon, in the dramaization of "The Clansman or Birth of i Nation," as to the regalias or niethids of disguise. It might he they cere different in other section but the south Carolina Ku-Klux Klan's reralia was composed of a black robe, he head piece trimmed with white tscalops around the eyes and gave the ippearance of something having pickd the eyes out, the mouth piece rimmed in white and two small white lorns set on top of the head. The lorses were covered all over in black, oo, and the horses' feet were muffled o as not to make any noise when ravelling. The Klan was indebted to rtrs. Bedie Moseley, Mrs. J. G. Long, >1 rs. W. H. iJong and Misses Addie ind Mary Sims. Miss Mary Sims is he wife of R. W. Hamilton. Cloth ifterwards became so scarce, they nade the robe of anything bright they ould obtain. On the first salesday in January, 8<)<?, Mr. Jim Fernandez, 1). C. Gist, iuin Sumner, Asa Smith and J. G. .ong, Sr., all great friends, were siting on the rock steps of the court iouse. Two soldiers of the Yankee ;arrison stationed then in Union couny, down about Mrs. Dora Powell's dace, under the command of Lieut, ihorey, came up with their guns and hese men above named saw a negro ome up and point out to them Jim Fernandez. They came up to arrest Fernandez, who had a couple of Deringers in his pocket. Fernandez rose and refused to surrender or be nested, and walked on down street nd his friends followed. Harry, his on, had gone down street in a place nown as Poverty Flat to get his horse o go home. The soldiers followed Ir. Farnandez down street some disance, ordering him to halt, but as e paid no attention to their com iMim.s uiey nrea on mm. Mr. Ferandez did not return their (ire, but is son Ha'-ry, having Heard the news, ame* dashing up street on his horse nd shot one of the soldiers through he shoulder. He jumped through the irindow of Steen hotel, carrying the nver sash with him. The other sollier made for the camp for reinorcements. The members of the camp started owards town and the citizens and Fernandez's friends had all armed hemselves, but cooler heads got toether and quelled the trouble. They ent a committee to meet the officers f the camp and they told them, "We on't want to hurt you or your men," nd they promised the officers there /ould be no more trouble if the soliers would not appear on the streets, f they had not taken this advice, no elling the amount of bloodshed that light have occurred. One of the parties, Asa Smith, who ecognizcd the negro who had pointed u( Mr. Fernandez to the soldiers, tarted after him. He and Eliphas >inith, who was Meet of foot, caught im over in the woods behind where Ir. W. E. Thomson now resides. The ilan got together and took the negro p in the Meansville road near Dave j I. (list's place and shot him and put ; i n in the Forest. The United States government, afer this occurred, published Mr. Jim ! 'Yrnandez and his son Harry as out-| itv. and offered heavy rewards fori hem, dead or alive, and kept a garison about his plaee for several vreks until after he was killed. It wa.s customary for Jim Fernanlez. and Harry, his son, to go together ind sometimes they would separate it night and this happened to be one ( >f the nights they separated. On the i 57th of January, 180(5, Jim Fernanlez, who had not been feeling well, as J 10 had been having chills, went to | ipeiul the night with Messrs. John and | it. F. Kennedy, two brothers who ken* i large mill on the creek. Neither of i hem were married at this time. The loxt morning just before the break of' lay. Mr. Fernandez, and Mr. H. F. j Kennedy had been out and just re-j .urned and were sitting in a room j talking by the light of a candle, when mmeone knocked at the door. Mr. j Fernandez, said to Mr. Kennedy. "I tm going out, blow out the light." Mr. j Kennedy said. "Wait, maybe you ma\ j [ret a favorable way to slip out," as j mey suspected it was a Yankee oni?er. Mr. Kennedy went to the door, after blowing out the candle, and opened it. The officer, I.ieut. Shorey, said, "Strike a li^ht," and Mr. Kennedy did so. Lieut. Shorey asked, 'Is Mr. Fernandez here?" Mr. Kennedy ,not wishing to mislead him, and thinking perhaps Mr. Fernandez had erotten out, replied, "He has been here." Just at that instance a report | TN OUR New ] | in the ce! # . .It was dren) and ft today, 1 *'*f This < ^ ^ of existen was harm] | Anoth ?is slow] | , J the same i ^ The al easy nowa pure ceres | Unlik< drink con substance. | Postur, sands of tl son rules ; I Your ai That's the way make for you, interested in are. Every give; satisi and we c that t We will ma VJ And an extra grade as you, upon the payr The same p grades. Our regular, p $5.50 to $1 I.OC If you don't f| use, you may h or friend mea give them awa; Call upon our this plan e * For Clothes that a w Columbia Tailo nr. ^ II i-lfcW. P. BO vammmmmmam of a jrn11 was head, fired at the ha door of the dining room. They ail r; round the house and one of the si diers said, "W've killed a man ci here," and Lieut. Shorey took t light and asked Mr. Kennedy if th was Fernandez. Mr. Kennedy replii f'Yes, that is he." The man who st him was Billy Otterson, of Maine, a he fired the shot so close to his f;i that the powder burn was visible the hi idee of his nose; the hall rang upwards and lodged in the brain never regained consciousness and h< ed nearly all day. He died the 2* of January, 186f>. The young mi Billy Otterson, was afterwards trai ferred omewhere else, as he was n< er seen in Union again. Hari\ Fernandez had spent t night with J, (1. Long, Sr., and \vh at breakfast table on the morning the 2Kth of January. I8(W?. Mr, W. Thomfofi came to Mr, bong's do< his countenance was haggard and de and he asked Mr. F.ong if Harry F nandez was there. Upon receivi word lhat he was Mr. Thomson sa "Tell him to come out; I have t neWs to tell him," and he inforrr him his father was mortally wound Harry Fernandez and J. G. Loi Sr., had a couple of 8-shot Spen rifles they had captured, and tl mounted theor horses and went o1 to Mr. John and B. F. Kennedy's pla The neighborhood came in and p f . great-great-grandfathers' England families had a c liar. > frpely offered to guests ( 1 freely partaken of, even sld-time custom gradually ce, for our forefathers re r,ii LUAt ier old-time custom cofl y passing in the same fash reason. bandonmentof coffee drinl days by the use of Instant d beverage with the coffe e coffee, tihis purely Am< tains no "caffeine" or ot n is now used daily in te le best of American homes and health is valued. id Our Clothes jE we term all garments that we ^ because we are just as much Ca the good results as you garment we produce must faction in every detail, >bligate ourselves to see /HM his is accomplished ke you a suit to measure, {^ alue $18.00 for $13 50 pair of pants, of the same r suit or overcoat, is yours I i| nent of an additional I |S $2 00 f| reposition holds good in all tMH irices for these pants are from I. want the pants for your own ave your father, brother, son sured for them and sell or Manager at once and have pit xplained to you in detail V ire cheapest?And Clothes that are best r-Made Garments?Excel all the rest | rri - LUMB1A IAILORING < BO, Manager 1 t-l< .pared Mr. Fernandez's body for burial. !ul The military authorities sent word t)!- they were coming to arrest Harry ut Fernandez at the old Fair Forest he graveyard, at his father's funeral, but iat to forewarn is to forearm. Harry ad. Fernandez and J. (?. Long. Sr., went iot over the country and gathered torjij gether 150 men of the Ivlan and orl(.(. ganized and armed themselves with o?i 'guns. Over 1,000 people were present t.(i at the graveyard resolved that Harry If- 1 Fernandez should not be arrested, st-1 Harry Fernandez left South CarIthjnlina shortly afterwards for Texas in. married and had two sons, James and i;,- Harry, and lived in Lamar county, fie jv- was afterwards killed hy a young man he had educated, Joseph Yates, and lie was buried near Seottsville, Texas, ale After the orgagnixation of the Kuof Klux Klan, in 18<il>, R. J. Scott, a K. carpetbagger from the State of Ohio, or: who was a Republican, had all the lie, negroes francished and of course they er- outnumbered the white people and ng usurped the reins of government from iid. the white people, alAnost confiscating >ad the property of the white citizens by led taxation. He organized the colored ed. militia all over the State and equipped ng, them with all the latest implements cer of warfare. They drilled all over the ley country. They commenced depredaver tions and shot up people's residences, ice. among them being the home of J. H. re- Gallman, and two young ladies, who time many ask of rum as coffee is | r passed out ? cognized it ~ee drinking ion and for dng is made Posturn y the e-like taste. *rican table ^ her harmful ns of thou; where rea ____j ^ J I m\ STORES Jj A Company | Union, S. C. || wmmmmtm wmmmm were sleeping in their beds when the shots penetrated, through the quilts they were covered with. The negroes all belonged to what was called the "Union League," a secret society, and held their meetings on different plantations. On the night ,of :ilst of December, 18G7, Mr. J. G. Long, Sr., who was a young unmarried man, and then residing ten miles north of Union and clerked for Lynn & Co.. of .lonesville, and slept in the back of the store. This night, or rather just before day, as it was 2 a. m., an old trusty negro who waited on Mr. Bonner and Mr. Ijong in the store, knocked at the door. Mr. Long opened the door and saw that the negro was much excited and he said. i-vi. rnu in, noss, ior uoas sake let me in." Mr. Long let him in and asked him what was the matter. He said, "Last night I went down to Mr. Berry's place and joined the Union League and after I was initiated and we had gotten through the program, the Union League blacklisted J. G. Long, Sr., R., E. Brewton and Dr. , Charles Sims," and the negro militia were going to visit us between that and daylight. Mr. iJong dressed immediately and got three of his brothers, Mr. Brewton and Dr. Charles , Sims, who then was at Grindal Shoals, five miles north of Jonesville and Mr. Long sent a courier after him. (Continued on page 15.)