Chapter IV: Part 4

McGrath then told the man he was from Mississippi; the negro he had with him was all he had; that they were about to sell him for a security debt; that he had to run him to save him; and that he had to travel a long distance and was much fatigued, both himself and horses, and that he would like to rest himself and horses a few days. This was agreed to. He then told the landlord that he was fearful they might follow him and that he did not wish to let many people know that he was there. He also told him that he would like to sell his negro, if he could get a good master for him, and that he would like to sell his two horses and go home by water, by way of New Orleans, Mobile and up the Tombigbee river. He also promised his landlord, if he would help him, and effect a good sale of his negro and horse, that he would make him a present of one hundred dollars, and that the negro might work in his farm while they were looking around. This was also agreed to, and it was concluded to rest the horses a week.

McGrath and the landlord (Mr. Chance was his name) rode up the bayou to see a blacksmith that wanted to purchase a negro. They traveled about thirty miles; saw the man and made a conditional trade with him, to sell him the negro for thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, if the negro could “blow and strike” in the shop, which the negro said he could. They then returned to Chance’s, took the negro and the two horses and returned to the blacksmith. He tried the negro one day and said he was satisfied, and paid McGrath his money. The negro then told his new master to buy the horse that he had ridden; there was no better horse in the world. The master inquired the price; McGrath told him two hundred dollars; but as he had bought the negro he might have the horse for one hundred and seventy-five dollars. The blacksmith told him he would have to borrow one hundred and twenty-five dollars, but he knew where he could get it if they would wait until the next day; and he thought he knew a man that would give two hundred dollars for McGrath’s horse. They consented to wait, and sure enough the next morning quite early the blacksmith returned with the money and a man with him, who soon closed the trade with McGrath for his horse, and they paid him the money for the two horses, saddles and bridles, three hundred and seventy five dollars, making the whole sum seventeen hundred and twenty-five dollars. McGrath gave the negro one hundred dollars as a present, and asked him if he was satisfied. He said he was well satisfied. McGrath and Mr. Chance they left for Chance’s residence, which they reached that night.

M’GRATH IN DISGUISE.

On their way down McGrath made a bargain with Chance to carry him in his little wagon to the ferry opposite Vicksburg, for fifteen dollars. The next day he paid Chance one hundred and fifteen dollars; made the landlady, Mrs. Chance, a present of ten dollars for her trouble; and after dinner they started for Vicksburg landing. He told Chance he wished to travel in disguise for fear he might be followed, and for that purpose Chance procured for him a negro’s old jacket and trowsers, and an old flapped hat and Chance’s old saddle bags; “and in this garb,” said McGrath, “I landed on the other side of the river last night and camped there with my friend Mr. Chance. We parted early this morning, he for home, and I for this place; and here I am this 25th day of January, 1841, and” said he, “I have kept a regular diary of my travels ever since we parted on Red River, before the camp meeting,” and he showed us his memorandum book.

Now, Wages, McGrath and I had all got together again. We had realized over twenty-five thousand dollars by our hypocrisy, stealing, burning and murdering. We advised McGrath to change his clothes and put on a genteel suit, and procure a pair of green goggles, so as to disguise himself, and we repaired each to our hotels. The next day McGrath came out in a new suit, with his green goggles, and we should not have known him ourselves, had we not been on the look out for him. He came to the same hotel where I boarded. We advised McGrath to leave in the first boat for St. Louis, where we were to meet him on a certain day; but each of us was now to travel in separate boats. McGrath set out the next day; two days after Wages left; and one day after that I took a boat, and we all met at the time appointed. We remained in St. Louis a few days, and changed our clothing to that of common laborers.

MURDER OF O’CONNOR ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

We all took passage on a steamboat bound from St. Louis to Pittsburg; landed at the mouth of the Wabash, and traveled up that river to the town of ——, where we fell in with an old Irishman by the name of O’Connor. He was a western trader, and had two large flat boats loaded with flour, bulk pork, onions, potatoes, butter, some whiskey, and a variety of other articles, to the amount of over five thousand dollars.

With him McGrath soon formed acquaintance, and came the “country” over him. His brother Irishman, McGrath, represented to him that our occupation was that of working flatboats; and that we had made many trips from Missouri, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. We were not long in making a contract with him, to help him down with his boats. He had contracted for one hundred barrels of whiskey, which he could have if he could pay five hundred dollars. We advanced him some money and he made the purchase and gave his note for the balance. We put the whiskey on board the boats, and all things being ready we set off down the river.

He employed two extra hands to help us down to the mouth of the river, where he discharged them. We went on down, two hands on each boat, until we passed the shoal at Smithland, the mouth of the Cumberland river, when we lashed the two boats together and took our watches by turns, two at a time. We floated all one day and part of a night, and came to the mouth of the Ohio, between midnight and daylight.

It was the turn for Wages and I to take the watch that morning. Now, on the Mississippi River, all we had to do was to keep the boats in the middle of the stream, with a light on deck to guard against steamboats. The old Irishman, the owner of the boats, went down into a small cabin in one of the boats, which he had prepared for himself, and laid down in his berth to sleep. He was much fatigued, but before he went to sleep, Wages proposed to him to take a dram of stewed whiskey punch, hot, which he knew to be a favorite beverage with the Irish. The old man consented, and Wages went to work to prepare it. We being on the alert for any and everything, had the opium ready, and gave his bowl a full charge. He drank it down and praised it as very nice, and retired. We then prepared some punch for ourselves and drank it. We then went to an opposite end of the boats and held a consultation, as to who was to make way with the old man, and it fell to my lot to strike the fatal blow!

Oh, God! when I look back, it makes me shudder. Even now it chills the blood in my veins.

It was understood that the deed was to be committed at sunrise, precisely, provided there were no boats of any kind near. By the time we had accomplished our consultation, daylight was making its appearance in the east, and I cannot here describe my feelings. Wages and McGrath discovered my embarrassment, and resorted to another potion of hot whiskey punch, which I drank freely. After I had drank, I went into the old man’s cabin, armed with a small hatchet or lathing axe. The old man was fast asleep, lying on his back; I went up on deck and looked to the east, and saw that the sun was just making his appearance; I returned to the little cabin, raised the hatchet and struck the fatal blow in the centre of the forehead, a little above the eyes. It made a full dent in the skull the size of the hammer of the axe. He uttered a kind of suppressed and strangled shriek and in a very few minutes O’Connor was numbered among the dead.

Now the next business was to dispose of him. This, however did not take us long, for we had some old cast iron grates, that had belonged to a steamboat and which we used to set our cooking pots on. We took two of them and lashed them well together, stripped off his clothing and left his body naked, and tied a strong rope around his neck, and attached that to the cast iron grates.

And oh! the awful scene that ensued! To see a fellow-being who had been one of us so recently; to see his body cast to oblivion, and his soul, then departed, to that “bourne from whence no traveler returns.” Well, or not well it was, I may say. Poor old O’Connor went down with about three hundred pounds of iron attached to him—a little below Wolf Island, not far from Mills’ Point.

We very soon passed New Madrid. On our way down the Mississippi we had several calls of “What boat is that?” “Where are you from?” to which we replied the “Non Such,” and “Red Rover,” from “Independence, Mo.”

Our next business was to dispose of his clothing, his papers, and to so disfigure the boats that they could not be identified. So we took the same “hatchet,” and rubbed off “Non Such” and “Red Rover,” and wrote in their place “Tip,” and “Tyler,” which in those days took well. Thus rigged out, we glided on gently and steadily; we had nothing to fear; we had two flatboats, and they well loaded with produce, worth over five thousand dollars.

To dispose of the boats and cargo was our next business, we well knowing that other boats would be down from the same river inquiring for O’Connor’s boats. We therefore lost no time. We never stopped till we came to the mouth of Red river, where we halted and warped into the mouth and tied up. McGrath mounted his green goggles, blacked his hair and face, so that I could not have known him, only that I was with him. Wages took one of our skiffs and went to Tunica, where he took a steamboat down to Welter’s. In a few days he and Welter returned, and we were not long in closing a trade with him. He gave us four thousand five hundred dollars in his note payable the Fourth of July ensuing for our boats and cargo. One boat was sent down the Atchafalya bayou, and the other down the Mississippi to his residence.

Wages and Welter returned to Welter’s, and McGrath and I remained to take care of the boats. A day or two after Welter sent four of his “strikers” to take charge of the boats; and after dividing the cargoes, one of them left down the river for Welter’s with two of his men on board. We remained on the other until we got an opportunity to have it towed into the Atchafalya bayou, and we then made the best of our way down the river to Welter’s, where we again joined Wages.

We there held a full consultation, and concluded to return to the vicinity of Mobile, lie still for a while, collect and gather up our money and secure it all at one place, where it could be easily got if we should stand in need of it at any time. This brought about the last of May, 1843. We went up to Natchez, landed there, and steered our course through the country by Liberty, Holmesville, Columbia, and on to Allen Brown’s, on Red creek, in the southwest corner of Perry county, Miss., where Wages and I rested until about the last of June, when we started on foot and walked to Pass Christian.

There we took a steamboat to New Orleans; from there up the Mississippi to our old friend Welter’s to fulfill our engagement with Harden on the Fourth of July. We arrived there on the 2d of July, at night. Harden had been there some day or two before us, dodging about rather concealed.

McGrath was either sick, or so feigned himself. We left him at Brown’s, and in the neighborhood. Wages and I often talked about the matter, and we came to the conclusion that he was fearful of meeting some of his brother Methodists on some of the steamboats, and had concluded to keep out of the way. So Wages, Harden and I had a full conference relative to our future course of operations, and came to a final conclusion, and each made a short memorandum in his “diary” in our mystic characters on the evening of the 3d of July.

On the morning of the fourth, Welter informed us that he and his family had an invitation to partake of a “public dinner and ball,” and that he would like to invite us, but was afraid of the enquiries that would be made, of “who we were,” “where we were from,” and “what was our occupation,” &c. He said, “there have been some enquiries about boat loads of produce, and where I purchased so many negroes, and I think we had better be more cautious for some time to come.” He told us that he would furnish us a good dinner at his house and plenty of wine and liquors of the best, and we might enjoy ourselves until he returned next day. We accordingly lived well that day and night. The old gentleman returned with his family next day, about ten in the forenoon, and as he said, much fatigued.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he, “the fourth of July is over; we will to business, if you are ready;” to which we replied, “we were like old souse, always ready!” “Now, your money is ready for you in New Orleans,” says Welter, “and I will go down on the first boat that passes. You must all take separate boats; for,” said he, “the times are squally in this region; the papers are full of rewards for those seven negroes, and there is also a reward for three men, who are supposed to have killed a flatboat man by the name of O’Connor; and if you three travel together you will be sure to be arrested; I will go first and have your money ready. Disguise yourselves as much as possible, and meet me in our rendezvous in four nights after to-night; and tell me what kind of money you want.”

Harden told him “Tennessee bank notes would suit him;” Wages and I told him either Mobile Bank or Bank of Louisiana would do us.

Just at this moment his waiter came to tell him there was a boat in sight. He left immediately for the city. I tied up my head, rubbed some ink around one eye, and put a green silk patch over it, and took a boat the same evening; Harden the next morning; and Wages the evening after. We had our appointed boarding house, where we eat and slept in a private room, where no person but our landlord ever saw us.

At the appointed time Welter met us, and paid us our money. Harden his one thousand dollars and Wages and myself eight hundred dollars in Mobile and New Orleans money. After paying us all, he said: “Now, young men, let me advise you a little. You have done a storming business in your line. You have met with extreme success in everything you have undertaken, and I do assure you that the glass pitcher, in going to the fountain too often, will come back broken eventually; now let me advise you each to return to your homes and friends, collect and realise all your money and exchange it into gold or silver coin, and have it ready for any emergency; keep yourselves secluded as much as possible from the criticisms of the community in which you reside, and the time will wear around when you may turn loose again; but rest assured that I shall have to withdraw all connection with you for the present; my property is ample for the support of myself and family now, and a liberal division among them after I am dead; I wish you well, and hope you will act prudently for the future and not run too great risks.” So saying he gave us each a hearty shake of the hand, and bid us a final adieu. This was our last interview with Welter. Since then we have not seen or heard from him.

Our understanding with Harden was that he was to return to the vicinity of Mobile in the fall or early in the winter. The next morning early Harden, Wages and I paid our landlord and left; Harden up the river to Tennessee, and Wages and I went to the New Basin, took passage on a wood freighting schooner to the Bay of St. Louis, and up Wolf river to a landing in the piney woods. We had provided ourselves with some biscuit, cheese and meat. We landed and walked to Allen Brown’s again, where we landed the second night, very tired. McGrath, when we returned, was over on Black creek at Daniel Smith’s, hard up courting his daughter, Mary Smith, whom he married the next June following. He soon got the word that Wages and I had returned, and came over to Brown’s.

Now we were all easy, with plenty of time to feast and frolic. We soon sent off to Pass Christian for flour, sugar, coffee, and whiskey, too, tobacco, cigars, and other little nicknacks. We first tried our hand at hunting deer and fishing in Red creek, and did kill a few deer and caught some fish, but we found that too fatiguing in that hot season, and we resorted to other means to procure our fresh meat. And the way we slung old Bill Griffin’s fine fat heifers and yearlings was a caution. Their meat was very fat and remarkably fine flavored.

We remained at Brown’s and in the vicinity until after the middle of August, and I don’t believe that old Brown and his family had ever lived so well in his or their lives before. It was then that Wages commenced courting old Brown’s daughter, whom he afterward married; and it was then that Brown made the proposition to Wages to go into the “counterfeiting business;” and I am here compelled to say that the association of Allen Brown with us was the main cause of our exposure, the death of Wages and McGrath, and the annihilation of our clan, and the prime cause of my fate.

Well, we rusticated at Brown’s our time out, and all of us were fully satiated to our heart’s content, and now the time had arrived for us to leave for our places near Mobile. A small consultation as to the way of our departure was necessary, and as McGrath was a member of the church, and had made frequent visits to Brother Smith’s and Brother Bounds, he could go publicly any way, and was to go by way of the back Bay of Biloxi to visit the brethren about Evans’, while Wages and I prepared ourselves with three days provisions, and started one moonlight night—Brown with us, and two of his horses. He went with us about thirty miles that night, and left us in the morning and returned home. We lay-by that day near the road, and started a little before sunset and crossed Pascagoula at Fairley’s ferry before daylight next morning. We were then on our own native hills. We again laid by. The next night we crossed Dog river at Ward’s bridge, and reached home early in the morning. McGrath arrived about ten days after us. Our first business was, after resting awhile, to gather all our money and have a correct settlement and distribution of our funds.

Now it was honor among thieves! I disgorged all into the hands of Wages; he said to McGrath that he knew I had given up all. “Now, McGrath,” said Wages, “shell out.” So McGrath did turn out the seventeen hundred and twenty-five dollars. Wages said to him “where is that gospel money?” to which McGrath replied that the amount was small, and that he thought he ought to retain that for pocket and spending money. Wages then came out upon him in plain terms, and said: “McGrath, you came in with us upon equal terms, and if you wish to bulk or fly back, take your seventeen hundred dollars and leave, but look out for the consequences!” McGrath soon forked over about thirteen hundred dollars more. We had, when properly estimated, thirty-one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. This money was in joint stock between us three, and a proper appropriation and distribution of that sum was what we had next to look to.

“Now,” said Wages, “boys, we have this amount of money, part in possession, and the balance at command. Let us devise some plan to save it; this, however, you may reflect upon. Our next business is to get the whole in possession; when we have done that, our next business is to make the proper disposition of it. So now we have buried at one place four thousand five hundred dollars, and our deposits in bank in New Orleans six thousand six hundred and seventy-five dollars, and what we now have makes our account tally; our next business is to get it altogether. When we have done that we must reflect well; and,” said Wages to me, “James, I would rather that you and McGrath would lie down and sleep until I have all that matter accomplished, for I am fearful of your youthful imprudence, and McGrath’s imprudent Irish brogue to go in blind right or wrong, and always come out at the little end of the horn, as they did at Vinegar Hill, or as Mitchell, Meagher and others did in their recent effort in Ireland to obtain their liberty.” I then proposed to McGrath to give Wages the whole and sole control, to which he finally consented, though, I discovered, with some reluctance.

“Now, boys,” said Wages, “I wish you to consider yourselves upon the world until I return; and I enjoin on you not to commit any unlawful act during the time it may take to realize and gather together our money. For the certainty and uncertainty of life we cannot account; we will therefore deposit what money we have.” So we did—in the ground—and each took fifty dollars for pocket money.

As the whole matter was now understood, McGrath returned to the back Bay of Biloxi, to preaching and stealing, and I remained in the vicinity of Mobile, pretending to burn and sell charcoal; but in fact stealing and feeding a parcel of our loafing and starving clan in Mobile, such as G. Cleveland, and some others of less importance that I could name, but whose names are not worth the pen, ink and paper it would take to write them.

But I will now tell you all about this man G. Cleveland, so far as I know him. When Wages, McGrath and I were in St. Louis, we fell in with this fellow Cleveland. We had seen him before in Cincinnati, but not to form an acquaintance. In St. Louis he was all the time around us—he may have smelt us out. He was then selling spurious money of “New York North River Bank, Schommerhorn, president,” and several other banks of this same stripe. He traveled then in considerable style, with two large leather trunks, and they mostly packed with this spurious money. His portmanteau contained a great variety of “dickeys” and “collars,” and his natural appearance and address always imposed upon a person unacquainted with him. Wages then advised me not to have anything to do with him, as he was a dangerous tool; and he so advised me until the day of his death, but not taking Wages’ advice, Cleveland and his concern got out of me some three hundred dollars, with a faithful promise that I should be defended and protected; that jail doors, grates or bars should not hold me; but that they and their friends would burst asunder everything for me. Now see where his pledge falls. He and his whole concern will not flourish long. I have to suffer death solely for the want of a proper effort being made by them. I now leave Cleveland and the others to the mercy of their own conscience and the censure of the world.

Now to our affairs. Wages had returned to New Orleans, with all our money, and had purchased five barrels of whiskey, in one of which he had placed all the money. He had procured the whole of it in gold, and made a long, slim canvass bag, which he could pass through the bung-hole of the barrel, and in this bag he had placed his gold, mostly sovereigns, and five and ten dollar pieces of American coin. After placing the money in the barrel he put in the bung tight, and nailed on the tin; shipped it as an ordinary barrel of whiskey, and hauled it out to one of our camps, where we opened it, and took out the gold. We had on hand a considerable amount of bank notes of New Orleans and Mobile Banks. We then agreed that Wages should take it all, and exchange it for gold, under pretense of entering land for some company in Mississippi. Wages took his little two-horse wagon, loaded with pickets, and went to Mobile. The first trip he brought home near eight thousand dollars in gold, which was deposited with the rest. I then proposed to Wages and McGrath to make the amount in gold, thirty thousand dollars even, and bury it in some safe place, secure, so that we might have it for any emergency; and in case of the death of one of us, the other two were to share it; and if two died, one had all. So the next trip Wages made to Mobile, he brought the balance to make up the amount. We had three strong kegs made in Mobile, well iron-hooped, and we placed in each ten thousand dollars; filled all the crevices with clean, white sand, headed the kegs up, gave them three coats of paint, and after they were thoroughly dry, we buried them in a thick swamp on Hamilton’s Creek. The balance of our money we then divided between us equally, which gave each share about six hundred and twenty-five dollars.

To accomplish our settlement of affairs, brought about the middle of November, 1843. McGrath left for the back Bay of Biloxi, and I saw nothing more of him until after his marriage.

About two weeks after, Harden arrived at Wages’ riding a very fine horse, and had with him a likely mulatto fellow, riding on a very fine horse also, both of which he told me he sold to a man by the name of Jenkins. The first object to be effected was to kill and rob old man Sumrall. Mr. Newton was to turn preacher and go to Mr. Sumrall’s house, and by some means effect the object; but by some misstep his intention was discovered through one of the house servants, the alarm was given, and brother Newton was ordered to leave brother Sumrall’s premises. Wages and I lay in ambush, and had our appointed places to meet. We soon learned the result of Harden’s adventure at Sumrall’s. I returned to Mobile, Harden went to Louisiana, and Wages, by Jasper county, to Mobile. We were all to meet again about the last of February, on Black Creek, at the Pearlington road. We did meet, and a very few days after old Robert Lott was killed and all his money taken. This was sometime early in March, 1844. Wages was with Harden that night, and helped; I did not happen there. I met Wages next morning, at our camp, and he told me what was done, and turned me back. Harden and Wages had divided a little over two thousand dollars. Harden left a few nights after for the Mississippi swamp in Louisiana, and Wages and I for Mobile, and traveled altogether in the night, to avoid discovery.

MEETING OF THE CLAN IN MOBILE, ALABAMA.

After we got to Mobile and had rested ourselves, there were several complaints made to Wages and I, about the derangement of the affairs of the clan. They had, during our absence, elected a president _pro tem._ Wages went round and called a meeting at the Wigwam. There was a crowded meeting, but they were mostly new members, who were very noisy. Wages then told them the object of the meeting; that it was to inquire into the situation of the clan; that his long absence had prevented him from attending any meeting for over two years; it was necessary to inquire into the affairs, and a system of action must be preserved in all institutions. Some of the new members were very clamorous and wanted to make a break and a raise at something; they had no money and must have some, and all such stuff. Wages then reminded them that we had a Vigilant Committee, who at all times had the control and power to report, and upon their report the clan would act. He also reminded them of their obligation and the terms upon which they came into the clan, and for any breach or exposure their life would pay the forfeit. He then announced to the meeting that he would hold an adjourned meeting that night two weeks, for the purpose of having the minutes made up, and a full report from the Vigilant Committee; but, before the time arrived, Wages was informed that four of these members had come in as spies, and that we had traitors in the ranks. He then advised me of the fact, and we agreed to withdraw. We never visited the Wigwam again; but we formed a new and select one among a few of us, and among the new clan were four of my brothers—Isham, nicknamed Whin, Henry, John and Thomas Copeland, Jefferson Baker and Joshua Walters, all men of bravery.

Our next business was to dispose of all spies and traitors, and it was not long before four of them butted their heads against a slung-shot hung to a man’s arm, and they went floating from Mobile wharf down the channel of the river. Old Palmer, one of our clan, near Springhill, met up with my brother Whin and I: he had made some exposures of our affairs. Our two rifles made clear fire, and we left him in a situation where he told no more tales. Sometime after, Tom Powell, another of the clan, made some threats that he intended to drive the Copelands out of the country. McGrath and I waylaid him and fed him with the contents of two double-barrel shot-guns, about forty-eight buck-shot, and put him in a swamp near Eslaya’s old mill. Another of the clan, Jim Harper, attempted to betray us by decoying us into the hands of some of our enemies; Wages, McGrath and I managed to catch him. We took him into an old house near the old Stage Stand. We then put a rope around his neck, and we very soon squeezed the breath out of him. We stripped off his clothes, and left him in the old house, a prey to the buzzards; took all the clothes some distance off and piled lightwood knots on them, and burnt them.

Sometime after McGrath was married, Wages went over into Mississippi, about old Brown’s, and sometimes down about Honey Island, near Gainesville, and remained there from the summer of 1843 until the fall of 1844, during which time I had seen him but twice, when he came over to his father’s on a visit, in the fall of 1844. Wages and McGrath came over to the vicinity of Mobile and sent for me, and then informed me of the plan they were about to pursue. That they were going to commence making counterfeit money: that they had procured a man who could engrave their dies, and another who was a professed chemist and could prepare the metal so well that it would take a very acute judge to detect it. I told Wages that whatever he went at I was in; “but,” said I, “I feel somewhat fearful.” “Oh,” said they, “we have made a large acquisition to our clan, we now have Jim McArthur, Jack McArthur, Allen Brown, Daniel Brown, Jim Bilbo and Wash Bilbo. We are to settle McGrath at Honey Island; Wages at Catahoula; Allen Brown at Red Breek, and the Bilbos and McArthurs are to range from Pearl River to Pascagoula; and,” said they, “your party can range from Mobile to Pascagoula, and you can pass horses or negroes from Georgia to Florida on this route through to Louisiana, without discovery, and so from Louisiana in the same way.” I then told Wages and McGrath both, that I was still afraid of their new acquisition. I then proposed to them to remove our money from Hamilton’s Creek, and place it somewhere near where Wages was going to settle. I made this proposition because I believed that this counterfeiting business would be the means of getting us into trouble, and that we could procure our money more easily from that vicinity than we could where it was.

I had then arrived at the age of majority and began to have a more reflecting mind, and I never did have any reliance or confidence in that money arrangement. Wages then informed me that he was engaged to marry Allen Brown’s daughter, but did not know what time; it might be a year before he did so. “McGrath,” said he, “is now married, and will move to Honey Island shortly; I shall be engaged in preparing our shop and arranging the materials, and making preparations for the settlement of my home.”

They then told me that Niel McIntosh, would also be one of our clan, and that he would travel to and from Mobile to our other places, as a spy, and look out for us. They left the next day for Mississippi, and I saw nothing more of either of them for over twelve months. Niel McIntosh made several trips over and back, and always had plenty of their money, but I was always afraid of it. He passed a considerable amount in the vicinity of Mobile, and made something by it.

John Harden brought three or four fine horses, one, he said, from Florida and the others from Georgia; I advanced him the money and passed them on to Wages, who sold them for me. S. Harden made two trips to the vicinity of Mobile that year, one from North Alabama, and one from western North Carolina: The first trip he brought two good horses and a likely negro boy. I assisted him to sell the horses near Fort Stoddart, for a fine price, to some men going to Texas. I then furnished him two ponies and sent McIntosh to pilot him through to Wages, who paid him for his negro and sent him to Pearlington, where he again embarked for Tennessee, by way of New Orleans.

About four months afterwards Harden returned again. He had two splendid horses, fine traveling equipage, and a likely mulatto girl about sixteen years old, dressed in boys clothes, traveling with him as his waiter. He said he had traveled through Georgia and Eastern Alabama to Blakely, and crossed the Bay over to Mobile, and came out to our place. He told us he feared no pursuit; that he had traveled too far, that there was no danger. I assisted him in selling the two horses, in Mobile, and saw them often afterwards. They were fine buggy horses. The girl he sold to a man in Mobile, who kept her as a wife, and she now passes for free. He had stolen her from a rich old widow lady in North Carolina, who had sent the girl on an errand, on a Saturday morning, some twenty-five miles on the same fine horse, to return on Sunday evening, and she never did return.

In these two trips of Harden’s he gave me five hundred dollars for my assistance. I then assisted him to steal a very fine horse on the Tombigbee River, for which he gave me fifty dollars more, and left for Tennessee. This had pretty well consumed the fall of 1845.

In December, Wages came home to his father’s; sent for me; told me that he was going to get married shortly, and invited me to his wedding; I promised him I would go if my business did not prevent me; but it so turned out that he did marry a short time after, and I was not present. After his marriage, he brought his wife to see his father and mother, and spent some weeks with them. He had with him plenty of counterfeit coin, and wanted me to take some and pass for him. That I refused to do, and I then advised him that it would be better for us all to let that alone; and then reminded him that when there was none but him, McGrath and I together, that we could get along to better advantage, do a more profitable business and had a wider field to operate in. But he seemed to think that they could manage to get along; and I found from his conversation that old Allen Brown had got control of him, and I said no more on the subject. I told him frankly that their money I would have nothing to do with; but in other matters of stealing and selling horses, negroes and cattle, I would take a hand as heretofore, to which he assented, and here we dropped the subject for the present. I again urged upon him the removal of our money. I dreaded an outbreak, for I then believed that old Brown would blow the whole matter; and sure enough he afterwards did.

So Wages and his wife left, and went back to Mississippi, to old Brown, and he went to work building his house on Catahoula, in Hancock County. He got it completed; moved into it; took his horse; came again to Mobile; procured his father’s two horse wagon to haul some articles for house-keeping from Mobile, and on his way back I went with him, the first night, and we camped near where our money was buried. We went and got the three kegs; placed them in the bottom of his wagon, covered them with hay and placed the balance of his load on them. He hauled them out to Hancock county, and deposited them in Catahoula Swamp, about a mile and a half or two miles from his house, and designated the place by a large pine tree that grew at the margin of the swamp, to the north-east, and about thirty-five yards from where the kegs were deposited, and a magnolia tree that grew about ten yards to the south-west. He gave me a diagram of the place, the courses, and distances which he had measured accurately, marked in lines and explained in our mystic key. That paper I somehow lost in the famous Harvey battle.

So it was Wages left and went to his place. Now he and his crowd were for themselves, and me and my crowd for ourselves. My crowd consisted of myself, and four brothers, Josh Walters, Jef. Baker and old McIntosh, our outside striker, to run stolen horses or a negro, when required. Our range was from Mobile to Pascagoula, and from the Sea Coast to St. Stephen’s. We fed ourselves and families upon pork, beef and mutton, in abundance, and we sold enough in the market to pay us from fifty to one hundred dollars per month—sometimes ready butchered and sometimes on foot, during the summer and fall season. Those we sold the meat of, we generally stole in the vicinity of Mobile. Old man Wages had a farm on Big Creek Swamp, about twenty-five miles from Mobile, in rather an obscure place. That was our place of resort and deposit, and many a stolen beef and horse has been concealed there until we could dispose of them.

We continued that business during 1845, 1846, and until the summer of 1847. We had stolen a small drove of cattle out near Chickasahay, and in driving them we gathered a few head near Mobile, belonging to old Moses Copeland. We sold the cattle to Bedo Baptiste, who paid my brother Henry and I for them. We claimed them; Whinn, or Isham and John helped to drive, but received none of the money. My brothers Henry and John, and Isham or Whinn, were arrested and tried. Henry was convicted of the larceny and served two years in the penitentiary of Alabama. Whinn and John were acquitted; I took to the bushes. They did not catch me that hunt, and I lay in the woods and was concealed among my clan the balance of that summer, most of the time at old Wages’, on Big Creek, waiting for Gale Wages to come so as to make a settlement with him, and to close my business and leave the country.

The time passed on slowly. I stopped all further operations until I could hear from Wages and McGrath, and, lo! some time late in the fall up rolled Wages and old Brown, and sure enough old Brown, as I had anticipated and expected, had blown the whole concern. He had gone into the little town of Gainesville and passed a few dollars of their money for some small articles of trade, where the old fool might have known he would be detected; and sure enough he was. Now the next step was for him to get out of the difficulty, and when asked where he got the money, he said “from Bilbos.” They were arrested and brought up, and he swore it on to them, and they had to give bail to answer the charge of passing counterfeit money.

Bilbos then swore vengeance against Brown and Wages, who had pulled up stakes and were leaving Hancock county, and Mississippi, too. The Bilbos pursued them, and passed them some way; turned back, and the parties met suddenly on a small hill. While one party ascended on one side the other party ascended on the other side, and both parties were within a few paces of each other at first view. Wages had the advantage of them; he had his double barrel gun well loaded and fresh caps on; Bilbos had their rifles well loaded and fresh primed, but they had a rag over the powder in the pan to keep it dry. These rags they had to remove before they could fire. Wages immediately fired and killed one of them dead, and then fired at the other before he could get ready to shoot and broke his thigh. From some cause Bilbo’s horse got scared and threw him to the ground, and he immediately begged for his life. At first sight of the Bilbos old Brown ran, so Wages said.

Now it was that Wages and Brown both had to make their escape the best way they could. They came to Mobile, and there they were on the scout, as well as myself. McGrath was so well identified with them that he was watched very closely about Gainesville. He got into some corn stealing scrape, and broke into Hancock jail, and nothing but the gold or silver key ever turned him out. He and Wages happened to have a little of that, and he and his wife then left Honey Island, and were at Daniel Smith’s, on Black creek, in Perry county. So it was Brown and Wages managed to get their families, and McGrath and his wife back into the vicinity of Mobile some time in November, 1847.

Wages and McGrath had very near got through with all their money. McGrath, in particular, had none, only as he borrowed. Wages had some, but had spent a large amount in feeding and clothing old Brown and his gang. Wages and his wife remained on Big creek at the old man’s place, and I the greater part of the time with him. Brown and McGrath moved down on Dog river, near Stage Stand, pretending to burn coal and cut wood to sell, but they were in fact stealing, for they had nothing to eat and but little money. Brown had sold his possessions in Perry county to Harvey, and had received all his pay but forty dollars. He had represented his land to be saved or entered land, when it was public land, and Harvey refused to pay the forty dollar note, and that same pitiful note, and Brown’s rascality and falsehood cost Wages and McGrath their lives, and Harvey and Pool their lives, and have placed me where I am.

Wages and I while on Big creek held a consultation as to our future course. Wages then sorely repented any connection that he ever had with old Brown, “and,” said he, “I intend to get away from him, for I am fearful the old fool will get drunk and tell everything he does know.” We then concluded our best way was for Wages to take his horse and cart, take old Niel McIntosh with him, and his wife and child, and start west and travel in the vicinity of Pearl river; there leave his wife; take the cart and horse and he and McIntosh to travel down Pearl river till they came opposite Catahoula; then turn in and get our money, and cross the Mississippi river; send McIntosh back to let McGrath and I know where to find him, and for us to slip off and go slyly, and not let Brown know where we were going, “and,” said Wages, “if I can manage to rob old Tom Sumrall on my route and make a raise, so much the better. And you and your crowd may manage to make a raise here before you leave.”

BURNING OF ELI MAFFITT’S HOUSE, AND ATTEMPTED MURDER OF HIS WIFE.

The same day Wages and I were consulting thus, my brother John Copeland came to bring me some clothes, and he informed me that it was reported that old Eli Maffitt held a large amount of money, and that there was a project on foot to rob him and burn his house the first good opportunity; that Maffitt had taken a contract to build a bridge in Perry county, and would shortly leave home, and that Eli Myrick was to let the party know what time Maffitt commenced the bridge and would be absent from home. I then told Wages what was on foot. He then said “let me leave home about three days before, and I will try on the some night to rob old Sumrall and burn his house.” In a few days Myrick came down and told us that Maffitt was up in Perry county, and would not be home in two weeks. Wages immediately geared up, and started with his cart, his wife and McIntosh. Three nights after that Allen Brown, McGrath, John Copeland and I went to Maffitt’s just after dark, about seven o’clock, on the night of the 15th of December, 1847. Eli Myrick did not go with us, because he said Mrs. Maffitt would know him too well, but he was in the secret and shared his part of the money.

On getting near, we stopped to consult as to the safest way to get the money. Some were for robbing the house and not injuring any of the family. That I opposed, for I never believed in leaving any living witness behind to tell what I had done, if there was any way to prevent it. I always thought that two persons were enough to keep a secret, and it was safest if one of them were dead, for dead witnesses give no evidence. It was agreed that we should go into the house and demand the money, and if given up, to leave the inmates peaceably and unharmed.

John and I went in with a very stern look, thinking we could frighten the old lady, and make her give up every dollar that was in the house. But we were as sternly and peremptorily refused. The old lady said that she knew nothing about the money, and if she did, that we would not get it; we then told her that we had come after money and that money we would have before we left that house, or her life; and she still bravely defied us. John Copeland had in his hand a large hickory stick and I had another. Perceiving that she was determined, and our only chance to get the money was to kill her, while the old lady and I were quarreling about the money, I gave my brother John the wink, and he struck her a blow on the head which felled her to the floor. He repeated the blows, and I hit her several blows. We were then certain that we had killed her. We then commenced plundering the house, in search of the money; and we ransacked the whole house from top to bottom, but the amount we did find was small. I do not remember the precise amount we got, but it did not exceed two hundred dollars, and to our great displeasure we afterwards found out, that there was a large amount of gold and silver in the house at the time, that we did not find.

After we had plundered the house to our satisfaction, of all the money we could find, and each one of us had his load of the most valuable articles about, we set the house on fire and burnt everything up, together as we thought with Mrs. Maffitt who we thought was dead, and we left with a full conviction in our own minds that she would be burnt in the house. When I afterwards learned that she was not dead, I often wondered at her providential escape.

The gold and silver we had overlooked, was all melted, and I understood that Maffitt afterwards took it to Mobile and disposed of it.