Tusquittee Chronicles XX

Tusquittee Chronicles XX

By Claude Moss

SAN FRANCISCO–1953–When I was about ten years old, a one-armed man named Justice was hanged at Hiawassee, Georgia eleven miles distant from home. I made the trip horseback with John Hogan, and we arrived just as the sun was rising. The largest number of people I had ever seen together was marching down the main street toward the gallows, singing “There is a fountain filled with blood.” Deputy sheriffs with their Winchesters and cartridge belts seemed to be everywhere.

Justice with his escort mounted the scaffold and with tears running down his face proceeded to make a temperance speech lasting an hour or more. He told how in a drunken rage he had murdered a man. He had been found guilty by twelve men “good and true,” and he had heard the judge sentence him to hang by the neck until he was dead with the closing words, “May God have mercy on your soul.”

He finished his talk. The noose was placed around his neck and a black cap over his face. As the sheriff, Pince Burch sprung the trap, a woman near me screamed and fainted. As the twisted rope unwound, the body would swing first in one direction and then in the other. And so ended the winding and devious path of a human being–one of “The luckless pots he marred in making.”

That night and for several nights thereafter, my sleep was disturbed by dreams of the execution. I would awake with the mental image of the man with the black cap and empty sleeve swinging in space.

ROAD WORK

Each section of the highway was supposed to be kept in repair by the people living in the vicinity. During the late summer or early autumn, the overseer would “warn” the men to appear on a certain date to work the road. Some would bring picks or mattocks, and others would bring shovels. The clay was taken from the sides and shoveled into the gullies made by the spring rains. When the next rain came, the loose clay turned it into mud so that the oxen or mule teams instead of having to pull the wagons over the ridges and gullies had to pull them through the mud holes. Sometimes the wagons would mire down almost to the axles.

I was about ten years old when dad first sent me to take his place. One of my eye lids was swollen from a bee sting for I had been blowing smoke from a bundle of burning rags to drive away the beens while dad was taking out the honey.The overseer spoke about sending me back home, but I didn’t want to go. Then Uncle Lish said, “The boy will do more work than Jim,” and it was agreed to leave the matter to a vote of the other “hands.” A majority voted right, so I was allowed to stay.

Afterwards, I usually took dad’s place. I like this work for most of the time was spent sitting in the shade swapping yarns or watching the younger ones wrestle. The majority of those working had no wagons and were not concerned about the condition of the road. There seemed to be a great deal of competition as to who would get away with doing the least amount of work.

Claude Moss grew up on Tusquittee in Clay County during the late 1800’s. He wrote an account of his early childhood shortly before his death in 1953. Moss’s account was discovered among his Ms. Ora McGlamery (his niece’s) letters shortly after her death about ten years ago. It is being reprinted as a series  in the Smoky Mountain Sentinel during Clay County’s Sesquicentennial celebration. This week’s reported event took place in Towns County, Georgia.