The Secrets of Hickory Hollow

Could the Shepherd’s old house have been where that black family moved into years later Frank asked? I never thought about it Sam said, but I guess it could have been. Did you ever get a chance to talk to Ben about that? Yes I did Frank said but I haven’t written up a report about it yet. Why not Sam asked? I’m not sure I want to Frank said. Ben told me that a black couple had lived in an old rundown farm house somewhere up around Thompsons Grove. They had a teenage son, eighteen or nineteen years old and he started working part time for Jim Beck. Jim’s first wife had died and he had remarried a much younger woman. One day Jim caught his wife and the Negro boy making out in his barn. His wife yelled rape and the boy ran off before Jim could catch him. Ben says it sure wasn’t rape that went on in the barn that day. Jim’s wife had been putting out to anyone that wanted some long before Jim caught her and that Negro boy. She got caught that day with her pants off and yelled rape to hide what she had been doing. Jim started spreading the word that a Negro had raped his wife and no one could have prevented what happened next. That night Jim got a couple of his buddies to go with him and the old house burned. Sam I think I may have found that place just before my involvement with the snake. That’s why I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been. There was evidence of a fire and the remains of an old barn or shed. It’s not there anymore Sam said. That’s where Albert Dean got rid of Don Ledbetter’s car. He burned the shed down along with the car. No one knew if that family was in the house at the time of the fire but they weren’t seen after that. A couple more Negro houses in Erwin were burned and all the Negros left Unicoi County. Ben told me that happened more than thirty years ago. I did some more digging around and found out why something that happened so long ago was being looked into now. It seems that a Negro couple from Detroit came through Clouds Corner on their way to Florida and tried to spend the night in the motel. They were told there were no rooms available when it was obvious no one else was staying there that night. They reported the incident to the NAACP and they sent someone down to check it out. While here they began to wonder why there were no blacks anywhere around and started asking questions. Did Ben tell you who went with Jim that night Sam asked? Yes he did Frank said. Sam there is no evidence to support what he told me. What are you trying so hard not to tell me Sam asked? Ben said he didn’t know for sure but it was rumored that it was Preston McCloud and Charlie McNabb. My God Sam said. That’s the same reaction I had Frank said. That’s the reason I haven’t written up a report yet. But you will have to tell them sooner or later Sam said. I know Frank said but I am going to put it off as long as I can. There’s nothing that says I have to put everything Ben told me in that report. I’m thinking on just saying according to rumors some black families were burned out because a white man accused one of them of raping his wife. There was no investigation of that incident until now and no evidence of a rape. My conclusions are a black man was accused unjustly and because of racial conditions that existed in Unicoi County at the time the community reacted to their emotions and took the law into their own hands. Due to the passage of time between when the alleged rape and reactions to it took place and now, and the fact that all but one or two witnesses are long dead the truth of what really happened may never be known.