“The celebrated mountain lands, of which Mark Twain writes in the Gilded Age, lie in Fentress County; and the picturesque village he describes under the name of Obedstown is none other than its county site.
“The court-house, on the fence surrounding which the male population of the village were sitting, chewing tobacco and spitting at bumble-bees and such other objects of interest as appeared within their wide range, while they waited the arrival of the mail; and to which one of them referred, when he observed that, “if the judge is a gwine to hold cote,’ he reckoned he would have to “roust” his sow and pigs out of the court-house, was the same in which this singular case was tried.
“It seems that an old man by the name of Stout, who lived on Obeds River, was arrested for bewitching the beautiful daughter of a certain man, named Taylor, who lived on the mountain. The defendant was treated with much rigor, and his person abused by the various experiments to which he was subjected, for the purpose of establishing his guilt.
Photo James Hale/Flickr
“The guards had taken the precaution to remove the lead from their guns, and to load them with silver, which was considered the only metal to which a wizard is not impalpable.
“The accused was carried before Esquire Joshua Owens, a leading magistrate of the county, whom Judge Goodpasture knew intimately for many years afterwards. The prosecutor and many of his neighbors were introduced as witnesses on behalf of the State, and proved, in addition to the particular facts charged, that the defendant had frequently been seen to escape out of houses through the key holes in the doors; and that he had on divers occasions not only operated on the bodies and minds of human beings, and that at a distance of ten or fifteen miles, but also on horses, cattle and other stock.
“On this evidence the defendant was found guilty and bound over to the next term of the Circuit Court. When the grand jury met, General McCormick being of opinion the prosecution could not be sustained, refused to prefer a bill of indictment. The defendant was accordingly discharged amid great excitement, some of the mountaineers boldly declaring that it would be better to live without laws, if such offenders could escape with impunity.”
Source: A Genealogy of the Family of James Goodpasture, by A.V. and W.H. Goodpasture, Nashville: Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1897
appalachia, appalachian history, mountians witchcraft, Fentress County TN
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