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The sequel—with a great
cover by Jim Asher—appeared in 2004 and included these chapters:
DANIEL
BOONE: In which it is
suggested that Boone might not have been such a great frontiersman after all.
The second-most controversial thing I wrote, just barely exceeded by the
chapter on Edgar Cayce in Offbeat
Kentuckians. I hasten to note that I am a fan of Old Dan’l, whether his
reputation was exaggerated or not.
THE
HARPE BROTHERS: The
savage tale of two frontier murderers whose legend lives on. Worth reading for
all the disembodied heads carried in sacks, stuck on poles, or used as tree
decorations.
TOM
JOHNSON, JR.: Danville’s
Johnson was a drunkard and a poet—a very bad and vulgar one—but he also was the
first published poet in Kentucky, possibly the first published poet in what was
then called “the west.” Only two copies of his collected poetry exist;
therefore his poems are seldom reproduced and exceedingly difficult to find,
but I found them and gave them the first wide exposure they have received since
the 1820s.
CONSTANTINE
RAFINESQUE: The
chronicle of a hard-luck scientist whose genius could not save him from being
buried in an unmarked grave, despite having an ornate tomb at Lexington’s
Transylvania University.
DAVID
RICE ATCHISON:
Politician born near Lexington who was alleged to have been President of the
USA for only one day. I like this chapter.
GEORGE
WATTERS: This Bourbon
County resident craved the excitement of the big city, went to Civil War-era
Cincinnati, got foully murdered for his trouble, and ended up with an
attention-getting epitaph on his gravestone. This chapter was memorable to me
for the amount of research it required, and it now seems a dry run for a later
book, Murder in Old Kentucky.
TOM
BOYD: A daredevil
Irishman who made his living in 1880s Louisville by jumping off bridges and
doing other very foolish things.
JOHN
KLEIN: More material
from my never-published biography of Joe Mulhattan surfaces here. Klein was an
amateur astronomer in Ohio County who had an uncanny ability to predict
approaching comets—in fact, he often beat professional scientists. But he was
also a friend of the infamous hoaxer Mulhattan, who reported Klein’s findings
to the press, with the predictable result that no one believed Klein.
HENRY
KUIPERS: Kuipers was
found dead in a Louisville pond in 1881—with his hands in his pockets! Was it
murder, suicide, or an accident? This chapter is another dry run for Murder in Old Kentucky.
MARY
SULLIVAN: Female bandit
and gang leader, and the only woman to be hanged in the history of Caldwell
County. Among other things, she may have hanged her cheating boyfriend.
WILLIAM
CLAYTOR: An incompetent
Louisville cemetery sexton on the take. Warning: Do not read this chapter just
after eating.
REUBEN
FIELD: The amazing tale
of a gluttonous “half-wit” from Bath County who also happened to be a
mathematical prodigy. This seems to be the favorite chapter for lots of people,
including Ben Eshbach of the great band The Sugarplastic, who noted that short
stories by Borges and Maugham feature characters reminiscent of Field, and
punk-pop wizard Joe King (a/k/a Joe Queer), who said Field’s eating habits
reminded him of his roadies.
WILLIAM
SIDES: Perhaps you know
a crazy person who resides in a house full of cats. If so, Mr. Sides was that
person’s spiritual ancestor.
MR.
AND MRS. JOHN FOWLER: An
elderly couple of Spiritualists who lived on a beached flatboat in Louisville.
When Mr. Fowler died in January 1887, his wife, unconvinced that he was dead,
kept him aboveground longer than was absolutely necessary.
LINVILLE
COMBS: This
nine-year-old from Breathitt County became the youngest prisoner in Kentucky
history—and for the murder of his little sister, at that. This is yet another
true crime chapter that I enjoyed researching and writing so much that it
convinced to write Murder in Old Kentucky.
DR.
EVERETT WAGNER: A
Metcalfe County physician who got fed up with his relatives’ greedy behavior as
he was dying of tuberculosis. He left them a bequest in his will that must be
read to be believed. Let’s just say he gave away some mighty personal
possessions.
CHARLES
KINCAID: Newspaper
reporter who assassinated ex-Congressman Taulbee at the Capitol Building in
Washington, D.C., in February 1890.
MARY
STUCKENBORG: A Louisville
woman who may have been the first reported stigmatic in the USA. Though she was
never officially caught, she probably faked it. I am very fond of Kyle’s
illustration for this chapter.
JERRY
CONSTANTINE: When this
Gallatin County native set out to collect a debt, he was serious about it.
Hence the folly of a neighbor who promised Constantine that he could shoot him
if he did not repay a loan by a certain date.
THE
LYON QUINTUPLETS: The
melancholy story of the first quintuplets known to be born alive in North
America (Graves County, to be precise).
RICHARD
TWENTE: Twente, of
Pendleton County, apparently was something of an architectural genius. He moved
his wife and daughters to the prairies of Minnesota. There he went crazy, as
well illustrated by the peculiar notions about the proper burial of the dead
which he displayed after the passing of his daughter Annie.
BASIL
HAYDEN: Mr. Hayden, a
Nelson County hermit, held such a grudge against God when the Confederacy lost
the Civil War that he vowed he would “never put foot to the Lord’s ground
again.” So far as anyone knows, he kept his word.
JOHN
MILBURN DAVIS: Davis was
born in Warren County, but he became a Kansas legend when he moved to Hiawatha
in that state. After his wife died, this wealthy miser spent his entire fortune
building a fitting monument on her gravesite. It is now a tourist attraction.
Another great illustration by Kyle.
WILL
H. JOHNSON: Is it
possible for a semi-literate miner in post-World War Two Middlesboro to
impersonate Adolf Hitler by mail, thus tricking unpatriotic suckers into
sending him their heard-earned money? Yes!
THE
MARTIN SISTERS: The tale
of two deeply eccentric sisters who taught music in Knox County for decades,
and who had strange ideas regarding home décor, dress, diet, makeup, personal
hygiene, pets, death, and nearly everything else. I have been gratified to hear
from many Knox Countians who remember the Martin Sisters well, and who tell me
that my portrait of them is quite accurate.