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.”