Presently the flash of light pierces the gloom, the shriek of the engine whistle echoes mournfully through the night. The train bearing John Martin thunders toward the station. The air-brakes wheeze, the train slows up; the conductor cries “All out for Farm—” He does not finish the call of the station. A pistol is thrust into his face. Armed men board the engine and cover the engineer and fireman. Others enter the coach in which Martin is sitting, handcuffed, utterly helpless, surrounded by Bowling and his confederates.
Martin sees the men enter and instinctively realizes that his end has come. He attempts to rise to his feet. Instantly shots are fired. Martin sinks back upon his seat, lifeless, his “protectors” calmly witnessing the murder.
Martin’s wife, in another coach, had up to this time believed her husband secure in his cell at Winchester. But the moment she heard the shots, unaccountable, undefinable dread seized her. Instinctively she rushed to the scene of the tragedy and found her suspicions realized. There lay the blood-covered body of her husband, literally torn to pieces and perforated with leaden messengers of death. All that the faithful, grief-stricken wife could do was to order the remains taken on to Morehead. Martin was buried amid a large concourse of sorrowing friends and relatives. The solemnity of the occasion accorded ill with the many suppressed, yet none the less ominous threats of terrible and swift punishment of the murderers.
The news of the cowardly assassination spread like wildfire over the county. The war had begun in earnest. From the day John Martin’s body was consigned to the grave, the angel of peace departed from Rowan County. For more than three years a reign of terror was to sweep over it with all its attendant horrors, cutting a wide path of desolation and misery. Deeds of violence now occurred at frequent intervals. All manner of crime went unpunished by the law. The whole machinery of the law was rotten, the officers of the courts being themselves partisans, in some instances very active as such.
Mr. Young, the county attorney, was the first to feel the wrath of the Martin faction. While riding along the road on Christi Creek he was shot from ambush and painfully, but not fatally, wounded. The perpetrators of this deed were not definitely known, but Young’s friends claimed to have certain information that the men who attempted his assassination had acted under instructions from the Martin faction, which had openly accused Young of playing into the hands of the Tollivers, and had even gone so far as to allege that he had with them connived in the murder of John Martin.
Whether he was or was not a Tolliver sympathizer, another murder committed soon afterwards was laid at the door of the Tollivers, to avenge, it was charged, the wounding of Mr. Young. Under the circumstances this gentleman determined to and did remove from the county where his life was evidently no longer safe. He located in an adjoining county. At the succeeding election his son was elected to the office his father had vacated.
The murder above referred to was that of Stewart Baumgartner. Cook Humphrey, the Republican Sheriff, had appointed him a deputy. On the 17th day of March, 1885, Baumgartner rode along Christi Creek, when, almost at the identical spot where Mr. Young had been fired upon, he was shot and instantly killed—from ambush. No one was ever indicted for that killing, but it was generally believed, charged and never denied that Craig Tolliver’s subordinates were the murderers.
Shortly after the death of Baumgartner, and during the month of April, 1885, Cook Humphrey and a stranger, afterwards ascertained to have been Ed. Pierce of Greenup County, Ky., appeared on the streets of Morehead, heavily armed and followed by a number of Martin sympathizers. This act of defiance called forth bitter denunciation from the Tollivers and their friends, among whom was ex-Sheriff Day and Jeff Bowling, men of reckless courage. The leaders of the opposing factions assembled every available man, and provided them with arms. The most determined preparations were made to fight out their differences on the streets of Morehead. Humphrey’s headquarters were at the Carey House, a hotel owned and operated by James Carey, an ex-captain of the Union army and a very influential citizen. The Tollivers occupied the Cottage Hotel near the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway depot, then owned by Dr. R. L. Rains. As quickly as possible a message was forwarded to Craig Tolliver, absent from Morehead at the time. He came, accompanied by a number of Tollivers from Elliott County. The battle opened fast and furious. A continuous fire from many guns kept the citizens of the town in terror for many hours. The balls whizzed through every portion of the ill-fated village. Storehouses and dwellings were riddled. None dared to enter the streets, or expose his body for an instant.
The Carey House apparently bore the brunt of the firing. Hundreds of balls struck and shattered the slight frame structure. The Tollivers, beside superior numbers, had the advantage of position. Their marksmanship was better, too. Humphrey and his clan soon realized that a charge upon their position would mean their annihilation. So at an opportune moment the Carey House was abandoned and the Tollivers remained in undisputed control.
In spite of the long-continued, heavy firing, an unremitting fusilade of many hours’ duration, there were no casualties. The battle, however, exercised such a terrifying influence over the peaceable citizens of the town that all that could left.