"Dock" Smith, one of the alleged assassins of Ed Callahan, recently pleaded guilty before the court in Winchester, Ky., and was sentenced to a life term in the penitentiary, and it is believed that the passing of sentence on Smith will be the finis to the long-continued feudal warfare which caused the press of the nation to confer the title of "Bloody Breathitt" on the county which produced Jim Hargis and Ed Callahan.
With the deaths of Hargis and Callahan, and the conviction of several of those alleged to have been responsible for the plot which ended Callahan’s life, the old feudal spirit was practically wiped out in Jackson and Breathitt Counties, and that section is to-day regarded as having the brightest prospects of any section of the State.
Wealthy Eastern syndicates have invaded Breathitt and adjoining counties and invested heavily in the coal and timber lands of the section, while at the time James B. Marcum was assassinated and for several years subsequent to that tragedy, financial concerns of New York, Philadelphia, and other Eastern cities declined to invest any capital in this troubled district.
Twelve years ago, in Breathitt County, was fired a shot that meant little at the time to those responsible for it, but which in reality meant more for the future of eastern Kentucky than any event of the past half century, for it sounded the death knell of the famous and deadly Hargis-Cockrill feud. It was the shot that killed James B. Marcum as he stood in the front door of the bullet-riddled courthouse at Jackson, and while Marcum was only one of the many who opposed the leaders of the old Hargis-Callahan factions and had gone the same route, by the assassin’s bullet, his death aroused the people of the State to action, and from that moment the law camped on the trail of those believed to be guilty of procuring Marcum’s death.
Marcum walked into the trap laid for him while those later charged with having laid it were interested spectators, they occupying easy-chairs in the doorway of the Hargis store just across the street. Among those who witnessed the assassination were Jim Hargis and Ed Callahan, county judge and high sheriff, respectively, of Breathitt County; while the other actors in the drama were Curtis Jett, nephew of Hargis, and Tom White, henchman of the Hargis-Callahan clan. These two, according to a subsequent confession by Jett, carried out a plot arranged by Hargis and Callahan to kill Marcum, and as the latter started to enter the door of the courthouse, a shot rang out and he fell mortally wounded.
The assassination of Marcum, following so closely upon the deaths of others in a similar manner, including Jim Cockrill, eldest of the Cockrill brothers, and Doctor B. D. Cox, legal guardian of the infant Cockrill heirs, created[Pg 63] a clamor for justice in Breathitt County, heretofore unknown in this section. So strong was the pressure brought to bear that before nightfall the governor of the State had ordered a company of militia to Jackson, and martial law was declared the following morning.
This resulted in the calling of a special grand jury, and two weeks later indictments were returned against Jett and White, charging them with the murder of Marcum. They were later convicted and sentenced to a life term in the penitentiary, and both are now paying the penalty behind the prison walls at Frankfort. The case was tried in Cynthiana, having been sent to Harrison County on a change of venue from Breathitt County. Subsequently both men were tried and found guilty of the assassination of Jim Cockrill and given the same sentence as in the Marcum murder.
Through the confession later obtained by the Commonwealth from Mose Feltner and others of the alleged Hargis-Callahan faction, indictments were returned against Jim and Alex Hargis, Ed Callahan, and B. Fult French, charging them with conspiracy to bring about the death of Marcum, Cockrill, and Doctor Cox.
For seven years the four alleged conspirators faced legal death in criminal proceedings as a result of the indictments against them, and while they were subsequently acquitted by juries in Lexington, Beattyville, and Sandy Hook, to which places the cases were sent on a change of venue from Breathitt County, Alex Hargis is the only one of the quartet now living.
Jim Hargis was slain by his own son, Beach Hargis, in the Hargis store in Jackson, and Callahan was slain in his store at Crockettsville, twenty miles from Jackson, three years ago.