Mercer County, WV

Please welcome guest author Wendy Johnston. Johnston is a librarian, activist, researcher and Appalachian scholar. She’s a native of West Virginia, now living in Somerset Ky. She holds a BA in History from Berea College and has a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. Her hobbies are writing, collecting Appalachian literature and buying and selling antiques and collectibles.

Southern West Virginia is a culturally rich area full of storytellers and keepers of history.  Not many tales can be told that don’t take on a ghostly or supernatural form. From gruesome murders in remote places to mistaken identities that lead to the death of innocent victims, the tales are told and passed down and embellished, meant to pass on the history, scare us from repeating the same lest we meet a similar fate. 

I will attempt to retell a story that was first written as a poem by George Martin and published in a booklet entitled The Bent Mountain Murder, Harry Taylor’s Crime and Trial. The poem was meant as an account of the event but also as a warning about the evils of drinking during the time of Prohibition. 

The Bent Mountain Road lies in the farming area of Mercer County along Rt. 20 near Athens and Concord University. At the turn of the century this area was the shortest (by the way the crow flies) route between the railroad in Hinton, WV and that in Glen Lyn, VA (Mercer County, WV being neighbors with Giles County, VA.)

This route, or more like a trail in those days, was located in the more mountainous and less populated areas and attracted those wishing to not be seen or noticed. It became the thoroughfare for hobos, tramps and escapees of work camps and prisons.

Earlier, it also attracted deserters of both Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, with a few of these soldiers buried in the many small local cemeteries dotting the area.  Crimes were committed in these remote places, including robbery and murder.

It is rumored that a Civil War soldier was tried and found guilty of treason in this area, and then hanged, with his heart cut out and given to his wife.  It was later found that this was a case of mistaken identities and the wrong man was punished.  It is said that the restless spirits of the victims wander the mountain, carrying lanterns to light their way – many searching for home, others looking for the treasures they tried to steal. 

And so begins the story of the 1903 murder of a traveling man from Kentucky who met up with Harry Taylor near the railroad station in Hinton.  Murphy, the traveler, moved from railroad town to railroad town looking for adventure and little crime along the way. 

Taylor, who lived near the Bent Mountain, was a bit lazy and didn’t hold on to a regular job for very long. He was looking for an accomplice in a robbery he had planned in Athens, WV.  He found this accomplice in the traveler from Kentucky. Taylor spent a few hours gambling and drinking with Murphy and, finding the traveler to be a bit like himself, told him of his plan to rob a local store and make off with some money that they would share. The two hopped the train in Hinton and rode to Glen Lyn, hoping to start their little crime spree.

They arrived in town at the wrong time and decided it was too risky to rob the store so they made their way to the schoolhouse to sleep a few hours before traveling on to the town of Concord Church, now Athens, WV. 

When they arrived in town, Taylor made his way to the home of Dr. Will Peck, looking for some food, as they had traveled most of the night and were hungry.  While Murphy kept watch, Taylor let himself into the kitchen of the home through the window. There he found three biscuits, but decided to keep them for himself.  He ate two and stuck the last one in his watch pocket of his vest. He told Murphy there was nothing in the home to eat,  but that he knew of a house on the Bent Mountain where they could go and hide out until time to rob the store. 

On the way they stopped where Taylor knew some apples were stored on the old Ball Farm. The apples they found were rotten, and so, they traveled on to the little remote house up on the mountain that had once been owned by the Snider family.

They made it to the house and built a fire, and settled down, tired and hungry, until their crime could be committed.  Now, Taylor knew that Murphy was carrying some money that he had hidden in his pocket, and decided to shoot Murphy and steal his money. Since Murphy was from Kentucky and did not know folks in the area, Taylor thought that he would get away with this crime. 

He took his pistol and shot Murphy, more than once, as was revealed in the trial.  He then stripped Murphy of his clothes and buried them in the woods, hiding anything that might tell Murphy’s identity. He buried the naked Murphy under the floorboards of the house. Taylor then made his way to his sister’s home with Murphy’s stack of bills in his pocket.  

He told his sister that he had been traveling from Glen Lyn and had met up with a hobo who was bound to be trouble. The hobo, Taylor told his sister, noticed the chain hanging from his watch pocket and must have thought that Taylor was carrying a valuable watch.

Taylor claimed that the hobo tried to rob him and became angry when he found that Taylor only had a biscuit in his pocket. This was the very biscuit that he had hidden from Murphy at Dr. Peck’s house.  A fight occurred and, in defense of his life, Taylor shot the hobo and took $150.40 from him to pay his note and other expenses. 

When the sister’s husband returned home about a month later, she told him the story. The husband laughed and called her a silly goose, saying that Taylor had done no such thing. 

As time went on, the woman worried more and more about the stranger her brother had said that he had killed and put under the floorboards of the Snider home. She had nightmares of the dead man calling to her for help and the knowledge weighed on her quite heavy. 

She finally told her other sister and talked her into going up to the property and looking under the floorboards for the body, which they found. She went back to her husband and said that they had seen the body. Judge Woods and Sheriff Sentz were called for and they took officers and headed up the mountain to retrieve the body, which was badly decomposed by now. 

Taylor claimed self-defense, but was found guilty of murder in the first degree. The defense asked for and the judge ordered a 90 day stay of Taylor’s sentence.  It is there that the story ends. The article written by George Martin claims whiskey was the cause of the murder. 

Whatever the cause, the locals claim that you can see the spirit of the traveling man, carrying a lantern through the woods, searching for his way back to Kentucky.  Others say that the spirit of the wrongly convicted Civil War soldier refuses to leave these woods as well. These tales have grown and changed over the years, with different accounts of what truly happened, but the wandering spirits still remain, so that their stories will never be completely lost.  

Here is the poem written by George Martin, being his account of the tale of Harry Taylor and the traveling man from Kentucky.  Some things in the story have been changed after I heard an account of this by Lois Miller, President of the Mercer County Historical Society. 

More articles on murder/robbery in WV:

The Laurel Creek Murders, part 1(Opens in a new browser tab)

John Hardy attributed his downfall to whiskey(Opens in a new browser tab)

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