st Tennesser Histurical ‘Society CONTENTS Published. by THE WEST. TENNESSEE meer SOCIETYTHE NIGHT RIDERS OF WEST TENNESSEE By HinisMAN TAYLOR ‘The night rider outrages in Western Tennessee extended over a period of about a year and covered a territory which included the entire western side of Obion County, Tennessee, and part of Fulton County, Kentucky. One or two of their crimes were committed in Lake County just over the Obion County line, There were approximately 120 crimes committed altogether, ranging from arson to murder. Many men and women were beaten and some were even run out of the county. The idea perhaps originated from the depredations of the night tiders in the tobacco country in Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. ‘The organization was made up of a group of lawless people and their underlying purpose seemed to be to control the entire community in which they lived and to be in themselves a super government. They undertook to exercise the functions of the Legislature and the Court and all the administrative offices of the law.’ These conditions cul- minated in the brutal murder of Captain Rankin and the attempted murder of Colonel R. Z. Taylor, both of Trenton, Tennessee. This particular act grew out of fishing rights in Reelfoot Lake and the graz- ing rights of cattle along its banks. However, the other 120 crimes, except for the burning of the docks at Samburg, had no connection whatever with Reelfoot Lake and were a past of a determined and cruel effort on the part of a few men to rule, ruin and dominate a vast area in one of the richest portions of the state. The people in that community were for the most part law-abiding, high class people. For that reason they were pethaps easily intimidated by the ruthless outlaws who lived along the shores of the lake and back im the hollows from the lake. T do not think it can be said that this organization had any one purpose other than controlling and dominating the domestic and economic life of all the people in that particular territory. One woman sued her hus- 4 Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial Appeal, Oct. 21, 1908. 77The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers band for divorce. She was ordered to dismiss the suit but she ignored the order. She was taken out and beaten with leather buggy traces. Judge William Swiggart, an eminent lawyer of Union City, was threat- ened in connection with this very litigation but being a courageous and able man, he defied the night riders and continued to do so as long as they existed. Squire Wynn of Lake County was whipped and died as a result of the whipping. A whole family of Negroes in Fulton County, Kentucky, was killed, and if I remember rightly, the husband and wife and three children were shot. One of the children, a babe in arms, was shot at its mothez’s breast. The leaders of this organization were dominating outlaws whose following was prompted largely by fear. Perhaps there were no more than 20 men in the entire organization who willingly participated in its activities. Most of the other 200 or 300 were-driven solely by their fear of the leaders. It is a peculiar truth that mass fear is easily engendered and is destructive of the courage and the better nature of good men. The very fact that these people rode by night and with masked faces put fear into the good men and women who lived in the cemote parts of Obion County. There was no sympathy among the people generally, only weakness engendered by fear. When once the spell was broken the eatire organization faded away. The dreadful, culminating tragedy brought to light the terrible rule of crime and disorder that had prevailed for more than a year in that neighborhood. Reelfoot Lake was formed by the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 and 1812, which caused the uplift of the lands near what is now the south boundary of the Jake. The generally accepted opinion has been that the lake was formed by the sinking of the land but geologists contend that on the contrary, there was an uplift. Reelfoot Lake today, as it was immediately after its formation, is covered with stumps and trees except in a few places where there were sloughs prior to the earthquake. The principal sloughs or small lakes were upper and lower Blue Basin. Lower Blue Basin was the deepest point in the lake and the water there at ordinary water mark was about 16 feet deep. Two small streams of water, Reelfoot Creek and the Bayou du Chien, were covered by the lake and remain today as trenches through the lake which can be followed with a pole from one end of it to the