In his pockets I found $400.37; his boots were new and fitted me perfectly; his clothes were of the best quality. I mounted as fine a horse as I ever straddled, and directed my course to Natchez, in much better style than I had been in the last five days. I reached Natchez, and spent two days with friends and the girls under the hill. I then left for the Choctaw Nation, and while riding along was overtaken by a tall, good-looking young man, riding an elegant horse which was splendidly rigged off; and his apparel was of the richest, and he said that he had with him the pay for twenty Negroes sold. I concluded he was a noble prize, and longed to be counting his cash. We had followed down the dale for near four hundred yards from the road, under a pretext of mine for finding some water, when I drew my pistol and shot him through. He fell dead. I searched his pockets and only found four dollars and a half; his handsome watch chain was fastened to an old brass watch, and his big purse was filled with love songs and love letters. He was a puff, for true, and I thought all such d--d fools ought to die as soon as possible. I took his horse, swapped him to an Indian native for four ponies, and sold them on my way home. My next trip was through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, and then back to South Carolina and from there around by Florida and Alabama."
By this time Stewart and Murrell had got back to Mr. Henning's, where they parted, Murrell to travel towards Alabama, where he had some robberies to execute, and Stewart to secure a posse by whom the "Great Western Land Pirate" was arrested and lodged in prison in February of 1834. His friends came to his assistance. They attacked the character of Stewart, and endeavored to prove that he had defrauded a merchant named Clanton, of money and goods, while acting as agent for him a short time. An effort was also made to poison him by bribing some one to put poison in his coffee; but all these failed, and in the following July Murrell was found guilty of negro stealing and sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years at hard labor. "This," says Stewart, "ended the career of the' Great Western Land Pirate,' who has reduced villainy to a system, and steeled his heart against all of the human family, except those who will consent to be as vile as himself."
As he promised, Murrell gave Stewart a list of the members of the clan, and it embraces the names of some of the most influential families in Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, and Louisiana. Besides the names from these States he gave those of a dozen "transients," or tramps, who, like himself, were always on the road. Stewart's little book was eagerly purchased, it is said, by the members of the clan, and in a few months after it first appeared it was "out of print," and a copy could not be bought for fifty dollars. Stewart removed to Mississippi and resided there for some years, but after the annexation of Texas he emigrated thither, and there, rumor had it, was killed by some member of the clan, many of whom had become citizens of that State.
Murrell, after he had served his time in the penitentiary, married an Ohio girl, and she was at last accounts still living in Henderson County of this State. She was named Mary McClovey, and was the daughter of an Irish emigrant, who married a pretty servant from the government garrison at Cincinnati in 1799, McClovey was the servant of Dr. Allison, famous as the first physician of Cincinnati, and who lived for a time between Permton and Stonelick, in Clermont, then Hamilton county, about the year 1800. Her father went to Cincinnati with Dr. Allison in 1810, and in that city the girl was reared. She was handsome and romantic, and her advantages for culture had been good, as her father had prospered. When about eighteen the girl met Murrell, who was in the city, probably selling some stolen horses. She was infatuated with the fellow's dash and personal beauty, and fled with him to Lexington, where they were married, much against the wishes of her father. She shortly after found out the character of the man, but nevertheless remained a true wife until his death in 1848: Then she married again, and endeavored ever afterward to forget her alliance with a man whose name was another word for crime and dishonor. She never spoke of him, and resented any attempt to drag from her anything of her early history or the exploits of her first husband. The little house in which he died is still standing in Pikeville, Bledsoe County, Tenn. On his death-bed he wanted to make a confession, but he was gagged and prevented by friends, one of whom exclaimed, "Great God, John, don't give us all away." John's bones now rest at Smyrna, but the ghouls dug into his grave and removed his skull, which is now in the museum at Nashville1.
1In February, 1885, a gentleman named Lee, with a friend, was bird and squirrel hunting in the neighborhood of Gin Branch, near Huntington, Tenn., when his dog Charlie started a rabbit, which he pursued into a hole leading to a cave into which his master followed to rescue him. He told the story in the Nashville World, in a letter dated February 13 of the above year. He said: "With lantern in hand we both entered, compelled to crawl on hands and knees for some distance before we could walk erect; the entrance turned first to the right, then to the left, in a zigzag form; finally we met Charlie, and his bark, as it echoed and reechoed, astonished us to such an extent that we raised our lantern over our heads, which threw a bright light around. We stood dumb for a moment; we were shocked and horrified; the surroundings were revealed; we were in a large room, celled on the sides and overhead with rude clapboards. Before us set a large table with a mutilated pack of cards in the centre; heavy wooden chairs around the table; a couple of large and rough shop-made knives on one corner. As soon as we could collect our senses and calm our staggered brains we found we were in a secret cave that had once been occupied by a band of outlaws, but whom, or when, was the question.
In surveying the room, which was 18 x 18, we found in one corner a black something; holding the light close, our blood was chilled; it was a large, black man, his skin and flesh as dry as those who, in ancient days, were given passage over Sharon; a large and rough-made chain was locked around his ankle and fastened to a staple in the floor. In the opposite corner lay the dried frames of two huge blood hounds; in an old heavy wooden box was found two old-fashioned horse pistols with flint locks; they had undoubtedly done service in the Revolution; there was also several pairs of handcuffs. We began to think that we were in the region of the damned. When looking on the rough wall there we saw' the handwriting. It was 'John A. Murrell, 1828.' We were in the great outlaw's den; we could then see that the man chained had been stolen by the bandit, brought there and chained until they could run him south and sell him. The presumption is that when the cave was deserted he was alive; the doom was sure, but what agony he underwent, chained and alone his face, like Milton's devil, grinned horribly a ghastly smile. The blood hounds had been kept for the purpose of recapturing any slave that might escape. As we were about making our exit our companion, Lee, called our attention, in an excited manner, to another object. We turned around and he was pale and the lantern trembling in his hand; he pointed under the table, and there lay the form and dried frame of another human being. Examining close, it proved to be that of a woman. She, too, was chained. She had died a horrible death; starved to death. Her long, yellow hair still clung to the dry skin on her head, which hung in golden tresses over a bosom that once heaved with the breath of life.