Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1897 — Sawlog from Feud Region. [ARTICLE]

Sawlog from Feud Region.

A log was converted into lumber at the Southern Lumber Company’s mill at Valley View, Ky., which caused considerable comment among those who were present. It wag a poplar log, sixteen feet long, and as the saw cut its way through it and the boards began to fall on the receiving table it was found to be filled with leaden balls, in size from .32 to .45. Upon investigation and inquiry it was learned that the mill company had purchased it near Hazard, Ky., on Big Creek, near .where Joe Eversole and Combs were killed from ambush by the French faction. Eversole was killed outright and Combs fell mortally wounded, when a ball from a pistol in the hands of “Bad Tom” Smith corroborated the oft-re-peated statement that “dead men tell no talcs." The number of bullets found In the log was over 200, and it is believed to bnve been used In a barricade during the long and bloody feud between the French and Eversole factions in and around Hazard.