CHAPTER XIII.
THE MURDER OF BRUCE LEWELLEN
Three miles east of Sevierville, on the Flat Creek road, is situated Millican Grove church, and almost within the shadow of this beautiful little country church occurred one of the most blood-curdling murders in the history of White-cap depredations. The church sets close by the roadside on the north, overshadowed by a neat little grove of oak and hickory trees. On the south side of the road is a thick undergrowth of oak and pine, and through the center of this clump of brush and thick undergrowth is a path running directly to the south. It was along this dreary pathway, on a starless night, in the month of April, 1892, that Bruce Lewellen was plodding his way alone to meet some of his fellow White-caps, little dreaming that he was then making his last foot-prints upon earth and along this familiar pathway which he had so often trodden before. But alas, poor Bruce, he was doomed to meet death that night, for at that very moment two murderers lay in wait, concealed in the bushes close by the roadside, thirsting for the life-blood of their fellow man. They were members of the notorious band of White-caps who had been detailed to commit the bloody crime, and like demons they waited patiently to hear the familiar foot-steps of the young man whose confidence they had betrayed. Suddenly, and without a moments warning, a loud report was heard, and Bruce Lewellen fell to the ground a lifeless corpse. His head was filled with buckshot, evidently from a shot gun fired at close range. David Mitchell, an old man living near by, heard the shot that forever sealed the fate of Bruce Lewellen, but thought nothing of it at the time, as it was a common occurrence in that neighborhood. Early the next morning two small boys stumbled upon his dead body as they chanced to pass that way going to mill. The alarm was given, and the neighbors gathered in, and he was laid to rest the following day in the Alderbranch cemetery. At the funeral it was whispered around that he had been killed by the White-caps, but everybody seemed to be afraid to talk on the subject. The circumstances leading up to this tragedy are as follows: Bruce Lewellen was a White-cap. The White-caps had given his mother notice that they were going to whip her. Young Lewellen rebelled against them and vowed they should never whip his mother. It so happened that about this time officers and citizens had set traps for the White-caps at Douglass' Ferry and other points. They began to grow uneasy. Their plans were being foiled and their forces began to weaken. That some one was making known their plans was an evident fact, beyond any question. Who had more cause for turning informer than Bruce Lewellen? After a consultation among themselves, it was decided that he was the traitor who was furnishing the officers with this information and thus betraying them into the hands of their enemies. According to their oath, it was binding upon the organization to put to death any one revealing the proceedings of their order; hence the decision that Lewellen was guilty of this offence and that immediate steps should be taken to seal his lips forever by sending him to eternity. Their plans were made and Lewellen was summoned to meet them at a point where they had often met before, and only a short distance from where he met death on that fatal night. He was asked as to what particular path he would come, there being many by-paths through the densely wooded forest which he could travel that night. Soon after dark, he stepped out at the front door of his humble home and disappeared into the inky darkness, never to return. Thus ending the life of a young man who might have led a better life and made a useful citizen had he not fallen into the hands of older men who were, by far, more experienced in the commission of crime. Bruce Lewellen died for a crime which he had not committed. The information supposed to have been furnished by him was given out by a prominent man of their order whom they had never suspected and one in whom they have the utmost confidence even to this day. |