SOMETHING ABOUT THE LYON FAMILIES
The town of Derry in New Hampshire had contributed fourteen persons to
the population of Kentucky, all of them by the name of Lyon. Colonel
Duncan Lyon had gone there as a young man, and had made a very handsome
fortune. But he died at the age of fifty, and bequeathed his property,
consisting of a large plantation, which he had named Riverlawn, because
it had a delightful lawn, with great trees scattered over it, though
after the English fashion with none immediately in front of the large
mansion, to his two brothers and the children of one deceased ten years
before his death.
The elder of the two living brothers was Titus Lyon. He had removed to
his new home eight years before, and he appeared to be the black sheep
of the fourteen who had departed from their native town. He was a mason
by trade, and had done fairly well in his former home at his business.
He was one of those men who believed that fate or circumstances had
misused him, as he compared his worldly condition with that of his
eldest brother, who had departed this life leaving a fortune behind him;
or even of his other brother, who had always been a prosperous farmer.
Titus had been informed by Colonel Lyon that there was an opening for a
mason in the village of Barcreek, near which he resided, though he had
not advised him to remove to that locality, and was really opposed to
his coming. His discontent with his condition had induced him to change
his residence to this far-off section of the country, probably with a
motive which he concealed from both of his brothers. He had a wife, who
was an excellent woman, belonging to a very respectable family, and five
children, three girls and two boys, the latter already introduced.
The mason did tolerably well at his trade in his new home for a few
years, though it was not a business at which a fortune could be easily
made in that rural section of the country. It was not a prohibition
State, which seemed to make it all the worse for the head of this
family; for he had contracted the habit of drinking moderately when, as
a young man, he had been a stage-driver, and it had grown upon him in
his new home.
Titus had not become a sot, or even a very heavy drinker, before the
death of his brother; but he regularly imbibed his whiskey, and to some
extent his habit affected his manners and his morals. He had always
appeared to be extremely devoted to the colonel, and even fawned upon
him, during his residence in Barcreek; and he was always kindly treated
and assisted financially when he needed help.
Colonel Lyon died suddenly at the age of fifty. He had never been
married, and had no children to whom he could leave his property. About
a year before his decease he paid a visit of a month to his brother
Noah, the youngest of the three brothers, in his native town. The latter
was a substantial man, who held a very respectable position in the town;
he had been somewhat distinguished among his fellow-citizens, and had
been the incumbent of several town officers.
Noah Lyon was forty years old at the time of his brother's death, with
a good woman for a wife, who was in every sense a helpmate to her
husband. They had two children of their own, a boy and a girl, Dexter
and Hope. Cyrus, a fourth brother of the Lyons, had lost his life in a
freshet in Vermont, where he had settled as a farmer; and his wife had
perished with him, leaving two small children, Artemas and Dorcas. He
had not left property enough to pay his debts; but Noah promptly adopted
the little ones, and for ten years he had cared for and supported them
as though they had been his own.
Noah had suggested to Titus that he should take one of them to his home,
while he received the other in his own family; but his brother pleaded
the poor health of his wife for not doing so, and the little ones had
reached the ages of seventeen and fifteen when they were removed to
Kentucky. Noah and his wife treated them in every respect as their own
children, and no one could have asked a better home for them. They
called their uncle and aunt by the endearing names of father and mother.
At the death of Colonel Lyon, the telegraphic message announcing the sad
event had been immediately followed by a letter from Colonel Cosgrove,
summoning Noah to the late home of the deceased. To the intense
disappointment of Titus, the Riverlawn plantation had been left to Noah,
with the fifty-one slaves, and everything connected with the place.
Titus had set his heart upon the possession of the estate; for it would
give him a generous support without manual labor.
He was one of those men who contrive to believe in and expect what they
most desire. He had been his wealthy brother's neighbor for eight years,
and knew something about the estate. For this reason, and because he was
next in age to the deceased, he had come to believe that the place
belonged to him. The colonel had other views; for he realized that Titus
was not an entirely reliable person, was not much of a business man, and
his drinking habit was continually growing upon him.
The eldest brother had, however, endeavored to make a fair division of
his property among his nearest of kin. He had given some legacies to his
personal friends, including his faithful overseer, who had served him
for many years.
Then he had given Noah ten thousand dollars in consideration of the fact
that he had supported the children of Cyrus for ten years. To him also
he bequeathed twenty-five thousand dollars in trust for these children.
He had left the same sum to Titus, less a mortgage note given at the
time the mason had purchased his residence in the village. The will was
accompanied by an inventory of the entire property, indicating that the
colonel had figured up his resources, and endeavored to make an
equitable division among his legal heirs.
With the will also came into the possession of Noah two letters, one
enclosing the other. The open one directed him not to sell any of the
slaves on the plantation, and the other was not to be opened for five
years. The sum of money left to his successor on the plantation, in
payment for the support of the niece and nephew of the testator, and the
disposition of the negroes, were the principal grievances of Titus,
apparently, though the real one had been the giving of the plantation to
Noah. In some of his moments, when he had rather overcharged himself
with whiskey, he had furiously assailed his innocent brother for what
the dead one had done in his will.
Noah was a mild and peaceful man under ordinary circumstances, and he
did his best to preserve intact his fraternal relations with his angry
and discontented brother. Some discussion had taken place between them,
and Titus was as unreasonable as a mule. The subject rendered him
furious, aided by the whiskey, and the difference on this matter became
a decided rupture.
Colonel Lyon had sometimes been charged with over-indulgence to his
negroes; and it was true that he had treated them as kindly as though
they had been hired servants instead of slaves, perhaps more so. The
"people," as they were often called on the plantation, after the manner
of a man-of-war, had not been valued in the inventory of the deceased
planter, and had not been mentioned in the document, any more than the
horses, mules, and cows.
By this omission Titus believed that he had been cheated out of his
share of about thirty thousand dollars. Noah exhibited the open letter
of the colonel to him; but this only fanned his wrath. He appeared to
believe that his deceased brother had no rights in his own property, all
of which he had accumulated himself. He had nursed himself into the
conviction that he was the victim of a gross injustice, and he had
little patience, or even toleration, with his mild-mannered brother, who
had never spoken to the colonel about his will, or the colonel to him.
This family quarrel owed some of its bitterness, on the part of Titus,
to other circumstances than the naked merits of the case, if there was a
shadow of justice in the charges of his brother against him. Noah had
not a particle of it in his composition; for he was a true Christian,
and returned good for evil so far as he was permitted to do so. The
political situation in Kentucky had complicated the relations of the
brothers.
Titus had belonged to one party, while his brother was an earnest member
of the other; though with a very wide difference of opinion, one had
proved to be as patriotic as the other. Probably because Noah was
emphatically devoted to the Union, Titus had taken the other side of the
question in Kentucky, where all was excitement and turmoil from the
nomination of the candidates for the presidency. The agitation became
that of Loyalty and Secession.
The governor had issued his proclamation in favor of the neutrality of
the State, and Home Guards were organized to enforce it. But it never
amounted to anything; for the majority were demonstrated to be Union
men, and appealed to the traditions of the past as the first State to
join the original thirteen. Captain Titus had become the commander of
one of these companies, on his promise to uniform and equip his men. He
had expended a considerable portion of the money he had inherited in the
purchase of arms and ammunition for his command, though he had never
been able to supply his soldiers with uniforms.
He had sent to New York for an abundant supply of weapons and
cartridges, including two brass field-pieces, over a hundred
breech-loading rifles, and nearly as many revolvers of several sizes. He
intended that his company should be the best equipped in the region, and
his newly acquired wealth made him very extravagant. But the Union
forces had begun to show themselves in the State, and the loyal element
exceeded in numbers the Secessionists; so that it was necessary for the
commander of the Home Guards to take extraordinary precautions for the
safety of the war material he had purchased.
With some difficulty he had moved the cases from the train at Dripping
Spring, carted them to a point on Bar Creek, from which he had conveyed
them to one of the numerous sink-hole caverns which abound in this part
of the State. He had carefully disposed of them, with the aid of his two
sons and some trusted neighbors, intending to give them out to his men
in a few days.
An indiscretion on the part of his wife had given a hint of the
existence of the arms at Riverlawn, which an exploration of Artie Lyon,
the adopted son, had worked into tangible evidence of the place where
the munitions had been concealed. Noah believed it was a duty he owed to
his country to obtain possession of these arms. He had already been
warned by his brother that he was regarded as an abolitionist, and that
a mob, consisting mainly of the Home Guards, were agitating the question
of burning his mansion and driving him out of the county.
When the loss of the arms was discovered, Titus became absolutely
furious, and, either with or without sufficient evidence, accused Noah
of stealing the property. A very enthusiastic Union meeting was held at
the Big Bend schoolhouse, and was attended by some of the most prominent
citizens of the county. The action of Major Lyon, as he had come to be
called very generally as a title of respect, in accordance with a
prevailing custom, in securing the arms was heartily approved by the
assembly.
That very night the ruffians of the Home Guard, for such they were,
which included most of the baser element of the locality, had made an
attack on the plantation of Major Lyon, intending to burn and destroy
it, if not, as was hinted, to hang the planter to one of the big trees
on his lawn. But a few of his neighbors had rallied to his assistance,
and his negroes were armed with the confiscated weapons, and the attack
was an utter failure.
Colonel Belthorpe, who had been a soldier in his earlier years,
commanded the defenders of the estate, and the mob marched to his
plantation to wreak their vengeance upon him by the destruction of his
property; but the same forces defeated them there, with many wounds, and
the loss of a few lives.
At the Union meeting Major Lyon had proposed to raise a company of
cavalry. He had offered to contribute a considerable number of horses
for the service, and his neighbors had followed his example; and over a
hundred steeds were pledged. Letters had been written to the commander
of the Union army in Kentucky, relating to this project, and Lieutenant
Burke Gordan had been sent to organize the company; and he was followed
later by several non-commissioned officers to assist in the drill. The
ruffians had made an attempt to stop the enlistments at Riverlawn, where
the camp was located; but they had been beaten off.
The recruiting had progressed very successfully; and instead of one
company, two had been organized during the next three months. Major Lyon
and his two sons had drilled and studied the military art in the most
determined manner; for they were enthusiastic in the support of the
government. The two companies, though hardly entitled to the name, were
called a squadron. The planter, in spite of his protest, was made the
major of the command; and he had become competent for the position. This
was the squadron which marched by the house of Swin Pickford while Deck
was talking with the two sons of Titus about the strait of the captain's
family in Barcreek village.