Joseph Biggerstaff, of Rutherford County, a farmer and country merchant,
was visited by six Confederate troopers, who claimed to be Wheeler's men,
on their way home. They demanded his money and, searching his house, found
about $600 in specie. Four of them in the house put the money on a table
to count it, while two men held the horses. Biggerstaff said he would die
before they should take his money, but they paid no attention to him, when
he attacked them with an axe, killing two and had the third one down when
the fourth one at the table shot and killed him. There was present a man
by the name of Waters, a neighbor, who had stood by and took no part. One
of the robbers then upbraided Waters as a coward who ought to be killed,
shot and killed Waters. Gathering up all the money, they left the four
dead men where they had fallen, and rode away. This was the climax of the
four years' bloody drama for our section. This last tragedy occurred near
where a number of Tories were executed at Biggerstaff's old field, who had
been taken at the battle of King's Mountain during the Revolutionary War.
(See "Draper's History of King's Mountain and its Heroes.")