Marion Co TOC

October 1848, was Circuit Court time in Marion County. Always a time of excitement, hot feelings and high spirits. After court was over the witnesses, lawyers, plaintiffs and pardoned defendants were all drinking together at Hamp's Place.

In those days the mountain distilleries turned out two kinds of whiskey--loving and fighting. Loving whiskey--the kind Sheriff [Jesse] Mooney supposedly kept--made a man feel all mellow and romantic. Fighting whiskey, the kind Hamp sold, made a man mean enough to slap his own grandma.

One of the drinkers at Hamp's was a half breed Indian names Cherokee Bob. Bob had just been found innocent of stealing a horse belonging to an Everett follower. The whiskey loosened Bob's tongue and he was bragging how he had fooled everybody by putting the horseshoes on backwards, making it appear he rode the stolen horse in the opposite direction. Bob's buddies were the King boys--loyal Tutt men--so naturally the Everetts took offense to Bob's bragging. Suddenly it was "fist city" in the saloon, then out in the streets, where rocks and sticks flew back and forth between the combatants. (Luckily, Sheriff Mooney and Constable Adams had confiscated all the weapons until the owners were ready to leave town.) Once again Sim Everett was laying low all who came within range of his fists. This time he was laid low by one of the King boys, swinging a weeding hoe. The Kings and their buddies left Yellville running their horses at a fast gallop and headed for the safety of the King Ranch in Searcy County.

Bart and T. E. Everett swore out a warrant for the King boys arrest for assaulting Sim Everett. Sheriff Mooney, still living up to his campaign promises to serve all warrants, rode down into Searcy County where he and the local Sheriff rounded up the King boys and a large group of Tutt followers. The Searcy County Sheriff left Mooney at the Buffalo River and just a few miles within Marion County, Mooney and his prisoners were approached by Bart Everett and a large party of horsemen. Bart told Mooney the stork was due any minute at Mooney's Landing and he better high tail it home. Mooney's first wife, the mother of his four sons, had died in childbirth and now his new wife, Sarah, was about to give birth and needed her husband at her side. Mooney had no doubts about leaving his prisoners with Bart Everett--after all he had once been Sheriff of Marion County.

What the Sheriff didn't know was Sim Everett had died of his head wounds and within minutes of his departure the Everetts would gun down the unarmed, tied up prisoners in cold blood. Old Billy King and three of his boys died on the spot. Three would die later of their wounds.
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When Mooney found out what had happened he raised up a posse and went to the Everett stronghold to arrest them. Bart Everett sent out a red flag--signaling he was ready for a fight. The Everett forces outnumbered the lawmen, so the posse slipped away one by one, leaving only Mooney and Constable Adams to stand for the law.

War now raged in Yellville and the surrounding territory. Gunfights broke out daily on the streets of Yellville, where Bart Everett and six Tutt followers were killed.

Realizing he and Adams were helpless, Sheriff Mooney sent his son Tom--barely a teenager--to Little Rock with a message asking Governor Roane for help. There was no chance of calling out the Marion County Guard. Ewell Everett had succeeded his brother Jesse as Colonel.

Gov. Roane put General Allen Wood of Mexican War fame in charge. Gen. Wood called out two companies of the Carroll County Guard, under the command of Capt. W. C. Mitchell and Capt. Tilford Denton. All elected officials of the county were removed from office when martial law was declared. The militia swept down into Searcy County where a large party of Everetts were attending a Methodist Camp Meeting at Wiley's Cove (where the Wiley's Cove Ranch is today [1980] on Hwy. 65 just this side of Leslie). When they surrounded the brush arbor, several young ladies in the congregation swooned in fright, but the Everetts offered no resistance. They were arrested and taken to Smithville, in Eastern Arkansas, for safekeeping. At this time Mooney was also arrested, but released when the carcass of Tom's beautiful white horse washed up at the mouth of Rush Creek on Buffalo River. Though he search for many days, Mooney never found Tom's body. Presumably the boy was a casualty of the Marion County War.

With the Everetts locked up, peace seemingly was restored in Yellville. All weapons had been confiscated by the militia. One old lady got her butcher knife back only after she convinced General Wood that all she wanted was to kill a rooster. She proved the point by inviting the General for chicken and dumplings.

Winter was setting in and the civilian soldiers were needed at home. Quiet reigned in Yellville, but no sooner had the militia departed then Everett followers rode down to Smithville and pulled out one side of the jail, letting all the prisoners escape. The tale spread that Jesse Everett had returned from Texas with a hired gun to avenge his brothers' deaths. Hamp Tutt kept close to home. One morning as he was shaving out in front of his cabin a shot shattered the early quiet and his china wash basin. After that Hamp never went anywhere without two body guards.
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A handsome stranger, known only as "The Dutchmen," was staying with "Uncle Dave" Wickersham at Cowan Barnes. One day as Hamp was walking between his two body guards to his saloon he was shot from ambush and mortally wounded.

To Hamp's everlasting credit, he prayed that his death would be the end of the killing and hatred. He begged his brothers, David K. and Milton, to promise not to avenge his death.

Slowly the survivors began to put their lives back together. Jesse Everett had indeed been in Marion County. After Hamp's death he and a large following left for Texas. Jesse took the cholera, which was raging in Louisiana, and died suddenly at Shreveport.

The 1850 Marion County census shows two Everett families--both headed by young women, Nancy and Leah, and no adult males in the families. There are three Tutt families--Milton, attorney; David K., farmer and Nancy, farmer. Hansford is also listed, with a notation that he died before the year was out. Ironically, Nancy, his young widow, is listed as having the most real estate, $1,500. Jesse Mooney, whom her husband had accused of illegally buying up all the river bottom land between Mooney's Landing and Batesville, had real estate valued at $400.

Hate, like love, dies hard. The 1860's found the Everetts and Tutts fighting on the same side when W. C. Mitchell, now a Colonel, commanded the Marion County Guard for the Confederate States of America.

At this late date, a true account of the Marion County war could not be written. Time has confused so many of the facts and dates. Some accounts give 12 killed, others as many as 30. I am sure of this much--there was a bloody, bitter feud between the Everetts and the Tutts and Jesse Mooney was very much involved. I am doubly sure of this fact, for he was my great-grandfather.

Jesse was only 30 years old when he was removed from duties as Sheriff of Marion County and he vowed that he would never again run for public office. (Col. Flippin wrote that for many years Jesse Mooney was the most hated man in Marion County.) Yet he survived the dishonor and lived to excel in other fields. He had the honor of taking a steamboat the farthest point north on White River of any man--clear to the mouth of the James River. He was a Major in the Confederate Army. After the war he was an attorney in Mountain Home and served as representative for Baxter County--organized in 1873--until elections could be held. He was married three times and was the father of 16 children. Two of his sons served as Sheriff of Baxter County. Eugene Mooney was killed in the line of duty in 1907 and succeeded by his brother Leon, who later became a medical doctor, as did their oldest brother Jesse Mooney Jr.

An interesting side note of the Marion County War. During the Civil War George Clayton Mooney, who was born at the height of the feud, served his father as a teenage scout when Major Mooney was Provost Marshall at Yellville. During this time he met a Federal scout named William Hickock and the two enemies became steadfast friends. "Wild Bill" Hickock wrote the finis of the Marion County War when he killed David K. Tutt in a gunfight over a card game at Springfield, Mo. July 20, 1865.