Monsters & Mayhem
I traveled all the way to Upson County, Georgia, a few weeks ago to do research for a client. One of the subjects of my interest was a farmer named Amos Rose, who was born about 1792 and lived in a fancy, columned plantation house not far from a town colorfully called The Rock. (There once was a huge boulder there where the stagecoach driver / postman left the mail.) My hope was to find some court records related to Amos’s ill behavior. He may not have been a monster, but he did partake in mayhem. To wit:
On Christmas Day 1841 one of Amos’s neighbors, Ninian Barrett, was driving his wagon along a road that crossed Amos’s land. Coming upon a fence that crossed the road and unable to turn around in the narrow byway, Ninian took down the fence rails.
I took this photo driving down the road near where Amos and Ninian faced off.
Amos quickly confronted his neighbor and demanded that Ninian pay for the privilege of crossing his land. Several witnesses then saw them get into a furious argument. In a petition to the court (just one of the original documents I found on my trip south), Ninian described what happened next:
… the said Amos Rose with force & arms, assaulted your petitioner & then & there with great force & violence seized & laid hold of your petitioner, & bit your petitioner on his fingers, and with his fists & a large whip gave and struck your petitioner a great many violent blows & strokes on & about divers parts of his head, eyes & body; and also then & there with great force & violence, cast & threw your petitioner upon the ground & gouged & struck the only eye your petitioner had, & bit one of the fingers of your petitioner & gnawed the same.
Just to underscore a few items here: Amos attacked a one-eyed man and gouged his remaining eye. He bit one of the man’s fingers “& gnawed the same.”
The Upson County court quickly indicted Amos for “mayhem”—a very specific crime according to Georgia state law. It described “depriving a person, free or slave, of a member,” which is to say, a tongue, nose, ear, or lip. This could also include putting out an eye and slitting, cutting, biting off, or otherwise disabling any other limb or member.
Amos smartly fled the jurisdiction, taking his second wife, the three young children he had had with her, and his two dozen slaves. He callously abandoned his other seven children, two of whom were minors. He settled for a short time in Alabama before moving even farther west. He died along the Mississippi River in September 1842. He left behind a large family but even they didn’t much like him.
As for Ninian, one of his forefingers had been bitten off, and after it became infected, his arm was amputated. He also went blind in his remaining eye.
Every once in a while in genealogical research you come across real villains—and Amos definitely qualifies.
If you’re interested in learning more about your family—the good ones and the villains—check out Black Sheep Genealogy’s services and then send us an email. We can’t wait to hear from you.
Image at top: From Ninian Barrett’s petition to the court, 1842