ullet in the
neck.

There was a dispute as to whether John Martin or Floyd Tolliver had
killed Sol Bradley, who was a friend and partisan of Cook Humphrey. It
was never decided who did the killing. But it started the
Martin-Tolliver troubles.

The wounding of Ad Sizemore was generally laid to Sheriff John Day.

Forthwith the factions organized and armed themselves. There were
Martins, Sizemores, and Humphrey on one side, Days and Tollivers on the
other side.

John Martin, the son of Ben, lived not far from his father on Christy
Creek, a few miles from Morehead. His brothers, Will and Dave, resided
nearby. They had a sister, Sue, who was as fearless as the menfolks of
her family. She resented bitterly the treatment of the Martins by the
other side. Sue lived at home with her father and mother.

The Tollivers were more widely scattered. Floyd lived in Rowan, Marion
and Craig in Morgan County, their cousins Bud, Jay, and Wiley lived in
Elliott County.

Their clansmen, all Democrats, including Tom Allen Day and his brothers
Mitch, Boone, and John, also Mace Keeton, Jeff and Alvin Bowling, James
Oxley, and Bob Messer lived in Rowan County.

The Martins, Logans, and Matt Carey, the county clerk, all Republicans
and friends of Cook Humphrey, newly elected sheriff, resented the
killing of Sol Bradley, an innocent bystander.

There had been whisperings of threats laid to both sides. "As soon as
the leaves put out good, I aim to get Floyd," Martin is reported to have
said. Similar mutterings were reported to have been uttered by Tolliver.
"I'll bide my time till the brush gets green; then I aim to have a
reckoning. That Logan outfit, well-wishers of the Martins, are getting
too uppity."

It was Fentley Muse who told a tale-bearer that no good could come of
such things and urged that all keep peace. But peace bonds were violated
as fast as they were made. Pledges by Craig Tolliver to leave the county
for good and all were broken.

There was more tale-bearing. There were those who, according to John
Martin's son Ben, later a World War hero, made the bullets for others to
shoot, including one, a doctor, whom I knew well in later years. Ben
Martin said of him angrily, "He filled more graves than any other man in
Rowan County and yet he himself never fired a shot." Ben's aged mother,
Mrs. Lucy Trumbo Martin, reiterated this often to me when I sat beside
her on the porch of the old Cottage Hotel on Railroad Street in Moreh