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.