Homicide at Hodges

 

“When the lamp was lit, we saw the dead body of Mr. Glymph, he had a pistol in his hand.” [i]

 

McCreery Glymph shot his brother dead. A war had been raging in his mind and the battle ended in the kitchen passageway of his own home.

John Glymph was twenty-two years old as he lay in a pool of his own blood in October 1888.

There had been rumors around town about John and Jennie, and “Mack” finally cracked.

Mack collected the children and stepped outside. Out into leafy nowhere. [ii] In the pale dusk of impending night[iii], Mack had risen up against his brother and slew him. He escorted his young children to a neighbor for safekeeping and stumbled to find a man of the law, a neighbor, Trial Justice Moore.

Moore’s father approached Mack who was screaming, “My God! My God! Capt. Moore, I have killed my brother, John Glymph.” Moore sent for a doctor, but Mack knew he didn’t need one.

Jennie Townsend was fetching. The granddaughter of Rev. Joel Townsend, a Methodist minister known throughout the state of South Carolina. She was educated and refined. She was joined in matrimony to Mack but joined in love to Johnnie.

John, a fellow of no particular occupation had been living at his brother’s farm near Hodges. He and Jennie were often seen “walking and riding together” prompting whispers amongst the townspeople. Jennie had once been engaged to Johnnie but found herself married to Mack with two children.

Mack had grown dejected. The closeness between his brother and wife was palpable. Whenever John played the cornet and Jennie the piano, he could hear desire in every note. He wanted John to disappear. Hours before the shooting Mack had told John to take leave of the premises, but John attempting to be chivalrous, said he would not go while Mack was in such a mania. “He couldn’t refuse to protect a lady.”

In a futile attempt to protect Jennie, John pulled a gun, and concurrently so did Mack. Mack fired first and shot his brother down with two shots to his head. One in the left temple and one in the eye. Death came quickly for John Glymph as he clutched a pistol in his right hand.

The Coroner’s Inquest presented witness after witness testifying to rumors of Jennie and John. When Jennie took the stand she painted Mack as a violent drunk who was jealous of Johnnie and even her own father. It was true she had been engaged to Johnnie when she married Mack but didn’t understand why Mack had “any grounds to be jealous of Johnnie”. Johnnie was an orphan (at 21!) and had nowhere to go. She implored Johnnie to be there for protection from Mack’s constant threats.

On cross-examination, a note to Johnnie from Jennie retrieved from the dead man’s pocket revealed an obvious love letter…

 

The Abbeville Press and Banner, 24 Oct 1888

 

Mack was not convicted.

Jennie travelled to Hartwell, GA in 1890 to go before a divorce court where she wove a tale of Shakespearean proportions. Jennie told the court that the night of the wedding she was expecting Johnnie, but he had somehow been detained. In the darkness, Mack had taken his place. They rode together in a buggy to a friend’s home and were married. Ignorant of the swindling switch, she didn’t see the face of her groom until after the wedding, leaving Johnnie all alone at the rendezvous point. A dark night for the record books!

Jennie eventually remarried Robert Lee Ayers and had more children. She died in Anderson, SC in 1951.

Mack remarried Annie Walton and they had four children. He became a successful optometrist in Greenwood, SC. He died in 1928 with his obituary listing no mention of his children with Jennie Townsend, Fannie May and Norwood Glymph. They had been removed completely from his life. The fate of that day surely must have lingered, or perhaps festered, in the chambers of his soul.  

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[i] Testimony of John Robinson, Coroners Inquest, as reported by The Abbeville Press and Banner, 24 Oct 1888

[ii] Lyric from Best Days, Blur, The Great Escape, 1995

[iii] Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Morituri Salutamus, 1825

The Manic Minister

 

In December of 1899, Methodist Circuit Preacher, Rev. Adney McSwain Attaway had come home to Pickens, S.C. for Christmas but by the 29^th had to bury Bowman, his 11-year-old son. A previous stint in the state mental hospital for both he and his wife did not adequality prepare them to cope with the loss of a child.  

In early January, he was in a frenzy at home. He decapitated the family dog with an ax, and then began to destroy the furniture. He grabbed his wife, Belle pulling the clothes around her neck with his teeth in an attempt to strangle her. Belle cried out for their daughter, Janie, who grabbed a knife. Belle screamed for her daughter to stab father before he kills me and “all of you”. Janie merely cut away the clothes, but the reverend was dead.

Belle testified that she had strangled her husband, but Coroner Jones of Pickens County, found that Rev. Attaway died of heart failure induced by “a violent attack of insanity”.

Belle was recommitted to the mental hospital for a short time before resuming a quiet life as a widow in Pickens. She died in 1955 from pneumonia and was buried next to her husband at Sunrise Cemetery.

 

Sources:

“Said She Choked Him to Death”, The Watchman and Southron, Sumter, South Carolina, 17 Jan 1900, newspapers.com, accessed: 19 August 2021

South Carolina, U.S. Death Records, 1821-1969, entry for Belle Harris Attaway, Ancestry.com

Find A Grave Index, entry for Rev. Adney McSwain Attaway, findagrave.com

What Lies Beneath: The Cemeteries Under Lake Murray

In the 1920's the Lexington Water Power Company purchased properties from residents of Lexington County, S.C., to create Lake Murray. Many of these residents were descendants of people that had lived in in the Saxe-Gotha and Dutch Fork communities, during the Revolution and Civil War eras.

Below the murky waters of the 50,000 acre lake, lie the remains of these towns along with several graveyards and cemeteries.

I recently discovered Lake Murray Records at the Greenville Library. These records were found by an SCE&G employee in the late nineties, and turned over to the Columbia Chapter of the South Carolina Genealogical Society. The Society agreed to handle the fragile documents only once, and created transcriptions into a book.

Most of the entries concerning the graveyards and cemeteries were in the form of letters written by family members requesting that their loved ones remain undisturbed and impounded by the waters of the lake, while others requested their removal.

Here are several interesting entries contained in Lake Murray Records:

Letter Nov. 15th 1928: Mr. H.L. Lankford being interviewed stated that he had known this place all his life and had never known any connections of anyone buried at this place; that his grandfather had said they were people of a lost name, no more of them to be found. There are no marked stones at this graveyard.

Presumably no one will object to this plat being covered by the waters of Lake Murray.

C.G. Guignard, C.K. Son

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Mrs. Margaret M. - March 31, 1866 48 years and 3 days

Consort of Michael Shealy

My flesh shall slumber in the ground,

'Til the last trumpet's joyful sound,

Then burst the bands with sweet surprise,

And in my Saviour's [sic] image rise.

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These two graveyards located on my place below the water line are old slavery graveyards I believe; and I don't know of any living relations. no one has been buried in either of these graveyards since the Civil War.

M.D. Derrick

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One lone grave said by tradition to be that of a deserter from the Confederate Army who was killed and buried there. No relatives of connections can be found.

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Juliana-Dec 9, 1825 Age 20 years, 7 months, 21 days. Wife of John George Haltiwanger and daughter of John Frederick Kelly

She was a child of misfortune in this world, but the Lord saw her affliction as she died with the full assurance of entering into that rest was promissed [sic] to the people of God. let stresses like mild deluge come. Let storms of sorrow fall, so I but safely reach my home, my God, my heaven, my all.

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This was a burying ground for slaves and so far as I know, there are no living relatives. No one has been buried there within the last thirty-five years to my certain knowledge.

John Green Hiller of Chapin, S.C.

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Negro buried in the woods. tradition as given by Mrs. Justus Wingard and Mrs. J.L. Cannon tells that an unknown negro years ago committed suicide and was buried in the woods where he was found.

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John A. Epting - Dec. 17, 1829-Aug. 22, 1858 Age 28 years, 8 months and 5 days

Remember man as you pass by,

As you are now so once was I,

As I am now, so you must be

Prepare for death and follow me.

Divers from South Carolina Scuba Diving, have made regular dives down to the "lost city". Here is a video of a cemetery dive:

If you have family members buried underneath the waters of Lake Murray, please comment below! I am happy to do look-ups in the book as well. I can be contacted at jenealogist355@gmail.com