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THE LEGEND OF BILLY POTTS
The following article was first
published in 1937 by the Illinois Department of Public Works, Division of
Highways in a magazine called Safety. It Later appeared in the The
Metropolis News.
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The picture above is a building in
Hardin County that is about 100 years old and has a most unusual gruesome
history.
This building is located on what was the old Ford's
Ferry to Vandalia Trail in Hardin County. Travelers coming from the eastern
territory beyond the Ohio River into the Illinois country, usually crossed the
river on Ford's ferry, then followed the Vandalia Trail as a necessity, as it
was then the only cross-country route that a stranger unfamiliar with the
surroundings could follow.
The tavern was on the Vandalia Trail about ten miles
from Ford's ferry, at the foot of a high rocky bluff, the first indication of
the fact that the Ozark foothills would have to be taken into consideration by
the weary traveler. Here, also, was a clear, cool spring, which was then and is
now, a source of never failing supply of water, about which we will hear more
later. The tavern was operated by a cheerful villain who bore the name of Potts.
Jim Ford owned the ferry and hired one Vincent Simpson
to operate it. These three merry-gentlemen — Potts, Ford and Simpson — had
an eye for business and were not bothered by any questions of remorse, if their
business methods resulted in an untimely death for some of their customers. The
dominating idea that the inspiration for this unholy alliance of three
cut-throats; was that of separating the travelers from their worldly
possessions, which they usually carried in their saddlebags or in a convenient
"poke", fastened to a belt. As indicated above if, in the separating
process, the surprised customers chose to take issue with them and point out
that they were engaged in a nefarious enterprise, which if not illegal, most
certainly could be classified as being rude and discourteous, they promptly
dispatched him to another world as befitting one who was not versed in modern
business and had made the unhappy mistake of talking out of turn, thereby
revealing to them that such an uncouth person would not be missed in the circle
of polite society of Hardin County.
In order to put their business of murder and robbery on
a big dividend paying basis, they evolved the idea of hiring spotters and
runners whose business it was to fall in with approaching travelers and make an
inventory of their belongings, which they forwarded, together with a report of
about how much resistance to expect from each victim to either Messrs. Ford and
Simpson at the ferry or to Mr. Potts at the tavern,. This information, turned in
by the spotters and runners, cut down to a minimum the useless knocking off of a
penniless wayfarers, which could not result in any possible gain of any sort,
and had the added disadvantage of cluttering up the landscape with a varied
assortment of lifeless gentry that someone would have to bury, or at least drag
off, out of the way of a not-so-very fast coming civilization.
Potts had a son who finally grew to young manhood and
was making a very efficient hand in his father's business organization, as he
apparently inherited the knack of murder and highway robbery from a long line of
forefathers who have been ranked by historians as being tops in this field of
endeavor. However, he chafed at restraint and would on occasions and on his own
initiative, make solicitations that did not have parental sanction. One of these
individual efforts on his part was rather crudely staged, and resulted in his
having to leave the immediate vicinity in a hurry. Thrown on his own, he still
plied the trade which had been taught him by long association with his father,
and made quite a name for himself in the Ohio River territory as a freebooter
and river pirate, par excellence. After an absence of some fifteen or twenty
years, pangs of homesickness smote him to such an extent that he turned his
footsteps homeward. A newly-discovered sense of humor, and the natural desire of
our true artist to test the effectiveness of his careful disguise which had been
supplemented by a full, luxuriant, natural bear, led him to have a try at
keeping his identity a secret for a short space of time, when he returned to the
scene of his boyhood days. More than this, if he were unknown, he would have a
chance to view at close range, the business operations of his father's firm,
with the now criticizing eye of an efficiency expert and be in a position to
finally point out flaws in the set-up or possibly pick up for himself a few
pointers on skullduggery to augment his own voluminous knowledge of his craft.
Whatever his motive, history records his coming as an unheralded one.
He approached the ferry from the Kentucky side. Sure
enough, a man he knew for a spotter in his father's hire, fell in with him and
carefully sounded him out as to his finances. He let it be known that he was in
possession of a considerable quantity of the coin of the realm, which later
proved to be the truth. This man and the ferry attendant gave him careful
instructions to guide him to Potts' tavern, as they were now convinced that
fortune had favored them indeed, by sending his lone individual who would yield
up a maximum of profit for a minimum of effort. They also knew that if this lone
bearer of potential company earnings failed, for any reason, to arrive at Potts'
tavern for his already-arranged-for hulling out and demise the wrath of Potts
senior, who now had been elevated to the exalted position of managing direct of
the firm Death and Robbery, Unlimited, Hardin County, Illinois, would be visited
upon the underline responsible for this mismanagement. Previous experiences had
t aught them that old man Potts was much more than a mere novice when it came to
visiting wrath on anybody of anything.
Anyhow, Potts junior, wearing his beard at full mast,
and enjoying his huge joke to the utmost, drove in sight of the hold homestead
and bidden welcome by his father, who was not only a most genial host, but had
developed little mannerisms and tricks of hospitality which often induced the
guest to extend his stay at the hostelry for an indefinite period of time.
Potts, senior, now went into the old routine of asking
his new guest if he did not want to quench his thirst at the old spring. This
idea had long been incorporated in the firm's by-laws for a two-fold purpose.
Some of the more fastidious guests had been known to squawk about the idea of
sitting idly on the tavern veranda and having to watch the innkeeper bounce a
pole ax off the head of another guest, especially just before the dinner hour.
Having originated the idea that some of the customers-particularly the ones who
had arrived without much money-were always partially right., Potts, with a fine
display of sympathetic feeling for his other gusts always maneuvered any
newcomer whom he planned to rob out of sight, down by the spring. This couple
with the fact that his private burying ground was immediately adjacent to the
springs, not only smoothed the remaining, living guest, but added just that
gesture of efficiency of the brand he so ardently demanded from all the members
of his organization.
Not knowing that the elder Potts had long since
completed his graduate work and had been awarded a master's degree in the gentle
art of preparing passengers for their journey across the River Styx, and acting
as chief usher to them while en route, Potts junior strolled unwarily ahead of
him down the path leading to the spring. Local historians have recorded the fact
that this particular murder, because o its masterful handling, should be
included in the upper brackets when compiling any kind of a list of deaths by
violence in Hardin County. Some have gone as far as to say, without
qualification, that its perfection had never been approached when viewed in the
cool, analyzing way unprejudiced experts have of judging such matters.
When it was subsequently rumored that the last Potts'
tavern guest who had been murdered and robbed in the order named, was in
reality, young Potts, it irked the old man no end, To put a stop to such foolish
outburst of woman's chitter-chatter, he without further delay diligently removed
the shallow earth covering the body and hauled him forth to prove to all the
known world and that part of Hardin County which had shown any interest in the
matter, that he was not a citizen who would do such a dastardly thing as murder
his own son, even when he was harassed by an unusual rush of seasonal business.
Here, though, he tripped himself, as he had not reckoned
on his wife's remarkable memory. She happened to be dipping a bucket of water
from the spring and saw her spouse uproot his latest business venture. She
identified the remains as their son by a birthmark and some indentations in his
skull, the latter a result of her having tried to correct him in his wayward
youth, with an iron poker, usually kept near the fireplace, but had been pressed
into use on one occasion as an emergency remedy.
Potts' tavern is located in Hardin County, on S.B.I. No.
1, 13 miles south of the junction of S.B.I. No. 13, about 400' west of the
pavement.
(Picture and article courtesy of Safety magazine
published by Division of Highways, district nine, at Carbondale, in the interest
of highway safety.)
— Ann Laird of
Metropolis contributed this article.
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AN 1854 DIARY ENTRY OF J. J. WILLIAMS
Oct. 25th: Food for horses being scarce, we provided ourselves with corn directly after we started. The road was still hilly this morning as it had been for two days... The scene as it lay all bathed in the morning light and the hill after hill stretching away below and around us, was truly enchanting and beautiful. We came to the foot of Patz (Potts) hill about ten o'clock; there is a house at the foot of the hill where legend says many a man has stopped for the night and never been heard of more. It looks like a place for deeds dark and dreadful. The hills and rocks around have a wild and fearful look about and seem to be a fit place for the ghosts of the murdered dead, to howl in. It may be fancy, but the house itself has a forbidding appearance, every shutter was closed but those that were broken off and looked like they might have been shut for half a score of years...
The above is an excerpt from a diary written by J.J. Williams who moved, with his family from Keysburg, Kentucky, to southwest Missouri in October-November, 1854. The family traveled by covered wagon caravan. The wagons crossed the Ohio River on Barker's Ferry, probably in the area of Cave-In Rock State Park (Probably the former Ford's Ferry), then proceeded north past Potts Hill, past an old salt spring, and through the town of Equality, Illinois. J.J. Williams was 20 at the time of the trip, and died in 1896 in Missouri.
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