One Saturday evening when court adjourned early to allow the witnesses to get out to their homes for Sunday, we noticed in an end of the town which I had not yet explored, a long, low, wide building, and I inquired of R. B. Bentley, one of the residents sitting near me, what that building was.

"That," he said, "is a church house."

"A church! Why, do you ever have services up in this section?"

"Yes," he said, “about eight or ten months ago thar was a circuit rider come along and we had meetin'. We only have meetin's when somebody comes along. We hain't got no regular preacher."

"Well," said one, anxious to get solid with all churchgoers, "we are going to have services tomorrow morning."

"Who's gwine to preach ?" he said.

One of them said: "Major W. R. Kinney, the Prosecuting Attorney, teaches a Bible class at home. He is the finest talker in the United States, bar nobody, and I will get him to preach.'

We were not speaking in hyperbole when we were telling him of Major Kinney's attainments as a orator. We have reported all orators of the past quarter of a century, and we have never heard his equal. He had the vocabulary of a Proctor Knott or President Lincoln. He had diction and voice equal to W. C. P. Breckinridge. He had the dramatic instinct of John P. Irish and Bourke Cochran, and as to fluency of speech William Jennings Bryan is tongue-tied compared with him. This was the character of orator that was going to turn loose on that mountain congregation.

So the news was spread that we were going to have "meetin" " next morning. Saturday evening we went over to the church house--everything in the mountains is a house. The court is a courthouse, the jail is a jailhouse, the hotel is a tavernhouse, etc.

They had a small organ in it and we tried to find the organist and choir. We learned they did not have an organist, but they had about eight or ten big strongvoiced singers, and, as they played the organ after a fashion, we took the bunch over and we rehearsed four or five hymns.

The next morning at service we had a very good crowd. In fact, everybody in the town was there. Before the preaching it occured to us that the Major, being such a dyed-in-the-wool Methodist and so well posted on the tenets and dogmas of that faith, the temptation would be for him to preach a doctrinal sermon. We knew that the Baptists and Presbyterians were the strong denominations up in that section and we did not think Arminian doctrines would appeal to Calvinists, so we took the Major to one side and told him that no doctrinal sermon went; that Christ crucified to save sinners was all that he should preach, and he agreed to it and preached a sermon the only equal of which he preached later that day.

When the services were over very few went to the Major; they all came to thank the remainder of us for the wonderful sermon we had procured for them and immediately requested that we have "meetin'" again that night. Of course we agreed.

To this day those two sermons are discussed and gone over by the old residents.

Early in the month of November, 1918, William Banks, of Smoot Creek, came to Whitesburg to give his depositions in a suit filed against J. H. Frese for destroying his peace. Mr. Banks had sued Mr. Frese for $10,000 damages. His lawyer, Mr. Lewis, of Hyden, Ky., was in town, and Mr. Banks walked up and into the courthouse and went in the Sheriff's office and asked about Mr. Lewis, if he was in town. He was informed that he was in Mr. Hawks' office, which was somewhere in the Bank building. Mr. Banks walked out of the courthouse, up the sidewalk about fifteen feet and across Main street towards the First National Bank building, where the lawyer was. Just as he got in front of Lewis Brothers' store Mr. Banks slapped his hand on his breast and hollowed and ran into Lewis' store and fell. He died in about five minutes with a thirty by fifty bullet hole square through him, hitting him in the back just under the shoulder blade out in front by the left nipple.

Nobody saw the shooting, but the bullet came very near killing Judge Sam Collins, and lodged in the window sill of the First National Bank. In about ten minutes Sheriff Charlie Back, Commonwealth's Attorney R. Monroe Fields and County Attorney F. G. Fields located the bullet in the window sill and, searching its range, it proved to be the shot fired from the back door of Frese's store building. So they went in Mr. Frese's store and he was sweeping and they told him they wanted to search for the gun. He told them to help themselves. So on searching they found two big forty-five pistols and a regular army rifle, and

not one of them had been fired. So they took the weapons with them and put a guard around the Frese store. They went and cut the bullet out of the window sill in the First National Bank and the ball was so large it would not fit any gun that could be found in Whitesburg.

So the Commonwealth's Attorney, R. Monroe Fields, was not satisfied with the search in Frese's store and went in the second time, and on arriving the second time he told Mr. Frese he was not satisfied with the search and wanted to search again. Mr. Frese told him to search all he wanted to, but he was

Mr. Frese

sure there were no more guns in the store. had fired the deadly weapon and had made a regular pocket under his counter to hide the gun when he got the chance to fire his deadly shot into Banks after he had taken Mr. Banks' wife.

The Commonwealth's Attorney searched good the second time and was about to find the gun and Mr. Frese began to get scared and tried to lead him away from the spot and to look behind the hats on top of the shelves, so this made Mr. Fields know he was close to the gun, and after moving three planks he pulled her out of her deathly hidden hole. The gun was still hot and the powder was in the barrel and the bullet that was taken out of the window sill just fit the gun that was found last, thirty by fifty.

By this time Mr. Jesse Day, Justice of the Peace, had issued a warrant for Mr. Frese, accusing him, and he was placed in jail. On the next day, November 10, the examining trial was held by Judge H. T. Day and he was held over to answer such indictment that the grand jury may return without bond. January term

the Judge, John F. Butler, was sick, and when the April term of Circuit Court came Mr. Frese was indicted for willful murder in the first degree and his case was continued until the August term. An order was made to bring the jurors from Clark County, as Frese swore that he could not get a fair trial in Letcher County and a change of venue overruled.

So Mr. Jim Tolliver, the Sheriff of Letcher County, brought seventy good men from Clark County, and a splendid jury of twelve men was selected from that body of men. Now, our Circuit Judge, J. F. Butler, became sick again, as he is in bad health and had to quit again, so all the lawyers of the bar and the attorneys on both sides agreed to appoint the Hon. H. C. Faulkner, of Hazard, Ky., to try the Frese case. The jury selected was:

W. G. Butler,
W. A. Judy,

A. F. Mastin,

Zack Brown,
Elburge Babor,
Zane Ellis,

W. B. Sudduth,

J. H. Riggs,

M. L. Mareland,

B. C. Taylor,

W. E. Rice,

W. C. Taylor.

The prosecuting attorneys were Hon. Grant Forrester, of Harlan, Ky.; Commonwealth's Attorney R. Monroe Fields and County Attorney F. G. Fields. The attorneys for the defendant were: Lawyer Floyd Byrd, of Lexington; W. K. Brown, Whitesburg; Senator Ed Hogg, Paris; Judge Benton, Winchester; D. D. Fields, Dug Day and David Hayes, Whitesburg; W. C. Dearing, Louisville, and Hon. Bill May, Jenkins, Ky.

The Commonwealth finished in four days and taking the proof of the defendant's side finished in