This house in Russellville on Erie Street (Ithink this is a good name for where the guy
lived) was built by Henry Clay Renfroe.
He was a lawyer for People's bank at a time
when you purchased law books, studied and
passed the bar exam to be licensed. He was
Grandpa Renfroe's Uncle, but Grandpa did
not claim him. Poor Henry Clay Renfroe
was in charge of foreclosures for the Bank and
during the depression too boot. Grandpa thought
he had sold his soul to the Devil and did not
acknowledge him as his Uncle. I would love to get
inside the house. I knocked on the door and a
shabby lookin' guy answered; he did not invite me
in. They did not have running water in this house
when Henry and his wife lived here in the 1920's
and 30's. So each morning Henry dressed in a white
suit and headed downtown where he paid for a
bath and shave. When he came home he honked
his horn signaling for his wife to run out and open
the garage door where he kept his car. Once
Grandpa said he buried her in the yard and
only left her head out over some disagreement.
Before becoming a lawyer, he was a deputy U S
Marshall for the Searcy Co. AR. He arrested
moonshiners mainly. He and Benjamin Franklin
Taylor sent out to arrest Harve Bruce and destory
his still. Harve killed B. F. Taylor and sent a bullet
through Henry Clay's hat missing his brains an inch.
After this Mr. Renfroe moved to Russellville and became
a lawyer. Mr. Bruce went to the State Prison for 6
months. The Prison Superintendent made Harve a
guard and posted him on the wall with a Winchester
rifle. He arrived at the Prison on his own to serve out
his sentence being his 70s at the time of his arrest.
Old man Bruce said he felt he had as much right to make
whiskey as his wife did to make bread from his corn,
worth 30 cents a bushel. When made into whiskey, the
slop was worth as much as the corn and they got $2.00
a gallon for the whiskey. He said it was the only way to
get by in the Mts. but he would make no more whiskey
as he wanted to die in peace.
6 comments:
Wow, what a set of stories from another age. It's so interesting to hear how people lived and what they did to make it econimically, when times were rought. I loved the little quip about burying a wife with her head out of the ground - that's really a statement about someone's nasty side.
I know Annie misspelled those words on purpose to make me feel better as my spelling is so poor.
Sis 3
Do you really think Annie did that?
I love the little white house and the story was interesting also. He was quite a character!
Nope I didn't mis-spell those words on purpose.
Betty, I just can't imagine when you went to that strangers door he did not invite you in....Did you also tell him the story of the man who used to live there??? If not maybe you should go back there early one morning and knock on his door again and tell him that story and I'll bet he would let you in.....or call the cops...either way you would get to see the inside of a new place...helen
helen, guess you are right. I did not ask to come in, but hoped he would invite me..I asked if I could take a picture and he said it was ok. If he had said, would you like to come in, bet your boots I would have went in to see what it looked like where old Henry lived.
this guy said something like I have lived here 25 years with my Mother...Sis 3
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