TTHN Ep 9 - Terror in the Night

For a time, the quiet waters of Reelfoot Lake reflected more than cypress trees, flooded timber, and West Tennessee sky.

They reflected fear.

In the early 1900s, conflict over land, access, ownership, and outside control erupted around Reelfoot Lake. What began as a fight over the future of the lake became one of the darkest and most dramatic chapters in Tennessee history.

Armed men moved through the night. Threats became violence. Homes, families, and communities were pulled into a struggle that blurred the line between local resistance and terror.

In this episode, we trace the story of the Night Riders of Reelfoot Lake: the roots of the conflict, the people caught in it, the violence that shocked Tennessee, and the way this story lived on in memory, history, and even early motion pictures.

Because at Reelfoot Lake, history does not always rise gently from the water.

Sometimes, it comes in the dark.

📚 Sources

Vanderwood, P. J. (2003). Night riders of Reelfoot Lake.

Franko, A. M. (2000). The night riders of Reelfoot Lake. Lake County Historical Society. Original articles written in 1953.

Hayes, D. G. (2017). The historic Reelfoot Lake region: The night riders of Reelfoot Lake.

Reelfoot Lake State Park Museum. (2026, April 28). Interpretive panels reviewed by author.

Tennessee Encyclopedia. (n.d.). The Night Riders of Reelfoot Lake. https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/

Carey, B. (2017, March). Reelfoot Lake and its dark history of night riders. The Tennessee Magazine.

Caldwell, R. H. (2005). Reelfoot Lake remembered.

Tennessee Secretary of State. (2023–2024). Tennessee Blue Book.

Find a Grave. (n.d.). Robert Zachary Taylor. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60374168/robert_zachary-taylor

Bagnall, N. H. (1996). On shaky ground: The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811–1812.

Meador, M. (n.d.). The truth is not always in black or white: Facts and fictions surrounding the David Walker family lynchings.

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Tennessee History Nerd. This is a podcast dedicated to Tennessee's past. Every week we bring you a new story about the people, places, and events that have shaped Tennessee and made it and us who and what we are. So grab your favorite beverage, find a comfortable place, and sit back and enjoy. The knock on the door of their room at the Walnut Log Hotel was hard and sharp and unexpected at that late hour of the night of October 19, 1908. Captain Quentin Rankin and Colonel RZ Taylor, attorneys for the West Tennessee Land Company, who were at the hotel on business for the firm, had already retired for the evening. Upon answering the door, they were met at gunpoint by masked men and commanded to get dressed. The night they were forced to walk into was inky black darkness. The moon hadn't risen yet, although it would be rising later on in the night. It was probably cool on this mid-autumnum night, and there was likely a mist rising from the dampness of the nearby marshes and lake itself as they were forced into that darkness on foot. The night riders of Realfoot Lake, the mysterious masked men who had abducted Rankin and Taylor, had plans that night for the two men. They had a rope and a plan to threaten them with hanging, to intimidate and coerce them into providing relief from the monopoly that the land company had on Realfoot Lake. A quarter mile from the hotel, a slough led off from the main body of Realfoot Lake. All the way to this rendezvous point, the writers were demanding relief from the restrictions of the land company and for the lake to be reopened to free public fishing. The attorneys continued to refuse, likely holding to the hope of talking their way out of the difficulty. Frustrated by the failure of the attorneys to agree to any type of compromise, the riders rapidly became more violent. As they reached the slough, the noose was placed around Rankin's neck and he was hoisted. When he gasped, gentlemen, don't do that. You're killing me. The response was a curse, and that's what we intend to do. Several times Rankin was hoisted and lowered, and a compromise was demanded in exchange for his life. Rankin remained defiant. Finally, the last time he was hoisted, a shotgun blast tore into his body. Several more shots rang out. The hangman allowed his lifeless body to plummet to the ground. One rider smashed his face with the butt of his rifle. At this point, the riders began to argue what now was to be done with Taylor. While they were arguing, Taylor decided what was to be done with Taylor. He broke for his life, leapt into the water of the slough, and swam underwater as hard and as far as he could go. The riders began firing into the water around the area banks for the next ten to fifteen minutes, and then, content that he'd likely been hit and killed, they prepared to leave, including admonitions to one another that each of them should burn his rider regalia and to speak to no one about the events of the evening. Rankin's body was discovered in the light of the next day. Taylor was nowhere to be found and was presumed dead. Reports of the crime were reported throughout the country. Rumors abounded, but the truth was that Taylor was not dead. Colonel Robert Zachary Taylor was an attorney, but he wasn't soft. He was tough and resilient. He'd served in the Confederate Army before he was even 20 years old. Even though he was 62 at the time of the Knight Rider incident, he still had the mental toughness to identify the right moment to escape, to act with decisiveness, and to find a place of refuge behind a log that offered some cover from the fuselage of the riders until they left. For the next two days, he moved north and west until he was finally able to emerge from the marshes and woods to get help. He was suffering from the effects of exposure and lack of food, but he was alive. And he remembered vividly the events of the night Quentin Rankin was murdered. Starting December of 1811 and continuing intermittently throughout the next two months, the ground shook violently and repeatedly. During these episodes, it was reported in the area that sulfurous vapors were released from the ground, that in some cases the sky flashed as with lightning, and that the air was filled with the sounds of animals shrieking in terror and trees snapping. The mighty Mississippi River was churned by the Earth's movement, and in the case of the shocks that formed Realfoot Lake, the river is said to have flowed backwards in the area as the lake was filled by the action of the river being disturbed so substantially. The lake bed itself is believed to have been an ancient course of the river. The museum at Realfoot Lake State Park has a very compelling picture that shows all the different paths of the Mississippi River in the area over the centuries. The bed of the lake as it exists today is believed to either have been one of those ancient channels or at least a branch of the river at some point in the distant past. While less prone to changing channels today due to the extensive levee system, the river does still change course during flooding on occasion. The site of a significant battle in the area during the Civil War, Island No. 10, is no longer an island, but now is part of Missouri due to the channel of the river moving during a flood in years past. But even before the formation of the lake, the area was a low-lying region filled with creeks and marshes, already a haven for wildlife and a favorite hunting ground for the Choctaws and Chickasaws. After the formation of the lake, it became tremendously rich in both fish and waterfowl, as well as otter, mink, deer, and other animals prized for their pelts. Those who settled in the area were able not only to provide well for their own sustenance from the abundant wildlife there, they were also able to hunt and fish and sell their game commercially. Author Russell H. Caldwell writes, At one time, barrels of ducks and geese were shipped to the finest restaurants in the north on a weekly basis. The problem for many in the area was one of ownership. Pioneers moving into the area never dreamed that there was the possibility that the land might already be privately owned. They did what pioneers moving west tended to do. They found unoccupied land, built cabins or houses, and began to work to provide for themselves. The problem was that the land was already deeded. In fact, in some cases, there were conflicting titles to the land that had been issued. Before Tennessee ever became a state, the land belonged to North Carolina. And following the American Revolution, North Carolina issued land grants to soldiers who had fought in the American Army during the American Revolution. One such grant that had been made in Middle Tennessee was to George Doherty when he received 4,800 acres for his military service. He later purchased an additional 12,000 acres in speculation in the northwest corner of the state, almost all of which is now under Real Foot Lake. This, of course, was all before Tennessee achieved statehood. In the 1850s, Walter Caldwell obtained 10,000 acres beneath the lake from the state of Tennessee, some of which conflicted with the earlier Doherty grants. A few years later, just before the Civil War, he added 5,000 more acres to his original purchase. In 1872, Caldwell turned title to his claims over to a group of local men, including W. M. Wilson and Judge S. W. Cochran. These men considered themselves the owner of the lake, and though they made no move to prevent the locals from continuing to hunt and fish as they always had done, their group did begin to lease the profit-making potential of the lake. Entrepreneurs began to fish commercially, and also logs began to be harvested from the lake. Given that the locals ignored the ownership claims and continued to hunt and fish as they always had, the businessmen who were paying to lease for those same rights ultimately reneged on their agreements. Wilson and the others in the group declined to fight the locals in part because they had doubts about the validity of their claims and doubted they could win in court. One person who followed these proceedings with interest, as well as the change in hands of ownership that followed throughout the next few years, was a man by the name of JC Harris. Harris was already one of the wealthier landowners in the area, and he began quietly to purchase the deeds to the lands around the lake and under the lake. He did this over the course of most of a decade until by about 1899 he owned all the title to the whole lake. He not only purchased the former Caldwell land, but he also purchased the rights to the old Doherty Grant as well to ensure airtight legal ownership of the lake. He then announced his ownership and his intent to drain the lake, cut the timber, and then farm the rich bottom land that was left behind after draining the lake. The locals began to push back. They sought an injunction against Harris draining the lake, first seeking to protect their rights along the edges of the wetlands, and second by asserting that the lake was navigable and thus private ownership of the lake was invalid. They were initially successful in obtaining the injunction against Harris and his intent to drain the lake. However, on appeal, they lost. Initially, the court had determined that the lake was navigable and that thus the lake belonged to Al Tennesseans. Upon appeal, the court determined that the lake was too shallow and too full of stumps to truly be navigable. Thus, Harris was free to move forward with his plans to drain the lake. But before he could implement those plans, he died. He bequeathed his holdings to his son, Judge Harris. Judge was his given name and not his title. While Judge Harris had no apparent intention or interest in continuing with the plans his father had intended insofar as draining the lake was concerned, he was interested in letting the lake provide profit for him. If anyone wished to take anything from the lake for personal or profitable reasons, he was willing to permit this, at a price, of course. Business was business, after all. However, there was question as to whether Harris did indeed have claim to the whole lake. John Shaw and Walter Pleasant, two men who owned a fish dock in Sandburg on the eastern shore near the south end of the lake, noted that Harris did not own the Galloway grants. Part of those were under the lake, and therefore Harris could not assert claim to own and control the lake unilaterally. The dock owners were represented by James Deeson and Quentin Rankin, who had previously represented Harris when his case was one on appeal. And Deeson and Rankin were assisted by associate RZ Taylor. The attorneys evidently represented their clients well, but also identified a way that they could do business with Harris. They were successful in their proceedings for the dock operators. The court ruled against Harris. However, even as this was proceeding, the attorneys quietly purchased Galloway grants, the means the Sandberg dock operators had used to thwart Harris's plans. They then notified Harris that they weren't interested in selling this claim to Harris, but that they were, however, willing to form a corporation with him in which they all could exert control over Real Foot Lake. They had Harris over a barrel, and he had no choice but to cooperate with them if he desired to move forward with his plans. So the corporation was organized with Harris as majority owner at 51%, and the attorneys owning the other 49%. And they made an agreement with dock owner JC Burdick for all the commercial sale of the fish harvested from the lake to go through him. Burdick had been a friend previously to the local fishermen. They felt betrayed by his agreement with Harris and the land company. This was aggravated further when, as they attempted to bootleg and sell through other means, Burdick prosecuted them in court. One, and many were jailed for their transgressions and failure or inability to pay the fines associated. That Rankin and Taylor had, they felt, betrayed them also in their collusion with Harris in the formation of the company, added insult to injury. At the time of these events in Northwest Tennessee, there was a movement in Kentucky among the tobacco farmers there to push back against the American Tobacco Company. The owners of the tobacco processing plants had joined together in collusion to control prices paid to the farmers for their crops. Their price fixing had gutted the market and was devastating the farmers who weren't receiving fair price for their crops. Many of the farmers responded by also organizing and choosing to sell only on block to one buyer, whoever agreed to pay top dollar for their crops. Because not all farmers agreed to this, the power of the farmers' association with the buyers was perceived as weakened. Thus, some of those associated with the group began night riding, both to fight back against the buyer's monopoly and to force the straggling farmers who hadn't joined the group to get in line with the others. This idea of night riding was not a new concept, neither was it unique to the tobacco farmers. It certainly had been used to terrifying effect decades before by the original Ku Klux Klan. However, it did prove to be effective for the Tobacco Farmers Association and thus served as inspiration to those in the Realfoot area that were being squeezed slowly by the land company. In the beginning, there was a great deal of sympathy for the Knight Riders of Real Foot Lake in the community, from the other locals in the area, and even among some of the local law enforcement. There was the belief by many that Harris and the Land Company were at best heavy-handed in their approach, and at worst what they were doing was immoral and illegal. But as the movement grew, they seemed to lose sight of the scope of what they were trying to achieve. It became evident to all involved that their methods, regardless of motive, had the effect of terrifying anyone who crossed them for any reason. They burned the fishing docks of JC Burdock. This was in retribution for his working with the land company and active prosecution of those who attempted not to go through this monopoly on the commercial fishing business. Was this illegal? Without any doubt whatsoever. Was it justified? In the minds of some it was. Nevertheless, it was certainly aligned with their original purpose. But then they started doing things that were not aligned with that purpose. Things that more and more fell into the realm of violence simply for the sake of violence. They severely whipped a woman. At least one account says they did so twice, by the name of Emma Johnson, with a thornbush because she was attempting to divorce her husband. Her husband, Joe Walker, was one of the night riders. They eventually relented and allowed her to divorce Walker, even permitting her to receive child support under the condition that she didn't demand any of her husband's property in the settlement. They also assaulted a Lake County official, a county squire, which was a term sometimes used in those days to describe a magistrate or a justice of the peace. George Wynne had reportedly made derogatory comments about the Knight Riders. A dozen of the riders rode into Lake County, bound the old hunchback man, bent him over a stump, and beat him mercilessly with a thorn bush while forcing his sons to watch helplessly while this happened. Squire Wynne died ten months later without ever having fully recovered from this incident. They whipped one woman who had left her husband for his drunkenness and had refused to return. They whipped a man who had left with his wife's money. They whipped another man for playing pool instead of working, and the list goes on and on and on. They'd moved beyond solely fighting back against the land company and had become purveyors of vigilante justice, with justice being whatever they deemed it to be. The event, though, that turned many against the Knight Riders, including several within their own ranks, occurred on the night of October 3, 1908. Just north of the state line in the Brownsville community near Hickman, Kentucky, a black man named Dave Walker lived with his wife and family. Walker had evidently had an altercation with his white neighbor Joe Williams several weeks earlier. This had been settled between the two in court when Williams and his wife pressed charges against Walker, and Walker was fined $10. On this night, between 30 and 50 of the riders rode to the house of Joe Williams, the neighbor with whom Dave Walker had experienced the altercation weeks earlier. They attempted to get Williams to participate in their call on Walker, which he refused to do. This would seem to indicate that Williams felt the matter was settled. Undeterred from their intended mission, they then compelled Williams to hold their horses for them while they proceeded to Walker's house on foot. They planned to do to Walker what they had done to scores of others. They were going to force him to take a whipping. When they arrived, they called for Walker to come out and take his whipping that they planned to give him. He refused. He didn't run, but he didn't come out. He stayed in his home. This resulted in the incident continuing to escalate, seemingly out of control of the riders once their mob mentality with that large group began to take over. When Walker refused to come out, they set his house on fire. All the people in the house were forced to try to flee the burning structure. Walker himself was shot down as he left the house and killed immediately. His wife Annie was shot down as well as she tried to escape, and their infant died in her arms. She lived long enough to make a statement to the coroner. Their other children also were all shot as they attempted to leave and were left lying on the ground where they fell. The night riders had gone to the Walker House to deliver the whipping of one man. Instead, they'd set his house on fire and murdered him, his wife, his infant child, and shot down all of his family, even though some of the other children would survive. It's important to note at this point that this incident does not necessarily appear on the face of it to have been racially. Motivated in the same way as other acts of that era. All of the activities of the riders up to that point had been taken against whites. There doesn't seem to be any direct link between the Knight Riders and the KKK, although both used similar tactics. And until this night, no one had been killed by the Knight Riders. Many had been whipped, and though George Wynn had never fully recovered from his beating and died 10 months later, his death wasn't an immediate consequence of their activities. What does seem to be racially motivated, though, is that even though there was outrage around the area and the headlines were very sensationalized, there was no effective action taken in the beginning to bring any of these men to justice for the Walker murders. The governor of Kentucky is said to have indicated that he would pardon any man who shot down and killed a night rider. And he even called out the state militia at the time, but there was no action taken on the Tennessee side of the border.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

In time, that would change.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

But it would only be a few weeks, however, until the riders would engage in an action that would result in very substantive action taken against them. And that takes us back to where we started our episode. On the night of October 19th, some accounts put it at the night of the 21st, after one of the night riders had overheard a discussion between Quentin Rankin and RZ Taylor as they discussed their business with a third individual, the Knight Riders decided to take decisive action. These were the men who had previously represented the local interests but recognized the opportunities before them and had personally taken advantage of those to the detriment of the locals. The locals justifiably resented this. What was not justifiable are the actions taken by the Knight Riders when they murdered Quentin Rankin and attempted to kill RZ Taylor. Even though many in the community resented Rankin and Taylor's actions, the activities of the Knight Riders against them had gone beyond the pale. Again, as with Walker and his family, the intent had not been homicide. But again, as with Walker and his family, refusal by their victims to comply with their demands had resulted in uncontrollable escalation of the situation, and another life was taken. This time the reaction was swift and most certainly substantive. Governor Malcolm Patterson mobilized the militia to suppress the disturbance. Patterson personally led the State Guard into Obeyan County to the Knight Riders stronghold, and dozens of the Knight Riders were arrested. Those who were arrested were detained in a temporary prison camp that was created specifically for the purpose. Nearly 100 men were detained in this camp during that period. The men seemed likely to have been overcrowded in the camp, and the conditions there were not consistently sanitary. But there doesn't seem to be any intent to mistreat the prisoners, just a lack of proper facilities for the task. However, at least one of the prisoners, some accounts say two, is documented as having died due to disease from the conditions. In time, several of the Knight Riders were put on trial. Ultimately, eight were convicted of murder, and six were condemned to be hanged for their crimes. Before this sentence could be carried out, in 1909, the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned the convictions on a technicality. The men were never tried again and went free. In Kentucky, the Fulton County Grand Jury indicted Frank Farringer for the murder of the Walker family. Still, no one was ever convicted, though the surviving Walker children received the proceeds from the administration of Dave Walker's estate. As Melinda Meader states in her account of this episode, the Walker family story reminds us that the truth is not always in black or white. Sometimes it is both. Something that did come out of all this, though, the state recognized the need for Realfoot Lake to be publicly owned. In 1914, the state assumed ownership of Realfoot Lake. Additionally, there was the recognition that the wildlife resources of the area needed to be managed and that sound principles of conservation needed to be applied. To that end, the state of Tennessee formed the Game and Fish Commission in 1915, the forerunner to today's Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. And in 1918, the federal government ended the sale of waterfowl. So the actions of the Knight Riders, some damnable and reprehensible, nearly all undoubtedly illegal, ultimately resulted in the lake being preserved as a public property, which continues even today. But their efforts to save commercial hunting and fishing on the lake ultimately ended in failure with the advent of conservation initiatives. So they stopped one kind of control but helped bring about another. They lost some battles and won others in the end, regardless of their methods and the legality and ethics of those methods. Today, the Knight Riders, when remembered, are remembered ambivalently. I have a friend who told me I grew up an hour from there and had never heard of the Knight Riders until you mentioned them. The reactions of those who do remember are mixed, some with praise, others with condemnation. As for my own opinions, I do have them, but since my intent is to tell history, the story, more so than editorializing, I'll keep those to myself for now. But regardless of those methods, you can still visit Real Foot Lake today. You can stand on the shores and take in the beauty of those cypress trees in the water and catch a fish or gaze upon an eagle flying over. And right or wrong, I don't know that we'd be able to say that if people hadn't fought back against that private ownership 120 years ago the way that they did. So there's that. And so that's going to do it for episode nine, Terror in the Night. I hope you've enjoyed our look at the story of the Night Riders of Real Foot Lake. In our next episode, we'll head to the little East Tennessee town of Dayton, where we'll look at the story of what was in 1925, the trial of the century, and a major media event that descended on that little town, the likes of which had never been seen before or since. Join us next week for episode 10, the Hot Summer of Evolution. Until then, I'm Big John Summers, the Tennessee History Nerd, and I am history. Before we close things out completely for this episode, I want to take just a moment to acknowledge the sources behind this story. The story draws from a combination of scholarly research, local history, and interpretive material connected to Realfoot Lake itself. The primary foundation comes from Paul J. Banderwood's Night Riders of Realfoot Lake, along with the earlier work of Dr. Alfred M. Franco, whose articles from the 1950s preserve valuable local perspectives. I also relied on David G. Hayes' The Historic Realfoot Lake Region, as well as Russell H. Caldwell's Real Foot Lake Remembered, both of which provide important context about the people and events surrounding the Night Rider era. Additional background came from the Tennessee Encyclopedia, the Tennessee Blue Book, and Bill Carey's article, Realfoot Lake and Its Dark History of Night Riders, published in the Tennessee magazine. While visiting Realfoot Lake State Park, I also reviewed the museum's interpretive panels, which help frame how this story is presented to the public today. For specific details, including information about Robert Z. Taylor, I referenced available historical records, including find a grave documentation. Background on the formation of Real Foot Lake itself comes from Norma Bates Bagnell's On Shaky Ground, which covers the New Madrid earthquakes. And finally, for a deeper examination of the Walker family murders, I drew from Melinda Metter's work, The Truth is Not Always in Black or White, which provides a detailed and careful analysis of that tragic event. As always, I've done my best to present this story as accurately and responsibly as possible, based on the best available resources. I'm thankful for all of these folks for all the work they've done in preserving this story, and I encourage you to check them out for yourself. And thanks for listening.