In central North Carolina, the Cape Fear River is formed at the county line between Chatham and Lee Counties from the merging of the Haw and Deep Rivers. It is a blackwater river, deep and slow in its flow southeast, snaking its way 202 miles until it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Fear. Before Lee County was formed in 1907, however, both banks of the Cape Fear River lay entirely within Chatham County, from its source until the Cape Fear reached Harnett County, where the tips of the three counties of Chatham to the north, Harnett to the east and Moore to the south once met.
Other than a few bridges and power lines now spanning across its banks, not much has changed along the river in Chatham County from 140 years ago. At that time, the area was known as “Big Poplar”. Then as now, both sides of the river were densely wooded with towering pine and sprawling deciduous trees. If floating down the river, you couldn’t see farther but a few yards on either side into the thick, dark forest, where any noise made on the water would have been abruptly deadened.
It was near this remote stretch of the Cape Fear River in March of 1865 where General Sherman rested his troops after the Battle of Bentonville NC, while he rode on to Goldsboro to meet up with additional Union forces before their final push north into Virginia. While North Carolina was spared the complete devastation at the hands of Sherman’s Army suffered by Georgia and South Carolina, local farms and businesses were still raided in order for the Union Army to provide itself with food and provisions. One of the farms raided belonged to Henderson Judd.
Henderson Judd was a prosperous farmer in North Carolina, who owned about 200 acres in Moore County at the border of Chatham, and another 300 from the county line north to the banks of the Cape Fear. Henderson Judd was a slaveowner. In 1860, the Slave Schedules of the U.S. Census show Henderson owned 18 slaves. Of these 18 slaves, at least 5 were his children. Through the 1860s, even after emancipation, Henderson would have another 5 children, all with the housekeeper with whom he slept, his former slave, Mary.
After the civil war ended and his slaves were liberated, Henderson set aside land for his former slaves to farm, telling them they had been good servants and that he wished to provide them with assistance to get them settled. By all accounts, the former slaves did well, even accumulating enough means to buy horses and buggies. Mary and the children, however, lived with Henderson in the main house on the Moore County homestead as a family.
Shortly after the end of the war, bitter and humiliated by their loss to the North and eager to place the blame of their troubles on the newly-freed African-American citizens, resentful white men began to plot to avenge the affront against their “honor”. This was the beginning of the first rise of the Ku Klux Klan, 1865 - 1874. They would band together as vigilantes, ride out onto public highways in disguise, and terrorize any African-American or white Republican they felt was a threat or had crossed them. Of course, what constituted a “threat” and a “cross” was open to loose interpretation. The assaults, kidnappings, beatings, intimidations and murders against individuals by the Klan became known as Outrages.
The Klan organized quickly in the area of Big Poplar, and lost no time in implementing their campaign to “drive the black man out of the country”. The Outrages steadily grew in scope and frequency, as the Klan membership increased. It was just a matter of time, when the Klan would turn its attention to the “situation” that existed at the Judd estate along the Cape Fear River.
In the dead of night in January 1871, a group of disguised men on horses swooped down onto the lands that lie along the river and beat a number of Judd’s former slaves. They then compelled a white man, who had donated land for their church/school, to burn it to the ground. The next day, one of the men beaten, William Judd, went to nearby Raleigh to file a complaint before a federal commissioner. Warrants were issued, and Deputy Marshall Joseph G. Hester traveled to Big Poplar to make the arrests. Once there, Henderson Judd, who possessed full knowledge of the situation, pointed out where the perpetrators could be found and loaned Hester one of his horses for use in rounding up the suspects. 5 Klan members were arrested and jailed in Raleigh, but were quickly bailed out.
Within a few days, the Klan appeared at the Cape Fear properties again. Most of the residents were able escape by running into the dense woods, but one old, sick woman, Bella Douglas, could not make it out of the house before she was caught and severely beaten. When they finished with her, they made their way to the home of Henderson Judd to settle a score.
The Klan burst into Judd’s house, took Judd’s pistols, shot his dogs, and abducted Henderson, Mary and another older white man named Hance, who was staying with the Judds while building a barn for them. The three were taken about 5 miles to the home of the Klan leader in Jonesboro. Henderson’s clothes were cut off him (perhaps the other two lost their clothing, too), and then all three were forced to walk back to their home over rough and rocky road … in the middle of January.
Mary and Hance did not survive their ordeal and were dead within 2 days, having succumbed to exposure, exhaustion and fright. Henderson’s eldest son, Archie, told of how his father, who survived, called his children together and said to them, “Your Momma is no more”.
This time, it was Bella Douglas who traveled to Raleigh to file the complaint, and once again Deputy Marshall Hester came out with arrest warrants. Upon his arrival a second time at the Judd estate, Henderson showed Hester the cut-up pantaloons and explained what had happened. More arrests followed and the suspects were carted off to Raleigh, where they were jailed, but were once again bailed out shortly thereafter.
Over the course of the next six months, numerous arrest warrants were issued and dozens of summons were issued to witnesses, as the Federal Circuit Court prepared to take the Klan members to trial on charges of going in disguise on public highways with intent to intimidate, now a federal crime, due to a law that was passed specifically to stem the rising tide of Klan violence. In spite of the previous threat on their lives, Henderson Judd and the other victims made many trips to Raleigh to provide witness against the Klan members. Henderson made the trip on at least 3 occasions, the latest of which was documented to have occurred late June, 1871.
On July 27, 1871, Henderson Judd was dead.
The family tells that on that day, Henderson was paid another visit by the Klan, and in retaliation for his testimony against them, Henderson was dragged out of his house, tied to the old oak tree, castrated, and left to bleed to death. We have found no official account of Henderson’s death (there were no death certificates issued in NC until 1914), but then again, we have no other official account of Mary’s death, either. But we know through sworn congressional testimony what had happened to her.
In April 1871, the United States Congress in Washington DC initiated hearings, which were set up to investigate the criminal activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Much of the account of events taking place at Big Poplar is found in the Testimony Taken by the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States – North Carolina, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872.
But the rest of the information was uncovered after my husband and I drove to Atlanta to the Southeast Regional Federal Archives in search of the case files for the federal civil trials. We found them.
This link is to the microfilms of the case files, but in Atlanta, we were working with the original documents.
While we still have many unanswered questions, we believe we have been able to reconstruct a fairly clear picture of what happened during those months in 1871 in the area then called Big Poplar.
By November 1873, several of the Klan members were convicted, though we were not able to find any information concerning their sentencing. At least one Klan member skipped town after being threatened not to testify by fellow members. By the end of 1874, most of the egregious Klan activity in the area had ended – for the time being.
Henderson was apparently well aware that his cooperation with the authorities in bringing the perpetrators of the Outrages to trial could cost him his life, and was concerned that his children could be left with nothing if that happened. In March of 1871, after the first assult on him, Henderson executed a land trust for the benefit of his African-American children. He left to them a sizeable portion of his estate, nearly 200 acres of land in Chatham County that he purchased in 1840, situated along the southern bank of the Cape Fear River. The balance of his estate, including his parent’s old homestead across the county line in Moore where Henderson died, was left to his sister and nephews.
I find Henderson Judd to be an enigma. He lived a life different from his times. The talk in the town was that he was mentally deficient, was mean with a bad temper and was insufferably stubborn. It was said no white woman would marry him, though I wonder if it weren’t more the case that Henderson simply wasn’t interested in them. By all accounts, he treated slaves well, both before and after emancipation. Throughout the Civil War, he remained loyal to the Union. Afterwards, he became a Republican.
And Henderson had been a slave-owner. That’s a fact I have trouble reconciling.
But one thing I of which will never lack understanding, is how Henderson felt about his children with Mary, because Henderson spelled it out, in writing, in a legal document, in the words of the land trust
“…together with the further consideration of any affection and love for (named children), of whom I the said Henderson are the reputed Father which reputation is admitted to be true.”
That statement in a legal document. In writing. In 1871 North Carolina. Astounding.
Most of the property left to the children is still in the possession of Henderson’s descendents today, my husband and I owning a small share. Henderson Judd was my husband’s g-g-grandfather.
Since the days of 1871, the family has seen their share of tragedies: mysterious disappearances, fratricide, tragic love affairs, even the murder-suicide of my husband’s own parents.
But there have been remarkable achievements, too. The family has produced countless educators, doctors, lawyers, business entrepreneurs, a nuclear physicist, and the Chairman of the Board of one of America’s largest financial institutions in New York City.
Every other year, the descendents of Henderson and Mary Judd gather for a family reunion at their ancestral land, and they meet at a small clearing next to the river to tell the tales of the events that took place there so many years ago. The family members clasp each other’s hands and form a circle to pray and to give thanks.
But eventually, I will walk away a bit from the group for some solitary contemplation. As I serenely sit in a low adirondack chair, closing my eyes and listening to the soft gurgling of the water against the bank, it occurs to me how little that stretch along the river has changed in the past 140 years. The woods are still thick and opaque, and on its winding southeastward course toward the Atlantic, the Cape Fear River still runs deep, dark, and unhurried, yet revealing the past and giving flow to the future.