The Ashland Tragedy: Murder, Mob & a Militia in Kentucky

This true crime history recounts the notorious nineteenth-century murder of three Kentucky children and the shocking aftermath once arrests were made. On Christmas Eve 1881, a horrible crime shook the small town of Ashland, Kentucky, and captivated the entire nation. Three children were brutally murdered and their house set ablaze. Nothing in the small town's past had prepared it for what followed. Three men were convicted of the crimes, and two were sentenced to death. But the murderers were protected by the governor's untrained militia, which would eventually turn their guns on Ashland's innocent citizens. Much of these events were recorded at the time by James Morgan Huff, founder of the Ashland Republican newspaper, in a booklet titled The Ashland Tragedy. Now author and Ashland native H.E. "Joe" Castle builds on Huff's work to reveal the full, true story of one of the darkest chapters in the history of Kentucky.