Mildred Conchin and Jim Setters, your author, spent a lot of time sitting in Mrs. Boyd’s house as she told them scary stories. They sounded true to Mildred and Jim. The two little playmates spent a lot of time with Mrs. Boyd and marveled at the walls of the rooms in the small frame unpainted house. The walls were papered with newspapers, which was alright with the two little ones. Seemed natural to them because lots of people down on Little Marrowbone did the same thing. Mrs. Boyd’s house was near the Leander Setters house, and Mrs. Boyd moved into it while Leander and Aleatha lived there, which must have been prior to 1929, when Aleatha died. as the house was shown in a picture of her, Leander and Aleatha. Her house must have been the old Winter’s icehouse because it had a front porch that appeared to be a loading dock for ice customers. Historian writer John Graves refers to the Winters Ice Pond, the original “Setters Lake”, dating all the way back to 1871. in his writings about Northern Davidson County.
Tell you one thing, Mrs. Boyd was not a little old lady with an apron that sat out on her front porch, and watched the world go by. Jim remembers one night that he and Raymond, and their dad lay in the dark in the front yard and witnessed a run-in that Mrs. Boyd had with “Wild Bill” Richardson.
“Bill”, as he was referred to by his neighbors, but identified in the 1930 census as Edgar, was driving his skeeter (a model A Ford with nothing but a frame, tires, engine and cut down fenders, a steering wheel and usually a beer case to sit on) and for some odd reason, had a quarrel with Mrs. Boyd. Both lived on the Little Marrowbone Creek Road. Mrs. Boyd had a shotgun and was threatening to shoot him. Bill was revving up the engine on that old Model-A and yelled at her that he was going to tear down her porch. She yelled something back and Wild Bill answered, “Shoot God-damn you, your powder won’t burn.” She didn’t shoot, Wild Bill stopped wrapping up the engine and the yelling at each other just ended.
Jim, who couldn’t have been over three years old, has no memory how the event terminated but it was sure an exciting episode for a while. Why in the world Mrs. Boyd would have a run-in with the likes of Wild Bill is a mystery. Both Aurilla Boyd and Edgar Richardson are listed in the 1930 14th District Census. The Richardson’s apparently lived where the Allen’s moved to later, or nearby. Aurilla Boyd was born in Ohio in in 1861.
Want to know what I think? Your author, and, at that time, one of three great grandsons of Leander? Now this is weird. And your author will be taken to task because of it. and there is no evidence. So, armed with all those disclaimers, here I go. Bertha, Leander’ granddaughter and my father’s sister and the person who actually penned Leander’s will, in spite of her objection to its content, is the perpetrator. She knew Aurilla, and she also knew that Leander, at one time had a crush on her.
Bertha also knew that Aleatha, her step-grandmother, had a terminal illness. Aleatha died before that 1930 Census was taken. Notice, she is not on it.
So, Bertha sent to Aurilla the challenge. (Ohio is right across the Ohio river
from Boone County, Kentucky, where the Setters clan came from) in 1888.
She told then, Mrs. Boyd, a widow, that Leander would soon be available, and that is why Aurilla was in that house, even sharing the front yard as the picture of the three indicates. The Richardson’s had over the years developed a close relationship with Aleatha, learned of the ploy, and that was the basis for the confrontation between Edgar (“Wild Bill”) and Aurilla and him. Tell me, what other reason can you give me for Aurilla Boyd living in that house? And having that row with Edgar?
By 1932, Bertha had Leander committed to the old folks home, the poor house, and he died nearly penniless on April 3rd, 1932, two years after the Census was taken.
There was another incident involving Wild Bill. Bossie (the Setters family cow) had gotten out of the pasture by the lake and Jim had gone to bring her back. She was down the road near the big persimmon tree, and by now it was nearly dark enough that most cars on little Marrowbone Road, which was still a gravel road, had their headlights turned on. Of course, Wild Bill’s “skeeter” didn’t have headlights.
Jim could hear Bill coming. Saw the skeeter leave the bridge across the creek that ran past the old Setters house across the road from his own house. Just as Bill got near Bossie and Jim, Bossie walked out in front of him and he hit her in the head with one of his fenders, and in trying to swerve away from her, Bill went off the bank and down into the field. Bossie survived, but Jim ran across the creek and crawled up under the bed. The event was more than a ten-year-old boy could endure. As things turned out, Jim was the only casualty. For a little ten-year old it was quite an event, and of course Jim took all the blame. He felt he always was blamed for whatever went wrong anyway. And he usually was, just not this time. All of this was taking place almost in the front yard of the original Leander Setters home, that who knows, who built. Your author surely doesn’t. Sheryl Evans, a widow, lives there now. In 1809, North Carolina granted John Stump, a revolutionary war veteran the acreage the house now sits on. Maybe John Stump built the house. Who knows? John sold it to William Carney, later. So, many times, the place has changed ownership. Leander bought the place in 1888