"Uncle Joe" (Pet) Marsee of Middlesboro, who was 102 years old on Aug. 6 is the only living person who can recall the events leading up to, and who knew all the participants in the notorious mountain fued between the Turners and Sowders on along the Kentucky Tennessee border during the early 1870's.
        Marsee, who lives alone with his wife in a secluded spot near the White Bridge in Noetown in Suburban Middlesboro, vividly recalls the violent interfamily war in which many lives were lost and scores were seriously injured before peace was restored.
        Bell County's oldest male resident, and widely regarded as an authority on the early history of Yellow Creek Valley and its people, "Uncle Joe" was kin to both families.

        "I was kin to the Turners through my aunt, Betsy Marsee, who married a Turner, and related to the Sowders through my grandmother, Nancy Sowders, sister of Jacob Sowders, who was the father of General Sowder, the key figure in the bloody fued," Marsee explained.

        "I saw the fightin' and I lived through it all, but I took no part whatsoever in the battles," he related, adding "I reckon, though, I could name all the persons who were killed as well as those that did the shootin."

"Uncle Joe" crossed his legs flicked at a fly that was bothering him, and went on.

        "The Turners were honest and respectable people, but high strung and easily angered, fierce in their loyalty to kinfolk and quick to resent any insult or injury. General Sowder's father, old Jake Sowders, owned a farm on Stony Fork, adjoining that of "Pussy Joe" Turner. General married Joe's daughter, Elizabeth."
        "General and Elizabeth seemed devoted to one another. No one ever heard of any trouble between them, but somehow, during a playful scuffle, one of Elizabeth's thumbs was broken."
        "Tongues began to waggin' and someone told Elizabeth's brothers, Gordon and Harve Turner, that General was mistreating their sister. Lee immediately sent word to General that he intended to kill him on sight."
        "Knowin' this to be no idle threat, and seein' as how the Turners far outnumbered his own kin, General lost no time in arrangin' a number of hideouts."
        "While stayin' at the home of a friend on Tackett's Creek in Tennessee, he was awakened late one night by someone pounding on the door of the room in which he was sleepin'. Startled, and thinkin' that the Turners had finally tracked him down, General hastily grabbed up his rifle, and as the door was pushed violently from the outside, blazed away at the intruders, killing them instantly. Too late, he discovered that they were not enemies but two of his best friends, Rube Carroll and Chad Massey."

        "As the shootin' had taken place in Tennessee, General was arrested and lodged in the jail at Tazewell, the county seat, but a group of his friends stormed the jail and released him and he returned to his home in Yellow Creek Valley. The families of the two dead men, convinced that the killings had been committed under justifiable circumstances, forgave General and declined to prosecute."
        After his return, according to Marsee, for a time there was an uneasy truce, brought about, it was believed, through the efforts of General's wife. But war was soon to break out again.
        "One day," he recalled, "General met Lee on the county road as both were returnin' home from the day's work. Lee remarked, casual like, that he needed a shave, and said he would drop over to the Sowders place after he had washed up a bit."
        "General told that he had been followed for some time by four armed men, and suspicious of Lee's intentions, upon returning home began to brood over his troubles and took several big swigs of whiskey to settle his nerves. There was never a more amiable man when sober, but a few drinks of liquor always made him cranky and quarrelsome. He had reached that state by the time Lee arrived, and had no doubt but what he would be shot down the minute he opened the door. So, feelin' that his own life hung on the next move, he opened fire through the partly open door, puttin a bullit through Lee's heart."

        "With Lee's death, all friendly relations between the two families was abruptly terminated, and open warfare declared," Marsee continued. "Within a comparatively few months, Lee's brothers, Gordon and Harve Turner, were slain by Sowders sympathizers. The three brothers were buried, side by side, in the Turner Cemetery in Middlesboro's West end." These gory happenings are still fresh in "Uncle Joe's" memory.
        "Gordon had killed Will Lane before Tom Black fired a fatal shot into Gordon's body. About the same time a gang of Harve Turner's killed Jim Rains, who had made the mistake of meddlin' a little too much in the fuedin'. Jim was related to the Turner's, but had sympathized with the Sowders faction."
        Law enforcement in the mountain section in the period following the Civil War was difficult and usually ineffective," Marsee said. "Few sheriff's deputies were willing to risk the service of warrants, when to do so was to court almost certain death." "Uncle Joe" remembers that he witnessed one such effort:
        "It was one day as I was crossin' a hill and followin' the narrow trail that served as a road through what is now the business section of Middlesboro," he related. "I noticed a party of twenty men or so, all armed and bearin' down on a party of the Sowders. Gordon Turner and his brother Harve, were movin' in the direction of General, and I heard afterwards that Harve thought he had killed the leader of the Sowders clam, but after the battle, turned over the body and found he had shot the wrong man."
        "I realized that I was goin' to see some gunplay, and threw myself down beside a fallen log. I had no sooner done so than firin' started from all directions, and the air was filled with gunsmoke. I don't know how many on each side were hit, for just at that time Jim Johnson, Bell County's sheriff, and a force of deputies came ridin' up, and the firin' ceased."
        "The sheriff dismounted and walked to where some of the men who had been in the fight were standin'. "You know I've got a right to arrest you men," he told them. "Just try it," one of the Turners replied." "No one did," "Uncle Joe" chuckled.

        "In the following two or three years, there were constant clashes between members of the two families; each had a brood of relatives and in-laws who were always eager for a test of strength."
        "A person could hardly call his life his own while this was goin' on," said "Uncle Joe." "After Lee was killed a party of Turners shot the chimney off of Uncle Jake Sowders' home, and then blasted the place to pieces."
        "A warrant was finally served on General and a trial was held at Pineville. The followers of both factions filed into the courtroom armed to the teeth, their rifles restin' across their knees all durin' the hearing. I don't just recollect all the details, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict General of murder, and he was freed."
        "General Sowders had always wanted his people to live in peace," Uncle Joe said, "and often said he never shot a man except in self defense."
        With the passing of Lee, Gordon and Harve Turner, tension steadily diminished and peace settled over the valley.
        "I reckon that's about all I can tell you," said "Uncle Joe" in conclusion. "General Sowders was one of Bell County's most spectacular characters. Although he was accounted a dead shot and was variously reported to have killed 12 to 14 men, I'm sure he wasn't guilty of many of the crimes his enemies tried to fasten on him. His son told me that his father had actually killed only six men, and I know of only five for sure. He had many narrow escapes, some of them almost miraculous, but lived out his life span and died a natural death, respected by all who knew him."