The
Devil Came Down to Cumberland:
The Ballad
of John Wright
By: Steve Robinson
Devil John Wright on horseback on the Cumberland Trail (circa
1896)
Steve Robinson is the great-great nephew of the notorious Devil John
Wright. Although he never met him, Devil John was and remains a staple in his
family lore. The following was written by and large with the help of the book
‘Devil John Wright of the Cumberlands which was written by Devil’s son, William
T. Wright, in 1934 and also by interviewing three family members: His great
uncle Terry Wright, his grandmother Jean Wright Minor and his own mother,
Debbie Minor.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, the word
around the Cumberland Mountains was simple: If Devil John Wright was after you;
you had the devil himself on your heels.
Devil John’s Christian name may not have
been Devil to begin with, but his wild and restless lifestyle made him earn it.
Early Life
Born in the Mountains of Letcher County Kentucky on the
17th of May, 1842 to poor parents, John Wesley Wright came into the
world pink and healthy. He was the first son to Joel and Eliza Wright who
migrated to Kentucky as second generation immigrants from England. Not much is
known about his early childhood as far as education as opportunities in the
hills of Kentucky in the 1800’s were scarce and men and women had to rely
mostly on brawn and primal intuition to survive, but John did say that he had
attended a few schools in his early childhood. But by and large his early
education involved a gun for hunting and a hoe for gardening.
When John was but a young man, probably around 1862 (exact
dates are not recorded or known and are only estimated by the family), he joined
the Confederate Army against the Union in the Civil War. He trained at Fort
Smith, Arkansas and fought for an unknown amount of time for the Confederacy until
he was captured during a raid by Ohio regular Union troops in Kentucky in early
1863. He was then conscripted into the Union Army and fought alongside them.
When John was asked why he changed sides during the war, he would only shrug
and say that they didn’t give him much of a choice. Indeed, on his conscription
papers, John and one other man were described as being replacements for fallen
soldiers within the Ohio unit with the alternative of conscription being
execution. Who could blame him?
During this time with the Ohio unit John was
shot three times. Once in the stomach in Cynthiana, Kentucky which nearly
killed him, once in the triceps of his right arm at the mouth of Boones Creek,
Tennessee and once in the hip during a battle in Tennessee which forever gave
him a ‘stiff’ walk that he was characteristically known for.
John served for 18 months in the Union Army and was
honorably discharged in Columbus, Ohio in 1864. It was known that John was a
fierce fighter on the battlefield and it was there that he honed his
sharpshooting and killing instinct that made him a reputable man once he came
back home to Letcher County.
The Robinson Circus and the Queen of England
After the Civil War, John traveled for a few years and
learned the trade of husbandry and sold horses that he took from Kentucky all
throughout the southern states. This gave him a hunger for seeing the world,
but the nation was by and large very poor and John found himself hard pressed
to find funds. So he found himself like so many men after the Civil war:
looking for employment. But John had an ideal and found himself hunting down an
uncle of his that was in a circus known as The
Robinson Circus.
This uncle, known as Martin ‘Brother’ Bates, was known as
a ‘Kentucky Giant’. He stood at 7 feet 4 inches and weighed over 400 pounds.
Brother Bates was happy to see his favored nephew and took him in and gave him
a job in the circus as a sharpshooter. John would ride bare back or saddled on
any horse and shoot bottles off of barrels as the horse galloped. John would
also do this while standing on the horse or even two horses at full gallop. He
even had tricks that made him famous, such as doing a flip off the back of the
horse while firing his pistols.
John Wesley Wright in the early 1880’s
His time with the Robinson Circus took him to many
countries around the world and satiated his desire to travel and it took him to
England where he got to perform in front of Queen Victoria and even met her in
person.
Coming home and ‘Settling’ down
John eventually
found his way back to the mountains of southeast Kentucky in 1865 and into the
arms of his first wife, Mattie Humphrey. With Mattie, John fathered 3 children
and established himself in Wise, Virginia where he would live out most of the
rest of his days. John, however, would not find Mattie enough for his wild
mannerisms and soon took another wife in 1869. And then another, and another
and another and yet one more after that. All told, John had six wives and
fathered 31 children (often with multiple wives in the same year). It was quite
the joke to the family and to the community at large that John had ‘A wife for
every mountain top’. But no one told that to John’s Face.
Because
of John’s restless libido, his blood has been spread all over the south east of
the United States and many claim him in their lineage and rightly do so. I
claim him as my great-great father. His son, Carlos Ray Wright, was my great grandfather and also the 9th
child (26th in lineage) of his 5th wife, my great-great
grandmother, Alice Wright.
John wasn’t ashamed of his polygamy and he was a staunch
protector of every one of his children. As he grew in stature throughout Wise
County and the Cumberland’s, he grew in wealth and always made sure that all of his children were well taken care
of. John always insisted that his Children attend school whenever it was
available and told them that “a man couldn’t live by his hands alone” in this
world.
The Coming of the Devil
John’s main source
of income was through farming and husbandry of horses, but his restless ways
took him into the arms of the law. His first ventures as a lawman was as a
deputy Marshall and would bounty hunt at any and every opportunity. Mostly
because it would get him away from his wives and farms and let him travel.
During this time which started around 1871 and in fact, ever since he came home
from the Circus and Civil War, he was building a reputation for himself as a
man not to be crossed. John was known to be fair and would remain so all his
life, but he would also not hesitate to draw his gun on you. Because of this,
he was surnamed ‘Devil’ or ‘Bad’ John Wright, but Devil he likened to and kept.
John would say that he never liked killing a man but
instead, liked to bring them home and hand them over to the law. An exact count
of how many men John had killed over the years is not known, but it was very
many as rumors go.
In the 1890’s, the law of the land in Southeast Kentucky
and Southwest Virginia was simple: there wasn’t any. Men killed, raped and
robbed without consequence. Everywhere except on Devil John Wright’s land.
Although he did his bounty work, he never wanted a career in law enforcement.
John was a firm believer in having good morals and following common laws, but
to be a man of the law himself?
Devil John’s Colt .44
John had many
battles with miscreants who dared to tread on his territory in the Cumberland
Mountains, including Doc Taylor and the Ku Klux Klan of which he disliked
because of their secrecy and there are even more tales to his feats of justice that
always pointed that John was a fair and just man. And so this reputation inevitably
led him to become Sherriff of Wise County Virginia in 1896. This was as much
for John to show to his great family and community that not only was he their
father, but also their protector and keeper of the peace. The Civil War may
have hardened Devil John for this part of his life, for he was ruthless when he
needed to be and none was ever know to escape his sights.
Later Life, Conversion and Death
Devil John would
continue his rambling killing ways well into his early seventies. He was a
known drinker and gambler and loved to make his own brandy, which he deemed the
only good thing that an apple was for. But he also was a lover of his wives and
children and took good care of his workers who tended his lands. John also was
a lukewarm man of the Christian faith. He would often go to church with his
first wife when the mood struck him and was a very simple man of prayer. But he
always insisted that his children go to church and not take after his ways.
But that all changed in March of 1925 when his first
wife, Mattie, passed away. This seemed to change Devil John and he began to go
to church more regularly and on a warm morning on July 24th, 1929,
Devil John finally decided to shed the skin of his former life and became a man
of God. In Fairview, Virginia on that July morning, he was baptized in front of
over 2000 people. Most people came because they loved John. But there were
those who came just out of curiosity to see if it would really happen and even
others who were sworn enemies of Devil John to see if they could finally
breathe a sigh of relief.
It happened and John did change his ways. He retired back
to his favorite farm in Wise and watched his children’s families grow and play
with his grandchildren. He became fiery about his devotion to the Christian
faith and he did keep true to his word. He retook his Christian name of John
Wesley Wright and dropped Devil for good. He also dropped his fire arms and
never fired one again.
John Wright in Wise Virginia (circa 1925)
But this change would be short lived. On a cold, snowy
day on January the 30th, 1931, John Wesley Wright passed away at his
home at the ripe age of 87 with his second wife and a few
of his children by his bed side. The doctor who attended him said it was his
heart that failed him.
John was buried two days later in Wise and thousands
attended his funeral. Tears and brandy were spilt at the services that followed
as the legend of this man was told by dear friends and family.
One testimony was
given at his funeral by an unknown man who fought alongside John during the
Civil War and knew him all his life summed him up quite well:
“He got his man safe if he
could. If he could not, he used lead. He was never known after having captured
a man to let him get out of his sight. Never did he strike a man or permit
anyone of (his) allies to mistreat a man that he had under arrest. He believed
in turning them over to the law and letting the law run its course.” (Devil
John Wright, pg. 254)
Sources Cited
Wright, William
T. Devil John Wright of the Cumberland’s
1932, 254 pages.
Publisher William T. Wright (2nd print 1970)
This book was written by John’s son
William, known to the family as Uncle Chid. He paid to have it self published in 1934 and gave many to not only my line of
family to John, but to many other lines as well.
Potter, Annette. "Annette Potter Family Geneology."
1995. Web. 2010.
< http://yeahpot.com/deviljohnwright.html>
This
was an interesting article by a woman who claims Devil John in her bloodline.
