BUSHWACKER STORY
Charles Haddock, Jr.'s Death

 

COUNTY NAME: Barry

NAME: Charles Haddock, Jr. (New Stone)

BIRTH DATE: 1809

DEATH DATE: July 16, 1862,
Near Garfield, Benton Co., AR

CEMETERY NAME: Walnut Grove (New Site)

INSCRIPTION:
Murdered by Bushwhackers

One family story handed down reports that Charles trained horses for the Union Army. The bushwhackers found out about the gold that he received, the horses that he had sold, and so they came to his house and demanded it. Charles was not there that day, or so they thought. He was hiding in the feather bed mattress and the story says that the gold not to be found because it was hidden in the garden. These hoodlums or reengages, did not give up and so returned a few days later. Charles heard them coming and so he hid in the corncrib. After the events of that day, he knew that he had to leave or all of his family would soon be in danger. He decided to leave, so he left the gold in the garden and told his family that if they came back to tell them that he left and gone back to North Carolina where he had family.

The story says that he rode down the outlaw trail, which ran down through Roaring River, through Eagle Rock and on into Benton County, Arkansas. In addition, since he had owned property in Benton County near Indian Creek he was familiar with the area. He probably stopped there on the same land that he had owned a few years earlier. In looking at the situation, it might have been to hold up for awhile and wait for things to cool down so that he could return home. However, none of that’s not known to be a fact. We do know that Charles Haddock, Jr., died somewhere near Garfield.

The New Site Church Minutes report he died south. Many years ago, a native, Benton County, Arkansas resident, told me that the bushwhackers hanged a man there where the Indian Creek Recreation area is in the big oak that is right across from the swimming area is located now. The story doesn’t tell us where, but it does tell us that these renegades found Charles, demand his gold, but since he refused to tell them anything about it, they tied his hands behind him, hung him in a tree and set a fire under his feet and left and the story says left him to die a black slave named Steve took a pack mule, rode to Arkansas, and picked up the bones, put them in a toe sack and brought them home to Walnut Grove New Site where he buried the bag of bones, we suppose, by his wife who’d died some years later, Sarah (Collins) Haddock His second wife Susan (Meyers) (Rumbaugh) Haddock was still living on the farm there at New Site, on a place that they called Walnut Grove. Another story similar to this one says that Maggie, his daughter, went with the slave to find the remains of her father and bring them home. It also reports that she had the gold, which she used to live on many years.

NOTES: Family history lists Charles Haddock's death occurred in an attack by Rebels in Arkansas and his body brought back to Missouri by a black slave for burial. (No slave was located for Charles Haddock.) The possibility exists that he could have been a freed black man or servant. [Editor's Note: This date of death is a different date than the family has for the death date of Charles Haddock.] In this list there were two members who were killed by Rebels; 6 died North; 4 died Barry County. Casualties of the war - 4 were women.