Parker and Turpin, The Woodford Weekly, August 12, 1870

The Ku-Klux

Grim Death Among Us

We have to record the doings of the “King of Terrors” among us-- king of terror and terror of kings; the doings of Death. He came ghastly, if reports be true; and the work he did appeared ghastly enough on yesterday morning. He came on horses in ghastly form-- in the shape of men, but no visages of men men displayed; he came with white veil over the face; with visor up. What he left for the shocked and bewildered gaze of all beholders were the stiff forms of Will Turpin and Jim Parker, two negroes of Versailles, who must have made themselves obnoxious to his rule.

Turpin was a Methodist preacher, who caused a split in a colored congregation in this place a year or so ago, and who with his followers, formed a new society of his own and built a house of worship a quarter of a mile from town, in a negro settlement on Clifton road, near the cheese factory. Turpin had the reputation of being a dictator among the negroes-- a leader of iron will. When a portion of his followers at one time elected a political deputation to Frankfort, which he did not like, he set about the constituting of another delegation more to his taste; and two delegations of n----rs went on one and the same errand. Lately, if reports be true, he has been subjecting his flock to military drill in his chapel. He appeared to be about 45 years old; an ugly, repulsive negro, of the lower stratum of the cornfield variety.

Jim Parker is [?] as a man of no force of any sort hardly, but full of evil designs, and a pliant tool in the hands of the crafty. He was about 40 years old.

The verdict of the jury summoned by Dr. Redd the Coroner, was to the effect that Turpin “came to his death from wounds inflicted by fire arms in the hands of a party of unknown men in mask, who came and left on horseback.”

The verdict in Parker’s case was that he “came to death from wounds inflicted by fire arms in the hands of a party of unknown men in mask, who came and left on horseback.”

The most of the witnesses were negroes, and they testify that there must have been at least fifteen or twenty men among the strange visitors, all on horses.