The revenge of John Pryor
Editor’s Note: Greg Gray of the Polk County Historical Society sent along this piece continuing a look back at local history here in the past weeks. The true and thrilling story of the life of a noted North Georgian, written by Houston R. Harper of the Rome, Georgia Tribune on April 18, 1897.
This is part one of a two part series. The next one will be in the March 15 edition of the Polk County Standard Journal.
Pryor Station, Georgia, April 17, 1897 — Six men have been slain by John T. Pryor of this place, to avenge the murder of his father. He has never been arrested, nor suffered any penalty for his half- dozen mans l aughters. He t r aveled through Texas and Arkansas in search of one of the murderers of his father.
Of all stories of Southern romance and revenge, this true history of Mr. Pryor is one of the most thrilling ever recorded. In fact, the life of this fearless man, full of tragedy, mingled with comedy, would make a novel stranger than fiction.
Throughout Northwest Georgia, the fame of John T. Pryor has spread, and stories of the number of men he has killed have been exaggerated into a score or more. There are few boys in this section who have not heard since childhood of his wonderful shooting with pistol, rifle and shotgun, for he is regarded as a mighty Nim- rod. It was told that he could kill thirty quail in the field, firing first one barrel and then the other, without missing a shot; that he hunted squirrels with a pistol, bringing them down from the tallest trees, and as for turkey, deer and other game, the record was decreed too unimportant to mention. It was with peculiar interest that I called on this “Esau of Georgia” yesterday and heard from his own lips the story of his remarkable life. His home, which is in sight of the railroad station named for him, is a comfortable frame house of Colonial style, and was built shortly after the War. It is of a much better type than the average Southern farmer’s home. With the noted and cordial hospitality of Dixie Land, he invited me in and insisted that I stay to dinner. “I never turn anybody away,” says he. “I have a special room out here where I feed tramps.”
The Pryor family was among the earliest to settle in the fertile and very productive Cedar Valley. Our hero was born in Green County, Georgia, July 22, 1840, and is accordingly 57 years old. He is a typical Georgia mountaineer about five feet and eleven inches tall, and very thin and wiry. Some people would say he is delicate. That is a mistake. He is all muscle. His f eatures are pinched and small and a straggling gray beard covered his face. The moment you look at him there is one feature that impresses you so that you scarcely look at others, although you are only permitted fleeting glances. Never have I seen such weird, peculiar eyes as those of John Pryor. They are small, gray and glitter like a jewel.
“You seem as if you were looking through me at that nail head in the floor,” I remarked.
“I never center my eyes on anybody but a person I hate,” he says. “I know their effect on people, and have often been told what you say, so that I never stare at anybody because it would frighten them.”
But for a minute at my request, he looked me squarely in the eyes, and I saw, strange to relate, that there was no white around the little glassy, gray iris, while the pupil seemed never to dilate, but was always minimized.
If the “eye is the window of the soul”, this nervy North Georgia hero must have a peculiar soul indeed. No negro in all this cotton and iron territory would dare to meet the spirit of the slayer of six men, and they all believe his house is haunted.
As this history of Mr. Pryor will concern the period of the closing of the Civil War, it will be necessary to relate some of the existing conditions. The Pryor family, with a large num- ber of slaves and broad acres of productive land, became wealthy, and at the time of the firing on Fort Sumter, counted their possessions way up in the hundred thousands. H.M. Pryor, father of the avenging son, was a strong sympathizer with the Union. He believed the slavery question ought to have been settled without war. John T. Pryor, our hero, went to the war with a Georgia cavalry company, but after a f ew months returned home, having hired a substitute. He says he saw there was no hope of the Confederate states winning.
In Georgia, a reign of terror and lawlessness followed Sherman’s march to the sea. Despite the fact that Colonel Pryor was such a strong Union sympathizer, the soldiers of Sherman burned his barns and warehouses, in which were stored 365 bales of cotton, besides helping themselves to all corn, provisions, hogs and cattle they wished. Cotton was then worth $2.20 per pound. Just after the War, Colonel John Pryor sold forty bales he had for fifty cents a pound, or a total of $10,000.00. The robbing and plundering by marauding bands became so great after Sherman passed on that Governor Brown was prevailed upon to appoint a home militia for protection in various parts of Georgia. H.M. Pryor was appointed Captain f or t he Cedartown District. These depredations were generally com- mitted, it was said, by Gatewood and Colquitt’s scouts. These were illegal Confederate scouts appointed by the men whose name they bore. They carried on a guerilla warfare. They killed all the Yankee stragglers behind Sherman, but at the same time, felt no compunctions about helping themselves to whatever they wanted at Southern houses. They were cordially hated by the people of both sides, for their sneaking methods and high-handed deeds. There is no record of how many wealthy Southern people they hanged or killed, but some of them are now remembered.
These desperadoes, under the mask of scouts, hanged Judge Burrell near Rome and got his money; killed Mr. Omberg, and a villain named Phillips, who will hereafter appear conspiciously, got his watch; Mr. Allgood, the owner of Trion factory, was hanged and left for dead because he would not tell where his money was hidden; Mr. Cohen, a wealthy miller and merchant, was hanged until life was almost extinct, and then he told the hiding place where several thousand dollars were dug up. All the above victims were among the leading men of North Georgia.
This brings this true history down to the time of the Pryor tragedy, and it is best to let John T. Pryor tell about it in his own words.