This is a summary of an article in the weekly column "Just Martin County" by
Bob Greene (county historian) in the Loogootee Tribune, Thursday, March 3,
2005:
The Archer family of KY was a family of outlaws who moved to the Lost River
area on the Orange/Martin Co, IN line. The Archer family (Thomas, John and
Martin), John Bunch and Sam Marley terrorized the citizens of Lost River,
Shoals, West Baden and French Lick with fires, robberies, hangings. They hung
Nelson Spaulding until he would tell them where he had hidden a large sum of
money. Other farmers were give the same treatment as the gang robbed them.
When the Archer Gang members were finally arrested and put in the Martin Co
Jail in Shoals. On 10 March 1886, a group of local vigilantes broke them out
of the jail and lynched them in the town square. The sheriff at the time was
John Padgett. His daughter, Mary Padgett, gave testimony about the jail
break. She had come down the stairs at her father's residence with her sister,
Mrs. Eliza Wade, and found all the jail doors broken open and the prisoners
gone.
Can anyone tell me the lineage of the above-mentioned Nelson Spaulding and
John Padgett?
Thanks!
Shirley