Melvin Poe

I got the story second-hand. [Arthur Davis] used to travel to Orlean. And all the neighbors in them days raised turkeys. It was a cash crop when there weren’t very many cash crops to be had. Every family had a bunch of turkeys. They left on a certain day and this man was buying a flock of turkeys. Called down and looked them over. Whoever was buying them, I don’t remember who, but this fellow Davis and a Triplett guy, their turkeys got mixed up. So they got them all back, separated, counted, but it seems that Davis had one of Triplett’s turkeys, and they had a sort of fist fight. Davis went in the house and got his gun, and stuck it in his pocket. He come back out, grabbed Triplett around the neck, and shot him in the top of the head. And then run. Flew the coop.

 

Next time we heard from him — it happened before my time — he come back to where he was raised, on the same farm. There was a cabin on his farm, and he lived in this cabin. He’d been there for quite a while. His nephew used to play poker with us. He told me who was living there. My dad was old enough to know the story of the shooting of the man that owned the turkeys. So somewhere in British Columbia [Davis] had a lot of land. When Davis came back to Virginia to die, he had quite a bit of property in British Columbia. And Clarence Davis, his only living relative, of course he was heir to him. Clarence tried to give it to me, he tried to give it to all the other people playing poker, several other people, and nobody wanted land in British Columbia.

 

My dad told me the story, and when this man moved back here, I knew he was wanted for this murder. Clarence never said a word about this man being an outlaw, or wanted by the law. I knew it was the reason, but I didn’t say nothing.

 

Did you ever meet Arthur Davis? No. He lived in a little cabin. I went by it many times, up in the woods. I was a fox hunter. We fox hunted through that area. I never saw anybody there. Clarence, unless he was drinking, he never saw nobody there.

 

What do you know about the Triplett fellow who was shot? I don’t know which family he came from. 

 

His wife Peggy calls out in the background: “We had horses from Clarence Davis.”

 

Oh yeah, I bred mares for him and broke in a horse for him.

 

His wife says: “You broke your foot off one of his horses.”

 

[Laughs] My wife says one of Clarence’s horses, this colt we were breaking, we were driving down a hard road, and the damn thing just shied from nothing, the stirrup on the hard road fell, and bent that stirrup right up on my foot. It broke four bones in my foot. 

 

We bought a horse from Clarence one time. He had a half-bred colt. He was working the plow. The colt was doing fine except the minute it got tired, every time you come to a turn, you had to bear down, and pick up the traces [?] so the horse didn’t step out of them when they were turning. This colt got tied up in these chains and it got kicking. So the old man, Golder, he said take it. He had been broke to ride, and my dad — I was just a little squirt — went over to have a look at him in the car and bought him. Then Clarence Davis rode out the road with me to meet my dad, who had to go about five miles from where we bought him to drive home. So he got home in the car and got on his horse, and came back to meet me riding this colt home. We hunted with that horse for years and years, but you couldn’t pick up his feet. You couldn’t put shoes on him. 

 

One day when my dad had the flu, and was in bed, I wrapped a lock chain around [the horse’s] head. I tied that pretty tight. I picked up his foot and he run backwards till he was hung on the chain. He stood real still while I put the front shoes on. And then next time he’d need shoeing, I tried that again, and he run back against the barn. He shook the whole barn. My dad said “Turn him loose! Turn him loose!” The horse never did get those shoes. He wasn’t do nothing [unintelligible] end of the rope, end of the chain. He’s going to stand still. He never got those shoes as long as he lived.

 

His wife says: “I remember Clarence.”

 

Was Clarence a farmer? Yes, he had a big farm. Someone offered $100,00 for his farm. He didn’t need the money. If he sold his farm, he had to go somewhere else. It wasn’t sold till after he was dead. He left it in his will to some of his friends. I’m sure old man John was buried right here.

 

Yes, he’s buried at Runnymeade … So you knew Golder Davis too?

Oh, yes. He was a little short fellow. Clarence must have been 6’4” and Clint was about 6’4” around. The other one, Warren, he was just an ordinary man. About 5’8” or 10,” weighed about 150 or 160 lbs. 

 

But Golder was short. Yeah, a little bitty fellow.

 

Where did you grow up? In Hume here, near the Davises. 

 

On one of the farms? No, I wasn’t on the farm. We were about five miles from Davises. They were fox hunters too. I heard my dad talking one time about Golder having a horse. They had roads where they would haul wood off the mountains. Everybody had to cut wood in them days. This black mare he had could run from the bottom of this mountain to the top and never draw a long breath. And that’d be half mile, and pretty steep. That was the old man’s horse. Everybody had their own horse in them days.

 

I understand Golder Davis was married twice, and the first wife died young. That was before my time. I didn’t know his wife. Both of them had to have died young. He had no wife the first time I knew him.

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Did the brothers go to school in Hume? No, they had a school right there. My mother, she lived on a farm about five miles from there, and her family walked to school, right at the edge of the Davises property. So I’m sure they all went to school there. They were all about the same age.

 

Are you familiar with Vernon Mills? Yes, they owned it. That was the portion they gave the sister.

 

Is there anyone else alive who might remember them? Oh, there’s a whole lot of people around Hume who’d know them. Like T. Roy Wright. My brothers. Anybody around my age would know the whole bunch. Glen Kines. Somewhere in the Warrenton area, Harold Woodward. He was real good friends, and [Clarence] tried to give him this land [in British Columbia]. 

 

Why was Clarence trying to get rid of it? It was just too far away? Yes, he had barrels of money. He had done well in cattle. He had a big herd, and there wasn’t a whole lot of expense. He and his three brothers. One was a cook, and the other two done the work.

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Which was the cook? Warren.

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His wife comes on the phone.

Peggy: Melvin was telling me the turkey story after I told him that there was a British Columbia call for him. This man is 85, and he’s got a memory for things that happened years ago. 

 

I remember Clarence Davis, because when Melvin and I got married — we’ve been married 42 years — we were flat broke, and we took any kind of horses we could to break because we didn’t have any money. That man had the craziest damn horses in Fauquier County. He thought it was so funny when we got busted up doing it. He was quite a character.

 

Melvin comes back on the phone.

Melvin: There was a pretty little gal and her aunt came down from British Columbia fox hunting with us. And stayed here for a week. It ain’t been long since I threw her card away. I kept it for years.

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Melvin Poe obituary: https://foxhuntinglife.com/blog/norman-fine-blog/melvin-poe-dead-at-ninety-four-2/