The Clarence Bunch Gang of Claiborne County, TN

Wartime poem recalls bits of Cocke County history

‘As It Was Give To Me’ Duay O’Nei
Jun 24, 2016 Updated Jun 25, 2016

The Clearance Crew

Basil Banghart was the guy who robbed the Charlotte mail
Then snuck across our mountains to hide that stolen kale.
But tho’ he spent hisself a spell hid out within our wood
He never tried pretendin’ he was workin’ for our good.
A freshet warshed that money down fer us folks to diskiver
Clingin’ to cornstalks, alongside o’ the river;
Whiles willers wuz a totin’ tens, jist like we allus wushes
An’ dreamed o’ findin’ money a growin’ on the bushes.
Then Lonnie Taylor broke from jail an’ hid among our ‘leggers,
He danced an’ drunk, an’ laughed his way, an’ hoped to keep from dyin’
That time he fell into a trap with forty bullets flyin’
But he never burnt a barn, nor wrecked a single house;
He never stole a hawg or calf—jist gentle as a mouse;
He furnished us excitement, an’ lots of talk about
We almost kinder hated it when they run him out.
Back when that gang o’ robbers, McCoig, Chapman, Bunch,
Raced up an’ down our highways here, we sort o’ had a hunch
Them gansters got a’ overdose o’ moonshine an’ a gun
An’ started out a burnin’ gas an’ jist a havin’ fun;
They shore got overbearin’; in that one thing is true
That Clarence Bunchwas mighty like this here Clearance Crew.
But they didn’t burn a bar, ner nervous wreck a guy
For fear they’d slip and strike a match an’ let his building fry.

They didn’t have no room to tote no stolen goods at all—
That might ‘a been the reason why them robbers didn’t haul,
But when they run a fellar off er beat his belly blue
Their likker might o’ made ‘em think they wuz a clearance crew.
The TVAs ain’t like them guys; they’re honest as the day,
An’ think that they air helpin’ us to tote our stuff away;
Fer when they burnt my bridge they said, ‘We’re awful sorry, brother
If ye must cross jist see our boss, he’ll let ye build another.’
And when they tore my hawg fence down, they didn’t steal my hawg,
But while I wuz a hearin’ ‘em, they shore burnt up my logs.
They wuz nice respectful folks an’ promised to take care
An’ not molest my building which I wuz movin’ there,
But them big-hearted TVAs wuz tore so by desire
To save us saps from overwork, they set my house on fire.
An’ then they tore my fences out, so that my cows could roam
An’ run so fur they’d churn their milk, an’ save us work at home.
That crew I guess is noble an’ kind instid o’ tough,
An’ jist a bein’ helpful in burnin’ up our stuff.
Fer when you ain’t got nothin’ yore movin’ job is light,
So let us give ‘em credit fer bein’ just an’ right.
And when their time rolls round to die, the’ve done their jobs durn
well,
Thar’ll be a special space reserved, fer them thar guys in hell.
Old Scratch’ll pin a Iron Cross an’ call each feller ‘Brother,’
An’ give ‘em special privilege o’ burnin’ one another.
Ontel in fifty thousand year they’ll lose the least desire
Fer totin’ kerosene an’ coals—jist hate the sight o’ fire.
A Victim (Anonymous)

The following is from a Facebook page that I co-administered with
Randy Bullen who sadly passed away My 6, 2020. His hard and diligent
work should be cited and saved for future generations. Joe Payne

The 1930’s saw our great country fall into great economic hardship.
Prohibition did not make things any better. Long before Coppehead
Road or Thunder Road or even the tourist trap slogan White
Lightning Trail, corn liquor or moonshine was the top economic
export. Moonshine made in such places as Ravens Ridge, Caney
Valley and Bunchtown, was transported by young men who were
required to have two attributes, the absence of fear and a heavy
right foot.
There were a couple more things that made these men even more
potent, the new highway, US25E and the incredible Ford V8. A
transporter loaded down with 100 gallons of untaxed, illegal
alcohol and a Ford V8, was nearly unstoppable.

During this time the area of Bunchtown was well known. Clarence
“PeeJem” Bunch gained notoriety for being a Dillinger style
gangster. Unfortunately, this myth, has been so greatly inflated,
attempts to present the truth and rebuffed. Bunch was no angel,
but the yellow journalism of the day portrayed him falsely. This all
finally came to an end in Knoxville on 22 August 1934. Bunch was
with Grainger County Sheriff Sam Roach awaiting two Claiborne
County attorneys returning from Nashville with a plea deal. Bunch
was going straight.

Unfortunately, the Knoxville Police Department wanted to impress
the newspapers. Officers exited their cars Tommy Guns at the
ready and immediately opened fire on Bunch. Bunch was unarmed,
in his T-shirt, suspenders down and standing next to Sheriff Roach.

When the gunfire stopped, Bunch lay in the driveway dead, shot 24
times. The Knoxville Police Department had committed murder and
it would be front page news, praising them. The Knoxville Police
Department so proud of their work, displayed Bunch’s body at a
downtown funeral parlor for people to see.

Crime also was rampant during this time. The nation’s economy,
coupled with prohibition, made the entire county a leader in
homicide rates. Across Claiborne County from 1930 to 1940 over 50
homicides were committed. Even more would succumb to violent
deaths. The nation had become tempered to violence and death
after the carnage of World War 1.

The lack of employment, the bleak outlook of becoming
economically successful if one stayed in the county, many headed
north on the new “concrete”, US25E, to northern cities. Cincinnati
and Dayton, Ohio and Detroit and Monroe, Michigan, became
destinations for many Claiborne Countians. With the nation in the
grips of the Great Depression, the nation looked towards new
leadership in FDR and his New Deal Programs.

One of those programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC.
The CCC tool men from all across the nation and gave them work.
Not just any work, but work to improve the nation.
The other program that the New Deal brought forth was the
Tennessee Valley Authority,

The 1930’s not only brought the rise to the moonshiner and
runners, but it brought the TVA. The Tennessee Valley Authority
was created in 1933 as a one of FDR’s New Deal Programs. It’s goal
was stated to bring jobs and opportunities to the Tennessee Valley.

It brought drastic change to the Clinch and Powell River Areas
because of the building of Norris Dam. Property was condemned
and bought up. Entire communities were due to be inundated by
the impoundment of the Clinch and Powell. In the Springdale area
the communities of Day’s Bluff, Tyes Branch, Bunchtown, Gnat
Hollow, McCullough and Big Sycamore were all in the crosshairs of
the Norris Lake. The Southern Railroad had to move trackage losing
its water stop at Day’s Bluff to Lone Mountain. Lone Hill, Big
Springs and Tyes Branch had to move churches. The new
Consolidated School at Baylor’s was bought by TVA. This was not a
complete loss because Baylor’s would be moved and rebuilt as
Howard’s Quarter School. The old Howard’s Quarter School would
be rebuilt as the new Johnson’s School. Many had their land,
homes and businesses bought out. Stores at Day’s Bluff were
moved and formed the nucleus of the stores at Springdale, and
Caney Valley. US25E was now becoming a major thoroughfare. This
was the age before the Interstate System. After WW2 industry was
sending from northern cities to the south and US25E was a key
route. Motels at Lower Caney Valley and Raven Hill, Truck Stops at
the B&B just outside of Tazewell. These places along with gas
stations at Springdale served customers traveling between Corbin
and Morristown.

The motels soon faded away and many of the gas stations. A new
School was built in the mid 1970’s that would consolidate the
remaining schools in the area plus Lone Mountain. The school was
almost not built but the county commissioner for the area
demanded if schools were to be built at Tazewell and Harrogate
then Springdale deserved one as well. That commissioner was my
grandfather, Ray Epperson. Springdale Elementary School ended

the small school philosophy of the Board of Education.

Springdale today in small and compact. Only one business operates
where 3 once stood. That does not however diminish the impact
that one of the First Communities of Claiborne County has had
since its beginning.

TVA had for the most part completed its Land Acquisitions from
residents of Anderson, Campbell, Claiborne, Grainger and Union.
Now the challenge they faced was relocation of nearly 5,000 graves
in the impoundment area below 1030’ above sea level.

Some graves dated back to the early 1800’s and many were
unmarked or the tombstones had faded. TVA originally proposed
the creation of a large singular cemetery, The TVA National
Memorial Cemetery, in Knoxville. TVA was new to this aspect of
relocation. An advisory council was created and called the
Tennessee Valley Church Advisory Committee. Representives from
TVA, and denominations, from Knoxville, filled these positions.

Now a small rural Primitive Baptist Church has little in common
with a large urban Christian Church. They were not called
“Hardshell Baptist” for nothing. Soon TVA realized that the Church
Advisory Committee represented Knoxville, not the people of the
Norris Lake.

TVA began to regroup and rethink its approach. So they looked for
the single largest religious group, the Campbell County Missionary
Baptist Association. Comprised of nearly 50 churches, four of the
five Norris Basin Counties, the Association took hold of the reins

and never looked back.

13 churches were removed during the Land Acquisitions, and 34
effectively disorganized. These churches and associated cemeteries
would be relocated if possible. TVA pitched its idea of a National
Cemetery to the Churches and it was quickly dismissed. Many
bodies would be reinterred in family or church plots that had been
created. Most, in instances where positive identification, unable to
find next of kin, and unknown graves were interned in four main
cemeteries: Anderson County: Stooksberry; Campbell: Baker Forge;
Claiborne: Big Barren; and Union County: New Loyston.

TVA identified all the cemeteries and grave locations in the Basin
then went to work. TVA was very careful to maintain the respect
and dignity of the bodies when removal was necessary. Families
could choose to hire a private undertaker, in which cases TVA paid
a small fee for services. Or TVA would perform the task. Some
graves were left untouched at the request of the families. They
now lie in some places deep below the waters of Norris Lake.

First hand story 1 - During the robbery of Citizens Bank in New
Tazewell Pee Jem saw Monroe Poore at the window with a hand
full of cash. Monroe told Pee Jem that he was there to pay off his
farm loan and that if he stole his money, he surely would loose his
farm. Pee Jem told Monroe to go ahead and pay the loan and get
a receipt, which he did. Pee Jem then proceeded to take the
money from the bank employee. Ture story? You tell me.

Birth of a Burger Joint

In Restless Native by Chris Wohlwend
March 25, 2015leave a COMMENT

I was introduced to Clarence Bunch shortly after I became an employee
of the Knoxville Journal in 1965. The Journal had its own clippings
library, files of newspaper stories from the past. The library, as was
common in the newspaper business, was known as the “morgue.” In
Bunch’s case, the nickname was appropriate.

Shortly after I was hired, Vic Weals, one of the Journal’s longtime
reporters, told me that I needed to see how the morgue was set up. He
took me back to a long, narrow room, consisting of a central aisle
flanked by rows of file cabinets. There were a couple of desks at the far
end for the librarians. There was also a cabinet with slim, deep drawers
designed to hold full-page broadsheet newspapers.

In one of those drawers was a copy of the Journal’s front page from
August 22, 1934. The lead story was of Bunch’s death during a police
shootout at a house in Park City, a couple of miles east of downtown.
As he stepped out onto the front porch of the house, he was
accompanied by the Grainger County sheriff and a deputy. When
confronted by the Knoxville police gathered in front of him, Bunch
grabbed the Grainger sheriff’s pistol and opened fire. The outlaw was
hit by about two dozen bullets (some accounts say 23, some 26). The
sheriff and deputy were charged with harboring a fugitive.

So that there could be no doubt that Bunch was dead, the story
included a six-column picture of the corpse lying on a slab in the county
morgue, dried blood caked around the entry wounds. It was that image
that Weals wanted to show me.

The resumé of Bunch, a contemporary of other widely known
Depression-era outlaws, included armed robbery and jail escape. He
had fled the Cocke County jail in Newport in July, and had been on the
lam for about a month. Given his law-enforcement companions on the
porch, he obviously possessed charm and leadership ability.

Bunch’s body, embalmed and on display at a downtown funeral home,
drew crowds of the curious—hundreds, the newspapers reported.

When I told my dad about viewing the front page, while we were eating
lunch at a popular Burlington café, he laconically informed me that he
was familiar with Bunch. Pressed, he said that our host at the eatery,
who was an acquaintance, had gotten into the restaurant business
because of Bunch.

After his escape from the Cocke County jail, Bunch and his gang (there
were two others who had escaped with him) had terrorized motorists
in East Tennessee. A favorite ploy was to pull up behind a traveler and
shoot out the tires, forcing the driver to stop. Then the driver and
occupants would be robbed. Reportedly, sometimes the ensuing
roadblock would lead to other victims, causing “robbery jams” on
Asheville Highway and Rutledge Pike and other country thoroughfares.

Sometime in late July, my dad said, Knoxville police got word that
Bunch was heading into Knoxville on Asheville Highway, which became
Magnolia Avenue at Burlington. A roadblock was set up.

Sure enough, Bunch and his boys were spotted. But they blasted their
way through the roadblock and were pursued down Magnolia, guns
blazing. In the melee, two of the policemen, both friends of my dad’s,
were close behind Bunch, close enough that a bullet hit their
windshield, scattering glass. The passenger was cut by flying glass.

“Bleeding, he thought he had been hit by a bullet and made his partner
stop the car,” Dad said. “He got out and then and there quit the force.
It turned out to be a cut from the glass, easily taken care of with a few
stitches. But he didn’t go back to being a policeman.

“He decided to open a restaurant instead.”

So the sandwiches that we just ate came about because of a notorious
outlaw?

“You can thank Clarence Bunch for your hamburger and fries,” dad said.

From gallows to gurney: Six of East Tennessee's most
infamous executions

Matt Lakin, Knox-News August 15, 2018

Shootout with the sheriff

Gus McCoig had two chief skills: He could pick the
guitar, and he could point a gun.

The guitar got him girls. The gun got him a seat in
the electric chair.

McCoig made a name for himself as a young man
hot-rodding the highways of Appalachia through the
early 1930s with outlaws like Clarence Bunch, East
Tennessee's counterpart to John Dillinger. Their exploits ended in 1934
with Bunch dead from a hail of bullets and McCoig behind bars in the
Tennessee State Penitentiary. But McCoig wasn't ready to bow out.

He and fellow inmate Pete Dean kidnapped a deputy warden and
escaped the prison, then made their way to New Tazewell, Tenn., where
they and a third bandit, Frank Hopson, robbed the Citizens Bank on Dec.
6, 1935, and headed south on state Highway 33.

Union County Sheriff L.B. Hutchison was ready. He and a deputy staked
out the highway at the bridge over the Clinch River and gave chase.

The sheriff wasn't ready when the getaway
car stopped and McCoig shot him dead - just
as a Greyhound bus full of passengers drove
up.

The gang split up, and McCoig stayed on the
run until February 1936. Officers finally
caught up with him in a Cumberland County
tourist camp, where they found him
strumming his guitar and singing a prison
worksong. "Here I go to ride that long
trail,not to come back," he sang as deputies
led him away.

He was right. McCoig died in the chair April
3, 1937.

Wartime poem recalls days of the Bunch gang

‘As It Was Give To Me’ Duay O’Neil
Jul 1, 2016

Clarence Pee Jem Bunch

Last week’s column included a poem “The Clearance Crew” penned by an unknown poet. The
ballad’s topic was TVA’s removal of local families to make way for the new Douglas Dam.
In the poem, the writer refers to several criminals of the 1930s whose names would have been
familiar to the readers: Basil Banghart, Lonnie Taylor, Clarence Bunch, and Gus McCoig.
Today’s column will review the histories of Bunch and McCoig, whose escapades brought them
into Cocke County on several occasions.
Clarence Bunch was born in Claiborne County, Tennessee on August 11, 1911, a son of Hugh
and Mattie (Epperson) Bunch of the Bunchtown community. His photo shows him to have been
a clean-cut young man, clean shaven and with a pleasant look on his face.

Gus McCoig hailed from the Chestnut Hill community of Jefferson County, where he was born
December 20, 1911, a son of Daniel Melvin McCoig and Zenia Coleman.

Their escapades started around 1933, when Bunch was involved in a bank robbery in Virginia.
By 1934, his name had become well-known throughout the East Tennessee region.

On March 3, 1934, The Newport Plain Talk, on page 1, reported on his arrest:

Sheriff Smith is receiving congratulations of Virginia authorities on his capture of Clarence
Bunch, third man of a quartet wanted for the hold-up of a bank at Ewing, Va., several weeks ago.
Bunch, who is about twenty-two years of age, was taken into custody Monday by Knoxville
officers, following a hunt that had spread over four states. It was at the request of Smith that
Bunch was arrested. He was brought here on [a] charge of possessing and concealing a stolen
car, although he will be returned to the Virginia town to face bank robbery charges. Bunch
refused to waive extradition, and according to the sheriff, Gov. McAlister is now in receipt of a
request for extradition from the governor of Virginia. It is thought that the governor will honor
the request, although no action has as yet been taken by McAlister.

Two other men were arrested in the case and given long sentences when their trial was held at
Ewing last week. One man is being hunted and his arrest is expected at any time.

Bunch’s home is in Grainger [sic] county and the sheriff of that county was in Newport Thursday
to see him.

Held in the Newport jail, along with Bunch, were Gus McCoig, charged with forgery, John
Campbell, held on a liquor charge, and Billy Lynn and Edward Veal, also charged with the
Virginia bank robbery.

Exactly why Bunch was brought to the Newport jail is a mystery. He remained incarcerated here
for several weeks. On March 23, 1934, the local paper reported that Bunch had lost his fight
against extradition to Virginia and would remain in the local hoosegow under $10,000 bail bond.

But by May of 1934, Bunch had decided he had been a guest of the Newport jail long enough.
Banner headlines screamed that he, along with several other prisoners, had fled the “County
Bastille.”

Somehow Bunch had acquired a .38 special revolver, perhaps from his girlfriend, Nelle Payne.

Although he had a wife and child, Bunch had become involved with Nelle four years earlier.
Nelle herself was later arrested and held in the Claiborne County jail. In an undated article from
the Progress, a Claiborne County newspaper, Nelle refused to incriminate her lover.

MOLL TELLS LIFE STORY

Nelle Payne Says Nothing

Incriminating to Self or ‘Sweetheart’

Nelle Payne, one of a family of seven girls and five boys, was interviewed in her cell at the
county jail in Tazewell last Saturday afternoon by a Progress reporter. She gave the story of her
life and her connection with Clarence Bunch but said nothing that incriminated Bunch or his
gang.

She was born in Shelton Laurel, N.C. twenty-two years ago. Her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs.
Ambrise Payne, are still living. Mr. Payne now lives near Greeneville, while Mrs. Payne resides
at Asheville. Ten years ago the Paynes moved to Greene Co., Tennessee. Two years later Nelle
went to Newport where she stayed with a friend, Mrs. Lucinda Kelley. She worked in a canning
factory for a while. [Probably Stokely’s in Eastport]

Nelle, the blonde, blue-eyed sweetheart of Clarence Bunch, said that she met Bunch at the home
of Bruce Clift in Newport four years ago. He (Bunch) went to see her every week since that first
meeting. “It was love at first sight,” she smiled.

“What was Clarence doing then?” she was asked.

“He hauled liquor for Charlie Epperson,” she replied.

When asked if Bunch has a wife and child, Nelle answered, “Yes, but he never did live with her.
He loved me.”

The last time she saw Bunch, Nelle said, was when he stopped at the Y where she was working
just after he broke out of the Newport jail. “He drove up and said he wanted some gas. I just
spoke and somebody else waited on him. Yes, he paid for the gas.”

Nelle stated that she had been in Palm Beach, Florida and when she came home, Clarence was in
the Newport jail. He broke out on May 15, 1934 by intimidating the jailer with a pistol and
shooting the jailer in the arm. “I didn’t give Clarence that pistol,” Nelle continued, “even if I was
accused of it. I just went to see him. Except that time at the Y, I haven’t seen him since.”

The last of July Nelle went to Knoxville where she began working at the Ed Henderson Café at
Burlington. A few days before her arrest, she came to Bunchtown to visit Bunch’s mother. When
asked what she was doing there, Nelle replied, “I just came to Clarence’s mother. I used to come
down here to see her a lot when Clarence and me first started going together.”

Question after question was asked concerning Bunch and his gang, but warily she evaded
answering. “I haven’t done anything,” she concluded, “but they got me in here just the same.”

Officers say that Nelle Payne is the girl wearing the dark goggles and dressed as a man who was
seen with Bunch and his gang. They claim she nursed members of the gang when they were shot
or hurt.

But Nelle won’t admit to any of that. When entering the jail, Deputy Bob Robinson told her to
tell what she knew about the gang and she would get off lighter. “I’d burn before I’d tell a
thing,” she told him, Deputy Robinson said.

On that May morning in 1934, O.J. Melton was substituting for regular jailer B.P. Ford. The
weather was hot when Melton reported for work. Bunch and the others were being held in the
first floor “bull pen” and reportedly were singing “Birmingham Jail” while they cleaned their
cells.

The Newport paper reported, “It is customary for the jailer each morning to place a mop and
bucket in the cells so that prisoners may clean up their quarters. This had been done and Jailer
Melton had returned to the cell occupied by Bunch and McCoig to get the mop.”

As Melton opened the door, Bunch “fired a .38 revolver, wounding the officer in the right
forearm just above the wrist.” Bunch grabbed Melton’s keys and “backed two trustees and two
visitors, who were in the corridor at the time, into the cell and slammed the door.”

Melton later said that after Bunch shot him, he “ordered me into a back cell. I stepped in there,
but as the men left the jail floor, I ran to a window and called to a crowd in front of Pat Cureton’s
office to ‘Get those men!’ [Cureton’s office was across the street near the parking lot at Brown
Funeral Home.] As the men in front of Cureton’s office ran across Main Street to the
courthouse’s front door, Bunch and the others ran out the Church Street [Broadway] door.

Cocke County’s courthouse was relatively new at the time, having been built in the early 1930s.
The jail was located on the third floor.

According to the newspaper, once Bunch and his cronies got out of their cells, it was relatively
easy for them to descend the stairs and escape.

Clarence Bunch: On the Run!

‘As It Was Give To Me’ Duay O’Neil
Jul 8, 2016

The Newport Plain Talk

1he James Wiley and Ida Love (Moser) Sams home was located in White Pine. Built in the early 1900s, it was first

the home of the Will Moser family, Ida’s parents. During the escapades of the Clarence Bunch gang in the 1930s,
Bunch and Gus McCoig came to

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Today’s article is the second in a series about the escapes of Clarence Bunch, Gus McCoig, and
other members of a gang of bank robbers active in East Tennessee during the 1930s.
After escaping from the Cocke County jail, Clarence Bunch, Gus McCoig, and John Campbell
raced across the street and headed up the hill to the old Cocke County High School.
[For those of you who do not know, the old high school stood in the area in back of today’s
Cocke County Convalescent Center and overlooked the town. the stairs leading from the school
grounds down to Broadway are still there.]

Once at the high school, the men commandeered a V-8 Ford driven by student Bill Mayes, who,
some say, was sitting in it with his girlfriend. The desperadoes raced away, heading east on the
Dixie Highway (Hwy. 25/70).

Mayes, a senior, told authorities, “I thought they wanted to ask me something, but one of the
men got in the car and said, ‘Get out, Buddy.’ I didn’t understand and said, ‘What?’ Then one of
the men, I guess it must have been Bunch, pulled a gun on me and said ‘Get out.’ That time I
understood them. I ran in the school building and told Prof. [T.S.] Ellison what had happened. I
thought they were just stealing the car and knew they couldn’t go far because I only had a gallon
and a half of gas in the tank.”

Hazel Reese was a high school student at the time, and, in an interview in 2007, recalled the
flurry of excitement. ‘Bill Mayes later married Edna Owenby and they went, I think, to
Missouri.”

By this time, the alarm had been raised, and soon the stolen Ford was found abandoned on
Neddy’s Mountain near Bridgeport.

One newspaper report stated Sheriff Smith was at a local barbershop when the jailbreak
occurred, but another reporter wrote, he was “out of the city at the time, but his deputies lost no
time in taking up the trail.” The article went on to say Sheriff Smith was in Chattanooga
attending the Republican convention.

Meanwhile back at the courthouse, Melton’s wound was found to be non-life-threatening. He
claimed Bunch had pointed the weapon directly at his (Melton’s) abdomen, but that he had
brushed Bunch’s hand aside with one arm, causing the bullet to strike his other arm instead.

The bullet passed completely through Melton’s arm, struck a concrete wall, rebounded, and
landed on the floor.

Much speculation swirled about the gun! How did Bunch acquire the weapon?

One rumor claimed that earlier in the day a “large Studebaker” had been seen “approaching
Newport from the west.” One man asserted the car contained two or three men and that he had
seen weapons in the car. The presumption was that the escaped prisoners had outside help and
that this car might have had something to do with delivering the gun to the jail.

However, others thought the gun had been smuggled into the jail by Nell Payne, Bunch’s
girlfriend, who strongly denied the accusation.

The recovered stolen Ford, which had indeed run out of fuel, was returned to Mayes that
afternoon.

Bloodhounds were brought from Morristown and Knoxville, and “scores of officers” combed the
Bridgeport woodlands.

Although the escapees left Newport headed toward Asheville, they actually turned left and
meandered through the back roads of Manning Chapel, Parrottsville, and Bybee as they headed
to White Pine. At some point, they acquired another vehicle which they hid in a clump of trees.

In White Pine, Campbell left Bunch and McCoig and struck out for home.

Next, reportedly at McCoig’s suggestion, the pair went to James Sams’ home. In newspaper
accounts, Sams was identified as a farmer who had helped McCoig at some time. There Bunch
and McCoig stole a car belonging to Sams’ son Bill, who later filed charges. Perhaps in
retaliation, Sams’ car was later riddled with bullets.

Bunch and McCoig headed to North Carolina, robbing several filling stations along the way, then
headed to Bunchtown in Claiborne County, Tennessee, Bunch’s home territory, where they hid
in a cabin and laid low for about two months.

The Tuesday, July 31, 1934 issue of The Newport Plain Talk reported several interesting tidbits
of news. For example, “Miss Sally Ann Mims is having a party this afternoon,” and “Miss Nedra
Cureton was in Knoxville shopping on Monday.”

Hugh Huff, a “well-known Newport man,” had returned from West Tennessee where he had
been campaigning for Lewis S. Pope, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Sheriff R.W.
Smith spoke out on his own campaign for re-election.

But the main headline screamed: “Bunch Gang Is Reported In Action Again.”

The Bunch Gang: In Action Again
‘As It Was Give To Me’ Duay O’Neil
Jul 19, 2016 Updated Jul 19, 2016

The death certificate of Clarence Bunch

The Bunchtown Cemetery in Claiborne County, Raven Ridge, on Clinch River, whre
Clarence Bunch was buried

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third of a series on articles about the notorious Clarence Bunch
Gang, a group of young men whose escapades in East Tennessee in the 1930s resembled those of
better known Bonnie and Clyde.

The Newport Plain Talk’s “big headline” on Tuesday, July 31, 1934, screamed: “Bunch Gang Is
Reported in Action Again.”

Clarence Bunch, within days of turning 23, and Gus McCoig, who wouldn’t celebrate his 23rd
birthday until the following December, along with a third and yet-to-be-identified man, went on
a crime spree that intensified in the types of crimes committed as the days passed.

think it must have been during this time period that my own family had a brush with the
criminals.

My parents were the late W. Gray and Maude Sisk O’Neil. They had married in 1926 and in
1934 were living on one of the family’s farms in Edwina, alongside the Pigeon River. Few
houses stood along the road meandering up the river to their home.

It was on a Sunday afternoon that my grandmother’s cousin, Bruce Clift, came to my
Grandfather O’Neil and told him of a plot by the Bunch gang to kidnap my father for ransom.

Cousin Bruce ran an infamous roadhouse near today’s Wilsonville Baptist Church and this was
where the alleged plot was hatched. Bruce was no stranger to the criminal world himself and
narrowly avoided being hanged for murder in the early 1900s, but, as the saying goes, “Blood is
thicker than water.”

According to Bruce, the Bunch gang had been hanging out at his roadhouse and, not realizing
Bruce’s connection to our family, made no secret of their plans to waylay my dad at an isolated
spot on the road leading to his Edwina home.

The ransom, according to Bruce, would have been $25,000, with $10,000 coming from my
grandfather and the remaining $15,000 from my grandfather’s brother, Oscar O’Neil, a well-
known Newport Justice of the Peace.

For security, my dad purchased a pistol and honed his shooting abilities. He showed me how he
practiced driving with one hand on the steering wheel and leaning down as far as possible onto
the passenger seat and still be able to see where he was headed. He also pointed out at least two
likely places where the ambush could have occurred.

Luckily the plans never came to fruition.

But other East Tennesseans weren’t so lucky.

On Sunday, July 29, 1934, the trio held up and robbed approximately 25 people and, according
to the Newport Plain Talk “shot it out with officers three or four times, put bullet holes in places
where bullet holes don’t belong, and generally ‘shot up’ the section.”

While driving a green Ford V-8 coupe, the gang stopped nine cars on Lea Lakes Road. Among
their victims were Mr. and Mrs. H.C. Moore and Jarvis Drinnon of Morristown.

Then on Monday, July 30, the trio held up W.L. Shrader, a Morristown businessman, taking
about $100 and “beating him over the head with a gun barrel.” Their next stop was Arthur
Breeden’s store, where they “lined up ten persons against one wall and took all of their cash.”

Breeden, according to a follow-up story, operated a store at Sulphur Springs. The robbers took
cigarettes, canned goods, and nearly $100, and, before leaving, shot the telephone. The reporter
noted Breeden had provided “the McCoig family with food and supplies…although he saw little
chance of ever being paid for it.”

As Jefferson County Sheriff Churchman and a score of deputies raced to the scene of the
Breeden robbery, they passed the Bunch car. Gunfire erupted, but by the time Churchman and
his deputies turned their vehicles around, the robbers had escaped.

A week passed. On August 5, 1934, the robbers struck again, their victim a service station in the
Burlington area of Knoxville.

Knox County Sheriff J. Wesley Brewer and his deputies engaged the gang in a gun battle. Two
new gang members, Good Asbury and Charlie Bounds, had joined the group.

On August 6, 1934, the gang, now back in Bunch’s native Claiborne County, robbed the Blue
Bird Restaurant. As they left, the gang shot out all the business’s windows and mirrors. Bunch
drove the getaway car, which rolled into a ditch, but no one was injured and all the robbers
escaped.

Because of the increasing danger, auto clubs issued warnings to travelers headed to East
Tennessee, cautioning them to use extra care because of the repeated carjackings.

Reports that at least one of the gang members had been wounded were verified the following
week when the gang showed up at the hoe of Dr. O.D. Miller at Lone Mountain in Claiborne
County and demanded he tend to Jesse Simpson’s leg. Exactly when Simpson had joined the
gang is not mentioned in the August 7 newspaper account of the sighting.

Just as Dr. Miller finished dressing a gash in Simpson’s leg, a posse of officers arrived, but once
again Bunch and his gang escaped, this time through the back door of Dr. Miller’s home and into
the nearby mountains.

The group then went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Gourley, identified as “a sister of one of
the members of the gang,” where they rested in a barn for a few hours, then left. The Gourleys
were later arrested and charged with harboring criminals.

Three days later Cocke Countians were thrown into a tizzy when reports circulated that Bunch
had been seen in the Reidtown community, reportedly appearing at the old airport and later at
“Mrs. Reese’s” store.

The “Mrs. Reese,” according to the late Hazel Reese Thornton, was Grace Hall Reese, wife of
Mrs. Thornton’s uncle Will Reese. Mrs. Thornton said, “Aunt Grace ran a little store in
Reidtown…near today’s Reidtown Community Church.”

The newspaper account quoted some witnesses claiming Bunch left the store headed in the
direction of Newport, “but it is presumed that he turned off and did not pass directly through
Newport, although it is possible that he did so.”

If indeed the gang “turned off,” it is quite possible they did so onto Cave Church Road, where
Bruce Clift’s roadhouse stood.

Now dubbed “East Tennessee Public Enemy No. 1,” a title Bunch no doubt enjoyed, the young
criminal was no blamed for every crime committed in an ever-widening radius. One paper called
him a “hip-pocket bootlegger in Knoxville,” and the same reporter later wrote Bunch had
graduated from being a “hip-pocket bootlegger” to “liquor running on Cosby.”

It seems obvious that Bunch’s arrogance continued to grow. After all, how many times had he
and his gang been arrested, jailed, escaped, cornered, and escaped again? But his luck was
running out.

On Wednesday, August 23, 1934, Knoxville and Knox County police officers and deputies
received word that Bunch was in that city, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Epperson on Lay
Avenue.

At approximately 5:30 p.m., officers surrounded the Epperson home, where three officers
entered the house and a few minutes later emerged with Bunch. One of the officers was
identified as Grainger County Sheriff Roach (first name not given).

The Newport Plain Talk’s account of the incident states that when the men reached the steps,
other officers approached with one yelling, “Get Roach’s gun!” Bunch then reportedly replied,
“Hell, no!”, reached for Roach’s gun, grabbed it from its holster, and aimed.

Machine gun fire immediately erupted, the first bullet striking Bunch in his left eye, whirling
him around. At least 23 bullets found their marks in Bunch’s body as he slipped into the dust of
the Knoxville street, dying almost immediately.

A photo of Bunch’s bullet-ridden corpse appeared on the front page of the Knoxville Journal.

Bunch’s body was taken to Roberts Undertaking Company. Says the newspaper account,
“Within a few hours [it] was displayed for the benefit of the curious which gathered by the
hundreds before the establishment. It was estimated that almost ten thousand people filed by the
couch on which the outlaw rested.”

On Thursday morning, August 25, 1934, Bunch’s body was taken to his home in Claiborne
County where services were held Saturday, August 27. He was buried in the Bunchtown
Cemetery. Bunch had just turned 23.

Death of Clarence Bunch doesn’t end gang’s activities

‘As It Was Give To Me’ Duay O’Neil
July 22, 2016

The Newport Plain Talk

Gus McCoig Prison Pictures

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of articles about the criminal activities of
Clarence Bunch, Gus McCoig, and other members of a gang that operated in East Tennessee in
the 1930s.
The death of Clarence Bunch, age 23, in a hail of gunfire in Knoxville on August 25, 1934, died
not end the criminal activities of his partners in crime.

One member of “the Bunch Gang” was Gus McCoig from Chestnut Hill. In The Newport Plain
Talk article talking about Bunch’s death, the unidentified reporter, almost as an afterthought,
wrote, “Gus McCoig, who was allegedly the companion of Bunch on many of his exploits,
surrendered to Claiborne County officers some days ago.”

However, McCoig’s removal from the public would be short-lived and not end well.

Grainger County’s Sheriff Roach and Roscoe McCullough of Lone Mountain were arrested and
charged with “aiding a criminal to escape. The newspaper account states that Roach allegedly
allowed Bunch to “drive his car and had been in touch with him for several days without making
an arrest. They were in the house together with Bunch at the time the Knoxville officers arrived,
although Roach states that he had just taken the outlaw into custody when the Knox officers and
deputies arrived. When asked for his warrants at the time, Roach was unable to show them, but
later in the evening after his release on $2500 bond, he displayed warrants for the arrest of
Clarence Bunch, dated August 16.”

Roach and Mrs. Epperson were later convicted on charges of harboring the fugitives, fined $50
each, and sentenced to six months in the “workhouse.”

Meanwhile news reports from Knoxville claimed “thousands” of curious citizens filed the
Bunch’s body, which had been placed on a couch in the mortuary, to view his remains. McCoig
and fellow gang member Charlie Bounds remained in jail, having been brought to Dandridge to
stand trial for robbing J.A. Breeden’s store and of robbing Will Strader. Other indictments were
“pending.”

McCoig was later taken to Brushy Mountain prison at Petros to serve a five-year term handed
down by a Claiborne County jury. The newspaper accounts state that Bounds had “surrendered
in Knoxville several months ago and has been held in jail there awaiting trial.”

Eventually both McCoig and Bounds received two sentences of 15 years each, to run
consecutively, on two charges of highway robbery. Other gang members were also arrested,
tried, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms.

Taken to the state prison in Nashville, Gus McCoig was assigned to work in the hosiery mill.
There he became friends with Pete Dean and George Wilbur Moss, both serving five-year terms
for robbery.

The three hatch a plot to escape. On December 3, 1935, as Deputy Warden Ed Connors returned
to work after having gone home for lunch, he parked his car inside the prison next to the mill.
Almost immediately the three jumped him.

Their escape was reported in newspapers around the country, including the Cattaraugus
Republican in New York. The following account appeared in that newspaper the following day.

Three kidnap Deputy Warden

Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 6 (sic) – Three convicts of the Tennessee Penitentiary, all serving time for
robbery, escaped yesterday afternoon after kidnapping Deputy Warden Ed Connors and holding
him prisoner in his own automobile for 15 minutes.

Dozens of state and local officers, their fingers around machine-guns, raced toward Memphis,
hoping they were on the trail of the fugitives.

Warden A.W. Neely said those who escaped were:

• Gus McCoig, 22, sentenced from Claiborne County August 24, 1934, to 15 to 30 years.

• Pete Dean, 18, sentenced from Lauderdale County, October 5, 1933, to five years.

• George Wilbur Moss, 23, sentenced from Lauderdale County, October 5, 1933, to five years.

Connors said the three seized him as he was returning from lunch to his office, just across a
railway from the prison hosiery mill, where the three fugitives were mechanics.

“I stopped my car and was just starting to get out,” the deputy warden related.

Connors said as he stepped out on the car’s running board, “Dean stuck a knife in my side and
shoved me back into the front seat.”

“McCoig got in on the other side and stuck a gun in my side,” he added. “Moss was in the back.
Dean drove.”

“We started toward the walls,” Connors continued, “we got to the gate and stopped. McCoig
stuck the gun closer and said to me, ‘Tell him (the gatekeeper) something, or I’ll blow you in
two.”

The deputy warden said he told Jack Orr, the gatekeeper, to “Let us by. It’s all right.”

“When I convinced them I had no money they let me go about a half mile from the prison.”

Local accounts of the escape differed on several details, claiming that when the three accosted
Connors, Dean pressed the knife to Connors’ throat and that McCoig and Moss both climbed into
the back seat and pressed a wrench into Connors’ back. They reportedly claimed the wrench was
a gun.

Three days passed before the escapees surfaced. McCoig and Dean had headed east, not to
Memphis. Early on the morning of December 6, 1935, McCoig and Dean, armed with two pistols
each, and a third man, Frank Hopson, entered Citizens Bank in Tazewell, where they forced
employees and customers to line up against a wall, scooped up $2,000 and fled in a Ford.

One account claims that a local farmer, in the bank to make a loan payment, was allowed to do
so and receive his receipt. Then the robbers took the money from the bank, not from the farmer.

Sheriff Hutcheson gunned down on Hwy 33 Bridge

The fine-looking gentleman in the
picture is none other than, Sheriff
Lewis Bratch (L.B.) Hutcheson. The
photo was sent to me by his
granddaughter Linda Compton.

Just in case you aren't aware of
exactly who Sheriff Hutcheson is,
let me fill you in.

L.B. Hutcheson was born on June
14, 1884. At the age of 19 he
married 15-year-old, Della Lyons.
They settled into their home just
spitting distance from Norris Dam,
in Maynardville, TN. At the age of
46, L.B. was elected sheriff of Union
Co, where he served honorably,
and was much loved among his peers and by the community.

Sheriff Hutcheson spent the first 4-years of his law enforcement career,
keeping the citizens of Union Co. safe. It wasn't until his 5th year as Sheriff,
that he would face the most difficult and deadly case of his career.

During the Spring of 1935, big trouble was brewing just a couple of
counties over. Sitting locked up in the Cocke County jail were 3 no good for
nothing's; Gus McCoig, John Campbell, and Clarence Bunch. The jail
couldn't hold these three menaces to society, and they soon escaped.
Campbell soon parted ways with McCoig and Bunch.

Hell bent on destruction, the motley duo of McCoig and Bunch, set their
sights on cutting a pathway of crime through East, TN. Robbing stores,
looting homes, stealing cars, and shooting at anyone or anything in their
path. They would add other degenerates to their crime team, which would
later be known as "The Bunch Gang."

Clarence Bunch ended up being gunned down in a battle with Knox County
law enforcement officers on the front porch of notorious Claiborne Co.
bootlegger, C.T. Epperson. McCoig was apprehended and sentenced to 15
years in the State Pen. Once again, prison bars couldn't hold McCoig, and
he escaped with fellow inmates, George Moss, and Pete Dean. Moss was
quickly arrested outside of Tazewell, TN, after he was spotted on the side
of the road. Dean and McCoig picked up another partner in crime, Frank
Hopson. On December 6, 1935, the three of them made their way to the
Citizen's Bank in Tazewell, TN, where they held up the bank and got away
with $2000.00 in cash. They made their getaway down Highway 33 toward
Knoxville.

This is where Sheriff L.B. Hutcheson comes in. A cashier, at the recently
robbed bank, called up the Sheriff's office in Maynardville, to alert them of
the robbery. Sheriff Hutcheson and Deputy Austin Matthews, quickly
jumped into the Sheriff's cruiser and roared off up Hwy 33 toward the
oncoming getaway car. "About seven miles from Maynardville, and a short
distance beyond the bridge over the Clinch River, the officers parked
beside the highway. A car with three male passengers passed them at top
speed. Matthews swung the car around and began a chase. The speeding
sedan stopped at the south end of the bridge and turned sideways,
blocking the highway. Dean remained in the car while McCoig and Hopson
got out and stood on the roadway beside the car. McCoig was holding a
forty-five caliber automatic concealed partly by his trousers. Matthews
stopped his car a short distance away and he and the sheriff got out. In a
soft tone Hutcheson began to speak to the boys but never finished the
sentence. McCoig raised his weapon and opened fire. The first shot went
wild, hitting the windshield, but the second struck Sheriff Hutcheson
squarely between the eyes. McCoig then trained his weapon on Deputy
Matthews, who was now out of ammunition, and ordered him to surrender.
At that time a Greyhound bus pulled in behind Hutcheson's car and
stopped. McCoig went to the bus with his forty-five flashing and told the
driver and passengers that he had just killed the Union County sheriff. After
boasting, he left the bus and paused a few moments to look at the body of
the fallen sheriff before returning to the getaway car and heading toward
Maynardville." -Source: Union Co. Historical Society

The gang managed to escape and a massive manhunt ensued. Frank
Hopson was found and arrested within 24 hours. It wasn't until February of
1936 that police were able to apprehend the other two men. Pete Dean

was picked up in Gainesboro, TN after robbing a bank in Whitley, TN. By
that time Gus McCoig had settled in at a tourist camp in Crossville, TN,
where he was arrested without incident...while singing and strumming a
guitar.

After a 6-day trial, the 3 gang members were found guilty of the murder of
Sheriff Hutcheson, and were sentenced to die by electrocution. After an
appeal to the Supreme Court, the sentences of Dean and Hopson were
reduced to life in prison. Gus McCoig's death sentence remained, and
according to the state of Tennessee dept. of corrections records, he was
put to death on April 3rd, 1937.

L.B. Hutcheson died on December 6, 1935. He was only 51-years old.

L.B. Hutcheson's wife, Della, took over the job of Sheriff of Union Co., and
became the 3rd woman to be sheriff in the state of Tennessee. She passed
away on June 3, 1960, at the age of 71.