MR. TOM POWERS, TRAIL DRIVER

Mr. Williams said he had an uncle, Tom Powers, or Marlin, who made a fortune driving cattle up the trail. They gathered, bought on credit, and then paid off when they came back. It was a tremendous profit - buy for three or four dollars and sell at thirty-four or thirty-five. This man jumped from a hotel window in Kansas City and was killed. At the time of his death he was a major owner of the Day Land and Cattle Company.

Did not get the killing of Smith by David Kemp very clear. Smith was fearless it seems and followed up with a knife and so on, while Kemp’s pistol snapped a time or two first. He thought first it was his Uncle Tom Pierson and went that way. The papers in the case are in the district clerk’s office.

(The complaint as I recall was signed by Tom Emmett, father of Chris Emmett, the historian. It was said that Kemp had said there were two men at Hamilton he wanted to come back and kill, Tom Emmett, and old Man Cropper. It was in front of Cropper and Hide’s meat market on the southeast corner of the square the trouble took place. Smith, recently married, pulled up as I understand in his wagon. A dispute took place in which it seems Kemp was the aggressor. Kemp backed into the street almost into the arms of the sheriff (C. K. Wade, I think) [G. W. Wade was sheriff in 1877-1878] who grabbed and shook him, putting him under arrest) (Aunt Smith, his widow, sister of Mrs. Collier, who ran the old hotel on present Rice Avenue until it burned, always worked in the kitchen a most kindly woman who never re-married, doing as much charity work as she could find time to do. I remember her with affection.)

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