Govan Adair, along with his brother, Columbus, and a friend, Martin Benard, was tried for murder in Henderson County, found guilty, and hanged in the 1870's. He was accused of murdering the Weston family in Rutherford County (where he lived) when the husband of the family (Silas) would not help bury stolen whiskey, the husband then being a witness to the theft. The wife lived long enough to crawl to the nearest neighbor's house to tell the tale. The Adairs had found a niche for their crimesprees in Reconstruction Era Rutherford County, when social classes were turned upside down, and the then ruling party, more often than not, looked the other way when crimes were committed against formerly upstanding individuals. The Adairs made their mistake in stealing the whiskey from across the nearby McDowell County line, where the eye of the law was not as easily diverted. A marker for the Weston family has been erected at nearby Round Hill Baptist Church Cemetery by the descendants of the Adair family and the Rutherford County Historical Society. See picture, right.
Govan Adair, along with his brother, Columbus, and a friend, Martin Benard, was tried for murder in Henderson County, found guilty, and hanged in the 1870's. He was accused of murdering the Weston family in Rutherford County (where he lived) when the husband of the family (Silas) would not help bury stolen whiskey, the husband then being a witness to the theft. The wife lived long enough to crawl to the nearest neighbor's house to tell the tale. The Adairs had found a niche for their crimesprees in Reconstruction Era Rutherford County, when social classes were turned upside down, and the then ruling party, more often than not, looked the other way when crimes were committed against formerly upstanding individuals. The Adairs made their mistake in stealing the whiskey from across the nearby McDowell County line, where the eye of the law was not as easily diverted. A marker for the Weston family has been erected at nearby Round Hill Baptist Church Cemetery by the descendants of the Adair family and the Rutherford County Historical Society. See picture, right.
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