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Records of the Assistant
Commissioner for the State of Tennessee
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869.
National Archives Microfilm Publication M999 Roll 34
"Affidavits Relating to Outrages Mar. 1866-August 1868"
State of Tennessee
Davidson County
Personally appeared before me Gilbert Aiken (col'd) who being
duly sworn deposes and says:
That he is a resident of Columbia, Maury County, State of
Tenn., that he has saw on the night of the 15th inst. a large body of men in
disguise who went to the houses of Thomas Kelly, Thomas Jordan, Bryan Bailey and Wash
Harrison, took them from their houses and carried them off----that these disguised men
left word that if he (Gilbert Aiken) did not leave Columbia soon they would hang
him----that Bryan Bailey and Wash Harrison returned the same night but that Thos. Kelly
and Thomas Jordan had not returned up to the hour he left Columbia. That it was generally
believed that they had been killed.
Furthermore, says that these disguised parties known under
the name of the Ku Klux Klan, threatened to kill every colored man in the country. Stated
that the following mentioned persons belonged to the Klan:
John Piggott, Jim Hughes, Mark Barr, Jim Aiken, Milton
Voorhees, Bill Halkum, John Halkum, Allen Halkum, Walter and Bill Pillow, Hugh Aiken,
Harley Gordon, Willie Littlefield, Bob and Mack Frierson, Joe Walker, and Bob McMinn.
Gilbert (X) Aiken
Attest:
G. W. Walter
Sworn to and subscribed before me this 17" day of July
1868.
Signed: Geo. E. Judd
Capt. V. R. C. and
Sub-Asst. Commr.
B. R. F. and A. L.
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