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- Beckley Post-Herald, Beckley, WV, 23 Apr 1976, p. 6, col. C
Yesterday And Today - Confederate Deserter's Execution Revived
by Shirley Donnelly
At a meeting at White Sulphur Springs recently, who should I run into but Dr. Maggie Ballard, the Monroe County sage. The minute
she laid eyes on me she asked where she could get a copy of the column which was printed in the Post-Herald on Aug. 17, 1957.
She wanted the story about William Britt, a Confederate army deserter, who was executed at Red Sulphur Springs during the Civil War.
In Aug. 1957,I journeyed to Red Sulphur Springs to get the story direct from Charles A. (Bud) Dunn, who, up until that day, had lived at Red Sulphur Springs 67 years. He was a World War II veteran whose army discharge was signed by his battalion com-mander, Maj. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who became a five-star general in World War II.
IN BRIEF, that story is as follows:
It seems that Bill Brltt had deserted the Confederate Army and had been scandalously carrying on in the Red Sulphur Springs area. He was captured, tried, found guilty, and shot to death by musketry.
Britt was stood against a large sugar maple that overshadowed the bandstand when Red Sulphur Springs was in flower.
Bud Dunn told me that Capt. William Adair of the Confederate army had five sons; James, Walter, John, Cassaday, and William Jr. Those boys used to show Dunn the bullet holes in the tree holes made by the Minie balls that crashed through Bill Britt's body.
BRITT WAS buried on the knoll southeast of the present Campbell Cove Park, which was sponsored by the Ballard Ruritan Club. That grave was about 100 feet above the old Giles, Fayette, and Kanawha Turnpike that runs by there. Bud Dunn, 72 in Aug. 1957, took me to the grave site.
After the Civil War ended, relatives of Britt exhumed his remains and took them to New York State for reburlal. The grave where he was burled had become a sunken place in the earth when Dunn and I visited the location.
LITTLE of Britt's history was written at the time and was passed on my word of mouth. However, I have unearthed some of it and now know some of his descendants.
When Bill Britt was shot to death his wife witnessed the execution. At the time she was nearing a period of maternity. When she travailed, shortly after her husband's execution, she gave birth to a baby boy.
The boy was named Powhatan Britt. His was the misfortune to be a mute - could neither hear not talk. He is buried in Hill Top Cemetery near Oak Hill.
Maybe Dr. Ballard can explain why Powhatan Brltt was thus "marked?"
POWHATAN Brltt had a brother named Henry. When I was teaching In Oak Hill High School, Miss Pauline Brock, a grand-daughter of Henry Britt, was In one of my classes. She subsequently married a man named Huddleston and bore him a number of children.
One of their children is Thom Huddleston, a painter, who is on my payroll a good bit of the time. His mother is now a patient in Pine
Lodge Nursing Home in Beckley.
Henry Britt. grandfather of Mrs. Huddleston, was the father of my long-time friend, Denny Britt of the Wriston community.
Beckley Post-Herald, Beckley, WV, 28 Apr 1976, p. 4, col. C
Yesterday And Today - Son Of Monroe's Britt Sired 15 Children
by Shirley Donnelly
When Ralph Britt of Route 1, Danese, read in this column about the untimely Civil War death of his grandfather, William "Bill" Britt
at Red Sulphur Springs in 1861, he came to fill me in on some of his family's history.
In 1861 the whole nation was engulfed in civil strife; needless to say, the nerves of people everywhere were "on edge."
"Bill" Britt had joined the Confederate Army in Monroe County. Not finding army discipline to his liking, Britt deserted and returned to his home community, Red Sulphur Springs. There he got into some trouble and was captured by the Confederate forces.
HE WAS SHOT as a deserter and for anything else he had done as a transgressor. He was executed and buried at Red Sulphur.
Some time later the body was exhumed and taken to New York State. Still later on, his remains were dug up in New York and brought to Peterstown in Monroe, where he was reinterred, and is now.
MRS. WILLIAM BRITT was carrying a child at the time of her husband's execution. Shortly after her husband's death she gave birth
to a baby boy in 1861.
The child was named Pohatan Britt. He was "marked" by the sadness of hs father's death - marked as a mute.
That boy grew up and married a mute girl who had studied at Romney, the location of the school where blind, deaf, and mute people
in West Virginia are educated. She died later and Powhatan Britt remarried another mute woman.
Twice married to mutes, he sired 15 children.
THE SON OF the ill-fated Bill Britt found his way to Fayette County. He lived in the hollow op-posite the location now of the television station south of Oak Hill. There he worked in the mine shop of the Red Star Coal Company.
He died In 1924, following a heart attack, and was buried in the Hill Top Cemetery. His grave is marked there. It was In April of 1924 that he succumbed.
Ralph Britt of Danese was born Feb. 28, 1908. His brother, Leroy, lives at Oak Hill. Their cousin, Denny Britt, lives in the Wriston
community in Fayette County.
AFTER TOILING in the coal mines 38 years, Ralph Britt retired and now rests from his labors. Another brother, Charley Britt, died in the old McKendree Hospital of yellow jaunlce In 1939. He, too, is burled in Hill Top Cemetery.
Their father was Powhatan Britt, who was born early in the Civil War period, died in 1924 at the age of 63.
Powhatan Britt was a great Bi-ble reader. His Bible Is now owned by Ralph. The children of Powahatan Britt attended the Methodist Church at Hill Top.
THE MOTHER of Ralph Britt, Mrs. Maggie Vass Britt, died in 1956 and Is burled at Low Moor, Va., near Clifton Forge.
While Powhatan Britt and both of his wives were mutes, none of his 15 children were so handicapped.
Following the heart attack suffered by Powhatan Britt, he was attended by the late Dr. S. W. Price, of Scarbro. When he died, C. B.
Collins, a Thurmond undertaker, held his funeral. The hearse was drawn over the mud road to Hill Top Cemetery by four horses, Ralph avers.
Powhatan's mother, Mrs. William Britt, is buried at Hinton.
The late Joe Arilla of Beckley was a brother-in-law of Ralph Britt.
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