DEVIL BILL PARSONS
He wore garments of skins and furs or coarse linen or woolens, and lived in rude pole huts, sometimes without floor or door, and with rudest and scantest of furniture and utensils, even utilizing, as one informant says, large chips for plates. He appears to have been thoroughly imbued with the "camping out" spirit. Every few years, he would make a pilgrimage to the West Fork, Cherry or Birch Rivers, to hunt, fish, and "sang", the family walking and carrying their household goods on their backs."
Devil Bill was 67 years old at the beginning of the War Between the States and taken prisoner along with Henry Amick. Two of his sons would die in the war. The soldier-children of Devil Bill were:
Joe, killed on West Fork during the war. (CSA)
James, 13th WV, Maj. Harpolds Co. C, killed Cedar Ck (US)
Alf, Jackson County Home Guard-1863. (US)
William S, Smith's Partisan Rangers (CSA)
Not Forgotten
His son Joe left the West Fork of Little Kanawha River and came to Ripley. Some of the citizens from near Joe Parsons' home followed him to Ripley, there they were joined by some of the citizens of Ripley. They pursued Joe Parsons and arrested him near 7th St. They took the young man to a point up the Ripley and Charleston Pike to near where Robinson's barn now stands. At this point one man stuck the muzzle of his gun in Parsons' mouth and shot his head off. Thus the young life of Parsons was snuffed out.
Traditional and household talk have it that one Devil Bill Parsons, preceding the Civil War, lived under shelving rocks with his daughter Sunder Parsons on either side of the Jackson and Roane County lines on Second Creek, Jackson County and Highby Creek, Roane County, and that 3 children were born under those rocks--Abigail Parsons, John Parsons, alias Bigger John Parsons, and the writer has forgotten the other child's name. The above named John Parsons is supposed to be the man that killed Dick Butcher, named elsewhere in this brief. Likely Joe Parsons' father was the same Devil Bill Parsons that lived under the rocks referred to, who left Roane and Jackson Counties and settled on the West Fork of Little Kanawha."
Memoirs of Daniel W Cunningham, Criminal History of Roane & Jackson Co.
Night Hawk Rangers
Moccasin Rangers