THE LEGEND OF DEVILJOHN

Deviljohn??? Well, he was my great, great, great, great grandpappy (me Momma's side) or something to that effect, the story my grandad told me was thus:

During the revolutionary times, a band of Tories (loyalists to the King), had heard FALSE rumors of treasure at the family farm while they were drinking at some nearby pub. They went to the farm and found Deviljohn's parents there and began to torture them by pouring boiling oil down their throats to extract the location of the said treasure.....needless to say, upon his return from kicking Redcoat ass in the Revolution, my great, great, great, great grandpappy was slightly pissed off and swore to avenge the culprits....he later "overpowered" the villains out in the swamp on some road in Dillon County....after knocking them unconcious he decided to hang them, but was unable to single-handedly get them upon a horse to do the job, and being a resourcefull devil (kinda like meeself..), he propped their legs upon a fallen tree and stomped their knees backwards....then he hung them as high as he could from a low tree branch...well the end result is obvious, thus the moniker "Devil" John Bethea....My grandfather said that when he was younger, the family still had a bough of the tree in which "Deviljohn" had used to hang the Tories....an excerpt from the family history book is below....