When witches were burned in Fleming County

In his book “To Shoot, Burn and Hang”: Folk-History from a Kentucky Mountain Family and Community, Daniel N. Roth tells about a witch burning that took place in Fleming County.

The following is a partial account of the chapter titled “Of Herbs and Things.”

Oral tradition implies that the eastern Fleming County witch burning occurred c. 1898-1899, between or near the small communities of Mount Carmel and Beechburg or more specifically directly west of the physio-graphic unit known originally as “Rolph Holler” or “Rolph Hollow.” Though the date of the execution is tentative and arbitrary, it is accurate to within a year, more or less, as the following material will demonstrate.

The numerous oral traditions collected in relation to this occurrence, as well as various public records, leave no doubt as to the existence of the said “witches” and their familial connection with the preternatural beliefs and practices which would culminate in the public burning of a woman named Hulda (Collins) Lamar.

Though the traditions concerning the witches and the subsequent burning have existed within my family’s oral repertoire for many years, my initial exposure to the accounts occurred while collecting family lore and genealogical data from an out-of-state relative.

My second great-grandfather, Edward C. Rolph Sr., who was involved in the temperance movement and converted to Mormonism as did his brother James.

The story goes that James and his wife Sara Smithers, resided at the head of Rolph Hollow, their home lying a few hundred yards east of the residence of “Wash” or “Washington Lamar.”

Washington Lamar was the son of William Lamar and Hulda Collins and in the latter part of the nineteenth century Wash was living with his two spinster aunts, Mariah and ‘Sal’ or Sarah Collins, sisters to Hulda, all three women being daughters of Ned or Edward C. Collins and his wife Kassy or Cassandra, Collins, both natives of Maryland.

At the death of Edward Collins on April 29, 1853 and Cassandra soon afterward, the three daughters appear to have inherited the lands bordering the properties owned by members of the Rolph family.

Sarah Smathers, wife of James B. Rolph was a “practicing granny woman” or midwife, who frequently “doctored” local residents with herbal medicines and delivered babies in the surrounding area. Sarah had a daughter named Rose who often helped assist her in her doctoring.

Years later Rose remarked to her niece, Alice Steffler, how the normal procedure of delivering babies would be that she stayed with the expectant mother then her own mother would come along to help her deliver the baby.

In regard to the burning of the alleged witch, Alice recalled the memorate of her Aunt Rose, stating: One afternoon, in the daylight, Sarah and Rose were returning home nearby, and came over a rise and heard a commotion. They crept up the hill and at this time could smell a horrible smell and saw people had a lady tied to a stake and were burning her alive. They had called her a witch because she used herbs to cure people, which Sarah did also.

She told me she would never forget “the smell of burning flesh and the screams of the woman.” She said the lady being burned was a neighbor lady. Rose and her mother feared the people would come for them also since they collected herbs as well, so they hurried home.

Rolph also tells the story of how one of the Fleming County witches had purportedly bewitched a cow owned by Joseph Colgan, a neighbor of the witches and a brother in-law of Edward C. Rolph Sr.

“To Shoot, Burn and Hang” contains more details concerning the behavior of the Fleming County witches and also states there was an even earlier account of a witch burning that took place in Elizaville.

“Here (Elizaville) a woman suspected of being a witch or of practicing witchcraft, was taken and put on a platform built right in the town square or a the crossroads, where she was tied to a stake and burnt to death.”