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The story of Jim Rose is a legend in Cherokee County, as both an outlaw and a lawman.
Jim Rose was born in the Violet community around 1874. Rose gained the reputation of a killer while still in his teens. At age 16, a local man, John Thompson, bought a new long-range rifle that Rose coveted.
The story goes that concealing himself in Thompson’s rafters, when Thompson returned home after a night of drinking and lay back on his bed, Rose shot him and took the rifle. Rose’s cousin, Steve Rose, told the story but, fearing his deadly cousin, he fled the county never to return.
Two years later, at 18, in a fight with Pole Taylor, Rose shot Taylor in the mouth. He did a short prison stretch for the shooting, but after his release he worked as a Cherokee County sheriff’s deputy.
He was in his 40s when things turned. In 1914, Abner Wilson killed Rose’s brother, Steacy, in an argument over a pistol trade.
Three years later, Wilson was shot and killed on his own porch. His wife and daughter claimed Jim Rose was seen emerging from a bush where he had been concealed with a rifle in his hand. A warrant was issued along with a reward – dead or alive.
Deputy Doc Allen received papers to arrest Rose, but when word spread, Allen’s house mysteriously burned, and he was shot by an unknown assailant as he was fleeing the burning building. Later, Deputy Jim Waldrop was pursuing orders to arrest Rose, but after a shot from ambush creased the front of his chest, he resigned. Both acts were attributed to Rose – but never proved.
By some accounts, it was Rose who broke Bart Boring out of jail in Hiawassee, Ga., where Boring was being held for a shooting. A supposed prisoner was brought into the jail in handcuffs, accompanied by a man presenting himself as lawman, displaying a badge to the jailer and demanding use of a Hiawassee cell for his handcuffed prisoner.
Once the cell door was unlocked, the tables turned. The jailer was locked in the cell, Boring was freed, handcuffs were removed from the fake prisoner, and Boring and his rescuers fled. Boring made his escape to Tennessee. Former lawman Rose fit the description.
A neighbor of Rose’s claimed he practiced with his rifle and pistol every day, and it was Rose’s legendary long-range shooting skills that caused him to be asked by Boring for assistance in hunting down Monroe badman Buster Duggan after Duggan murdered Boring’s son. The younger Boring had been assisting authorities in destroying Duggan’s still set up on Boring land.
Boring told others he had recruited Rose’s help because he was a “dead shot.”After murdering the younger Boring, Buster Duggan and his helper, Joe McCully, ransacked the Boring home in the presence of the grieving widow and children.
Soon thereafter, Duggan was shot on his own porch with a 300-yard shot. It was said Rose was one of the few men who could have accurately made that shot. And Joe McCully, who had assisted Duggan in the ransacking of the Boring house, was shot from ambush while sitting atop his mowing machine.
A third man who assisted Duggan, Lyle Williams, was also found dead, but his death was conveniently ruled a suicide. The method in which Duggan and McCully were dispatched caused numerous people to point the finger at Rose for killing the two men, but there was not enough evidence to bring charges.
Rose would later claim he left Cherokee County for several years dodging the Abner Wilson charges, working in the West on a variety of jobs, under the assumed name of Jim Hill. By 1918, he was back, hiding in the mountains.
In 1919, despite the end of World War I, many draft dodgers were still subject to arrest and prosecution. Among them was George Crawly in Blairsville, Ga. When approached by the authorities, Crawly shot and killed Federal Agent Ben Dixon, instigating a massive manhunt.
After two weeks of pursuit by soldiers from the 45th Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort McPherson, Crawly was still at large. Federal Agent Glen Young was brought in. Young was a legendary deserter tracker, having arrested by this time 630 men. He picked up the trail. (He would arrest more than 1,000 draft dodgers before he retired.)
In Murphy, rumors had it that Crawly and his brother had joined Rose, hiding out in the North Carolina mountains. Newspapers soon proclaimed Young chasing “The Jim Rose Gang.” Young learned Rose was at the home of Lowery Jones only 5 miles from Unaka in a section known as Jeffrey’s Hell.
A posse was assembled comprised of Young; Charles Mason, the lawman who cleaned up Jackson County; Ben Barnes; Dave Roberson; and Cherokee County Deputy Julis McClure. McClure knew Rose from their time together in law enforcement.
The gun battle that ensued resulted in Rose being shot through the stomach with what was thought fatal wounds, and McClure’s arm mangled from a ricochet that glanced off McClure’s shotgun receiver and shattered his arm. (It would later require amputation). The shot had been fired by Rose when McClure demanded his surrender.
In a 1920 interview with the Asheville Citizen, McClure would say of Rose, “I’ve known Jim Rose ever since he was a boy. While he’s made a black record most of the time, there have been spells when he went straight.”
Rose was in a fix. Newspaper accounts declared he was dying in a Murphy jail from his wounds. Should he survive, he would face charges of draft dodging, assaulting federal officers and go on trial for the murder of Abner Wilson. It looked like a bleak end for Rose.
But what happens next only added to the legend of Jim Rose. The remainder of the legend continues in this column in two weeks.
Bruce Voyles’ local history column runs every other week in the Cherokee Scout. Email him at RoadsLessTraveled@cherokeescout.com.