THE LIFE OF JUDGE H.H. LOVETT
PART 12:
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Judge H.H. Lovett was known for his large repertoire of stories and anecdotes. The following were taken from an oral history interview conducted by WCBL founder Shelby McCallum with Judge Lovett in 1970:
Dentist Story
“Well, many years ago, I had trouble with my teeth. Dr. [Rufus] Foust came here about 1904 or 1905 as a young dentist and Dr. Foust and I became good friends. About 1907 or 1908, I don’t remember which it was, but I had been having a lot of trouble with my teeth and I had one abscess, so Doc Foust give me something to kill it and told that maybe he wouldn’t have to pull it out. Doc Foust was living at his mother-in-law’s at that time and he told me that if the tooth didn’t get any better that I needed to come see him at his residence and he would do something about it. The tooth kept hurting so bad that I couldn’t stand it, so I went down to Doc Foust’s house about eight o’clock at night. He sat me down in a chair and looked around at the tooth for a while and finally decided that it was just going to have to come out. He leaned me back and put the forceps on the tooth and would twist on that tooth for a while and then take a break. The pain was something awful! It hurt like a dickens! He’d try again and pull and jerk on that tooth and then let me take a break from the pain. Now, he did this for about three hours. Well, he didn’t have anything to kill the pain except for a quart of brandy. So, in between him pulling and prodding on my tooth, I’d take a swig of brandy to dull the pain. He finally got that tooth out about eleven o’clock and I had eventually drunk all that brandy. Well, to say the least, I was a little drunk at the end of that visit and that was the first time I had ever been drunk. Doc Foust asked me if I wanted him to take me home, and I told him no and told him I could make it on my own. Well, I staggered out of his house and it took me almost all night to make it home!”
Sam Crossland & Judge Lightfoot’s Funeral
“Sam Crossland was a famous lawyer back in the early days of Marshall County. He was a criminal lawyer more than anything else and a good one too. Sam Crossland was one of these short spoken, quick talking and quick acting fellows. Everything was ‘zip’, ‘zip’, ‘zip’ all the time. Now, Judge William Reed (who served as Circuit Judge here for eighteen years) was a man with much dignity. He was a big man about six feet and five inches tall and weighed about three hundred pounds and had all the dignity of a Supreme Court justice and if you saw him walking down the street you could just tell that he was a judge just by his looks. He and Sam Crossland were very great friends and good drinking buddies and they would get out at night together and go their spree. Well, there was another fellow, Judge Lightfoot, who was County Judge over in McCracken County and he and Sam Crossland didn’t care for one another. Sam Crossland and Lightfoot had a falling out when Sam ran for Congress back in 1898 and Lightfoot refused to endorse him. Well, after Sam held a grudge. Years later, old Judge Lightfoot died and on the day of Judge Lightfoot’s funeral, Judge Reed was walking down the street in Benton and met Sam Crossland just walking very fast as he always did and Judge Redd stopped and said in his deep voice, “Sam, are you going over to Lightfoot’s funeral this afternoon?” Sam kept on walking and said in his fast talking, short and quick manner, “Nope. Nope. Nope. I can’t go, but by God I endorse it though!”
Airplane Story
“I remember the first airplane that ever flew over Benton. I had seen airplane before at the World’s Fair in Virginia, but this was the first one I ever saw fly over Benton. There was an old man and lady who lived out in the country who would come into town about two or three times a week to sell their vegetables. We were standing out in front of one of the stores in Benton talking when this airplane came over the Benton sky. The old lady looked up at the airplane and asked her husband, “Well, I wonder if there is anybody up in that thing?”
Trip to Paducah Story
“Back in my younger days, I farmed with my father and we would go to Paducah ever so often to sell and trade goods. We would travel by horse and buggy and the trip from Olive to Paducah was a long one. We would get up early around four o’clock in the morning and we would rush to get Paducah before ten o’clock at night before the wagon yards closed, so we would have a place to put up our wagon. We would stay all night in the Paducah and then do our businesses the next day and then head home around dark and travel all night to get home. Back in those days it would take the better part of three days to make a trip to Paducah and back.
Years later, my father came to live with me in Benton before he died in 1933 and I was serving as Commonwealth Attorney at that time. My office was in Paducah and I had a car and I was going to Paducah pretty regular. Well, one particular Saturday afternoon about one o’clock, I asked Daddy if he wanted to go to Paducah with me for a few minutes. He looked at me puzzled and he said ‘Son, we won’t be able to make it to Paducah in time.’ Well, I sorta laughted and told Dad that I thought we could make it Paducah. We got in the car and went down there to Paducah. We stayed for about a couple of hours and then come on home. Well, Daddy, who was used to traveling by horse and buggy to Paducah, just couldn’t believe that we had traveled to Paducah and back home in one day and he just talked about that trip until the day he died. He was just so amazed how transportation had changed in his lifetime.”
The Hogs and the Hotel
“Leading up to this story there was a race for Circuit Judge over in the Fourth District (which was Calloway, Trigg, and Christian Counties) between Judge Cook and another fellow by the name of Bush. The campaign was very bitter and over in Calloway County they had Sheriff Walter Holland and County Clerk by the name of Keys and they were on different sides of the election. Well, Keys had a brother named Hardy Keys and as a result of all that high feeling, Walter Holland killed Hardy Keys. Well there was almost a feud that started because of that incident.
Well, when they indicted Walter Holland they had to change the venue to Marshall County because of the prominence of the people. Well old man Jim Garnett of Trigg County who later became Kentucky Attorney General was one of the attorneys for the defense and he came down here and was staying at a hotel on the south side of the court square here in Benton. The hotel was an old frame building and had no solid foundation and it was open underneath. Well, during those days time we [the town of Benton] had a curfew where the children had to get off the street by nine o’clock at night, but we didn’t have any stock law, so the hogs and cattle roamed ran at large all over Benton. Well, underneath this old hotel was the favorite sleeping place for the hogs. The hogs would get up and under that hotel and they would grunt and squeal. Then a few more would get up and turn over and grunt squeal and they caused a great commotion all night and they kept old man Garnett awake all night. Well, the next morning, Garnett came out on the front porch of the hotel and his hair was all over his head and his eyes were red from the lack of sleep and looked like he had been on a drunk. Old man Garnett looked out across town and he said in a rather disgusted manner, ‘Benton. Benton. By God, Benton! The only damn town on earth where they put the kids up and turn the hogs out at nine o’clock at night!’”
Pos Hampton Story
Back in the early 1900s, Benton was a small town with the population less than a thousand. We had no paved streets and no sidewalks, but we did have some favorite characters. Back in those early days we had a young man by the name of “Pos” Hampton and “Pos” was the ugliest fellow you ever saw in your life and he took great pride in the fact that he was ugly! He was a town character and he loafed around the court yard square a good deal and would sit on the front steps out there.
We had an old man, [J.A.] McDaniel, who was jailer and he took pride of showing “Pos” off especially when there was a crowd in town or when court was in session. The courtroom was upstairs and there was a balcony that was over the front steps. And it was accustom in those days to let the witnesses who came to court to stay out in town until they got ready for them and they would step out on the balcony and call them to come in. Old man McDaniel was the one who usually called them in. He had a loud, deep voice and you could hear him through the deep oak in the courthouse. He’d get out there on the balcony and call the name of the witness for them to come in. We had two lawyers here, Lawrence Cooper and Coy Reeder, one day here trying a case. And one or the other of them (I don’t remember which one, but both of them could have been guilty), they had old man McDaniel the next witness, I.P. Freely. McDaniel went out on that balcony and squalled out, “I-Pee Freely” four or five times. Old “Pos” Hampton was sitting on the steps under the balcony and looked up and said, “My goodness if you pee freely then I better move!”