Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE
PART FIVE: The fifth surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.)
February 16th, 1876 – From “Pace’s Rock, NC”
The Fool Killer began this letter to Milton Chronicle Editor Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans by saying he had been hibernating in his hidden cave again and had just woken up and emerged in December of 1875. The references made by Jesse Holmes (the name the Fool Killer claimed was his real identity even though the letters were written by Charles Evans himself) confuse the previous timeline.
Either Evans was doing what fiction writers now call ret-conning (imposing retroactive changes to continuity, if you’re new to the term) or he may have just felt “who cares” if the Fool Killer was contradicting previous letters. Evans may have reasonably felt nobody would ever bother paying such strict attention to fictional letters from a nonexistent vigilante.
This letter has Jesse Holmes claim he is waking up from a nap begun AFTER the Civil War ended. Previous letters had the Fool Killer begin his hibernation in 1861 or 1862, motivated by disgust at the fools who brought on the Civil War. Under that initial timeline Holmes emerged from his hibernation around 1870, dressed in up to date men’s fashion, to resume his killing spree by preying on Ku Klux Klansmen and northern Carpetbaggers alike.
(A May, 1870 letter – the fourth Fool Killer Letter, previously reviewed – has the homicidal vigilante striking at a nominating convention during the imposition of martial law in Alamance County over excessive Klan violence. )
So did Jesse Holmes begin a second period of hibernation after his anti-Klan and anti-Carpetbagger activities in 1870? His reference to returning to his hidden cave AFTER the Civil War is vague. It doesn’t have to mean 1865 (during which period he was supposedly in his 1861/2-1870 sleep already).
We’ll probably never know and may be giving it more thought than Charles Evans himself did. So, on to the murders that the Fool Killer confesses to in this letter.
Holmes stated he emerged from his cave on December 22nd, 1875, and, in disgust at all the foolishness he sensed running rampant in the nation, smote the ground with his club. In fact he struck the ground SO hard with his primary fool-killing weapon – his skull-topped walking stick – that it was recorded in newspapers of the time as an earthquake. (This is a joking reference to a real-life earthquake of that date which was felt as far north as Baltimore, MD and as far south as Greensboro, NC.)
Deciding to get busy, the Fool Killer set forth with his club/ walking stick/ cudgel and his set of Bowie knives to seek fresh victims. Continue reading
Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK 
PART FOUR: The fourth surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.) 
This Fool Killer Letter saw its first revived publication in November of 1978, making it the last of the surviving letters to come to light but the fourth chronologically. 
WE NEED THIRD PARTIES. Here at Balladeer’s Blog I am still soaking in the ongoing revolution in the thought processes of my fellow voters, more and more of them expressing their disgust with the two rival gangs of white-collar criminals called Democrats and Republicans. 
Former Republicans have begun to realize why so many of us former Democrats openly despised the CIA, NSA and FBI going way back. Seeing the way that our counterproductive and/or criminal intelligence agencies are nothing but enforcers for the extremely wealthy and the politically connected has opened their eyes. 
“ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: RIGHT OR WRONG” IS STILL THE DEMOCRAT SLOGAN.
Journalist and strong female role model Kelli Ballard courageously continues to compile as comprehensive as possible a breakdown of the additional crimes committed by people in the country illegally. 
PART THREE: The third surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation) 
JUNE 28th, 1861 – From “Down about Norfolk, VA.” (The Fool Killer wandered North Carolina and Virginia – which back then still included what is now West Virginia – and the dark-humored Fool Killer Letters were syndicated in several newspapers in addition to his North Carolina “birth place” the Milton Chronicle.) 
In this letter the Fool Killer adds a collection of Bowie knives to his arsenal alongside his ever-present club/ walking stick/ cudgel. Future incarnations of the Fool Killer in folk tales, short stories, novels and plays will assign him various axes, guns and even a scythe. Comic book depictions will add weapons like a sword and a high-tech “Purification Gun” which shoots white energy blasts of undetermined nature. 
And the hits! Keep! Coming! President Donald Trump, the new FDR, JFK, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, continues his destruction of the Democrats’ delicate “narratives.” Despite the way privileged white Democrats try to paint him as anti-Hispanic, the polls that Democrats live by now show at least 50% of Hispanic voters have a favorable impression of him. He continues to make similar inroads into the black vote AND he has more female senior advisors than Obama, Bush and Clinton did! 
(My fellow geeks for 19th Century American history will recall that these routes – sometimes referred to as Star Routes because they were indicated by three stars on the route indexes – were often at the center of bidding scandals.) 
In this case the distraction came in the form of “a venerable and mighty clever man” who asked Holmes to find out who had stolen his prize turkey. Armed as always with his club/ walking stick/ cudgel the Fool Killer began his investigation. 
However, since Evans was all about the written word, he used the Fool Killer as a much more active figure. Evans’ Fool Killer – claiming Jesse Holmes as his real name – roamed North Carolina and Virginia (which at the time still consisted of what would become West Virginia) looking for fools to kill with a club/ walking stick he always carried with him. The character would then send letters to Editor Evans explaining why he had chosen victims, defending his actions with puckish commentary. 
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