CDBurr: June 2025

Monday, June 30, 2025

Simon Daniel an Antebellum Tennessee Bad Boy on the Family Tree by CD Burr

Simon Daniel (1823-1857)

Simon Daniel of Stewart County, Tennessee, was a tough, gun-toting slave owner with a silver plate attached to his skull (cranioplasty). His descendants spoke glowingly of him as a "typical" Southern gentleman who owned up to 24 enslaved humans--a chilling reminder of my maternal ancestors' participation in a horrific institution.

Still, generations of storytellers admired Simon Daniel for his social standing and wealth. They revered our patriarch for his gun-slinging persona and grinned at his bad-boy bravado. In 1857, nightriders galloped on horses into Simon's farmyard, brandishing weapons. They demanded to see Simon's "favorite" slave--to teach him a lesson. Simon raised his rifle, charging that no one would beat his slaves but him. The angry men stormed out of the farm yard.

A few months later, on an early August evening, Simon's horse ambled into the farm yard with 33-year-old, unconscious Simon slumped on the horse's back. His slave carried him into the house. He died five days later.

Some descendants believe Simon died from brain fever stemming from an infection near the silver plate; others think he was ambushed by the nightriders and beaten so severely he never healed from his wounds.

Although Simon died tragically and left behind a widow and five children, I was mortified that my great-great-great-grandfather ostensibly beat his slaves.

Other violent stories cling to Simon's branch like kudzu.

Simon's detested stepmother was killed by a shotgun in her home--possibly by Simon or one of his brothers; his father buried three wives; his father-in-law was charged with battery of a neighbor woman; his brother-in-law was hanged in Missouri; his son died from a headwound after an attack by a fellow logger; two of his great-grandsons robbed a bank, and two of his kinsmen shot and killed a witness in a courtroom in 1861.

After hearing these stories for years, I never understood the adulation for my antebellum Daniel ancestors. They seemed crude, cruel, and unapologetic for participating in the practice of enslaving people and allegedly abusing women. And yet, the stories of extreme violence and murder intrigued me. Who WERE these bad boys in my mother's bloodline?

For over five years, I researched Stewart County court documents, including the 1861 transcribed witness testimonies to a courtroom murder involving two men likely related to Simon and me. As I investigated, a true crime narrative emerged, ultimately changing my perspective of myself, my ancestors, and Southern storytellers.

Simon's and other "Bad Boy" stories are in my upcoming book, Bad Boys on the Family Tree and the 1861 Courthouse Murder in Dover, Tennessee. For a preview of the book, see the sidebar on this blog: Book --Bad Boys on the Family Tree & the 1861 Courtroom Murder in Dover, Tennessee.

Most stories mentioned above come from Simon's grandchildren, including Frankie (Daniel) Sellas's manuscript: The Home Folks: 200 Years In The Cumberland Settlement (also known as Appendix D).

Please "Follow" me on Facebook--CDBurr-- and Blue Sky

And/or join my contact list to receive occasional updates cdburrwriter@gmail.com

I promise not to flood your inbox or share your phone number or email!

--------------

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Abstract and Table of Contents for Bad Boys on the Family Tree and the 1861 Courtroom Murder in Dover, Tennessee

Stewart County Courthouse, Dover, Tennessee (1900)

ABSTRACT

On February 8, 1861, the day before Tennessee voters elected Secession Convention delegates, Will Daniel and his Sexton cousin gunned down a witness in the Stewart County Courthouse. Suspecting the alleged assassins fall on her family tree, Kansas-born CD Burr revisits family stories of violent Daniel-Sexton ancestors and investigates 19th century documents to determine the criminals’ identities. As a result, the author uncovers a compelling, nonfiction narrative set in a Tennessee village at the dawn of the Civil War.

Bad Boys on the Family Tree and the 1861 Courtroom Murder in Dover, Tennessee transports readers to an antebellum crime scene, explores court documents and local histories, and considers how 21st century stereotypes of antebellum Southerners affect research.

In the grand jury document, State of Tennessee v. W.C. Daniel (1861), more than twenty eyewitnesses disclose facts about the courtroom murder and unleash elements of a true-crime docuseries: complicated characters, plot twists, an escalating feud, and the curious disappearance of the criminals. In addition, grand jury testimonies resurrect distant voices of everyday people tending to local concerns of law and order amid exploding national divisiveness—voices that eventually underscore their humanity and dissolve the author’s stereotypes of and contempt for her violent, Southern ancestors.

TABLE of CONTENTS

Foreword

Cast of Characters Introduced in Chapters One Through Ten

Chapter One: “Bloodstains on the Courtroom Floor”

Chapter Two: "Large Enough to Kill a Man”

Chapter Three: "A Fatal Difficulty”

Chapter Four: “The Tools of Death”

Chapter Five: “Escape and a Dungeon”

Chapter Six: “The Killing of Nathan Terry”

Chapter Seven: “The Feud”

Chapter Eight: “Honor and Indictment”

Chapter Nine: “When Roused, A Lion”

Chapter Ten: “Civil War”

Chapter Eleven: “Who Were These People?”

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Appendices

Endnotes

Bibliography

========================

Please "Follow" me on Facebook--CDBurr-- and Blue Sky

And/or join my contact list to receive occasional updates cdburrwriter@gmail.com
I promise not to flood your inbox or share your phone number or email!

The Home Folks: 200 Years In The Cumberland Settlement" by Frankie Daniel Sellas (also known as Appendix D)

The unpublished document The Home Folks: 200 Years In The Cumberland Settlement by Frankie Rebecca Daniel Sellas (1908-2006) was an invaluable source cited frequently in my books about the David Daniel (son Simon) family.

Much of my research relied on Frankie's stories; however, I occasionally found discrepancies. The remembered "facts" did not always match the data found in court documents. Additionally, sources such as 19th-century Goodspeed's History, which she relied on, have been found to lack rigorous scholarship. The authors simply relied on "old timers" to tell the histories. Britain Sexton, for example, did not arrive in 1796 as Frankie recorded. (I provide documentation in Appendix B: Families of Matriarchs--Sexton, Tayloe, Weston, and Wynns. See the bottom of this page. )

Frankie Daniel Sellas was the granddaughter of Simon Daniel (my great-great-great-grandfather) and the daughter of Frank Daniel. I am grateful for her love of our ancestors and her desire to educate her descendants by recording the oral stories passed down to her. She also gathered information without using a computer or the Internet by traveling from Florida to Tennessee and to North Carolina.

In the mid-1990s, my mother, Dora Daniel, drove to Florida to meet Frankie, who was living in a retirement Center. She gave Mom a copy of "The Home Folks."

Frankie Daniel Sellas (left) and Dora Daniel

Frankie would be thrilled that her manuscript was read by others fascinated by our ancestral roots.

A copy of "The Home Folks" can be found at the Stewart County Public Library in Dover, Tennessee, or you can contact me for one. Below are the Foreword, Table of Contents, and the first page of the section on Simon and Rebecca (Sexton) Daniel.

Ordering Copies of Appendices A, B, C, D, E (descriptions below):

To place an order, please use the "Contact" form on the CD Burr home page. I offer free downloads of the following appendices. If you only need parts of one, let me know the patriarch's name.

If you desire printed copies, I charge $0.25 per page plus shipping. I have noted the number of pages next to each name/ place of birth.

Appendix A: Daniel Patriarchs from North Carolina and Tennessee. For a summary of content, see Daniel Patriarch Research Notes
Appendix B: Families of Matriarchs--Sexton (73 pp.), Tayloe (48 pp.), Weston (22 pp.), and Wynns (29 pp.) The matriarch lineage help complete the stories of our Daniel patriarchs.
Appendix C: Unrelated Daniel Families of North Carolina and Tennessee. Several families with the last name “Daniel” arrived in Stewart County in the early 1800s, but I could find no relationship of the following men to my branch: Benjamin W. Daniel, Woodson Daniel, (a different David Daniel), Barton Daniel, and even a Rebecca Daniel, who lived at a different address than Simon's wife, Rebecca Sexton Daniel.
Appendix D: "The Home Folks: 200 Years in the Cumberland Settlement" by Frankie Daniel Sellas. This unpublished 40-page document is a pleasure to read, featuring stories passed down to Frankie from her father, Frank Daniel. However, I have found data disputing some of her memories and subjective conclusions. Contact me to download Sellas's entire document for free or pay $10.00 (25 cents/page) + shipping for printed copies.

Appendix E: Standing Rock, Stewart County, TN Deed records for Daniel, Sexton, Tayloe, and Weston, include their neighbors (44 pp.)

Please "Follow" me on Facebook--CDBurr--and Blue Sky