Namon Terry

Namon A. Terry (1888-1932) was a Scott County man killed during a shootout in Winfield in 1932 that was part of the broader Jerome Boyatt saga of 1933, although Terry was not connected to Boyatt in any way.

Biography

Born June 1, 1888, Namon Terry (spelled Naamon in newspaper accounts at the time) was the son of William M. Terry (1856-1931) and Martha Marlene Cross (1861-1944) of Winfield. He was the great-grandson of Josiah Terry, the first settler of Oneida. His maternal grandfather was Larkin Cross, the Buffalo man murdered by Confederate soldiers in 1862.

Terry married Maggie Frances Douglas, the daughter of Charles C. Douglas and Annie Douglas of Maine. Their children included Dorothy “Dotty”, William, Willard, Dosamay, and Wilbert. The three youngest were still minors when their father was killed in 1932. The youngest, Dosamay and Wilbert, were about seven and two, respectively, at the time of his death.

Terry served in the U.S. Army. When the 1910 census was taken, he was stationed at Fort Williams in Maine. It was there that he met his wife, Frances. They returned to Scott County following his time in the service. In 1926, Terry was named as one of Scott County’s delegates to the state Republican convention.

Death

Terry and another man, Escar Thompson, were killed during a shootout with James Harvey Winchester on Nov. 27, 1932.

According to a Chattanooga Daily Times account from Nov. 28, 1932, deputy sheriff James Marion Thompson — Escar Thompson’s father — received a report that Winchester, Sterling Meadows, and “a youth named Baker” were “blocking the highway at Bear Creek Junction.” Sterling Meadows was the 24-year-old son of the couple Winchester was boarding with in Winfield when the 1930 census was taken.

Thompson deputized his son and Terry and headed for the scene.

Upon reaching the scene, Thompson reported that Winchester began shooting, killing Terry and Esker Thompson. J.M. Thompson returned fire but did not strike Winchester. He later arrested Winchester and turned him over to Sheriff Esau Laxton.

Aftermath

Harvey Winchester was kidnapped from the Scott County Jail in Huntsville on June 9, 1933, as he awaited trial. Another man, Jerome Boyatt, was also kidnapped. The next morning, the two men’s bullet-riddled bodies were discovered alongside U.S. Highway 27 near Helenwood.

Boyatt appeared to be the main target, and was being sought by family and friends of Pickett County Sheriff George Winningham and Winningham’s deputy son, Floyd Winningham, who Boyatt was accused of killing at a Rock Creek logging camp in April 1933. However, the lynching of Winchester has long led many to believe that Scott Countians were also involved.

No one was ever charged.

Namon Terry was buried at Babb Cemetery in Winfield. His wife and younger children moved back to Maine, where she was from. Frances died in Maine in June 1971. Their youngest daughter, Doramay, died in Maine in 2014. Wilbert, the last surviving child, died in Southwest Harbor, Maine, on Nov. 18, 2021, at age 91.