Newton Blevins
John Newton “Newt” Blevins (1878-1928) was a Scott County man who murdered Dick Hatfield in 1925, and was later murdered himself.
Biography
Born in 1878, Newt Blevins was the son of Richard D. “Wild Dick” Slaven (1841-1923) and Telitha “Lithie” Blevins (1841-1927). His siblings included Joseph (1860-1927), Abraham (1863-1938), Mary “Katie” Slaven (1863-1925), and Telitha Hatfield (1869-1943). His half-siblings included Ewell Slaven (1880-1953) and Mary Jane Slaven (1884-1935).
Blevins’ great-grandfather was Richard Harve Slaven, the first permanent settler of the Big South Fork region.
Blevins took his mother’s maiden name because he was born out of wedlock. Richard Slaven and Lithie Blevins were not married until 1903. Slaven’s first wife was Melda Jane Spradlin.
Newt Blevins married Amanda Ruth Smith (1884-1959) in 1899. She was the daughter of William “Bill” Smith and Sarah Jane Slaven. They had at least seven children together: Tilden Blevins (1901-1973), Sarah Blevins (1906-1920), Richard Blevins (1908-1978), Ida Crabtree (1911-1937), Nettie Blevins (1913-1939), Harvie Blevins (1915-1934), and Frank Blevins (1920-1996). There may have been one more.
The Murder of Dick Hatfield
Newton Blevins killed William Richard Claburn “Dick” Hatfield in 1924, during an argument over stolen apples.
The dispute had begun days earlier, when Hatfield complained to Ike King, a constable in the Station Camp area where both men lived, that children — including Newton’s — had been stealing apples from his orchard.
On Aug. 26, 1924, the two men encountered at High Point just south of Oneida, and Blevins invited Hatfield to his home for dinner. After they had eaten, the two men began arguing over the apples. In the midst of the argument, Blevins shot Hatfield with a rifle. Hatfield later died.
Blevins claimed self-defense, saying that Hatfield had come at him with a knife. The district attorney general disagreed, saying that Blevins had “hunted down” Hatfield. He charged Blevins with first degree murder. A jury convicted Blevins of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced him to a year in prison.
Death
Blevins served his prison sentence and returned home to Station Camp. On Nov. 12, 1928, he was shot and killed as he rounded up cattle with his wife, Mandy. No one was ever convicted in connection with Blevins’ death. A Chattanooga newspaper wrote, “It is reported that Blevins had turned some parties up to the officers on a charge of stilling in that section, but, so far as can be learned, no charge has been made against any one for the shooting.”
It is not known for sure where Blevins was buried, though it might be in the Richard Slaven Cemetery near where he lived, and where his parents are buried. Blevins lived on top of the plateau and grazed his cattle beneath the bluff lines, moving them back and forth through a split in the sandstone cap rock that was known as “Newt’s Gap.”
Mandy Smith Blevins later remarried to William M. Wright Sr. She died in 1959 and was buried at Jim Carson Cemetery in Oneida.