A post on Genealogy.com: Did Jonathan Daniels invent the Dirtiest of his Stories about Jeffrey Murrell and his Reprobate Son John?

Folks, I am intruding here as a cousin of John Andrews Murrell's cousins, the children of Benjamin and Mary Sims Murrell. Mary is my GGGG aunt, so Benjamin Murrell is my Uncle Ben and he is also blood uncle to John.

Now, I want to propose to you that some of the downright obscene passages that are repeated from book to book were possibly invented by Jonathan Daniels to spice up his THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE. He seems to give as his source the book by "Virgil A. Stewart," but I can't find the really obscene stuff there--only the passage about the fun John had with Mother Surgick's girls.

A journalist writing a book meant for popularity has a lot of freedom. The reviewer in the Autumn 1963 LOUISIANA HISTORY said Daniels was "often entertaining but not completely accurate," and went on to talk about "errors in fact and interpretation." "No attempt was made at balance, and literary and historical license was taken at frequent occasions." Unless someone finds documentary sources for the obscenities, particularly the "rutting" sentence ascribed to Jeffrey Murrell, I am concluding that Daniels probably had a high old time inventing them and palming them off on reviewers and posterity, even the posterity of the Murrells.


I'll let you know if I learn anything from the blood kin of the Murrells. Ah, but I am blood kin to the descendants of Uncle Ben the Revolutionary Patriot and his Loving Wife Mary Sims!