Smoot

[Laurie Verge]

Joe,

When I was brave enough to pose this question to my grandmother (when I was a teenager and she was in her late-80s), all I got as a response was, "No such thing!" My grandmother idolized her father and would never admit that he did anything wrong.

My mother, on the other hand, just said that she had never heard that part about the horses - only the story of Davey spending the night of April 13 with my great-grandparents. She did say that she did not believe that the family had horses "to give away." Their horses were only for riding and pulling carriages. After the CW, they acquired farms that required work horses.

However, about a hundred yards away from the Huntt house was the T.B. Hotel run by John Chandler Thompson, and across the street from there was a livery stable that supplied fresh teams of horses for the stage lines. That hotel is where Davey spent the night on March 17 after the failed kidnap.

John Chandler Thompson was also the one who warned my great-grandfather to keep his mouth shut about Davey staying at our house the night before the assassination. The quote I heard was, "Keep this quiet. There will be lots of trouble, and they will be hanging people higher than a Georgia pine."

I have suspected that Mr. Thompson was part of the Secret Line.