The Hieronymus Cabin Site (Stop #9 on the John Holder Trail) takes its name from Benjamin Hieronymus, who lived there from the 1830s until his death in 1859. Evidence suggests the cabin was built in the late 1700s. It survived until destroyed by a fire in the 1960s. All that remains today is the ancient limestone chimney.
On January 3, 1939, the cabin was the scene of a triple murder that shocked the community. With bold headlines, the Lexington Herald reported, “Three men were shot to death late this afternoon during a bloody gun battle staged in a ramshackle three-room cabin on the side of a hill near the Kentucky river in Southern Clark county.” The victims were William Henry “Buck” Sowers, a sometime game warden, fisherman and farm hand, Sampson Estepp, farm worker, and John Martin, who was employed at the now-abandoned Boonesboro Rock Quarry.
The following sequence of events was reconstructed from newspaper accounts and court proceedings. Buck Sowers resided in the front room of the cabin, while Sampson Estepp, his wife Mary and stepson Herbert lived in the back room, the two rooms being separated by a hallway.
Sowers reportedly “had been awful drunk since about Christmas Day.” On the day of the slaying, Robert Martin was visiting Sowers and, after the pair finished off three pints of whiskey, they began arguing. It was late in the afternoon when Sowers fired a shotgun at Martin, who fled the cabin with a buckshot wound to his face.
Mrs. Estepp testified that her husband had just returned to the cabin with a load of firewood, “I heard a shot. I said, ‘Buck has shot Bob.’” Sampson Estepp started to the front room to investigate and, as he came into the room, Sowers shot him at point-blank range with a 12-gauge shotgun.
Mary Estepp ran out of the house screaming, alarming John Martin who was living in a house on the other side of the creek (Stop #1 on the John Holder Trail). Martin rushed to the cabin to see what was the matter and, just as he was coming in the door, Sowers shot him. Martin died instantly.
Next to arrive was Stanley Martin. He described what happened at his examining trial. “When I stepped inside of the house, I saw my brother lying dead on the floor, and when Buck pointed his gun at me, I let him have it. It was him or me.” Sowers died from ten .22-caliber bullet wounds. Stanley then proceeded to pound Sowers’ head with the butt of two shotguns, destroying each in the process. “I beat him until I got tired.” Judge Joe Lindsay, who presided over the trial, described the gun battle as “the bloodiest in Clark County history.” Stanley Martin’s murder charge was dismissed on the grounds of self-defense and temporary insanity.
Stanley took in John Martin’s children—Arthur, Homer and Jean—and married John’s widow, Ardella. The three Martin brothers involved in the fray—Robert, John and Stanley—were sons of William Martin and Derenza Sowers. The Martin family resided on Lower Howard’s Creek for nearly 200 years, from the time of their arrival in 1786 from Fluvanna County, Virginia, until the last of William’s descendants left the valley in the early 1980s.
In 1978, William Strong purchased the Hieronymus tract, which has been called ever since the “Colonel Strong place.” Colonel Strong was retired military, having served in the U.S. Army in Korea and Vietnam. After his death in 2006, the property was acquired from his widow for the Lower Howard’s Creek Nature & Heritage Preserve with the aid of a grant from the Kentucky Heritage Land Conservation Fund Board.
