Leitha Ann’s Story

Leitha Ann’s Story

By Charles Shiver

Did you know horrible incidents involving the death of Mrs. Jeffie Mae Stanley Smith of Ray City in 1938 and life-threatening injuries to a little girl in Adel in 1940 played a big part in the outlawing of snake handling, as well as the downfall of a local man whom many considered to be a very dangerous cult leader?

A front page article that appeared in The Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper was titled, “Snake-Bitten Six-Year-Old Girl Object of South Georgia Hunt.”

According to the article, on Aug. 2, 1940, police in Adel began to investigate what they believed to be a “local snake-handling religious cult.” The police search was sparked by unconfirmed reports that a young girl named Leitha or Letha Ann Rowan had nearly died from a copperhead bite while handling the snake during a church service. The “religious cult” was identified as the Free Holiness Church, the article states.

According to Taking Up Serpents: Snake Handlers of Eastern Kentucky (2002) by David L. Kimbrough, “The final source of power for handling serpents is innocence. Some church members believe that children can handle serpents because they are young and do not commit sin willfully. I have watched children freely handle rattlesnakes without being bitten.

“However, it is very rare for children to handle snakes; most preachers will not allow children to go near the snake-handling activity.

“Children have not always escaped injury, either. The New York Times reported on Aug. 1, 1940, that a copperhead [initially reported to be a moccasin] struck 5-year-old [or 6-year-old] Leitha Ann Rowan of Adel, Georgia, along with six to eight other believers. The bites occurred at an outside meeting in the family’s yard. The others were not harmed by the bites, but Leitha became ill.”

According to a front page article in The Adel News on Thursday, Aug. 1, 1940, “The child is said to have been bitten last Thursday and when Sheriff [W.I.] Daughtrey was called to the home by neighbors Sunday night he found the child’s arm swollen and she appeared to be in a bad way. Dr. [H.W.] Clements accompanied the sheriff to the place but it is understood did not administer the serum as it would have done no good after so much time had elapsed. Later the child was removed from [her] home and taken away but was located in Lanier County by Sheriff Studstill there and Sheriff Daughtrey, it is stated. She is said to be still in bed and suffering from the effects of the bite of the reptile. Lawton Rowan, uncle of the child who was bitten Sunday, also is said to be still confined to his home suffering from the snake’s fangs.

“It is stated that others were bitten, but the two named were the only ones whom the sheriff saw.”

Until the whereabouts of the little girl could be confirmed, police took her father Albert Rowan, described as a “mild-mannered tenant farmer,” and the group’s leader “farmer-preacher” W.T. Lipham into custody. Albert Rowan was held in jail on a misdemeanor charge, while the Rev. Lipham was booked for “malicious mischief.”

According to Taking Up Serpents, “Lipham was reported to have handled serpents for 30 years. When the men were jailed, they fasted for divine deliverance.”

The girl’s mother, also a member of the Free Holiness Church, told authorities she sought medical attention after her daughter was bitten. However, the sheriff did not trust her account and expressed a continued concern. The book Taking Up Serpents states: “Sheriff Daughtrey had no tolerance for the snake handlers and told reporters, ‘These people handle snakes promiscuously, and it is against their religion to accept medical treatment.’ Superior Court Judge [W.R.] Smith also had little patience for the believers and issued a temporary countywide injunction against such rights, pending a hearing on a permanent order.” A number of local citizens had presented Judge Smith with a petition asking for the injunction.

Adel News Editor W.T. Shytle reported in a front page article about a hearing in the case: “Solicitor-General H.W. Nelson represented the state, and H.B. Edwards of Valdosta represented the defense. Reuben Rowan, brother of Albert and Lawton, testified that they handled the snake and that the child took hold of it with the result that she was bitten. Reuben was at Lawton’s home when the men and others handled the snake, he stated. Mrs. Lawton Rowan also testified that she saw the snake handling that resulted in the biting of the child.

“Albert Rowan was placed on the stand by Mr. Edwards presumably as a witness for Preacher Lipham and stated that the power of God directed him in the catching of snakes but said that Lipham did not tell him to have anything to do with the snakes. He said that the name of his religion or church is Free Holiness. He said that God is the leader of his church. He admitted Lipham had advocated the handling of snakes, further along in his testimony.

“Mr. Edwards sought to inject the Bible into the hearing, or portions of it, and putting interpretations on it but was adjured by Judge Smith that no case could be tried by it[, by] state laws and not by the Bible. The Jurist took occasion to say that he believed every word in the Bible and had a high reverence for it but that different interpretations of what is written in it had been made all through time immemorial almost and that no case could be tried by it but that the state laws must prevail.

“After the testimony and reading of the state law by Solicitor Nelson and what he would rely upon for holding the defendants, Mr. Edwards made a plea for them, basing his address upon the idea that they were only following the dictates of their conscience religiously. Solicitor Nelson strongly urged that they be held in that they had caused the lives of others to be endangered.

“Judge Smith said that the lives of others must be protected and put both Lipham and Rowan under bonds of $3,000 each until the child was found and pronounced by a physician as out of danger when they would be released, the charge being assault with intent to murder and that in the event the child was found dead that they would be held under a charge of murder without bond.

“Judge Smith stated from the bench that he considered Lipham, the leader of the church in this section, as a very dangerous man, probably referring to his snake handling advocation.”

Mr. Shytle further reported: “The trial was dignified and they defendants were treated with every consideration by Judge Smith and Sheriff Daughtrey throughout the trial and during their confinement under the Sheriff’s custody.

“The story of the snake handling and biting has gone all through the nation and multiplied thousands of people have read about it. Nearly everybody in Cook County is sorry that it happened and that so much undesirable notoriety has been occasioned but of course it was in the day’s news and it was all right that it be given publicity. …”

Mr. Shytle urged the judge to order a permanent injunction against the snake handling: “Anyway, many people hope that it will [be made permanent] and that the biting of the little innocent child may be the last of such practices. This paper sincerely hopes so.

“The trial last Thursday was attended by hundreds of people, the courtroom and balcony being filled and many had to stand up. Many who came could not get seats in the courthouse and many did not get in the courtroom. People were here from different towns and counties and several newspaper men were here to report the trial.” Thus, Leitha Ann’s story reached readers across the nation and the world.

According to an article written at the time by Associated Press news staff man Don Whitehead, “Officers heard of the case and sought the child for medical aid … but the mother hid Letha Mae, stoutly maintaining that divine faith would make her well again.

“Judge W.R. Smith of Cook County issued a temporary injunction restraining the cult from conducting any services in which the snakes were handled, and the child’s father, Albert Rowan, a tenant farmer, and preacher W.T. Lipham were jailed until it was apparent the child would recover. …

“Rowan and Lipham paced the cells of the dusty, little Georgia jail, clutching Bibles and praying for divine deliverance. From the sunbaked courthouse square, their overalled followers shouted encouragement to them.

“The cult has no central organization and the various groups are knit together only by their belief. The leaders receive no salaries except free-will offerings and most of them hold regular jobs, preaching on the weekends.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch article states that after being hidden for three days, authorities located little Leitha Ann, “ ‘discolored…in a stupor and barely able to walk.’ Her relatives finally brought the child to a doctor for observation, but denied any medical treatment. The doctor reported that her condition was serious.”

According to Taking Up Serpents, “Leitha’s mother hid her for over 72 hours to prevent medical treatment, believing the Lord would heal her. Relatives then turned the child over to authorities and permitted a medical examination, because Judge Smith had ‘ruled that Lipham and Rowan would face murder charges if the child died.’

“The relatives claimed that the girl had already practically recovered. Dr. H.W. Clements disagreed, announcing that the bite was serious.

“[During Dr. Clements’ examination of Leitha, she] sat upright on the physician’s examination table, but did not talk as Dr. Clements examined her. The child’s arm was still swollen from the effects of the bite, [and] her palm and her body were discolored.”

“Further investigation uncovered that eight other individuals, including the girl’s father, were bitten as the snake was passed around during a ritual,” The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

“In protest to their arrest, the girl’s father and W.T. Lipham went on a hunger strike, denying their connection to the poisoning of 6-year-old Leitha Ann. While devout followers of Free Holiness yelled praises outside, Lipham and Rowan paced in their cells, holding their Bibles and praying aloud for divine deliverance. Legal action against the men depended on the outcome of Leitha’s condition – would she live or die?

“The good news – little Leitha Ann recovered. As a result, her father and Lipham were released from jail, and continued believing that faith could cure the devoted follower of a venomous snake bite.” [There are some discrepancies in these accounts; the preacher was not released from jail at that point.]

Eleven days after the bite, Dr. Clements determined that Leitha was out of danger, and her father was released from jail on a $3,000 bond. Leitha was reported to have recovered fully from the bite.

Judge Smith placed Lipham on a $10,000 bond for a murder charge involving Mrs. Jeffie Mae Stanley Smith, a 30-year-old widow who died following snake-handling rituals and left behind four children in 1938. She was bitten by both a rattlesnake and a moccasin on the same day at a church in Possum Trot, near Ray City. The judge ordered that the bond would be revoked if Lipham continued to preach snake handling. Berrien County Sheriff Hughes and Solicitor Homer Nelson wanted to bring the murder charge against the preacher.

Lipham later stood trial, but was not convicted of murder for Mrs. Smith’s death. I have been in touch with Mrs. Smith’s family, and I am trying to learn more about what happened with that case, although my understanding is that Lipham was eventually “run out of the state.” Mrs. Smith is buried in an unmarked grave in Brushy Creek Cemetery, and her descendants are working to try to find some record of that plot.

Thanks to Scott Smith, Mrs. Smith’s great-grandson, for his help with information about her and historical articles and photos. He said “her story has been misconstrued very badly over the years.”

In response to the incidents involving the little Adel girl and Mrs. Smith, and other incidents in which people became seriously ill (even a nurse) or died from snake bites during the cult rituals roiling across Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, legislators introduced an act in the Georgia General Assembly to limit the practice.

On March 27, 1941, Gov. Eugene Talmadge signed the act making it a felony punishable by 20 years in prison for any person – including a minister – to handle or possess a venomous snake in a manner that would endanger any other person. The death penalty could be imposed in the case of a fatality as in other forms of premeditated murder. The act also made it illegal to advise or encourage any other person to handle a venomous snake in a manner that would endanger the life or safety of such person. The law was repealed in the 1960s. You may now only legally handle venomous snakes in Georgia by permit.

Snake handling and other distortions of the Christian faith persist to this day in the South. In the late 1970s, a man with ties to Adel died after being bitten by a rattlesnake during a Sunday night religious ritual in Bartow County. There are many more recent cases in which cults have caused both deep psychological and deadly physical harm to followers. Still, it appears that snake handling is no longer actively practiced as a religious ceremony in this area.

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” – Matthew 7:20, King James Version (KJV)