DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/serpentslipsinto01turp 
 
THE SERPENT SLIPS INTO 
 A MODERN EDEN 
 
 OR 
 
 NANCY KERLEE and HER CRIME 
 
 BY 
 
 James A. Turpin 
 
 t 
 
 No matter how innocent and fair the face of things — 
 “Be sure your sin will find you out." 
 
 RALEIGH 
 
 Edwards & Broughton Printing Company 
 1923 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1923, by 
 James A. Turpin, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress 
 at Washington, D. C. 
 
 (All Rights Reserved.) 
 
3<W, 3 
 
 T1S1S 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 The Cause of Christian Education 
 
 of THE 
 
 Rising and Future Generations 
 of the Common Mass of 
 Our Mountain People 
 The Best, Most American and 
 Most Promising Citizenry 
 in the World 
 
“The iniquity of the fathers shall be 
 visited upon the children to the 'third and 
 fourth generations of them that hate me.” 
 — Bible. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 1. An Earthly Eden 15 
 
 2. The Spirit of Crime 23 
 
 3. In Woman’s Form 32 
 
 4. The Valuable Citizen 39 
 
 5. The Case of Frances Silver .... 45 
 
 6. The Searching Party 68 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 
 The Murderess 76 
 
 The Searchers 68 
 
 The Discovery 70 
 
 When the Stones Were Rolled Away . . 72 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is strange, but mankind has always 
 been interested in the subject of crime. 
 The philosopher has tried to dig into the 
 mystery of the coexistence of good and 
 evil in this Earth of ours. 
 
 Different races and nationalities have 
 their different religious theories as to the 
 prevalence of two principles in the human 
 experience — the one tending to darkness 
 and wickedness, and the other to light 
 and righteousness. These mysteries are 
 beyond the wisdom of man to penetrate. 
 They are confined to that Being whom we 
 call God, and He may not see fit to reveal 
 them to his creatures, either here or here- 
 after. 
 
 But there are men known as criminal- 
 ogists, who have exercised their utmost 
 energies in the study of men in connection 
 with crime. These tell us that the tend- 
 ency to crime is inherited in some cases, 
 and that tendency bursts into full fruitage 
 in the overt act, under what might cor- 
 rectly be termed the force of pernicious 
 
 [71 
 
8 
 
 Introduction 
 
 education and environment through the 
 process of generations. This proposi- 
 tion being admitted as true, the reverse 
 would be equally true: that the only way 
 to reduce to the minimum of natural 
 tendency to evil in the natures of men is 
 to afford the individual the best training 
 and the happiest moral surroundings 
 through the generations. 
 
 Men are asking the question from every 
 quarter of the world : How are we to get 
 
 the tiger — the disposition to spring on the 
 unwary and the helpless — out of men? 
 We are told by adepts and specialists of 
 a thousand ways, but there can only be 
 one real way, and that is education. 
 
 The most highly conceivable, yet ad- 
 mittedly obtainable, result of education 
 is the redemption of a human. This 
 education or redemption is not thought 
 of by Christians except in connection 
 with that truest of all forms of training 
 as laid down in the program of Christ two 
 thousand years ago, and under whose 
 system the human race has made more 
 headway toward the final subjugation of 
 
Introduction 
 
 9 
 
 crime than in all the preceding ages of 
 man taken together. Under this incom- 
 parable form of training, as by a miracle, 
 the vilest criminal may be transformed, 
 educated into a reasoning, just and happy 
 creature; but he lives in the being and by 
 the sufferance and grace of the sublimest 
 of Teachers. 
 
 It is by this system, aided by that 
 school of human teachers known as 
 Christians, that the prophets of good 
 hope to accomplish the abolition of the 
 only sure-enough slavery that has yet 
 cursed the race — the slavery of sin. 
 
 It were best that men everywhere 
 should enter the school of the Teacher 
 who taught as never man taught. Sooner 
 or later, whether we will or not, we shall 
 have to bow to that Prince of Preceptors. 
 Hadn’t I rather bend the knee to a dear 
 and honored leader with whom I am on 
 long and affectionate terms of intimacy 
 than to one whose overtures I had 
 spurned and against whose personality I 
 had willfully and persistently rebelled? 
 The tuition of the Great Teacher is as free 
 
10 
 
 Introduction 
 
 as the mountain brooklet. The colleges, 
 universities and great Christian common- 
 school system of the State are His agents. 
 
 It is only through these and the ex- 
 ample of the Christian home that crime 
 can be eliminated from the moral body 
 of the individual and society. The soon- 
 er the majority of the people find this 
 out the better. And this miracle cannot 
 be performed in a day. It will take 
 generations and centuries of patient and 
 heroic effort. 
 
 A barbarian or a man with the most 
 pronounced primitive instincts trans- 
 formed into a gentle, peaceable and 
 tractable human, is nothing short of a 
 walking miracle. It is little less a miracle 
 to take the child of cultured and refined 
 parentage and, by a process of soul- 
 culture, so elevate the moral perceptions 
 of that child as even to turn him into 
 society a decided improvement upon his 
 parents and forbears. Happily for the 
 destiny of man and the gradual advance 
 of society, this very near-miracle is tak- 
 ing place every day. 
 
Introduction 
 
 11 
 
 The hope of society, and this gradual 
 but certain development of the highest 
 ideal in society, is through a thoroughly 
 Christianized school system; a system of 
 education and training that shall take 
 into consideration, first and foremost, the 
 child as a citizen in embryo of the Com- 
 monwealth, as well as a human soul, with 
 its vast individual and social responsi- 
 bilities and immortal destiny. 
 
 When men become thus equipped their 
 moral vision will become more and more 
 keen and lengthened out, and they will 
 blame the unfortunate individual culprit 
 less and themselves more for the moral 
 relapses which sometimes occur in the 
 most horrible and revolting forms. “Am 
 I my brother’s keeper?” Never in the 
 experience of good men has there re- 
 bounded with such tremendous emphasis 
 the affirmative answer to that age-old 
 question! It is, like all eternal questions, 
 a conscience question, and it cannot and 
 will not go unheeded. It demands an 
 answer. 
 
12 
 
 Introduction 
 
 And, we repeat, as the most degraded 
 of human beings are generations and 
 centuries in the making, so the best and 
 noblest of mankind are ages in their cul- 
 tivation and development. 
 
 Wealth cannot, and never will, make 
 a noble man; but a trained mind and right 
 conduct can. This is an oft-repeated and 
 fundamental teaching of the Master. It 
 is, therefore, the duty of the wise and 
 good of every community to see to it 
 that the less fortunate neighbor has the 
 accessories of good citizenship : good roads 
 good schools, orthodox Christian churches 
 and benevolent institutions, where the 
 widow and the orphan and the helpless- 
 aged may find sustenance and shelter. 
 The reaction of such upon society is in- 
 effable and sure, and beautiful as the sun 
 at noonday. 
 
 Society will remain abnormal and out 
 of joint until the local and State govern- 
 ments turn their attention to the treat- 
 ment of social ills by the practice in all 
 cases, major as well as minor, of what is 
 known among physicians as preventive 
 
Introduction 
 
 13 
 
 medicine. That is, when they see symp- 
 toms of criminality in the small child, 
 begin by prescribing a course of mind 
 and soul-medicine. If it require the 
 sharp severance of family ties and the 
 consignment of the patient to a distant 
 institution and among strangers, the 
 greater the blessing for the subject and 
 the State. 
 
 There have been fewer crimes of the 
 baser and unspeakable sort committed 
 in the fair mountains of the South than, 
 perhaps, in any other similar population 
 of the world. But crime is not a growth 
 of the soil or a contagion of the air; it is 
 a product of the dark underworld, where 
 there are no stable footings or gold- 
 shafted sunbeams. It is more than prob- 
 able that had Nancy Kerlee or Frances 
 Silver had the proper education and 
 training from infancy, the capability for 
 crime in either of them could have been 
 neutralized and the horrible deeds for 
 which they were called to account had 
 never materialized. Society has failed 
 of its opportunity if it does not profit 
 by such examples, however extraordinary. 
 
 James A. Turpin. 
 
 Waynesville, N. C. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 An Earthly Eden 
 
 Lying upon the southeast slopes of the 
 Balsam Mountains, and spread out under 
 the rising sun beyond the gliding Pigeon, 
 is one of the fairest counties in the Old 
 North State. It seems to have been 
 created for all that a pastoral region 
 could suggest. The mountains are not 
 as compelling in their size and grandeur 
 as they are inviting in beauty and mild 
 and mellow contour. 
 
 The loitering brooks and creeks moisten 
 the green fringes of the meadows as much 
 as to say, “We are in no headlong hurry 
 to mingle our peaceful waters with tur- 
 bulent old Atlantic.” A hundred dewy 
 meads smile in the serene and sad sun- 
 shine of autumn. A thousand bossy dells 
 sparkle with wild flowers. Ten thousand 
 hillocks are crowned with the dark green 
 affluence of the royal sweet potato, and 
 the neighboring persimmon bends under 
 the burden of his perennial promise when 
 
16 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 the frost is on his fruitage and the “bark 
 is on the dog.” 
 
 Ah! the glory of old Haywood in the 
 fall! When her green hillsides begin to 
 rattle and quiver under the piercing feet 
 of her herds. When the Devon, and the 
 Hereford, and the Scotch Shorthorn, and 
 the Aberdeen Angus begin to roll and 
 bellow toward the shipping pens of the 
 Southern at Clyde on the Pigeon, and 
 their owners of good Scotch origin, roll 
 the greenbacks into their jeans. 
 
 It is interesting indeed to trace men 
 back to ancient spring-heads and to find 
 how that, not only do they bring down 
 the color of the hair and the gaits and 
 manner of speech, but the scent of old 
 soils, the lure of forest and mountain 
 and the hankering for certain ancestral 
 occupations and trades. And so the fore- 
 fathers of these Haywood cattlemen did 
 not stop in the lowlands, but followed the 
 rising sun until they came up so high 
 that they felt something in the crisp 
 morning air that reminded them of the 
 
An Earthly Eden 
 
 17 
 
 breath of their old lochs and bens (lakes 
 and mountains) over the sea. 
 
 These first families — these old settlers 
 of Haywood — how one should like (if 
 space would allow) to mention them all 
 by name, and tell of the toils and depriva- 
 tions which they welcomed, challenged 
 and conquered in building the plain, 
 though solid, foundations of the civilized 
 society upon which their offspring have 
 builded, and the benefits of which are 
 only now beginning partially to be under- 
 stood and enjoyed. 
 
 Men of Haywood, we are heirs of a 
 rich and princely domain. The natural 
 soil — these old red hills and smiling vales 
 and dark, loose coves, these steep es- 
 carpments of the mountains, these level 
 stamps where the cattle and sheep are 
 wont to lie and bask in the alternate 
 sun and shade, are all ours for the coax- 
 ing and the smiting by modern tools and 
 implements of farming and stock-raising. 
 
 There are thousands and thousands of 
 acres of land that literally are weighted 
 down with over a hundred varieties of 
 2 
 
18 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 timber-trees and ornamental shrubs; the 
 ground is deep on the surface with leaves 
 and loam and undergrowth, which hold 
 the rains in check, feed the soil and pre- 
 vent erosion. It is Nature’s way of con- 
 serving and compensating herself. This 
 can, by the exercise of common sense by 
 the citizens who own these mountains, or, 
 better said, hold a lease from the Great 
 Conservator for life on them. The local 
 and State governments should prescribe 
 the rules in the main for the management 
 of the mountains and streams. It is a 
 well-understood fact that, without the 
 interposition of the State, the citizen or 
 the nonresident landowner has the right 
 to do with his own as he will, the present 
 generation may lose sight of that other 
 equally important fact that, in a very 
 serious and appealing sense, the future 
 generations have the profoundest moral 
 rights to the soil of their ancestry, and 
 these call loudly for the respect of each 
 succeeding generation as time goes on. 
 
 The people are entirely too listless and 
 free in the treatment of the common 
 
An Earthly Eden 
 
 19 
 
 domains. And this accounts for the 
 intrusion and interception, if such it may 
 be styled, of the General Government. 
 The people just will not zealously and 
 judiciously guard their native soil. They 
 will devastate, and they will sell to 
 the highest bidder, and away goes the 
 fatherland. And here is the prime excuse 
 for national forest preserves and the like. 
 
 If only the citizens of Haywood could 
 be educated to see the importance of 
 holding with a death-grip to the soil of 
 their fathers, then it would remain their 
 inheritance; and their Eden should never 
 be despoiled by the ruthless and con- 
 scionless hand of commerce. 
 
 There is absolutely no inconsistency, 
 no conflict between the retention of these 
 mountains, in the main, by their fine, 
 stalwart native population and the trans- 
 formation of the region, high and lifted 
 up, where the tired man and his wife 
 from the busy, stuffy city, may come and 
 build their bungalow and play to their 
 hearts’ content. 
 
20 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 The world is yearning for peace. It 
 can come as nearly finding peace in 
 these mountains of ours as any other 
 segment of Earth. It hovers in smiling 
 valley and heavenly height with a bene- 
 diction that reminds one of eternity. So 
 much so that, when the spirit of crime 
 stalks abroad at midnight, the whole of 
 the mountains — each tree and cavern and 
 rock-bound cove — seem to quake in the 
 common revulsion. 
 
 In this lofty region of blue sky and 
 crystal waterfalls the spirit of crime 
 in its most hideous mien steals upon a 
 victim once in a long, long while. Here, 
 in this physical Eden, the life and prop- 
 erty of man are more sacred and inviolate 
 than in almost any other clime where 
 man exists. 
 
 The inhabitants of the Carolina moun- 
 tains, of whom those of Haywood County 
 are among the best, would disdain to 
 impose on a weakling, or force money 
 from a helpless victim at the point of a 
 gun. 
 
An Earthly Eden 
 
 21 
 
 All over this blue ocean of mountains 
 families inhabit homes, from the hum- 
 blest cabin in the most secluded and lone- 
 ly cove to the beautiful cottages of the 
 well-to-do in the teeming valleys and 
 villages along the highway, where at 
 night the doors are left unlocked, and; 
 if it be summer, they are left wide open 
 and no thought ever enters the minds of 
 the unsuspecting inmates of the slightest 
 molestation. If there is a knock or call 
 at midnight it comes from a neighbor for 
 help in sickness or from a belated traveler, 
 and neither is turned away disappointed. 
 
 Human sympathy and personal help- 
 fulness are as natural to the mountaineer 
 as the ozone of the balsam which inspires 
 his existence, and to this rule there are 
 no exceptions. If there are any they are 
 not known, and no one has yet had the 
 courage to institute a search. 
 
 The moonshiner, along with the mon- 
 eyed cattleman, or lumberman or land 
 speculator, will divide his last crust with a 
 tired and hungry guest. And we mean no 
 compliment to the moonshiner’s trade. 
 
22 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 As we have intimated already, a land 
 like this is not proof against the machina- 
 tions and intrusions of the ghost of sin 
 and crime; but, like the wolf who used 
 to infest these same deep forests, these 
 evil beings are doomed to go. Wolves 
 become extinct when the dismal brake 
 and fen are replaced by sun and refresh- 
 ing showers and human habitants, and 
 no deathdealing knave of a human can 
 long survive when enlightened justice 
 catches up with him. 
 
 It is the distinction of our civilization 
 that justice is ever tempered with mercy, 
 though that divine mistress mete it out 
 with bowed head and streaming eyes. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The Spirit of Crime 
 
 The fairest and most perfect spots of 
 God’s beautiful Earth bear the marks of 
 the monster of evil. When the race of 
 man was in its infancy, before land, sea 
 and sky had yielded up so many of their 
 mysteries, and when the mind of man was 
 neither wise nor cunning; when the physi- 
 cal man was full grown and, like the curious 
 infant, toddled about open-eyed and 
 wide-mouthed — seeing, hearing, touch- 
 ing and tasting everything in sight — 
 that sly creature we call sin, for want of 
 its real name, had already attained its 
 full length and visage. Its eyes were 
 as wicked in their ebon glitter and its 
 motions were as portentous and heart- 
 chilling as they are today. Its charm 
 was as alluring, irresistible and deadly as 
 ever. 
 
 No man knows or shall know how this 
 hideous thing came into the life of man. 
 No philosopher nor scientist, no seer nor 
 
24r Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 prophet, has yet been able to solve the 
 enigma of sin. Not even a Milton or a 
 Kant has possessed the wisdom and imag- 
 ination to satisfy the deep demands of 
 human curiosity with regard to this one 
 subtle subject. 
 
 Men profoundly versed in things oc- 
 cult, things which appear like phantoms 
 on the edge of things known, have not 
 been ready with a satisfactory answer to 
 this perennial problem. Men such as Sir 
 Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
 are contributing the mature abilities of 
 ripened scholarship, and each a personal 
 character beyond reproach, to the inves- 
 tigation of kindred subjects in the realm 
 of spirit. There are those who say that 
 these savants are treading on forbidden 
 ground; that beyond the confines of the 
 known men, however wise and good, 
 have no business to adventure. 
 
 God, the fountain of all wisdom, did 
 He establish the bounds of investigation? 
 Would He circumscribe the activities of 
 the only faculty of man that bears 
 
The Spirit of Crime 
 
 25 
 
 affinity to and presents the divine image 
 — the human mind? 
 
 And yet with all the speculation of 
 genius, with all the sublime revelation of 
 prophecy, the mystery of the ages remains ; 
 What is sin and where did it originate? 
 It is one of the question marks of deity 
 written away back on the misty walls of 
 eternity. There hasn’t yet been, nor 
 shall be, a more satisfactory history given 
 of the satanic principle than the one to 
 be found in Genesis of the Holy Scriptures. 
 The most profound of human intellects 
 has never been inspired enough to im- 
 prove upon the theory — the truth — of the 
 Edenic perfection and subsequent fall of 
 man. 
 
 And yet the better nature of the human 
 kind continues to shudder and sigh when 
 the ghost of sin shambles into view and 
 smites with the bony hand of death. 
 The echo of the blow of sin upon the head 
 of innocence always comes with a shock. 
 The finer sensibilities, the nobler impulses 
 recoil as from the discovery of some hid- 
 den reptile. A normal human being 
 
26 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 could never work himself down to the 
 point where he would deliberately dis- 
 miss his better self and, yielding for the 
 moment to the arch enemy of man, do 
 the deed which in misery should destroy 
 a soul and cry to heaven. 
 
 But in the most forlorn and abandoned 
 character there exists the consciousness 
 of wrong in the act of premeditation and 
 performance. It is passing strange how 
 that, in a being susceptible of the most 
 shameless and unspeakable crime, his 
 every act betrays a depraved accusative 
 of guilt. This is not so much a feeling of 
 wrong in the heart as of fear of the con- 
 sequences of the act. 
 
 As Nancy Kerlee bore in her ghoulish 
 arms the tender form and unsuspecting 
 soul of the two-year-old little Roberta 
 Putnam, what must have been the emo- 
 tions, if any, of that poor hadesian hag? 
 If she is to be judged by her act, there was 
 little agitation of feeling — only the cold 
 calculation of destruction and conceal- 
 ment. If the murderess moved except 
 toward the goal of her purpose it was 
 
The Spirit of Crime 
 
 27 
 
 from the dread of human detection, and 
 not primarily from the dread of discovery 
 by that all-seeing Eye who reads the 
 innermost secret and intent of the heart. 
 
 In the calm forests of the beautiful 
 Dellwood section there stalked that cool 
 day in February, 1913, the spirit of 
 crime, the heartless perpetrator of the 
 most fiendish child-murder committed 
 in the record of the courts in a State dis- 
 tinguished for the minimum of crime 
 among civilized communities. 
 
 Even the trees that looked down on 
 the uncertain trail of the serpent that 
 day, as she wound her way to the lonely 
 granite cave, must have bowed their 
 majestic forms with drooping limbs; the 
 raven must have maintained the silence 
 of the grave as she noislessly sailed 
 toward her lonely home in the cliff; and 
 even inanimate nature assumed the grim 
 aspect of death. If a twig broke beneath 
 her shambling feet, if a leaf rustled above 
 her witches’ head, the remains of a human 
 soul must have quaked within her un- 
 natural breast. And how must that 
 
28 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 dingy soul have lived as, with woman’s 
 eyes, it looked into the face and baby- 
 girl infant innocence and trust? If hers 
 were the miserly remains of the remotest 
 maternal instincts, how her stony heart 
 must have stopped beating and the ghost 
 of crime been given up! 
 
 Did Nancy Kerlee actually feel the 
 immanence of herself and all which trans- 
 pired that day of horror? She possessed 
 mind enough to plan and premeditate; 
 to scheme and lie to purpose; to choose a 
 granite cave instead of an earthen grave; 
 to leave the babe to a slow and torturing 
 death rather than spill sudden blood with 
 its proverbial tale of foulness and guilt. 
 
 Nowhere do we find the least act or 
 circumstance to mitigate her crime. 
 Little was done by her at any step to 
 indicate hers as the work of a shallow 
 and incoherent mind or a weak and vacil- 
 lating will. Nowhere do we have evi- 
 dence of the breaking to pieces of the 
 emotions, which is a characteristic of 
 the female under great tension, or of the 
 tacit divulgence as the effects of remorse. 
 
The Spirit of Crime 
 
 29 
 
 And the victim-baby, Roberta, did she 
 ever touch with tiny fingers or invite 
 with beseeching looks the cold sympathy 
 of the murderess? 
 
 That the little girl felt the very pres- 
 ence of evil there can be no cavil. Animals 
 feel the nearness of personal danger. 
 Even so small and revolting a creature 
 as the spider, when he sees and hears the 
 footfall of man, will run for his life, and 
 if that huge foot touch him rudely, he 
 will roll himself into a little black ball 
 and feign to be dead. Yes, little Roberta 
 Putnam felt the choking closeness of 
 something that day, but she, doubtless, 
 had no suspicion of the creature that 
 bore her in its wicked embrace. 
 
 Did Nancy Kerlee attempt to return 
 in kind the inquiring, anxious look of 
 her baby- victim? When the perturbed 
 child whimpered its disquietude did the 
 old woman, who was once a child herself, 
 answer soothingly with the croon of 
 mother-love lingering on her accent? And 
 the answer comes back with the centuries’ 
 
30 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 pent-up instincts of mother — Never! 
 Never! 
 
 And now they approach the fateful 
 granite tomb in the lonely hillside. None 
 but God will ever conceive the real pic- 
 ture of that performance. It is one of the 
 outstanding tragedies of history. Doyle, 
 in Sherlock Holmes, never invented a 
 crime more hideous in its primal elements. 
 William James never analyzed a human 
 brain that afforded so queer and inter- 
 esting a psychological study. In simple 
 though shrewd elementary concept and 
 sheer wickedness of execution it is unique 
 and most assuredly in a class by itself. 
 
 And now the murderess pushes the 
 child into a jagged hole in the granite 
 cave, just large enough for the child in 
 her delirious grief and rage to free her- 
 self, to beat her body against its sharp 
 walls. Thus deposited, she fastens it by 
 laying heavy stones on its skirts until she 
 can fill the entire opening with stones; 
 and, thus with its limbs free, alive and in 
 health, she deliberately walks away and 
 leaves the child to the mortal horrors of 
 
An Earthly Eden 
 
 31 
 
 a lingering death by starvation and ever- 
 repeating self-inflicted wounds. 
 
 No one will ever know just the motive, 
 if any, besides blood, an innate thirst for 
 blood, exactly what was the prompting 
 motive of that ghost known as Nancy 
 Kerlee. No one can ever know just the 
 thing that killed little Roberta Putnam, 
 whether it was the bumps, or the cold, 
 or starvation. More likely it was a con- 
 spiracy of all three. But one thing we 
 know, and that is that the evil one 
 possessed the instrument of that un- 
 speakable crime, and that the Good 
 Shepherd must have tempered the winds 
 to the shorn lamb. And that after all, 
 and through it all, the murderess bore 
 the sacred form of woman. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 In Woman’s Form 
 
 It was on or about the twenty-sixth 
 day of February, 1913, that Nancy 
 Kerlee, nee Nancy Coonrod, of Cata- 
 loochee in Haywood County, incarcer- 
 ated her two-year-old granddaughter in 
 a granite cave on the Ad Tate Knob, 
 near Dellwood. 
 
 The meager facts relative to the crime, 
 according to the Waynesville Courier , 
 are as follows: 
 
 “About a month ago Nancy Kerlee 
 returned to this county from Tennessee 
 and brought with her her two grand- 
 children (the murdered child being the 
 smaller), to their mother, Mrs. Will 
 Putnam, who is living on the Garrett 
 farm two and one-half miles below Dell- 
 wood, with her father-in-law, Joseph 
 Putnam. The mother said that she and 
 her husband were unable to care for both 
 the children, whereupon the grandmother, 
 Nancy Kerlee, said she would take the 
 
In Woman’s Form 
 
 33 
 
 youngest child to the county home, 
 which is about eighteen miles east of 
 Dellwood. The next morning she started 
 with the child across the Utah Moun- 
 tain for the county home. She returned 
 in about five hours, telling Mrs. Will 
 Putnam that she had given the child to 
 Rev. Fincher, that the little girl would 
 be well cared for, and that she need not 
 worry about the child. 
 
 “Later Nancy Kerlee began telling 
 conflicting tales which soon created sus- 
 picion among the people of that section. 
 Soon the ’phone lines were busy over 
 the county. The county home was called 
 up and no child had been received at 
 that institution. Rev. Fincher said he 
 knew nothing of the affair and had not 
 seen a woman and child of that descrip- 
 tion. Nancy Kerlee was then arrested 
 by Deputy Sheriff Jack Carver and lodged 
 in the county jail. 
 
 “After the preliminary hearing the de- 
 fendant was held to answer the charge of 
 murder in the first degree in the Superior 
 3 
 
34 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 Court of Haywood. Details of the finding 
 of the little body are too revolting to give 
 in full. The flesh was decomposed, de- 
 tached hair and blood were found on the 
 rocks. The little one had evidently 
 made frantic efforts to escape. Being 
 finally overcome by hunger, cold and ex- 
 haustion, she fell upon her face and died. 
 In this position they found her in the 
 rocky cave on the mountain side, the 
 entrance to which had been closed by 
 heavy stones brought from the immediate 
 vicinity. The little girl was about two 
 years old.” 
 
 When the news of the crime spread 
 over the borders of peace-loving Haywood 
 deep and intense were the feelings of the 
 people. The love of life and sympathy 
 for the helpless, which are leading traits 
 in the descendants of the auld sod, of 
 the distant national scions of Bruce and 
 Wallace, rose once more to white heat, 
 and men, women and children were al- 
 most ready to become the instruments 
 of that bewildered passsion which some- 
 
In Woman’s Form 
 
 35 
 
 times dares not start, for fear of knowing 
 not where to stop. A deed had been 
 done that would have attracted but 
 casual notice except by the officers of the 
 law in a great city where crime was com- 
 mon, but here in freedom’s height, it 
 was the remark and business of all. 
 
 Forever be it remembered that never 
 so long as the untainted sons of the 
 genuine mountaineer live and breathe 
 the pure air of their native heath can 
 anarchy and murder lift their bloody 
 hands. 
 
 And so Nancy Kerlee was arrested and 
 lodged in jail without the privilege of 
 bond. The people from far and near 
 came to look upon the form and into the 
 eye of a human that could do the diabol- 
 ism with which the State had charged 
 her. 
 
 To their many questions, there came 
 no answer but the answer of a silence 
 ominous as the grave. Time rushed on 
 as upon the wings of some besom of blood- 
 guiltiness, some mazeppa of certain and 
 swift conviction. 
 
36 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 A venire was summoned at the July 
 term of ,the Superior Court of 1913, and 
 a jury could not be found from the body 
 of the good citizens of Haywood to sit 
 upon the case, for the significant reason 
 that they stated to the court that they 
 had formed and expressed the opinion 
 that the prisoner at the bar was guilty. 
 
 The case was, therefore, moved to the 
 county of Swain, with Jackson lying 
 between, and there the attorneys for 
 the defendant pleaded their client guilty 
 of murder in the second degree, and 
 Nancy Kerlee, at about the age of sixty, 
 was sentenced to the Penitentiary for 
 thirty years. 
 
 There are places in Christendom where, 
 the morning after the crime was discover- 
 ed, the murderess would have been dis- 
 posed of “without benefit of clergy/” but 
 not so with the law-abiding, Christian 
 citizenship of Haywood. 
 
 And there is another phase to the case: 
 the men of Haywood, the men of the 
 mountains, in the grounded essentials of 
 
In Woman's Form 
 
 37 
 
 benevolence and chivalry, are the equals 
 of Chesterfield or Walter Raleigh in the 
 nobler relations to womankind. A simple 
 dress, if it be a skirt and ever so plain 
 and homely, is a sure shield from mas- 
 culine barbarity. This, and this truly, 
 had something to do with the legal fate 
 of the vile and unfortunate wretch, 
 Nancy Kerlee. 
 
 For ten long years she has washed and 
 patched in the State’s Prison at Raleigh. 
 To her, patching should constitute a 
 congenial occupation. To her unholy 
 existence there is no well-rounded circle, 
 no semblance of wholesome or pleasing 
 suggestiveness. 
 
 Her mind is either dead to all that’s 
 beautiful and innocent and good, or 
 beset with the smothering of the night- 
 mare. Her soul — the little that is left 
 in her — is torn to tatters by the iron 
 claws of bitter remorse, or else she be 
 beast and not human. 
 
 For such an one is there no repentance, 
 no earthly retribution, no infinite mercy, 
 
38 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 no wash-day of the soul, no patching of 
 the torn and broken heart? Indeed to 
 our finite minds it doesn’t seem so, but 
 He who makes note of the sparrow’s 
 death and numbers the hairs of one’s 
 head — He knows! 
 
 Though gnarled and twisted and 
 broken, it was the form of a woman. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Valuable Citizen 
 
 There is very much in inheritance. 
 Blood is thicker than water. A man is 
 largely the moral image and reflection of 
 his mother. Good citizenship depends 
 to a very large extent upon the inherit- 
 ance and training from the mother and 
 the example and discipline of the father. 
 A boy does the more serious things be- 
 cause his mother-instincts impel him and 
 the example and rulership of the father 
 impel him. 
 
 Some observant man has remarked 
 that in order to produce a good man one 
 must begin the job generations before 
 he is born. This emphasizes the im- 
 portance of making blood through the 
 processes of education. It applies to the 
 lower animals, this law of selection and 
 development. It has become a truism 
 from actual experiment. 
 
40 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 Next to this law, in the man, come the 
 laws of education and development. 
 Next to the effects of the primary law of 
 blood, a man is what he is from teaching 
 and the influence of his associates. Given 
 a good mother, a decent father, right 
 training, proper associates, a worthy 
 ancestry — and you need search no fur- 
 ther — you will have a good citizen. This 
 rule is as sure and fixed as the laws of 
 the Medes and Persians. 
 
 The moral nature and that high-toned, 
 sensitive principle in a man or woman 
 come by way of all these Christian in- 
 fluences and are exhibited mainly through 
 the mother. But for the sake of em- 
 phasis, be it borne in mind that education 
 and surroundings wrought upon the 
 mother through the generations produce 
 quality in blood and character in the 
 individual. Mother influence is, there- 
 fore, the mightiest influence in this world. 
 The boy loves his mother as he loves no 
 other being in the universe. This love 
 is instinctive. He knows how he came 
 
The V aluable Citizen 
 
 41 
 
 by his being and who brought him into 
 this beautiful world, and by what un- 
 speakable pain and sacrifice. He will 
 listen to her counsel and obey her pre- 
 cepts when he would turn a deaf ear to 
 every other. The Spartan mother taught 
 her son courage and patriotism. The 
 Spartan in life was the incarnation of 
 these elements, and to this day when one 
 would refer to the loftiest type of courage 
 and patriotism, they are called Spartan. 
 
 But there are two sorts of education 
 and environment — good and bad. It is 
 of vast importance, then, that the mothers 
 of our land in their earliest training, have 
 good surroundings and good associates 
 so that when they bring sons into the 
 world they may dower them with all 
 that is best in human nature. The object 
 of the primary training should be the 
 heart, the seat of the affections and con- 
 secrated to all that is noble and good. 
 
 A man may be a demigod intellectually 
 and a dwarf morally; for example, Sir 
 Francis Bacon, and many others. It is, 
 
42 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 therefore, of equal importance that in 
 addition to the condition of inheritance, 
 the mother begin with her little child 
 when he is born to make him a good 
 citizen when grown to adulthood, and 
 to dedicate him not only to courage and 
 patriotism, but to Christianity and a 
 clean life. She should inculcate in him 
 these fundamentals of life, namely, to 
 love and to forgive, to obey and do good 
 for evil: never losing sight of the basic 
 teaching of the Saviour of the world that 
 love is the greatest thing in the universe — 
 the supreme good — and that every poor 
 mortal is a failure who does not feel his 
 being thrilled with that saving principle. 
 
 A man can not be a good citizen and 
 harbor hate, or malice, or envy, or any 
 of those fiery elements in his heart. He 
 is not a good man who despises his 
 neighbor. If a man inveighs against his 
 fellow directly or indirectly, publicly or 
 privately, he is an undesirable member 
 of society and a dead weight to his better 
 self. And there is no method by which 
 
The V aluahle Citizen 
 
 43 
 
 to separate the social, political and moral 
 realms, so that we may move in one and 
 not be influenced by the other. 
 
 The mother, then, should not be con- 
 tent to teach her son — the future citizen 
 — the abstract principles of morality. 
 She should not teach on Sunday the whole- 
 some tenets of the catechism simply 
 because her mother taught them to her 
 and her brothers, perpetuating a sort of 
 dogmatic, traditional, theological kinder- 
 garten. She should teach her boy practi- 
 cal lessons of honor, honesty, truthfulness 
 and square dealing; all of which are con- 
 sistent with the New Testament and the 
 orthodox Christian plan of salvation as 
 developed therein. 
 
 All men were once boys, and the wise 
 ones know what the boy needs — the 
 manly, promising, red-blooded boy — he 
 needs to imbibe from his mother, (and 
 he never should get too big to level 
 himself with his mother’s knee) a charac- 
 ter which would ever place him on his 
 best behavior, compelling him, in con- 
 scious pride, to be honest, self respecting, 
 
44 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 just, charitable, sober, clean, upright, 
 pure in personal habits, a lover of right- 
 eousness and peace, venerating the real 
 heroes of his country’s past; to revere 
 her traditions, to uphold, protect and 
 defend his fireside, his neighborhood, his 
 county, his state and common country. 
 This is the valuable citizen — civilization’s 
 finest achievement. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Case of Frances Silver 
 
 It is nearly a hundred — to be exact, 
 ninety-one — years since Frances Silver 
 committed the crime below chronicled 
 and for which she paid the legal forfeit 
 of her life. 
 
 As intimated previously in this little 
 book, the two cases are herein recorded 
 on account of their unusual character 
 as crimes and that both perpetrators 
 were women. Frances Silver satisfied 
 justice and paid the penalty of her act 
 on the scaffold, and Nancy Kerlee is still 
 serving a thirty years sentence in the 
 State’s Prison^’ 
 
 Is there any significance in the fact 
 that Nancy Kerlee who committed, if 
 could be, a more heinous crime than 
 Frances Silver, and tried by a jury of her 
 peers and fellow-citizens of a century 
 since — the same as Nancy Kerlee except 
 that the latter was moved to an adjoin- 
 ing county — while Mrs. Silver was ex- 
 
46 Serpent Slips into Alodern Eden 
 
 ecuted and Mrs. Kerlee was awarded her 
 life and thirty years in prison. 
 
 Were the differing results in these cases 
 due to professional management, or to 
 modification of the practice of the courts, 
 or to a changed attitude of society 
 toward crime and its punishment; or to 
 neither, but simply to the existing cir- 
 cumstances of each case, or to the series 
 of coincidences which arise in the course 
 of court procedure and the hurly-burly 
 of the hour? 
 
 It is the humble, unprofessional opinion 
 of the writer that the courts of North 
 Carolina of a hundred years ago were 
 more stoic and grim in the punishment 
 of crime than they are at the present. 
 Justice was totally blind and she held 
 the scales with a tighter grip and her 
 square jaw had a tighter set, mayhap. 
 The very fact that the number of felo- 
 nious crimes has been curtailed until 
 from scores a hundred and more years 
 since, they have been reduced to less 
 than the digits. on one hand. 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 47 
 
 But be that as it may, the fact remains 
 that the crimes with which these two 
 unfortunates were accused and proven 
 guilty were in a class by themselves; 
 especially that of Nancy Kerlee as un- 
 matched since the ancient Spartans used 
 to take their babes imperfect-born, physi- 
 cally defective, to the woods and leave 
 them to die of neglect. But that was 
 slightly to be overlooked for they were 
 heathen, semi-barbarian, and the horrid 
 practice was winked at by the state. 
 
 Then there is interesting study in the 
 psychology of the two cases — both the 
 women and their crimes. The crime of 
 Frances Silver found kindly soil in the 
 green-eyed monster, jealousy. As she 
 awaited in her prison cell the day of 
 execution she wrote poetry in the form 
 of self-pityng, self-commiserating, self- 
 indicting doggerel; but it is not hard to 
 detect the vein of nauseating hypocrisy 
 that runs the gamut of the whole sicken- 
 ing performance. 
 
 The wellspring, the prompting motive 
 of the deed of Nancy Kerlee is not nearly 
 
48 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 so easy of detection. But in the last 
 analysis it seems to have been a false and 
 diabolical conception of the most rudi- 
 mentary responsibility of life in mother- 
 hood combined with a hellish mania for 
 child-murder. 
 
 And so with her reaction to the mother- 
 instincts. No comment. No confession. 
 No remorse. Nothing dimly related to 
 natural feeling. Nothing but the ac- 
 cusing death-silence of the four dumb 
 walls of the prison cell. 
 
 In Frances Silver there is the voicing 
 of a shilly-shally fear of the future. In 
 Nancy Kerlee there is no such thing. In 
 the act of her murder, as the streams of 
 consciousness continued to flow, there 
 was not the slightest sigh of disturbance. 
 
 The following is the story of Frances 
 Silver’s crime as printed by the Waynes- 
 ville Courier some years ago, and taken 
 by it from an old clipping of some local 
 paper handed the Courier editor. 
 
 “When the Nancy Kerlee trial was 
 the topic of conversation in this, Hay- 
 wood, County recently, there was much 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 49 
 
 speculation as to whether her conviction 
 would mean the carrying out of the 
 death sentence; many contending that 
 Governor Craig would not allow a woman 
 to be electrocuted. The question also 
 came up then as to whether a woman had 
 ever been hanged in North Carolina; and 
 if so, who and where. The following 
 story, taken from an old paper given to 
 the Courier by one of its subscribers, 
 gives account of a murder by a woman in 
 one of the near-by counties and of her 
 being hanged for the crime: 
 
 “One of the most brutal murders ever 
 committed in North Carolina was con- 
 ceived, planned and executed by a woman, 
 one Frances Silver of Burke County, 
 who killed and burned her husband, 
 Charles Silver. The crime, says H. E. C. 
 Bryant, in the Charlotte Observer , 
 was done one night seventy years ago 
 (that was twenty-one years ago now) in 
 a lonely mountain cabin, on Toe River, 
 in the presence of a two-year-old child, 
 while the victim lay asleep by his own 
 fireside. The murderess was tried, con- 
 4 
 
50 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 victed and hanged, being one of the first 
 women executed on the gallows in this 
 country. 
 
 “Mr. Alfred Silver, half-brother of 
 the murdered man, is living today on 
 Curtis Creek, four miles northwest of 
 the town of Old Fort, McDowell County. 
 He will be eighty-seven years old the 
 fifteenth of November. I went to see 
 Mr. Silver one morning last week. He 
 is the finest type of the best class of 
 mountaineers that ever I saw, being 
 large, strong-featured and manly. His 
 face looks like the pictures of the old 
 patriarchs as they appear in the histories. 
 I found him willing and able to talk 
 about the murder, the trial and hanging. 
 He remembers the details of the case as 
 well as if the crime had been perpetrated 
 last month. At the time of the deed he 
 was just at the tender age when a bright 
 mind takes and retains most and best 
 
 “In giving the story of the affair, I 
 shall let him tell it in his own vigorous, 
 forceful way: 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 51 
 
 “ ‘Charles Silver, who was killed and 
 destroyed by his wife, Frances Silver, 
 about the year 1832, was my half-brother. 
 He was strong, healthy, good-looking 
 and agreeable. He had lots of friends. 
 Everybody liked him. He was a favorite 
 at all the parties because he could make 
 merry by talking, laughing and playing 
 musical instruments. He had been mar- 
 ried long enough to have one heir, a 
 little girl. He lived in a cabin across a 
 ridge a quarter of a mile from my father’s 
 home on Toe River. 
 
 “ ‘Charles was pretty much of a hunt- 
 er, and it was Christmas, just his time 
 for hunting. The ground was covered 
 with snow and the river frozen hard. 
 His wife, contending that he would be 
 off soon on a hunt, urged him to cut 
 enough wood to do all the week. He fell 
 in with his ax and cut up a whole hickory 
 tree, and shocked it so that it would keep 
 dry and clean. Being tired and sleepy 
 after the labor of chopping, my brother 
 lay down on the floor, close by the fire, 
 with his little girl in his arms, and went 
 
52 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 to sleep. His head rested on an inverted 
 stool for a pillow. Frances gently took 
 the baby from his breast, put it in the 
 bed, picked up the ax from the door, 
 where she had placed it for the purpose, 
 and whacked his head nearly off at a 
 single blow. She intended to cut it 
 clean off, but miscalculated and either 
 stood too close or too far away. 
 
 “ ‘The first lick did not kill him in- 
 stantly for he sprang to his feet and cried: 
 “God bless the child.” His wife fled to 
 the bed and covered up till she heard 
 Charles fall, and then jumped out and 
 finished the job with a second blow. 
 But the most inhuman part of the atro- 
 cious deed was to come. The woman 
 went to work, cut the body into small 
 pieces and burned it bit by bit, the en- 
 tire night and much wood being consumed 
 in destroying the body. The dog house 
 and the door steps went up in the effort 
 to keep a roaring fire. It is believed 
 that her mother and youngest brother 
 helped to dispose of the body. In fact 
 she confessed as much to a woman who 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 53 
 
 called on her in jail. I believe the killing 
 was a conspiracy entered into by the 
 whole Stewart family. 
 
 “ ‘Of course we knew nothing of the 
 crime at my father’s house. Frances 
 came early the next morning, stopped 
 where my mother and the girls were 
 washing for Christmas and remarked: 
 “You are hard at it early.” My mother 
 said “Yes.” Frances replied: “I’ve been 
 at it myself ever since before day.” 
 She told mother that Charles had gone 
 up the river to George Young’s. That 
 same evening Frances came over and 
 reported that Charles had not returned. 
 She said she had expected him back 
 earlier. Mother noticed that she was a 
 bit nervous, but thought it was on account 
 of the prolonged absence of Charles. 
 She said she would go down to her 
 father’s home, three-quarters of a mile 
 away, if some of the boys would attend 
 to the feeding of the cow, explaining 
 that Charles had fed her that morning; 
 but when we went there that night we 
 saw none but woman’s tracks. 
 
54 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 “ ‘Charles didn’t show up the next 
 day nor the one following. Frances told 
 mother that as he had remained away 
 so long she did not care whether he ever 
 came back or not, and went back to her 
 father’s. 
 
 “ ‘After several days had passed and 
 nothing had been heard of Charles, the 
 alarm was given. The word was put out 
 all through the mountains. No track or 
 trace of him could be found. The river was 
 searched, for some thought that he might 
 have gone through the ice. He had not 
 been to George Young’s. My father was 
 greatly stirred up about it. He was 
 ready to do anything, so when he heard 
 of an old Guinea negro over in Tennessee 
 forty miles away, who had a kind of 
 conjure ball that told things, he set out 
 on horseback to see him. The negro was 
 not at home, but the man, a Mr. Williams, 
 for whom he worked, said he could in- 
 terpret the behavior of the ball. He 
 hung the ball up like a pendulum and 
 marked off the points of the compass. 
 Father told Williams all about the location 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 55 
 
 of the house where Charles lived and 
 drew a map of the section round about. 
 The ball didn’t seem to point away from 
 the house and Williams asked: “Wasn’t 
 it possible that the man was done away 
 with at home?” Father said it was im- 
 possible for if Frances had desired to do 
 so, she could not have killed him and hid 
 his body. Williams finally said: “Well, 
 his kindred. That was towards his 
 own house from ours. Later in the day 
 Williams tried his ball and told father 
 that it indicated that the body had been 
 found. Sure enough it was. 
 
 “ ‘On the very day that father started 
 for Tennessee the mystery was partially 
 solved. Some one of the searching party 
 suggested that the house and premises be 
 examined. An old man by the name of 
 Jack Collis thought it wise to look around 
 in the house. He went about the yard 
 and cabin, probing with a walking cane. 
 In stirring the ashes in the fireplace, he 
 found some pieces of bone, which caused 
 him to say: “There are too many bits 
 of bones in this fireplace and the ashes 
 
56 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 are too greasy.” A small rock taken 
 from the ashes was put into water to see 
 if any grease bubbles would rise. They 
 did, in great plenty. It was discovered 
 that fresh ashes had been poured in a 
 hole near the spring. Pieces of the bone 
 and flesh were found there, also a grid- 
 iron, such as Charles wore on his hunting 
 moccasins. After all this evidence, 
 strong and convincing, was found, a jury 
 was summoned and an inquest held, and 
 the immediate result was that Frances, 
 her mother and youngest brother were 
 arrested. All were bound over to court. 
 
 “ £ A more thorough investigation 
 about the place revealed substantial 
 proof. On the ground under the house 
 beneath a dark spot on the floor, a circle 
 of blood as large as a hog’s liver was 
 found and the walls were spotted. There 
 could be no doubt, Charles had been 
 murdered and his body burned. 
 
 “‘Frances was tried at Morganton, 
 at about the third court after she killed 
 Charles. She got out of jail dressed in 
 a man’s clothing, and escaped into the 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 57 
 
 country, following the wagon of her 
 uncle. The sheriff of the county, dis- 
 covering that his prisoner had fled, 
 hurried on her trail and overtook her 
 seven miles out of town. He rode up 
 close and said: “Frances.” She turned 
 and answered: “I thank you, Sir, my 
 name is Tommy.” “Yes,” her uncle put 
 in, “her name is Tommy.” He gave 
 himself and the woman awav by saying 
 “her.” 
 
 “ ‘She was returned to her cell and, 
 on the appointed day, the 12th of July, 
 1833, in the presence of a great throng of 
 people, was hanged. It was hoped that 
 she would make a public confession on 
 the scaffold and she seemed prepared to 
 do so, but her father yelled out from the 
 crowd: “Die with your secret, Frances.” 
 There was a sight of folks there to see her 
 hanged. 
 
 “‘Frances Stewart (Stewart was her 
 maiden name) was a mighty likely little 
 woman. She had fair skin, bright eyes, 
 and was counted pretty. She had charms. 
 I never saw a smarter little woman. She 
 
58 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 could card and spin her three yards of 
 cotton a day on a big wheel. 
 
 “ ‘The motive for the crime will never 
 be known. Jealousy, she claimed in a 
 printed ballad that she made, gave rise 
 to the first thought. Nobody ever im- 
 agined any one that she had cause to be 
 jealous of, for Charles was true to her. 
 He laughed and talked with the women of 
 his acquaintance, but that was all. 
 
 “ ‘The surviving members of the 
 Stewart family met violent deaths, in 
 one form or another. 
 
 “‘The old man, Frances’s father, lost 
 his life while cutting a rail tree; a limb 
 struck him in the head and crushed out 
 his brains. The mother died from the 
 effects of a snake-bite and was in great 
 agony the last hours of her life. Jake, 
 one of the brothers, was killed during 
 the Civil War. Joe met a sudden death, 
 but I have forgotten the facts concern- 
 ing it. Blackstone, the brother charged 
 with helping her (Frances) burn my 
 brother, went to Kentucky, stole a 
 horse, and was hanged for it. All of 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 59 
 
 them went! It looks like God made 
 way with them on purpose. I believe 
 that all conspired to kill Charles. It was 
 a horrible deed! He was such a fine 
 fellow; we loved him.’” 
 
 Nancy, the little daughter of Charles 
 and Frances Silver, grew to womanhood 
 and married David Parker, who died 
 fighting for the Confederacy, at the first 
 Battle of Manassas. The widow married 
 again and is said to be now living in 
 Madison County. The Stewarts went 
 to Burke from Anson. The following 
 verses were printed on a strip of paper 
 and sold to people who assembled at 
 Morganton to see Frances Silver ex- 
 ecuted. It is claimed that she composed 
 them and gave them out as her confes- 
 sion: 
 
 This dreadful, dark and dismal day 
 Has swept my glories all away, 
 
 My sun has set, my joys are past, 
 
 And I must leave this world at last. 
 
60 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 Oh God! what shall become of me? 
 
 I am condemned the world can see. 
 
 To endless doom my soul must fly, 
 
 All in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 Judge Donnell has my sentence passed. 
 
 To that All-wise Judge I go at last; 
 
 No hope to lift my drooping head, 
 
 And none when numbered with the dead. 
 
 Alas, that dreaded Judge I fear! 
 
 Shall I that awful sentence hear 
 “Depart ye cursed, murderess, fell, 
 
 Into a quenchless, burning hell”? 
 
 1 feel that I shall tended be 
 By frightful ghosts of misery 
 Eating my flesh by endless plan 
 
 For the innocent blood of a helpless man. 
 
 And shall I meet that manly face, 
 
 Whose blood I spilled upon his place, 
 
 With flaming eye he’ll accusing plead; 
 
 “Why did you do th’ unholy deed?” 
 
 In that last calm sleep I see him now, 
 
 The beautiful peace on his handsome brow; 
 Our winsome babe on his heaving breast 
 The crimson blade and the dreamless rest. 
 
 Now, that 1 can no longer live 
 Oh, pitying Lord, my crime forgive. 
 
 When I hear the call of the judgment roll 
 May I appear with a blood wo shed soul! 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 61 
 
 In the foregoing case of The State vs. 
 Frances Silver , it might be of interest to 
 here append a brief judicial history of 
 the proceedings and the opinion of Justice 
 Thomas Ruffin, one of the ablest jurists 
 North Carolina or the country has pro- 
 duced. 
 
 It was at the June term, 1832, of the 
 State Supreme Court that the case was 
 heard on appeal from the Superior Court 
 of Burke County, presided over by Judge 
 Donnell. 
 
 The Supreme Court was then composed 
 of Hon. Leonard Henderson, Chief Justice, 
 Hon. John Hall, Hon. Thomas Ruffin 
 and Hon. Joseph J. Daniel. The Supreme 
 Court Reporter was Hon. Thomas P. 
 Devereux, and the Attorney-General 
 was Hon. Romulus M. Saunders. Taken 
 by and large, it was one of the most 
 learned and dignified judicial families 
 that ever resided in the Capitol at 
 Raleigh. 
 
 The following is the opinion as handed 
 down by Justice Ruffin: 
 
62 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 “The court, at the request of the jury, 
 may in its discretion permit a witness 
 who has been once examined, to be 
 called again at any time before the ver- 
 dict is rendered, notwithstanding the 
 witnesses were separated before their 
 first examination, and had since had an 
 opportunity of communicating with each 
 other. 
 
 “The defendant was indicted for mur- 
 der. On the trial at Burke, at the last 
 circuit, before His Honor, Judge Donnell, 
 the State’s witnesses, at the request of 
 the counsel for the prisoner, were sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 “After the jury had retired and re- 
 mained together all night, they returned 
 into court and requested that some of 
 the witnesses who had been examined 
 the day before should be called 
 again. The prisoner’s counsel objected 
 that the witnesses had had an opportu- 
 nity to be together since their examina- 
 tion. But the presiding judge overruled 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 63 
 
 the objection and permitted the wit- 
 nesses to be again called and examined 
 by the jury, who were instructed that 
 they ought to give its due weight to the 
 circumstance that the witnesses had been 
 together during the night. The jury 
 returned a verdict of guilty, and, judg- 
 ment of death being pronounced, the 
 defendant appealed. 
 
 “The Attorney-General for the State. 
 
 “No counsel appeared for defendant. 
 
 “Ruffin, Judge — The separation of wit- 
 nesses is adopted in aid of the cross- 
 examination, as a test of the truth of 
 their testimony by its consistency or 
 inconsistency. It is not founded on the 
 idea of keeping the witnesses from inter- 
 course with each other. That would be 
 a vain attempt. The expectation is not 
 to prevent the fabrication of false stories, 
 but by separate cross-examinations to 
 detect them. Testimony altogether false 
 might be imposed upon the court as true, 
 because delivered by two or more, trained 
 to the same tale; or, as most frequently 
 happens, because some indubitable and 
 
64 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 undisputed truth is mingled with much 
 or material falsehood. The great safe- 
 guard against such a delusion consists 
 in cross examination, in which a prompt 
 succession of acute, pertinent and per- 
 emptory, and sifting interrogatories, not 
 anticipated, and for which answers have 
 not been provided, surprises and betrays 
 the impostor. And such cross-examina- 
 tion is most effectual when the witness 
 cannot, by a knowledge of the statements 
 of his predecessor, make his own conform 
 to them. The thing to be avoided, then, is 
 not that the witnesses should be together, 
 but that they should be examined to- 
 gether. When interrogated separately, 
 all the witnesses, constantly apprehen- 
 sive of the detection of falsehood, and 
 finding no poise or support but in the 
 truth, are constrained to give in evidence 
 the facts as they occurred. 
 
 “I find, therefore, nothing in the law 
 or the practice which forbids the exam- 
 ination of witnesses who have been to- 
 gether after being sworn or even once 
 examined. Indeed, it is usual to keep 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 65 
 
 them together in the same room and, 
 after a witness has been examined, to 
 send him back, after there be an expecta- 
 tion that he will be called again. Had the 
 party wished to recall such a witness, 
 there is nothing to preclude him from 
 doing so at any stage when it would be 
 competent for the party to recall any 
 witness. 
 
 “But even that is a much stronger case 
 than the present. The order of trial 
 necessarily imposes upon the parties the 
 duty of making out their cases at certain 
 stages of the proceedings. They must 
 close at some time; and after that they 
 cannot be heard again. But it is entirely 
 regular at all times for the witness to 
 correct his own mistakes or to explain 
 his words that cannot be correctly under- 
 stood. No rule can prescribe to the jury 
 the duty of finding a verdict under a 
 misapprehension. So, if the jurors do 
 not understand the words or the meaning 
 of the witness, alike, it is competent and 
 proper for them to ask for explanation 
 before it is too late to act on it. The 
 5 
 
66 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 judge may indeed give it from his notes; 
 or, preferring a direct to the witness him- 
 self, as being the best able to repeat and 
 explain his words, and as being again 
 subjected to the ordeal of cross-examina- 
 tion, he may, in his discretion, again place 
 the witness before the jury. When ex- 
 planations are thus demanded by the 
 judge or jury, they must be considered 
 as asked for the maintenance of truth and 
 in execution of justice. There is no 
 apprehension of trick or imposition in 
 such cases, as there would be were the 
 same privilege in the party. If indeed 
 the inquiries of the jury sought evidence 
 that was incomplete, or to put the case 
 made by the parties upon new points, 
 the court would undoubtedly inform the 
 jury of their impropriety and interdict 
 them. But there the reexamination was 
 solely to satisfy the jury of the testimony 
 already given, and the greater detail 
 made necessary only to produce that 
 satisfaction. So we must consider it; 
 for the objections are not taken to the 
 subjects of the interrogatories or the 
 
The Case of Frances Silver 67 
 
 nature of the answers, but only that the 
 witnesses were examined at all after 
 having been together. In that I see 
 nothing either against the practice or 
 principle. 
 
 “Per Curiam. Judgment affirmed.” 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Searching Party 
 
 Scientists have attempted to analyze 
 and explain the psychology of the crowd 
 — the mob; of a mass' of men mad and 
 bent on accomplishment, maybe blood; 
 but no one has essayed to translate the 
 secret of a whole community with soul, 
 mind and body, intent with all that is 
 best in the human constitution, stirred 
 to the depths in search of a lost person, 
 and particularly an innocent child, and 
 with whom there is associated the ele- 
 ment of foul play. 
 
 It is a case of the common sympathy 
 and suffering of the popular heart, and 
 which suffering makes all men akin. 
 This common interest in any given, con- 
 crete example uncovers a kind of hidden 
 greatness in the individual which never 
 comes to the surface except as forced 
 there by some tragedy of the soul, some- 
 thing involving the welfare of a fellow- 
 human. 
 
 There is no animal so wild, not even a 
 stampeded herd of Texas cattle, as a 
 
 168 ] 
 
The Skabqiieks 
 

 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Searching Party 
 
 69 
 
 multitude of people in a burning build- 
 ing. The cry of fire will turn a peaceful 
 and happy audience into a howling mass 
 of surging maniacs; and most men are as 
 insane as any, and stalwart males will 
 trample women and children to make 
 safe exit for themselves or to jump from 
 two-story windows. 
 
 The conduct of people in search of a 
 missing child, in which the thought of 
 mischief is present and predominating, 
 is different from the mob fleeing from fire. 
 Here the nightmare of fear is absent. 
 In the case of fire, the element of selfish- 
 ness predominates and makes cowards. 
 In the case of the lost child, the element 
 of benevolence rules and makes heroes. 
 
 The real benefactor, the real hero, is 
 he who becomes unconscious of self in 
 the presence of the peril of others. 
 Physical and moral heroism are often 
 found in the same individual, so often 
 that one might be in the bounds of truth 
 in saying that such is the rule. But it 
 is the ofttimes repeated exception that 
 many persons are morally courageous 
 and physically cowering. Not so sym- 
 
70 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 pathy. Sympathy for suffering in the 
 shadow of wrong might be said to be 
 well-nigh universal. This noble attri- 
 bute slumbers in the individual only to 
 be aroused by nature’s appeal. It is 
 the call of the best in human nature and 
 was lodged there by a kindly providence 
 as a means to an end. It is given to 
 man and denied to animals. It circles 
 the heads of men, in mass, as an aureole 
 of the most beautiful kindredship of 
 feeling. It is a sort of ethical quick- 
 silver which involuntarily assembles the 
 golden particles of the best in a broken 
 race. 
 
 It is a slight reflection of the divine 
 with which man was imaged at the be- 
 ginning of things. The search for baby 
 Roberta Putnam has not a match. It 
 was a case in which the whole county 
 was absorbed. Mothers whose hearts 
 were drawn out by a natural instinct 
 were eagerly yearning for the discovery 
 of the child. Little children exchanged 
 their simple greetings to take up the dis- 
 cussion of the all-absorbing topic of lost 
 little Roberta Putnam. Men everywhere 
 
The Discovery 
 
The Searching Party 
 
 71 
 
 exchanged grave glances and offered 
 or demanded a solution of the sad and 
 sorrowful mystery. The whole county, 
 and particularly the scene of the occur- 
 rence, was alert and astir, though dazed, 
 as time passed and no clue to the missing 
 child was found. From this state of sad 
 bewilderment, it passed to that of a 
 deep, determined, if sullen, purpose to 
 find the child dead or alive and at all 
 hazards. 
 
 A large crowd of people took up 
 the search in the Dellwood settlement. 
 This party was composed of the best 
 people of the entire neighborhood — men, 
 women and children. They swept the 
 twilight groves, the deep ravines, the 
 steep mountain sides, the cliffs and cav- 
 erns as a woman would sweep the house 
 for a lost coin. On the party went, by 
 ones and twos and dozens, up the 
 accusing sides of Ad Tate Mountain. 
 They painfully, slowly swept the face 
 of the hills until there was not a suspi- 
 cious nook or corner into which some 
 human eye had not peered. But that 
 deep, silent sympathy burned ever more 
 
72 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 passionately in each searcher’s soul and 
 that grim determination to which it 
 gave birth waxed firmer and more set. 
 
 It is an oft-repeated observation that 
 when the individual or the mass become 
 as adamant in the accomplishment of 
 a worthy object, it will not be long until 
 that object is attained. 
 
 The crowd-purpose once fixedly formed 
 it was not long until the crowd-object 
 was accomplished and Roberta Putnam 
 was found. But it remained for an in- 
 nocent boy of twelve years, then, to 
 make the pathetic and chilling discovery. 
 This boy’s name was Frank Janes. It 
 was reserved for the guileless to find the 
 pure in heart. “Suffer little children.” 
 The household of the just is made up of 
 such. 
 
 No wonder the clean, tender heart of 
 the boy sank within him when he 
 lifted the first stones and peered through 
 the openings on the dim outlines of the 
 dead child. No wonder he ran in wild 
 excitement around the mountain side 
 screaming that he had found her. There 
 is not a strong man, with a heart of flesh, 
 
When the Stones Were Rolled Away 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Searching Party 
 
 73 
 
 who could have looked unmoved on that 
 unearthly scene. It were enough to have 
 frozen the blood of a primitive giant of 
 old. 
 
 Is it not also true that life cannot long 
 persist in the presence of death, or in- 
 nocence in the presence of guilt, or good 
 in the atmosphere of evil? Nay, in such 
 case the innocent must be swallowed up 
 of evil and that innocence become guilt, 
 or the good must free itself of the deadly 
 atmosphere of evil and rise above the 
 taint of poisoned environment. Death 
 is the very fruitage of sin and, bibli- 
 cally, death and sin are interchangeable 
 terms. And'so the boy revolted and ran 
 from the presence of death and the sin 
 that inflicted it. 
 
 It was the result of a tragedy that 
 lifted the voice of injury and the wailing 
 echoes of the loved and lost that day in 
 that sobbing wilderness. That wild 
 mountain and that howling cavern where 
 unsuspecting infancy beat out its life 
 against the cruel walls of its granite 
 prison; the ominous flap of the tell- 
 tale buzzard’s sable pinions were all fit 
 
74 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 accusers of Nancy Kerlee’s crime and 
 painful pointers to the place of the sub- 
 ject’s ghostly sepulture. 
 
 How can it be otherwise than that, at 
 long intervals, a lost and devouring soul 
 becomes incarnated in human form and 
 its one consuming passion be the taste 
 of human blood? It is the rarest thing 
 in the world when so bestial a creature 
 as the hog will become so unnatural as 
 to turn upon its offspring and devour it. 
 Such a creature, be it beast or human, is 
 a freak and cannot be classed as a normal 
 individual of its species. No race, no 
 species, no society, has ever been immune 
 from the appearance of this strange 
 apparition at untoward intervals. This 
 conviction is urgent, but let us hope 
 otherwise for the future. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Nancy 
 Kerlee was one of the most pronounced 
 of these human freaks. Her very looks, 
 her face and form, are the most eloquent 
 and convincing arguments in support of 
 the theory that she was a total and utter 
 moral reprobate; that her degeneracy 
 was complete both by heredity and per- 
 
The Searching Party 
 
 75 
 
 sonal training; that only half of her per- 
 sonality had been cultivated or allowed 
 to develop by natural tendency, and 
 that her moral self had steadily beaten 
 the paths of least resistance. Her life 
 stood shrouded by the mists of darkness 
 and moral neglect. The unspeakable 
 pity of it! And we would insist as we 
 have, in another place in this little 
 brochure, that her crime calls to heaven 
 for punishment; but the fact of the ex- 
 istence of so unfortunate a being should 
 call for the profoundest individual and 
 public concern. It should cause the 
 best of human nature to react upon it- 
 self, and to recall that thundering verity 
 that we ourselves are the products of 
 a more fortunate parentage, a more 
 favorable environment, simply, and that 
 we ourselves have little or nothing of 
 which to boast; that it is our Christian 
 duty and privilege to begin or continue, 
 if we have begun, a crusade to make a 
 freak in the body social, such as the 
 subject of our treatment here, an ulti- 
 mate impossibility; to seek out the help- 
 less, socially and morally, in our com- 
 
76 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 munity and render such a character as 
 Nancy Kerlee unknown to civilized 
 society by training. This poor being, 
 bearing the name she happened to bear, 
 was a body without a soul if there ever 
 was one. Her likeness may be herein 
 studied. Her form was that of a mere 
 semblance of a human. Her dead, expres- 
 sionless face is that of one from which 
 the lume of intellect had passed forever. 
 Her low, wrinkled brow surrounded by 
 a shock of disheveled hair; her fireless 
 eyes almost hidden in their dark sockets 
 by low-drooping lids; her cavernous jaws 
 and queer feline nose and mouth; her 
 short, tendonous neck; square shoulders; 
 flat, wizened chest, bony hands and 
 clenched fingers, would remind one of 
 the witches of whom one reads in 
 ancient and medieval story. 
 
 It is one of the rare cases where the 
 culprit, from the moment the first breath 
 of suspicion blew upon her head, to the 
 moment when the sentence of the court 
 was pronounced and she was consigned 
 to the State’s prison for thirty long years, 
 her silence was unbroken either by verbal 
 
Nancy Kerlee — The Murderess 
 
The Searching Party 
 
 77 
 
 confession or the emotional evidence of 
 a self-pitying or contrite heart. 
 
 For the steadfast maintenance of a 
 rockbound will in the purpose never to 
 divulge her stygian secret, as well as the 
 preservation of a passivity worthy of 
 the hardiest of the Stoics there may be 
 a parallel, but not a rarer case in the 
 annals of crime. 
 
 In the case of Frances Silver there was 
 a well-defined motive and, as intimated 
 in a previous section of this chronicle, 
 that motive was that crocodile of vices, 
 jealousy. 
 
 In the case of Nancy Kerlee, there were 
 not any co-conspirators. In that of 
 Frances Silver, her whole family were 
 involved. In the case of Nancy Kerlee 
 there was the plainest and most certain 
 clue existing from the beginning. In that 
 of Frances Silver, nearly a hundred 
 years previous, the clue had to be sought 
 with unflagging diligence. 
 
 There is another and unique distin- 
 guishing feature to the search for the 
 body of the husband of Frances Silver, 
 
78 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 and that was a resort to the instruments 
 of superstition. When it became appar- 
 ent that all human agencies had failed 
 to discover the remains of Charles Silver, 
 his father, a man of strong, native intel- 
 ligence, crazed by the consciousness of a 
 lost son under foul circumstances, heard 
 of a barbarian Guinea negro who lived 
 forty miles away in the State of Tennessee 
 and who was said to locate things by a 
 mystic ball which he possessed. He 
 forthwith mounted his horse and rode 
 to a Mr. Williams in Tennessee, with 
 whom this barbarian negro lived. The 
 negro was absent himself, but Mr. Wil- 
 liams volunteered to read and interpret 
 the language of the strange sphere. 
 
 After a second trial and interpretation 
 of the queer ball, Williams assured old 
 Mr. Silver that the remains of his son 
 Charles were somewhere in or close to 
 the house, whereupon, the old man took 
 his leave and returned home. On arriving 
 at home he was met with the tidings that 
 his murdered son had met that tragic 
 death in his own cabin, supposedly at 
 the hands of his young wife, and his body 
 had been cremated in his own fireplace. 
 
The Searching Party 
 
 79 
 
 Later on Frances Silver, the wife, 
 virtually confessed her horrid deed in a 
 half-dozen qualmish quartrains, which 
 the writer has adapted to the admission 
 which, if she ever wrote the lines (a 
 matter of doubt), she evidently intended 
 to make. 
 
 An interesting question is the one as 
 to whether there is the interplay of the 
 inexplicable between the world of the 
 material which man may see and feel 
 and that of the unseen, the immaterial, 
 and what science would term the occult. 
 
 Is there an intelligence, a kind of 
 spiritual policeman, whose “beat” is the 
 outer confines of this earth-world of ours, 
 and whose business it is to serve the ends 
 of justice by making known the machina- 
 tions and the dark deeds of the servants 
 and convicts of the nether world? 
 
 There was Saul and the Witch of 
 Endor, and all down the ages men have 
 found out things that no human device 
 or ingenuity, in itself, could fathom. 
 Martin Luther, himself, believed in 
 witches. 
 
80 Serpent Slips into Modern Eden 
 
 Note. — One thing is certain: an 
 examination of the court records of Hay- 
 wood County will consistently show that 
 crime, no matter how high or revolting, 
 and no matter the social standing and 
 respectability of the party, has never 
 been known to go unwhipped of regular 
 and speedy justice; and the law-abiding 
 reputation of her citizenship, with that 
 of her sister counties throughout the 
 Appalachian range, is equal to that of 
 any section of the country, and this 
 reputation is founded in fact and growing 
 every hour. 
 
 When the evil of moonshining and 
 bootlegging shall have been wiped off our 
 fair mountain map, and the lamp of 
 learning shall light up our romantic 
 gorges, as it is surely and rapidly doing 
 through our splendid system of public 
 schools and highways, the criminal 
 dockets shall dwindle to nothing, and the 
 civil courts shall themselves feel a per- 
 ceptible lightening; and sober justice 
 shall distinguish the dealings of man 
 with man.