The thought of all these grim backwoodsmen from beyond the mountains made me uneasy, for their notions of civilized behavior might differ widely from those of Morganton proper. The moment I reached the courthouse I had a word with Constable John Pearson, warning him to keep an eye on the spectators during the trial, particularly the Stewarts. They might all be armed, and they might attempt violence if the court did not rule in their favor. Taking the law into their own hands is a common enough practice on the frontier, where courts are too far removed to serve the needs of the settlers. Men in the wilderness learned to protect their kinfolk and their possessions without the benefit of the legal system.
Pearson narrowed his eyes at my warning. “You think they’ll fight, then?”
“I hope not,” I said, “but you must be vigilant. Watch everyone. Even our own local citizens. Regrettably, many of them are much the worse for drink on court days. They might become unruly. Feelings are running high over this case.”
“So are wagers,” grunted Pearson.
“They are betting on this case? On whether she is guilty?”
“No. Her guilt seems evident-at least no one is wagering otherwise. The bet is on whether Mrs. Silver will be acquitted or sent to prison,” said Pearson.
“But surely, if she is convicted-”
He shook his head. “She is a woman. They won’t hang her.”
The first order of business on the day of a trial is the selection of a jury. Today it would be a particularly onerous task, since more than a hundred men had crowded into the courtroom upon the summons of Sheriff Butler. John Pearson was keeping order and quiet among them as best he could, while I readied the tools of jury selection: a wooden ballot box filled with 150 slips of paper, each bearing the name of a Burke County citizen, painstakingly copied from the tax records by me. Of all these men who had been summoned, we required the services of only twelve. The law states that any man between the ages of twenty-one and sixty who is a resident of the county may serve as a juror, provided that he has in his own name or in trust for him a worth of ten pounds in lands or rents, or if he leases for twenty-one years or longer land worth the sum of twenty pounds or more. It is part of my duties as clerk of Superior Court to compile from county tax records the names of those citizens eligible to serve on juries for the year, and to furnish the sheriff with that list, arranged alphabetically, with the place of abode of each man duly recorded by his name, so that the sheriff may easily locate the fellow to summon him.
To select the jurors for the trial, slips of paper bearing the names of the hundred and fifty men summoned were put in a wooden ballot box, and their names were drawn out one by one at random.
I reached into the box and drew out the first name. “David Hennessee!”
There was a stir among the crowd, and a fair-haired young man of short stature and pleasant features stepped forward. David Hennessee told the court that his date of birth was September 3, 1806, adding that he was the son of Mr. John Hennessee, who had substantial land grants along the Catawba River and elsewhere. Thus satisfied as to age and his material qualifications as a juror, Judge Donnell said, “Have you heard about this case?”
“Some,” the young man admitted. “People have been talking about it around town.”
“Are you acquainted with any of the principals in the case?”
“You mean do I know these folks, the Silvers, or that other family? No, sir. Nary a one. They’re from a long way west of here, sir.”
“And since you have heard talk about this case, have you made up your mind whether the defendant is innocent or guilty?”
David Hennessee shook his head. “No, sir. Don’t rightly know.”
Judge Donnell nodded to the prosecutor. “I am satisfied, Mr. Alexander,” he said. “You may ask your own questions now.”
William Alexander approached the nervous young man. “I shall be brief,” he assured him. “Are you aware that the defendant in the case is a young woman?”
David Hennessee blinked. “I reckon everybody knows that, sir.”
A trickle of laughter punctuated his statement.
“Well, would you have any difficulty sitting in judgment of a woman?”
The young man hesitated. “It’s got to be done. It’s the law.”
“So it is,” said Mr. Alexander with a faint smile. “And if the evidence presented convinces you of this woman’s guilt, could you vote to condemn her? Could you vote guilty-knowing the consequences?”
“You mean, that they’d hang her?” said Hennessee.
“Very likely.”
“If I thought she done what they said she done, then… yes, sir, I could see my way clear to make her pay for it. With her life. Yes, sir.”
William Alexander turned to me. “He will do.”
This process was repeated nearly two dozen times, until satisfactory jurors were settled upon by the court. Judge Donnell thanked the fourscore freeholders who had answered the summons to jury duty. “You may stay and watch the proceedings if you wish,” he told them. Constable Pearson asked the chosen jurors to remain near the front of the court. The others filed out to mingle with the waiting crowd, and we were left with a dozen solemn citizens who knew that a young woman’s life rested in their hands.
The jury selection took a little more than an hour. Afterward we took a short recess to stretch our legs, but we were all back in place in the courtroom before Pearson let the rabble in. I was at my table in proximity to the judge’s bench, surrounded by the books of North Carolina laws and statutes, with my late brother’s leather-bound copy ofPrinciples of Criminal Law at the ready. The state’s attorney sat reviewing his notes of the case, seemingly oblivious to the noise of the milling crowd waiting beyond the double oak doors, but after a courteous nod in his direction, I barely spared him a glance.
I was watching Frankie Silver.
In my record of the proceedings, I would of course write the defendant’s name as Frances Stewart Silver, but she had been known as “Frankie” in the mountain community she came from, and whenever her crime was discussed these past few months, it was that nickname that had been bandied about in the streets and taverns of Morganton. By now I had come to think of her this way.
The name suited her, I thought. It had a suggestion of boyishness about it that went well with her slender frame and the alert angular face that seemed forever watchful. She seemed little more than a child sitting in the dock, overshadowed by the dark elegance of Nicholas Woodfin. She was unfettered, for the law forbids the use of irons or shackles of any kind on a prisoner during trial, unless there is evident danger of escape. She was wearing a shabby blue dress that seemed far too large for her slender frame, and too long at the sleeve ends to have been her own apparel. Sarah Presnell must have done what she could to make the girl presentable for trial. Her pale hair was clean and pinned up into a knot at the nape of her neck, and she looked too well scrubbed to have emerged unwashed from ten weeks in a prison cell. I wondered if the ill-fitting dress had been a gesture of charity from some Morganton lady, or if it were her own property, and a testimony to the rigors of her confinement. She was unnaturally pale, and though she stared straight ahead without expression, she twisted her hands in her lap, knotting and unknotting her fingers in a continuous display of anxiety. Surely she knew what people were saying about her, and how little sympathy there was for her in that room.