The modern component of this novel centered on Riverbend, the maximum-security prison in Nashville. I am grateful to my fellow author Steve Womack for arranging a tour of the prison, and for going with me. Warden Ricky J. Bell, Assistant Warden Thomas A. Joplin, and Bill Smith, who escorted us on our tour of Riverbend, were all generous with their time and information. William Groseclose, who is an inmate on death row in Riverbend, helped me with the characterization of Fate Harkryder, and very graciously provided me with information about prison routine and other details concerning Riverbend and its surroundings. Tennessee attorney Michael McMahan was my guide to modern Tennessee law concerning the court system and the death penalty, and he provided me with excellent material pertaining to Tennessee law. Author David Hunter, a former Knox County deputy sheriff, advised me on police procedure, patiently listening and offering suggestions through many months of planning as I worked my way through the case of Fate Harkryder.
When I began researching the life and death of Frankie Silver, I thought I was looking into a fascinating riddle concerning a long-ago murder on the frontier, a tragic incident but only a minor curiosity in North Carolina’s pioneer history. As I delved deeper into the story, I began to think that the case was really about poor people as defendants and rich people as officers of the court, about Celt versus English values in developing America, about mountain people versus the “flatlanders” in any culture. This is why I was careful to include all of the names in the Morganton story-to show the ties of blood and common interest that bound all the town folk and the plantation gentry-a world in which Frankie and her frontier community had no connections at all. I concluded that Frankie Silver had much to tell us about equal justice under the law, and that not much has changed since she went to her death on a bright July afternoon 164 years ago.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I have several hundred pages of source material on the case, on the individuals involved, and on nineteenth-century law. Below is a list of the more useful volumes, and some more accessible to the reader.
Abbott, Geoffrey.Lords of the Scaffold: A History of Execution.London: Headline, 1992.
Avery, Clifton K.Official Court Record of the Trial, Conviction and Execution of Francis Silvers, First Woman Hanged in North Carolina.Booklet reprinted from articles appearing in the MorgantonNews Herald,1944.
Cotton, J. Randall, Suzanne Pickens Wylie, and Millie M. Barbee.Historic Burke: An Architectural Sites Inventory of Burke County. Morganton, N.C.: Historic Burke Foundation, 1987.
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.
Drimmer, Frederick.Until You Are Dead: The Book of Executions in America.New York: Pinnacle, 1992.
Ervin, Senator Sam J., Jr.Burke County Courthouses and Related Matters. Morganton, N.C.: Historic Burke Foundation, 1985.
The Heritage of Burke County.Edited by H. Russell Triebert, Jean Conyers Ervin, and Marjorie Miller Triebert. Morganton, N.C.: Burke County Historical Society, 1981.
Holland, Eliza Woodfin. “A Grand-Daughter’s Tribute to Her Grandfather.” Article published in theAsheville Citizen, May 3, 1921.
Sakowski, Carolyn. “The Life and Death of Frankie Silver.” Article, privately printed, May 1973.
Sheppard, Muriel Early.Cabins in the Laurel. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1935.
Silver, Wayne.Frankie’s Song: A Collection from the Kona Baptist Church Library.Privately printed, n.d.
Stockton, Dennis. “Diary of a Death Row Inmate.” Series of articles published in theRoanoke Times & World News, July 26-September 28, 1995.
Toe River Valley Heritage.Edited by Lloyd Richard Bailey, Sr. Marceline, Mo.: Walsworth Publishing, 1994.
Wellman, Manly Wade.Dead and Gone. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1955.
Sharyn McCrumb
