but a month away.
She alone of her family languished in the Burke County jail now. Her mother and brother had been let go after the hearing before the magistrates in January. Mr. Burgner quite rightly set them free, declaring that no one had offered any evidence to show that they had known of or participated in the death of Charlie Silver. They were, however, to be witnesses in the forthcoming trial, and to ensure their appearance in court on the appointed day, he made them post a bond of one hundred pounds to secure their liberty. Isaiah Stewart paid the requested sum, and he lost no time in putting forty miles of mountains between them and the law in Morganton, for he took his wife and son back up the Yellow Mountain Road to their
land on the Toe River. Frankie Silver was well and truly alone in her prison cell, for the journey across the mountains was too great for a family visit, especially in winter. She must have missed her baby daughter dreadfully, but we did not speak of that. The ordinary folk of Morganton recounted the crime to one another, thrilling anew to the horror of it with each retelling, while we in the legal profession had a more prosaic matter to contemplate. Which of us would defend this wretched young woman?
We had gathered at a secluded table in McEntire’s tavern to discuss this delicate matter. I was there as an impartial participant, for as clerk of Superior Court, I could not have defended her even if I had wanted to. And I most certainly did not want to.
Nobody did.
I looked at the faces of my fellow lawyers gathered round the table. Their expressions ranged from wariness to mulish obstinacy. We were here to decide what must be done about her, and I thought that someone was bound to dislike our solution. For a frontier town, Morganton had a goodly number of lawyers, but not all of them cared to practice their calling in court. The fact that the western circuit court met in Morganton was reason enough to have a fair crop of lawyers about, but that was not the only reason they were plentiful. Wealthy planters sent their sons off to study law because a knowledge of legal matters was considered to be the final polish on the education of a gentleman. A trained legal mind made a man proficient in his business affairs, well able to understand deeds and contracts. Perhaps it was a vestige of the old pioneer spirit that inspired the elderly gentlemen to make lawyers of their sons: in that way, the family’s commercial ventures would not be at the mercy of outsiders when it came to interpreting and utilizing the law. The family would not have to take anyone’s word for the rightness of a business transaction or the meaning of a statute. If knowledge was power, then legal knowledge meant commercial and fiscal supremacy.
Some of these “gentlemen” lawyers, who practiced law for their own benefit only, did not attend our tavern conference, for the present legal dilemma was no concern of theirs. Others were there perhaps out of curiosity, but it was very much a family discussion. There were but six of us to settle the matter—it would have been seven if my brother Alfred had lived, and how I wished he had been there to offer his counsel. I was the youngest man present by a decade. My colleagues were my father-in-law Squire William Erwin; his eldest son and my brother-in-law Adolphus Erwin; Colonel James Erwin, their cousin; Mr. Isaac T. Avery, a former state legislator, who is married to my wife’s sister Harriet; Mr. D. J. Caldwell; and Mr. Thomas Wilson, who had represented Mrs. Silver’s relatives at the habeas corpus hearing with great success. Mr. Wilson’s wife Catherine is a niece of the Erwins, as her mother is Mrs. Erwin’s sister Ruth.
“You ought to take it on, Cousin James,” Adolphus suggested. “You could make a name for yourself with this case.”
“Yes, but not a name to be spoken in polite company,” growled Colonel Erwin. “The woman is an object of loathing to the entire county. Whoever takes her part in court will be branded with her villainy. The criminal cases are tried but twice a year, gentlemen, and they constitute at best a few weeks of work. What would become of the rest of my practice?”
“He’s right,” said my father-in-law. “Deeds and wills and civil lawsuits are