COMING SOON: TROUBLE ON HAPPY HILL
EXCERPT FROM Trouble on Happy Hill
From the desk of Betsy Thorpe
April 19, 2020,
My Dearest Friend, I hope you are well. I pray this letter finds you at ease and in an inquisitive state of mind, for I am writing you today to tell you a true story ripped from the pages of history. My telling of this story will be confined by the language, circumstances, and locales of the times.
This is the tale of two young Negro boys who I have good reason to believe were wrongfully convicted in a death penalty trial that occurred inside the Giles County Courthouse in Pulaski, Tennessee, on October 24, 1917.
Before I tell you their story, I would like to take a moment to share some background information regarding a person whose name will appear briefly on the pages of this letter. The person I want to tell you about was a friend of the two boys—a sixteen-year-old Negro named George Braden.
I first encountered his name on a courthouse witness list I found some time ago. Although I didn’t understand the significance of finding his name on that list when I first came across it, I should have. The best way to explain what happened when I first saw his name is to rephrase part of a Scripture found in the book of Hebrews, chapter thirteen, verse one, the part that reads: “therefore some have entertained angels unawares. To paraphrase—I therefore had encountered the name of a hero unawares.
For when I initially scrolled through that aged courthouse document, I unwittingly scrolled past the name of a brave champion of justice; of an unknown hero long gone—the only witness to testify in defense of the two boys on the day of their trial. He stood in the witness box facing a jury of all white men and swore that one of the boys was with him at the time the crime they were accused of committing took place. His testimony contradicted the testimony given by a nineteen-year-old white boy and the victim—who happened to be the white boy’s sixteen-year-old sister. George Braden testified fully understanding that he could be lynched for daring to challenge their version of events.
So now, please allow me to take you back in time to an era that some people recall with nostalgia and others, like me, hope to never see the likes of again.
Once upon a time in the South when people said what they meant, and meant what they said, a Confederate Army veteran and one-time Mississippi state attorney general named Wiley N. Nash stated his vision and expectations for the future of the South when he spoke at the unveiling of a Confederate monument on the grounds of the Holmes County Courthouse in Lexington Mississippi, where he avowed that “the white people of the South shall rule and govern the southern sates forever.”
His words were deemed sincere when he uttered them in 1908. Given what is known about the ideals he promoted throughout his life, history now judges them to be a true and honest representation of the values he held dear and hoped to preserve.
Wiley Nash plays no obvious role in the story you are about to read. His name will not appear again on these written pages you hold in your hands, nor will the name of the town of Lexington Mississippi, or the Confederate monument that still stands there on the courthouse grounds. I only share his story with you as it provides a verifiable illustration of the white supremist sentiment that prevailed in the South at the time that the trouble came to Happy Hill—for therein lies the crux of this story.
You will however read much about a man who does hold a very important place in this story, the Honorable Thomas Clark Rye, the thirty-sixth governor of the state of Tennessee. Governor Rye wielded extreme power. The scales of justice rested within his reach and he had the authority to tilt them in whichever direction he saw fit. After the evidence in the case I am about to share with you was judged and juried in the trial in Giles County, and after an appeal was decided in Nashville by the Tennessee State Supreme Court, Governor Rye was given the final say on if the two boys in question would continue to live or if they would meet their maker inside the death chamber of the state penitentiary. The burden of their fate lay within his grasp and he, and he alone would ultimately have the final say on how this saga ends. So now without further ado—I give you the story I penned just for you, I give you, Trouble on Happy Hill; an observation worthwhile.
From the desk of Betsy Thorpe
April 19, 2020,
My Dearest Friend, I hope you are well. I pray this letter finds you at ease and in an inquisitive state of mind, for I am writing you today to tell you a true story ripped from the pages of history. My telling of this story will be confined by the language, circumstances, and locales of the times.
This is the tale of two young Negro boys who I have good reason to believe were wrongfully convicted in a death penalty trial that occurred inside the Giles County Courthouse in Pulaski, Tennessee, on October 24, 1917.
Before I tell you their story, I would like to take a moment to share some background information regarding a person whose name will appear briefly on the pages of this letter. The person I want to tell you about was a friend of the two boys—a sixteen-year-old Negro named George Braden.
I first encountered his name on a courthouse witness list I found some time ago. Although I didn’t understand the significance of finding his name on that list when I first came across it, I should have. The best way to explain what happened when I first saw his name is to rephrase part of a Scripture found in the book of Hebrews, chapter thirteen, verse one, the part that reads: “therefore some have entertained angels unawares. To paraphrase—I therefore had encountered the name of a hero unawares.
For when I initially scrolled through that aged courthouse document, I unwittingly scrolled past the name of a brave champion of justice; of an unknown hero long gone—the only witness to testify in defense of the two boys on the day of their trial. He stood in the witness box facing a jury of all white men and swore that one of the boys was with him at the time the crime they were accused of committing took place. His testimony contradicted the testimony given by a nineteen-year-old white boy and the victim—who happened to be the white boy’s sixteen-year-old sister. George Braden testified fully understanding that he could be lynched for daring to challenge their version of events.
So now, please allow me to take you back in time to an era that some people recall with nostalgia and others, like me, hope to never see the likes of again.
Once upon a time in the South when people said what they meant, and meant what they said, a Confederate Army veteran and one-time Mississippi state attorney general named Wiley N. Nash stated his vision and expectations for the future of the South when he spoke at the unveiling of a Confederate monument on the grounds of the Holmes County Courthouse in Lexington Mississippi, where he avowed that “the white people of the South shall rule and govern the southern sates forever.”
His words were deemed sincere when he uttered them in 1908. Given what is known about the ideals he promoted throughout his life, history now judges them to be a true and honest representation of the values he held dear and hoped to preserve.
Wiley Nash plays no obvious role in the story you are about to read. His name will not appear again on these written pages you hold in your hands, nor will the name of the town of Lexington Mississippi, or the Confederate monument that still stands there on the courthouse grounds. I only share his story with you as it provides a verifiable illustration of the white supremist sentiment that prevailed in the South at the time that the trouble came to Happy Hill—for therein lies the crux of this story.
You will however read much about a man who does hold a very important place in this story, the Honorable Thomas Clark Rye, the thirty-sixth governor of the state of Tennessee. Governor Rye wielded extreme power. The scales of justice rested within his reach and he had the authority to tilt them in whichever direction he saw fit. After the evidence in the case I am about to share with you was judged and juried in the trial in Giles County, and after an appeal was decided in Nashville by the Tennessee State Supreme Court, Governor Rye was given the final say on if the two boys in question would continue to live or if they would meet their maker inside the death chamber of the state penitentiary. The burden of their fate lay within his grasp and he, and he alone would ultimately have the final say on how this saga ends. So now without further ado—I give you the story I penned just for you, I give you, Trouble on Happy Hill; an observation worthwhile.
Dutchman's Curve: 100 Years Ago
Do you know what happened near Nashville Tennessee 100 years ago?
by Tracy Lucas
If not, you’re not alone: Most people don’t.
It's hard to believe an event which changed thousands of lives could be forgotten about just a hundred years later, but then, very little has been recorded about the people involved in the 1918 occurrence at Dutchman's Curve in West Nashville. Because of a series of simple human errors, two loaded passenger trains met around a blind curve and collided head-on at full speed. The steam engines exploded in a terrific blast, telescoping the front cars high into the sky before crashing back down into a twisted heap of metal, boiling water, people, and body parts. The wreck killed 101 riders and crew, injured more than 170 others, ensured major change in railroad safety regulations across the country, and remains to this day the single deadliest train accident in US history – yet it all goes unmentioned in local lore. We just don’t talk about it much.
To one Nashville woman, our collective amnesia seemed a jarring injustice. Author Betsy Thorpe learned offhand about the wreck at Dutchman's Curve and felt a personal responsibility grow in her to make sure the story was finally told as a whole. The Day the Whistles Cried (Published by Westview, 2014) comprises the dedicated efforts of her seven-year journey to find the truth and uncover the individual human paths taken before and after the "Great Cornfield Meet," the tragedy that left so many Tennessee families with empty chairs at the dinner table instead of the presence of their loved ones.
Some missed the train by minutes and had friends taken while they were spared. A few onboard even traded seats, changing their fates (for better or worse) without knowing it. Some worked the railroad and had expected just another day at the office, so to speak, but came home with scarring visual images that would haunt them for life. Many never came home at all. But one thing the victims and witness all share in common is that each deserves to be remembered.
The sound of the crash shattered the quiet morning. Upstairs at Saint Mary’s Orphanage, a group of children rushed to a window to see what had happened. An eerie sight greeted them in the cornfields beyond the wreck. The white tunics and black veils of the Dominican habit fluttered in the field — caught on the cornstalks where they’d landed.
The fields near the tracks were littered with fragments of wood and steel, hurled from the demolished cars. Thousands of pieces of mail had burst from the car, filling the air. They filtered down and now lay strewn across the site. Trunks and suitcases had been hurled out of the crashed baggage car. The baggage lay broken and empty on the ground; the belongings they once held lay scattered across the cornfields. From across the wreckage and beneath, shrieks and muffled cries arose, and helpless victims prayed for speedy deliverance or death.
-- Excerpt from The Day the Whistles Cried, Betsy Thorpe, Published by Westview, 2014.