‘Broken-hearted stranger’ died 187 years ago in Claiborne, Alabama

I was looking through some local history notes earlier this week and saw where today – Feb. 27 – marks 187 years since the death of the “broken-hearted stranger” at Claiborne.

The first I ever heard of this unfortunate young man was in George Buster Singleton’s 1995 book, “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers.” Between the covers of this book, Singleton devoted an entire chapter to “The Tomb of the Brokenhearted Stranger.” Singleton noted that the man’s proper name was William Coombs, a young man from Portland, Maine who was search of “his one love, who came with her family south into the wilderness.”

Coombs is said to have stopped to rest in Claiborne, where he contracted yellow fever. While laying on his deathbed, Coombs wrote what would be his final epitaph:

Alone and in sorrow
Dark hours roll by;
Forsaken and friendless
Why should I not die?

The turf will lie lightly
Above this lone spot
Where the brokenhearted stranger
Lies alone and forgot.

Singleton may have garnered some of this information from an article published in the July 5, 1920 edition of The Montgomery Advertiser. That newspaper featured an article titled “Reminiscences, Then and Now, of the Quaint Little City of Claiborne; Once a Cosmopolitan City of State,” written by David Holt.

Based on clues in Holt’s article, he had apparently walked through the old Claiborne cemetery that contained Coombs’ grave.

“Inscriptions show that the majority of those that sleep upon that picturesque bank, high above the yellow waters of the Alabama – that is, those who were provided with monuments were from Virginia and the Carolinas, though nearly all of the New England and Eastern states are represented there,” Holt wrote. “New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts have colonies among the dead and one very lonely man from Maine is resting there. His name was William Coombs, he came from Portland and he died in 1838.”

Holt noted that who ever caused Coombs’ grave to be engraved was only slightly acquainted with Coombs because the space where his age should have been was blank: Aged – Years.

“Good intentions are recorded in that blank space,” Holt wrote. “Somebody evidently intended to fill out what the stranger’s age was, and cause it to be recorded later, but somehow never did get to it.”

What’s interesting is that Singleton and Holt’s transcription of the headstone are slightly different. Holt gives it as saying:

Alone and in sorrow dark days roll by.
Forsaken and friendless, why should I not die?
The turf will lie lightly above the lone spot
Where the heart-broken stranger is laid and forgot.

It has been years since I last visited the graveyard where Coombs is buried. On one such visit, I actively looked for his headstone, but I could not find it. Using an old survey of the graveyard, I had a good idea of where the grave was located, but I found no sign of the headstone during my search. It has either been destroyed, removed or perhaps it fell over and became buried over time.

Does the ghost lady of Locke Hill still wander the Red Hills community?

George Buster Singleton

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “The ghost lady of Locke Hill still wanders the area,” was originally published in the Oct. 26, 2000 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

As Halloween approaches Tuesday, all thoughts turn to stories about the spirits of the past and the ghosts of the area who wander aimlessly around the old abandoned house places and cemeteries that dot the landscape.

I have investigated several stories of the supernatural throughout our area that have been told to me by three good friends (now deceased) who were born and reared here.

When I first arrived in Monroeville, I was most fortunate to become friends with these people. They were all well-versed in the county’s history, and after finding out that I was truly interested in the ghostly happenings around the area, they related many stories I investigated in the later years I have been here.

Let us go back in time when the hill country east of the Franklin area was a thriving farm community. This place was, and still is, known as the Red Hills community.

Nothing remains there today that can be seen but a few old abandoned house places and the Red Hills cemetery. If one looks closely, one may find an old crumbled rock chimney or a few rotted timbers where once an old farm home stood. Red Hills once boasted a school, two churches and a post office. I have been told that a small store was also located there.

East of the Red Hills cemetery is a very high hill known as Locke Hill. Several old home places dot the landscape around and atop this high and scenic hilltop.

Off the old and little-used dirt road, there was once a family who lived and farmed the fields beside the old road. It is said that the lady of the house and mother of the family was a tall and slender woman.

Most always, so the story goes, this lady wore a long sack-type dress. On her head she wore a bonnet common during this time in our South’s history.

From under her bonnet one could see her long snow-white hair hanging down her back. Since the well where the family got their water supply was located about 80 yards from the house, it is said this lady could be seen at all times of the day going to and from the well, carrying a large water bucket.

In the early morning hours and during the hours of the late evening, she would be seen going to or coming from the well with the large bucket in hand.

This went on for a number of years until many families of the area began to move to other locations and vanish from the high country around Locke Hill.

It wasn’t long until only a family or two remained in the area to work a few of the hilly fields of which most now lay abandoned.

The story relates that the only son of this tall lady chose to join the cause of the Confederacy and went off to war. It wasn’t too long after that the father of the family fell ill with fever and died. All that remained on the small farm was the tall lady and her small baby girl.

But tragedy was yet to strike again within a short time of the death of her husband. Word had it that the baby also fell ill with a dreaded fever and died a short time later.

The small farm began to fall into decay. The crops in the fields fell prey to wild animals and vandals since there was no one to harvest them. The house and family barn began to lean and sway due to the lack of repairs on them.

Tall weeds grew up in and around the small yard of the old place. Only a small path led from the back of the kitchen out to the old well, located out at the edge of the grownup field.

Those who passed along the narrow dirt road continued to see the tall white-haired lady, dressed in her long sack dress, with a large bucket in hand going to and from the well, traveling the narrow pathway through the tall weeds and grass of the grownup field.

Those who saw the tall lady wondered just how she survived there on the abandoned and unkept farm. No more did smoke twirl from the old rock chimney on the chilly mornings and late hours of the winter evenings. No one was ever seen around the decaying log house except when the tall lady went to the well at the edge of the nearby field.

No one ever knew the whereabouts of the son who chose to join the cause of the Confederacy. As far as anyone knows, he never returned to the small farm located on the high ground, known as Locke Hill.

Did he fall in battle or did he choose to settle elsewhere when the bloody war was over? What happened to this young man remains a mystery to this day.

No one knows either just what happened to the tall lady with the snow-white hair. Some said that she just vanished. Others said that she continued to stay in the old fallen-down house there in the grown up field, leaving the old house only for her daily trip to the well at the old field’s edge.

There are those today who hunt wild game in the area who say that the ghost of the tall lady with the snow-white hair has been seen walking along a narrow pathway, out to the old abandoned well site.

Walking with a large bucket in hand, she walks up to the well and proceeds to draw water from the old caved in and abandoned well. There are others who say that they have seen a tall slender lady dressed in a long sack dress kneeling beside the tomb of an unknown Rebel soldier back up in the thick woods aways, quite some distance across the grownup fields from the ruins of the abandoned log cabin.

I have been to the grave of this unknown Rebel soldier many times. Each time I visit, I feel that I am not alone. A strange feeling comes over me. I feel that I am being watched.

What is the mystery of this unknown Rebel and the ghost of this woman? Did the only son of the tall white-haired lady return from the war wounded or sick, only to die and be buried by her atop the hill there in the woods?

Does the spirit of this mother return at times to her only son’s grave for a time of meditation and togetherness? Does she still walk the faint path to the old abandoned well with her bucket for her daily supply of water? Perhaps one day we will know the answer.

As for now, we can only speculate as the ghost lady continues to walk the path that leads into the deep and dark shadows of the unknown.

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, was bitten at least twice by venomous snakes, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)

 

Rabies in February questioned by characters in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'

With February on my mind the other day, I was reminded that one of the most famous scenes in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” happen in February 1935. It was on a Saturday in February in fictional Maycomb that Atticus Finch shot and killed a rabid dog in the street in front of Boo Radley’s house.

The scene in Chapter 10 of the novel begins with Scout and her brother, Jem, out with their air rifles, looking for a rabbit or squirrel to shoot. They were about 500 yards from the Radley House when Jem sees a dog in the distance. The dog was walking “erratically, as if his right legs were shorter than his left legs,” reminding Scout of a car that’s stuck in a sand bed.

The children recognize the dog as Tim Johnson, the “pet of Maycomb.” Tim, a liver-colored bird dog, belonged to Harry Johnson, who lived on the southern edge of Maycomb. For a living, Harry Johnson drove a bus back and forth to Mobile each day.

Jem runs to tell Calpurnia, who then gets the local telephone operator, Miss Eula May, to call everyone on the street to warn them about the dog. Cal then runs onto the Radley porch to warn Boo and his father, Nathan, of the approaching dog. Not long after that, Atticus and Sheriff Heck Tate arrive in a black Ford.

At this point in his life, Atticus is nearly 50 years old, and he lives with the “tribal curse of the Finches,” that is, he’s nearly blind in his left eye. When he wants to see something well, he turns his head and looks from his right eye. When Tate hands Atticus the rifle to kill the dog, Atticus informs the sheriff that he hasn’t shot a gun in 30 years.

Atticus takes the rifle anyway and when Tim Johnson stops in front of the gate to the Radley House, Atticus shoots him above his left eye, putting the dog out of its misery. It’s here that Jem and Scout learn that Atticus was once known as the “deadest shot in Maycomb County.” Neighbors Maudie Atkinson and Stephanie Crawford tell the children that Atticus was at one time known by the nicknames of “One Shot Finch” and “Ol’ One-Shot.”

During all of this, several characters mention the once commonly held belief that dogs couldn’t get rabies during a cold weather month like February. Scout says that she thought dogs got rabies in August. Cal also has to tell Eula May, the phone operator, that she knows “it’s February… but I know a mad dog when I see one.” Miss Stephanie also remarks, “Uh, uh, uh, who’da thought of a mad dog in February?”

On a side note, those who know a lot about firearms tell me that the rifle used by Atticus Finch in the 1962 motion picture version of “To Kill a Mockingbird” was a full-length American Krag-Jorgensen Model 1898 rifle in a 30-40 caliber with a cut down stock. It would be interesting to know where the rifle used in the movie is today. Perhaps it would make for an interesting item to display in the Monroe County Museum.

McWilliams was taken prisoner three times during War Between the States

Richard Ervin McWilliams

I was looking through some old newspapers the other day and ran across an interesting item about a Wilcox County veteran who was taken prisoner three different times during the War Between the States.

In the Feb. 12, 1903 edition of The Wilcox Progressive Era, it was announced that the Alabama Charter Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy planned to meet at the home of Chapter President Sallie Jones on Feb. 19. During their meeting, they planned to discuss the “Prison Life of Southern Soldiers.” Richard Ervin McWilliams Sr. was to be the guest speaker with plans to talk about “his experience of 14 months in Northern prisons.”

McWilliams passed away in August 1921, and he is buried in the Camden Cemetery. His obituary was published in the Sept. 1, 1921 edition of The Progressive Era and provides many details about his military service.

“The ranks of the old Confederate veterans are rapidly thinning,” his obituary began. “In the passing of Hon. R.E. McWilliams, Wilcox loses one of her most gallant veterans whose career through the Civil War furnishes interesting reading.”

According to the newspaper, McWilliams enlisted in Co. B, a Wilcox County troop, in early 1862 “as a boy of 16.”

“He was soon in the midst of the conflict, being stationed at Island No. 10, which was captured early in the war by the Northern troops. The loss of this point was the first serious blow struck at the south. Mr. McWilliams was among the prisoners and was carried to Camp Butler, near Springfield, Illinois.”

The newspaper goes on to say that McWilliams was eventually released during a prisoner exchange at Vicksburg, Mississippi. From there, he was stationed at Port Hudson, Louisiana, which was soon besieged by Union forces. This fort was an important link between the eastern and western halves of the Confederacy, and when it fell to the Union, the vital Mississippi River fell completely under Northern control.

McWilliams became a POW again at Port Hudson, but he was soon paroled. From there, he went home to Wilcox County for a short while, but like many parolees, he made his way back to the front lines, where he joined the forces of Confederate generals John Bell Hood and Joseph E. Johnston.

He survived the bloody meatgrinder known as the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, but again fell into enemy hands as a POW. He was sent back to Camp Butler, where he remained until the end of the war. His obituary notes that he was slightly wounded only once during the war.

“Nothing gave Mr. McWilliams more pleasure than to recount the thrilling scenes and events of his soldier days,” the newspaper said. “His old comrades all honored him and he in turn was always interested in their welfare.”

In the end, it sounds like McWilliams had a remarkable wartime experience and that he was also extremely lucky. Few soldiers can say they were made a POW three times during a single conflict and live to tell the tale. If anyone in the reading audience has any additional information they would like to share about McWilliams, please let me hear from you.

100-year-old news highlights from February 1925 editions of The Wilcox Progressive Era in Camden, Ala.

Masonic Hall in Camden.

Today marks the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time to take another trip back down memory lane for a look at some of the interesting things that happened in Wilcox County a century ago, way back in February 1925.

In the Feb. 5, 1925 edition of The Wilcox Progressive Era, editor Stanley Clifford Godbold reported that “John Ratto, impersonator and humorist, will not appear at the Camden Theatre on Feb. 10^th on account of illness. The Gorilla Company, composed of high-class players, will substitute for this attraction sometime during the week of Feb. 23^rd. The exact date will be announced next week. Make your plans to attend this play.”

Readers that week also learned that “on last Friday afternoon McWilliams girls defeated Camden in a closely contested game of basketball by the score of 5 to 3. The guarding on both sides being good, and this held down the score. The lineup: McWilliams, forwards, Willie Higden, Belma Melton; centers, Ruby Jones, Margaret Brantley; guards, Eliza Till, Daisy Melton; substitutes, Edith Pettie, Evelyn Brantley, Cynthia McKenzie; Camden, forwards, Elise Cobb, Camilla Jones; centers, Sara Matthews, Gussie Marcus; guards, Myrtie Odom, Laura Dale McNeil; substitutes, Barbara Solomon, Annie Lou Ray, Fraces Moss.”

In the Feb. 12, 1925 edition of The Progressive Era, readers saw the following notice: The Camden Motor Co. invites you to come down to their place of business and enjoy a radio concert program every night 8 to 11. Special program tonight.

It was also reported that week that “Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Harper of Chicago are spending several months at the Wilcox Hotel while Mr. Harper is engaged in buying hardwood timber.”

In the Feb. 19, 1925 edition of the newspaper, under the headline “Coy Girls Defeat Camden,” readers learned that the “Coy Consolidated School defeated Camden Friday afternoon, score 14 to 7. The score stood 7-7 at the beginning of the last period. The Coy team started a drive that the locals could not stop and resulted in the seven-point advantage. Misses Powe and Fairly played the leading role for Coy while Miss Barbara Solomon and Laura Farish played well for Camden.”

Readers that week also saw the following notice: FOR SALE – Eleven first-class young Plymouth Rock hens and one young rooster for $18, delivered at my house. – J.G. Holt, Camden, Alabama.”

In the Feb. 26, 1925 edition of the paper, it was reported that the “Hi Y of the Wilcox County High School had a father-son banquet on Friday night Feb. 20^th at the Masonic Hall. Prof. Tom Borom made an excellent and witty toastmaster. The meeting was opened with sentence prayers and Rev. L.A. Nall, Rev. Meigs, Mr. E.W. Berry, S.C. Godbold, Mr. J.M. Bonner, Mr. P.E. Jones and many others made short talks full of good advice and loving counsel to these boys, our future citizens.”

Elsewhere in that week’s paper, readers learned that the “Gorilla Players of the Redpath Bureau played to a large audience at the Camden Theatre on Wednesday night, their acting was of the highest order and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. A group of pretty high school girls added much to the program by rendering several instrumental and vocal selections between acts. This group was composed of Misses Elise Cobb, Mary Edwards, Laura Farish, Ava Jordan, Ellen Vernon Jones, Frances Moss, Sarah Matthews, Barbara Solomon, Eleanor Stuckey and Wenonah Pritchett.”

Well, I guess that’s all that space will allow for this month. Around the first of next month, I plan to take a look at the events of March 1925 in Wilcox County. Until then, if you get the urge to research the county’s past yourself, take advantage of the Alabama Department of Archives and History’s excellent selection of old newspapers on microfilm and other resources. Their friendly staff will be more than happy to get you started.