The Hanging Tree (standard:other, 3611 words)
Author: anonymous	Added: Apr 22 2009	Views/Reads: 3282/1983	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An aging southern gentleman enthralls two college students with tales of his town's past.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

end up as just one big cut instead of a young man, smilin' as she 
attached yet another bandage to my shin or elbow. All part of bein' a 
little boy, though...anyhow, if you look just to the left of that bump, 
about an inch or so...can you see it? That smooth spot that looks as if 
the bark was rubbed off? It's just a little more than the width of a 
line of rope, isn't it? I remember seein' that for the first time when 
I was just seven or eight years old, wonderin' if that spot was due to 
some tree disease or somethin'. But it wasn't; no, sir, it sure wasn't. 


The first person ever hanged in our famous and historic tree was Oliver
Joseph McCorkindale, a Nigerian slave owned by Nestor McCorkindale, who 
owned a cotton plantation just south of where our town now stands. 
Seems Oliver, had been accused of havin' "improper relations" with 
Nestor's young niece, Elizabeth Ward. Local legend has it that Miss 
Ward, unusually mature for her age, had been the initiator of the 
impro-priety and had later disgraced the family by runnin' off to New 
York City, (is that near Syracuse?)  where she took up with a known 
profligate and gambler by the name of Sneed, who eventually tired of 
her and put her to work as a prostitute. 

If you go to the town hall, (it's that big brick buildin' in front of
you) and climb the old wooden stairs to the second floor, you'll find 
the Registrar and Records office on the right. The second drawer of the 
oak filin' cabinet holds a folder marked, "Town Deaths." In there is a 
journal of sorts; it is old but not unclean, and contains accurate 
recordin's of every person ever hanged or lynched in Maple Grove. The 
original keeper of this book was Miss Violeta Harper, Maple Grove's 
first spinster woman; and let me tell you, she kept incredibly accurate 
records from May of seventeen-ninety-three until her death in 
eighteen-and-twenty-two. The handwritin' changed after that and the 
recordin's became a tad less detailed. 

Two or three years after Miss Violeta passed, a Mr. Johnston Hazzard
took over the scribin' duties and, while he was no Miss Violeta, he 
was, how do you kids put it these days? Anal retentive? Well, he was 
that. Mr. Hazzard recorded the hangin' of every man condemned by the 
Town courts and every man to be dragged from his cell or bed in the 
middle of the night. He did this for twenty-three years until someone 
accused him (rightly, as it turned out) of bein' a homosexual 
pedophile. Seems Johnston was an avid student of the ancient Greeks and 
figured it was his responsibility to follow their example. He was 
dragged from his office on an unseasonably warm day in November of 
eighteen-and-forty-seven, beaten by various townfolk, and strung up. 
His death was read and reread at many breakfast tables the next 
morning, having made the front page of the Bugle, complete with an 
artist's rendering. 

All told, at the time of Hazzard's death, there had been one hundred and
two hangings in our town square. What's that? Oh. Ummm...no, I don't 
think so...I have 

been through the journal several times in the last twenty years and I
don't seem to recall readin' about any women who had actually been 
hanged in the tree; but there was one story, more of a legend, really. 
Now, the story I heard supposedly happened in nineteen-and-thirty-seven 
and regarded an old country woman, name of...let's see, name of 
Cavanaugh. She was also the only local person ever to be accused of 
practicin' the voodoo religion, somethin' you Yankees might call 
witchcraft. Anyway, the rumor that circulated was to the effect she had 
been chantin' spells at all hours and this activity was somehow related 
to the semi-mysterious deaths of four local boys who were known to 
cruelly tease the widow Cavanaugh whenever she came into town. As the 
story went, one of these boys' fathers was the brother of Reverend 
Granger; I believe I mentioned him before. The good Reverend was 
extremely upset by his family's loss and, after a night of attempting 
to cure his grief with "medicinal" brandy, ascended his pulpit with 
bloodshot eyes and a pale face. He proceeded to recount the events of 
the past few days, as well as the unsubstantiated rumors about the 
widow Cavanaugh, and whipped his parishioners into a frenzy. As I heard 
it, they didn't even wait for the benediction, stormin' en masse out of 
the chapel in the general direction of the Cavanaugh house on the 
outskirts of the county. They were stopped by the local constabulary 
about fifteen minutes later and sent home. Reverend Grainger was paid a 
visit later that day by Sheriff Brady, who advised the preacher that, 
while the Catholics had successfully achieved a balance between alcohol 
and religion, he was in fact a Methodist and should consider 
abstinence. 

The Civil Rights Act was passed in nineteen-and-sixty-four, effectively
outlawin' the practice of lynchin'. Of course, it had always been a 
crime to hang a person without due process; this was covered under the 
statutes against murder, kidnapin', torture and a variety of locally 
enforceable offenses. But our grand juries refused to indict, our trial 
juries were all-white and often staffed by relatives of the accused, 
and jury nullification had become somethin' you could win cash money 
on. Those were bad times. Even though agents of both the FBI and HUAC 
made their collective presences known to the entire county, there was, 
simply, just too much county to cover, and societal trespassers (as 
well as the entire black population) hid like mice. It was durin' this 
time that local chapters of the Klan were most active. Midnight rides, 
used mostly as a tool to terrify the African shanty towns, were 
commonplace. Blacks were rarely seen out after dark, but were taken 
from their homes, from the arms of their loved ones by men whose hatred 
was fueled by rumor and drink; men who claimed devoutness of faith and 
cleanliness of character on Sunday but practiced the most un-Christian 
of activities the rest of the week. Hoods on their heads, hoods on the 
heads of their horses...my goodness. Perhaps these hoods were to show 
some kinship with the animal kingdom, perhaps they were secretly aware 
what they were doing was wrong...perhaps it was a uniformity they were 
attempting to express. Whatever the motivation, most who can claim 
membership in the human race thought the Klan to be populated by abject 
cowards; black of heart and yellow of spine, undereducated thugs who 
would rather hate than evolve. This was an attitude  that got some of 
us into trouble; no one wanted the boat rocked...and it was almost 
impossible to stop the Klan. I myself received a couple death threats 
and once even had a small cross burned on my front lawn. Wish I could 
say it was an anonymous warning, but the perpetrator was my childhood 
friend, Joey McManus. He spit in my face during a subsequent public 
meeting and labeled me with a vile epithet that does not bear 
repeatin'. 

Eventually, however, this all ended. The Klan has retreated to the
background of public life; one hears about them from time to time, but 
the active membership has been reduced to a few old-timers from out 
near the swampier regions of the state. Old dogs can still bark, I 
guess, but you'd be in more danger of bein' slobbered on than actually 
bitten. And slobber always comes out in the wash...always. But it 
wasn't until nineteen-and-sixty-eight, a full four years after the 
Civil Rights Act, that Maple Grove passed a law that specifically 
codified the act of lynchin'. There was no parade, no fanfare; no black 
leaders from the NAACP or the Nation of Islam spoke in town square. 
Matter of fact, there wasn't even any pressure brought to bear on our 
local government. As I recall, someone just put it on the ballot that 
year, perhaps just snuck it in there, and it passed by a comfortable 
margin. We had two newspapers by then; the Bugle had long since 
graduated to a daily from a thrice-a-weeker, and the M. Grove Weekly, 
but neither paper did a story on the event; it was just one of the 
election results. 

The last recorder for the town of Maple Grove is still alive; still
lives here in town. He grew up in the third house on the right; no, 
across the street, and came of age near the day he witnessed his first 
hangin'...I meant to say lynchin'; that man was lynched. He was a 
nineteen-year-old black youth accused of rapin' three young white 
girls, one of whom was my sister. She died. That day...I shall always 
remember that day; Lord God, how I wanted to join in the beatin' and 
hangin and burnin' of that...young man. I saw him, trussed as one would 
a side of beef for the spit, except he was alive; my sister wasn't. His 
eyes expressed a wild terror and he was screamin'; screamin' through 
the gasoline-soaked rag in his mouth, screamin' for someone to come 
from somewhere: screamin' for a miracle. None came. He was doused in 
kerosene, cut open with a knife, stoned, shot and set afire and, 
although I took absolutely no part in this, I did nothing to stop it. I 
was not horrified; I just watched ...and remembered. I recorded these 
events in the town journal...you can read it if you like, but it does 
not make for a pleasant tale. What wasn't reported in the journal, or 
in either  of the town's two papers, is that the victim of this 
lynchin' was an innocent man. See, the other two girls survived. It was 
they who had pointed to the African, they who had told their parents of 
the gross violation of their honor, they who had inflamed the rage of 
the townspeople; they who had actually com-mitted the rape and murder 
of my sister. It wasn't until years later, when they were both 
middle-aged matrons, that the truth came forth. They were cousins, both 
from respectable families of unquestioned morality and honor and, 
although it was not well-known, were practicing lesbians. They had both 
fallen in lust with my sister and had made attempts to engage the 
younger girl in congress, somethin' she refused to even consider. 
Perhaps that was all it took...`Hell hath no fury...' and all that. My 
sister was attacked on the way home from church, knocked unconscious 
and dragged into a small barn. The cousins, in the act of stealing her 
innocence, killed the child by causing severe internal bleeding. 
Realizin' their crime, they swore a pact and concocted a story to cover 
themselves. No one questioned their story and their hysteria was 
convincin' enough to, along with their family names, deflect any 
medical curiosity. The cousins kept their secret up until fifteen years 
ago. The older woman, diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of 
lymphocytic leukemia, confessed the truth to her husband while on her 
deathbed. He called the police. Then he called me.  Both women were 
charged with kidnapin', rape and first-degree murder. The sick one died 
two weeks later; the other woman narrowly (and I do mean narrowly) 
escaped a very horrible death at my hands. I was on my way out the door 
with several selections from my knife collection when confronted by 
Martin Culhane, our chief of police. After a short struggle, I was 
taken into custody and jailed for three months, until the trial was 
over. Chief Culhane knew I was after blood; not just to avenge my 
long-dead sister, but also to avenge the death of the wrong man. Her 
blood...to pay for his, the blood that was spilled in my sight and 
burned in town square; the first blood I recorded in the journal. 
Innocent blood. If lynchin' were still permitted at the time of her 
conviction, (and had I not been in jail) I would have recorded her 
blood as well. She was jailed for fifty years; I've been to all three 
of her parole hearin's. I don't go to intimidate her or to argue for  
continued incarceration on behalf of either victim in this case: I go 
to make it very clear to the parole board that she stay in jail for her 
own well-bein'; that I will end her life the second she sets foot on 
free ground. So far, they have listened to me. I only hope that one day 
they don't. 

I recorded my last public hangin' on May twenty-seventh, nineteen
seventy-five. It was not a lynchin'; as I said earlier, that had been 
outlawed in the local elections seven years before. This was a 
sanctioned execution, ordered by a jury of peers after twelve days of 
deliberation on the case of People v. Craddock, in which one Mark 
Craddock had been tried and convicted of the slaying of his wife, 
Maria. It was, by all accounts, just another trial; the only reason it 
stands out in the memories of the townspeople is that it was the last 
hangin' in Maple Grove. Ever. That was the year the citizenry repealed 
capital punishment. Oh, there were some in our commu-nity, mostly law 
and order types (including Chief Culhane) who fought against the 
measure, but a ninety-seven percent mandate speaks for the entire town 
and ignores the dissentin' minority. To his credit, the Chief has never 
again voiced his opposition; he just let it stand...as a good public 
servant ought. 

The people of Maple Grove remain as genteel as is expected of most
Souther-ners; rebels is what your Yankee forbears would call us. Not 
that we ever cared. In later years, of course, that changed to 
rednecks, good ol' boys, white trash, (I always detested that one) 
inbred; as if any of these labels, or the racial attitudes associated 
with them, are restricted to those livin' below a certain latitude. You 
know, one of the truest statements I ever read was on a bumper sticker: 
‘The only difference between rednecks and assholes is the Chesapeake 
Bay.' That's just a fancy way of sayin' that racism isn't restricted to 
the South; I've sure read about plenty of it up North...did you say you 
were from up that way? Whereabouts? Oh yes, Syracuse. 

The specter of our past is all but gone now... except for the tree. It
stands as a reminder, perhaps; to some it is an historic symbol, now 
over three hundred years old. To others, it is ignored as an 
embarrassment. It was those folks, mostly the younger citizens of our 
town, who started a movement to have the tree cut down, sold for 
firewood, and donate the proceeds to a ‘reparations fund' for the local 
African community. They gained the tacit support of the ACLU and the 
full support of the radical Islamic Constituency from nearby Plymouth, 
but the measure was defeated in a special election. So the tree stands. 
It is fenced off with six-foot-high wrought iron. Video surveillance 
was installed three years ago to guard against vandals or those who 
have an undyin' need to make some sort of social or political 
statement. 

There is a plaque that stands at the south end of the fence. It's near
the sidewalk and faces the street. The plaque was put there by the 
Martin Luther King, Jr. Foundation and is a marker on ‘The Civil Rights 
Trail'. It says, ‘This tree, approximately two hun-dred ninety-six 
years old at the time of this dedication, was used for public execution 
between 1793 and 1975. According to local records, over one hundred 
seventy hangings were acknowledged to have taken place on this spot. 
One hundred thirty-three of these executions were performed without due 
process of law. All but two of those victims were of African descent." 

Underneath this statement is one line: 

"Hatred is a learned response." 

And now you stand here on this beautiful bright day, askin' questions
designed to help you discover whether the South has changed; to 
determine whether racial hatred still bubbles as hot pitch, hidden 
beneath the surface of our society, or to see if we are properly 
penitent, consumed by ‘white guilt' or some other social malady. We are 
neither. We are not cowed nor proud, we are not borderline Klan or 
apologists for the Confederacy. We do not wish for a return to slavery 
or to punitively pay for the actions of our ancestors: It is simply our 
history. These lives have been lived, these events have taken place and 
cannot be changed...only learned from. Our children will bear witness 
to the lessons and pass them on. As will yours. 

This is somethin' I think we can all live with. 

Drive safe, now. You've got a long trip back...where did you say you're
from? Syracuse, was it? 

fin 


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