John Long - Murder in Roanoke County

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Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2019 by John D. Long

All rights reserved

Front cover: Map of Gum Springs. From Fort Lewis: A Community in Transition, Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, University of Virginia, 1930; Watkins sketch. Authors collection; Roanoke County Courthouse. Salem Historical Society.

First published 2019

e-book edition 2019

ISBN 978.1.43966.836.8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019945084

print edition ISBN 978.1.46714.410.0

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

DEDICATION

For Susan. We can never truly know you, and something tells me that is our loss. The historical record speaks clearly only of the last few days of your life. Beyond that, we know so little. What were your hopes and aspirations? When you were a little girl, what were your daydreams of tomorrow? However you pictured your future, dying in a cold Virginia mountain stream, victimized by your husband, abandoned by your family, surrounded by strangers, buried in a paupers gravethis could not have been what you envisioned.

In life, you deserved better. In death, you deserved justice. And at the very least today, you deserve the dedication of the book that tells your story.

CONTENTS

Preface

SOMETHING LIKE A BODY IN THE CREEK

The springtime air was still too chilly to let yourself get wet, even mildly. At least if you wanted to remain comfortable. While a man worked in the April sunshine, he might generate enough heat to ward off the damp chill. But just sitting and riding, when every tree shook off a drizzle of raindrops, a body was bound to get cold.

Lawrence Anderson ducked to avoid a low-hanging branch, but a shower of drops fell down his neck anyway as the oxcart rolled down the muddy path. Though the day had gotten a little warmer, Lawrences hours of toil had left him wet feet beneath his muddy shoes and trousers soaked almost to the knee. The spray of water from the branch caused him to shiver all the more.

Still, driving the oxcart of branches and trash wood down the mountain was so far the easiest part of his day. Soon after dawn, he had started the arduous task of plowing. April rains the night before had left the ground heavy, too stubborn to yield pliantly to the plowshare. But it was spring, and plowing had to be done. At fifteen, and with his father dead, Lawrence could no longer afford the luxury of sitting in the Gum Spring schoolhouse every day. The white children in Salem might stay in school a couple of more years and maybe even enroll at Roanoke College. But for Lawrence, no such opportunity existed. He was a man, and men worked.

The plowing for the day done, Lawrence had hitched up the ox to the cart and headed up the mountain to gather firewood. As often happened, some of the neighborhood boys rode along with him, not so much to help as to have something to do. Either too young for school or simply not made to go consistently, the younger boys tended to idolize Lawrence. The older boy didnt mind, though like many teenage males he was not entirely comfortable around children. But they had helped throw some dead branches in the back for him, shortening the time needed to fill the cart. With the brush wood leaving no room for passengers now, the boys ran ahead of him down the muddy mountain path.

As he headed shivering down Brush Mountain, he debated whether to unload the kindling at his mothers or grandmothers cabins or ride on toward Salem and sell the cartload for a little bit of spending money. If he drove on past the small community on the mountainside, in another half a mile hed hit the macadamized road. He could stop at the farm of the great Captain Horner, who had helped hang John Brown so many years before. Or he could turn east and see if anyone wanted to pay a few cents for the wood. Maybe Mr. Chapman at Lake Spring Hotel would take the loadevenings were still cool enough that the guests needed fires in their rooms.

While mulling this prospect, almost half asleep with the swaying of the cart, Lawrence suddenly became aware that little George Law was saying something to him, or at least saying something in a singsong voice to no one in particular.

Theys a body in the crick, theys a body in the crick George seemed to be saying.

Lawrence pulled the reins to bring the ox to a halt and tried to figure out what little George meant, if anything. The barefoot boy, wearing nothing but a long gown that was caked with mud on the lower hem, pointed through the bushes to the creek, not easily visible from the path through the dense springtime vegetation, and ran away singing happily.

Lawrence felt a strange foreboding, a different kind of shiver. Something was wrong. He stood up in the wagon and peered through the scrubby trees but could see only occasional glimmers of the sun on the rapidly moving water. Heart pounding, he dismounted from the cart and walked up to where a break in the vegetation allowed access to the creek bed.

Sliding down the muddy slope to the creeks edge, Lawrence scanned downstream and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the Law boy had seen a deer drinking, or the body of a possum floating in the rain-swollen stream. Turning, he followed the creeks course upstream. Suddenly, fear gripped his stomach.

There, lying faceup in the water, was the body of a woman.

Lawrence felt paralyzed with fear. He knew he should move, should help the woman, should get help, should do something. But he remained frozen for what seemed an age. Eyes affixed on the body, his brain processed what he was seeing, the scene beginning to feel dizzily unreal to him. The woman was stuck on a little island in the stream, her dress hiked up, revealing her legsin fact, the most Lawrence had ever seen of a womans legs. She was one of his own race, a good bit older than he was, dressed in a fancy black coat and shoes much nicer than Lawrence typically saw in the Gum Spring community. He didnt recognize her, and he knew everybody in the small area.

One hand was trapped under her body; the other extended out from her side and seemed to be wrapped in a bandage or handkerchief. As he looked closely, a head wound became evident, blood still trickling into the creeks current.

Mouth dry, heart pounding, Lawrence wondered what to do. Should he wade out into the cold water and see if he could help the woman? Yet he still couldnt move. With a croaking voice, he called out, Lady, do you need help? As soon as he said it, he realized the futility of the question and felt silly for asking it. She was lying down in the cold water. No living person would lie motionless like that for so long. The woman had to be dead. Lawrences head began to spin, and he briefly thought he might vomit.

Lawrence had seen a few dead bodies before, but always lying out in a neighbors cabin or wrapped in a sheet getting buried at the Gum Spring Cemetery. Never had he seen a body like this, and he realized that she must have been the victim of foul play. He also suddenly realized one of his feet had been in the water for several minutes and was unbearably cold. Tearing his eyes away from the corpse in the water, he turned and scrambled up the muddy bank. Where to go? Straight to Salem to get Mr. Webber, the sheriff of Roanoke County? He was known to be a friend of the folks of Gum Spring and certainly should be informedbut at the same time, in the back of his head Lawrence wondered if he would be held accountable for the womans death. He knew enough of the way the world around him worked. He knew it happened that black boys were often accused of crimes they didnt commit.

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