Mute Monday -- More from Morganton

Thinking of Frankie Silver...and a Potential Setting

On Friday I traveled to Morganton, a charming town about two hours to the east, to meet a traveling ex-sister-in-law and have lunch.  We wandered about the town and I was reminded that this was where, in 1833, the teen-aged Frankie Silver was hanged for the axe murder of her husband. 

Some say she was innocent; others say her husband Charlie needed killing.  But the jury found her guilty and she was hanged from an oak tree (or a scaffold -- opinions vary here too) that stood on the hill where the beautiful present day courthouse stands. 

Sharyn McCrumb tells her moving version of the story in the carefully researched  novel  The Ballad of Frankie Silver.

The courthhouse was built after the hanging so I didn't go looking for ghosts.

But I did see a wonderful looking house that I may have more to say about later -- can't you just see a distraught young woman in a nightdress, running for the gate in the middle of the night? Long hair flowing, of course, and possibly holding a candlabra  with burning candles...

And what's in that tower room?

As always, when I photograph fancy buildings, I think of Merisi.