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North Carolina High Country (postcard, c.1900) (Watauga County Public Library).

Marshall Triplett was killed in a drunken row on Christmas night at Elk, this county, by his brother Columbus. Both parties were drinking and got into a controversy about some subject. Hot words were passed but friends interfered and the parties separated. Later they met and a pitched battle followed which resulted in Marshall Triplett’s death.

(Lexington Dispatch, Jan. 5, 1910)

This seems to be the earliest published account, prompted by Lum’s arrest and internment in the county jail the same day. Yet it’s already 11 days from the actual event and the first discrepancy between press and song occurs almost immediately: the former places the killing at night, the latter in the morning. An article in the local Watauga paper offers a more detailed account the next day:

One report is that Columbus Triplett, drinking heavily went to the home of his brother, Marshall, and over some offense, not known to us, began to curse and abuse him in a violent manner. The brother resented the bitter language, but no blows were passed, a daughter of deceased persuading her enraged uncle out of the house and some distance away, but his blood running high he soon returned, and Marshall hearing him in the yard, went out, and a general rough and tumble fight ensued …

(Watauga Democrat, Jan. 6, 1910)

Questions proliferate: What caused the fight? What “controversy” or “offense” could drive a man to commit murder, let alone fratricide? Was the visit planned – a Christmas celebration? Where was Sophronie – did she accompany Lum to Marshall’s house?

Moonshiners in the North Carolina mountains (postcard, c. 1900) (un-sourced)

Press and song agree that the fraternal fracas was initially disrupted by family or friends. But the fire soon reignited:

They met in combat by the barn
Mrs. Triplett went to stop this wrong
Columbus stabbed Marshall in the thigh
And left him on the ground to die

Marshall Triplett and his first wife divorced (unusual for the era; was he a violent man? A drunk?). He remarried and between his wives fathered a large brood. His eldest that Christmas was Granville, 29; his youngest, a ten-month old. His second wife Ida (“Mrs. Triplett”) was heavily pregnant with their last child who would be born six weeks after her father’s death.

Femoral artery (Grey’s Anatomy, 20th Ed.) (Wikipedia).

The fatal thigh injury – a quick and ghastly end (“within three minutes,” wrote the Democrat) caused by severing the femoral artery – is consistent in all accounts. It may have extra-medical significance: because who tries to kill a man by stabbing him in the leg? It seems possible, even likely, that the blow was defensive in nature – meant to wound, not to kill. In which case Lum may never have intended his brother’s death at all, further compounding the tragedy.

Then Marshall’s wife in great distress
Stayed by her husband while in death
The children’s screams was heard around
Which did produce a solemn sound

Solemn. One tries with difficulty to imagine the scene – the mix of shock and despair, stillness and pandemonium, that must have accompanied Marshall’s death after the frenzy of the fight. His body prone, his wife and children around him, his lifeblood spilling rhythmically onto the hardened ground, staining winter snow crimson red.

Where was Lum? Did he stay behind or flee the scene? What follows is the most glaring narrative gap in press and song: from Dec. 25 (after Marshall’s death) until his arrest on Jan. 5, Lum Triplett is unaccounted for. Was he in hiding – roughing it somewhere in the region’s dense woods and rocky crags? No manhunt, let alone lynch mob, seems to have been organized. Marshall would have been buried within days of his death. Was there a funeral? Did Lum attend?

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