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Aftermath

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.
— Genesis 9:11

Summing it all up it was one of the saddest things that has ever occurred in our county.
— North Wilkesboro Hustler, Jan. 28, 1910

William Blake: “Cain Fleeing from the Wrath of God” (drawing, c.1805) (Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum; Wikipedia).

After Lum’s death, Granville Triplett went into hiding. Apprehended by the sheriff in mid-February, he was held in the same jail where his uncle died. His murder trial began on March 29 and ended a day later when he pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of assault with a deadly weapon (his shoe or boot). Sentenced to 18 months hard labor (“on the roads” – Democrat, Apr. 14), he may have served only three. Lum’s survivors were likely bitter over the reduced charge; enraged if he walked with 15 months un-served. Granville returned to his family after release, but the former deputy-sheriff would have other brushes with the law. He died of tuberculosis in 1933, age 51. Sophronie long outlived him, dying in 1978, 18 years after she sang “The Triplett Tragedy” for Ralph Rinzler’s microphone.

A striking detail in press accounts of the affair appears in a homily-like epilogue that was printed in several papers after Lum’s death. Its purple prose prompts yet another question:

A man [Lum] in middle life, who had reared a family of six children … to die in a prison cell without a relative to stand by him in the dark hour, and even after Death had set its seals upon him, no one to claim the lifeless body, certainly paints a picture that makes a dark blot on the civilization of our fair county …

(North Wilkesboro Hustler, Jan. 28, 1910)

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin: “Peter’s Denial” (etching, 1919) (WikiArt)

“Without a relative to stand by him …” Lum’s grown children lived in Texas – this may have precluded their coming or delayed their arrival. But where was Sophronie? Is the underlying pain when she sings partly from guilt over not being at his side? Various scenarios could explain her absence: perhaps she was barred from the jail, or had a breakdown and was recovering with family, or felt unsafe traveling to see him. Or did she turn temporarily against him – condemning him as a drunken murderer and brother-killer? All these scenarios resonate with another Christian archetype: Peter’s denial of Christ.

Just weeks after Lum’s death, Sophronie conceived a child – a son born on October 28, 1910. The father may have been Jasper Greer, her second husband, though it’s unclear when they married. A daughter – Doc Watson’s sister-in-law – followed in 1914. Sophronie and Jasper soon separated. They seem to have lived apart until his death in 1943 but never divorced.

Confusion over parentage, relationship status, and marriage dates is common when researching families of this era. Then as now, children were born out of wedlock and marriages failed or faltered. But in less accepting times, under the sway of old time religion, fear of scandal and stigma increased obfuscation. Such infractions could of course result in violence, even murder, and it’s entirely possible they played a role in the Triplett drama. Truth, like human behavior, is rarely simple and the precise motivations of its actors will never be known.

Frances Benjamin Johnston: “William Morris Log Cabin, Saluda, Polk County, North Carolina” (1935) (Library of Congress).

Given the particulars of “Tragedy’s” best-known performance, it’s unsurprising that other recordings of the song are rare. Indeed, there seems to be only one – a moody rendering by a contemporary Portland, Maine-based septet called The Ghosts of Johnson City, who rework the song in a reverent old-time arrangement with a gothic Americana gloss. The song’s whispered vocals are a highlight:

The Ghosts of Johnson City: “The Triplett Tragedy” (2015)

A final anecdote: In a book about another infamous North Carolina murder – the slaying of Charles Silver by his wife Frankie in 1831 – folklorist/historian Daniel W. Patterson mentions “Tragedy” in a passage about community responses to songs about local crimes. According to Patterson, Granville Triplett knew and loathed the song:

[It] outraged him, and he threatened to kill anyone who sang it. The only person in the community who dared to defy him was Lum’s widow, Sophronie Miller Greer. She took her revenge upon Granville by standing on her porch and singing the ballad as he stalked past her house, with his face stony and his fists clinched.

(A Tree Accurst: Bobby McMillon and Stories of Frankie Silver, 2000)

There’s something deeply satisfying about the image of Sophronie standing tall and fearless on her porch, delivering this devout rejoinder to her hostile nephew as he crosses her property. Having been through a hell only she could fathom, clearly the song afforded her a powerful reckoning: first with her husband’s killer and later with the world.

Headstone of Sophronie Miller Greer (Dawn Carroll; findagrave).