The Last Man Hanged in the Old Jail in Natchez

When my father was alive and I was living in California, one of my favorite things when visiting was when Daddy would ask, "You want to take a drive around town?"

That was code-speak for, "Let's go all over town, and I'll tell you tales about the people who lived in those old houses."  It was a treasure trove of juicy gossip, and as a Southerner, gossip is one of my favorite pastimes.  Especially gossip about people and things long gone.

He showed me houses my great, great, great, great grandfather built.  Not just mansions for the wealthy, but also smaller houses around town that few know he built.  He was most noted for having been the contractor who built Stanton Hall for Frederick Stanton in 1856. 

Stanton Hall

Born in 1926, Daddy was probably the only person left who knew those things.  

He told me all about the Rhythm Club Fire, a tragedy that may have been responsible for halting the African American music scene there for generations. Two hundred nine people were killed when the overcrowded club, a dance hall that catered to the black community, burned. It is still the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history and is responsible for many of the fire codes that exist today, such as doors that open out instead of in, requirements for the number of exits, occupancy limitations, and interior finish standards. 

Having occurred in the Bible Belt, where dancing was often considered a sin, many people believed the tragedy was an assignment of God’s judgment, and much of the music that made Mississippi the birthplace of Blues music was left in the Delta in the central and northern part of the state, although Ferriday, Louisiana, just across the river, still had the Chitlin Circuit during the Jim Crow era where artists like Ray Charles, BB King, Little Milton and Irma Thomas performed.  It was here where childhood cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart would sneak over and hang out at the window listening to the music and rushing home to see if they could master it.

Along with scores of lives, April 23, 1940, was also the night the music died in Natchez. 

"I was 12 years old," Daddy said, ..."and I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I woke up that morning and the whole town smelled like burning flesh.  I rode my bike over there.  It was horrific."

Everyone in town -- both Black and White -- personally knew people who'd perished in the flames.  Much has been written about the Rhythm Club Fire - songs, documentaries, studies, etc.

Natchez Burning by Howlin' Wolf

Gene Gilmore: The Natchez Fire:  includes photos

Rhythm Nightclub Museum 

"You see that house there?  That's where (name redacted) lived.  During the war, (I'm not sure if he was referring to WWI or WWII) she'd get all dressed up and hang out at dances for the soldiers."

She never married, and although coming from a prominent family and possessing an IQ that would outshine some of the most brilliant minds, became a recluse, and what we at the time called a bag lady.  She could be seen, dirty and disheveled, pushing a grocery cart around town.  Unbeknownst to most, the cart contained court records from the 1700s and 1800s that she was transcribing.  Thanks to her, those records exist today. Her house had been consumed by overgrowth and rats, and our kind mayor ended up giving her a key to the courthouse and supplied a cot for her to sleep on.

"Nobody knows this, but she had a baby.  He's an old man now and lives in New Orleans." 

I'm sure he's long dead now, too.

Don Estes, who ran the cemetery for years and knew ALL the stories, told me he'd gone to visit her in the nursing home shortly before she died.  The woman who was sitting for her, asked her, "Tell Mr. Estes where the baby is."

"I hid it under the front-porch stairs," she replied, deep in the throes of Alzheimer's.

We drove past the old Natchez jail.

"They used to hang people in that jail," my father mused.  

Inside was (and still is) a trap door that was triggered by a lever the jailer would pull.

"Sometime in the 1930s or 40s, people had lost their taste for hangings, and they had a man to hang.  But nobody wanted to do it," he said.

"In desperation to find someone, they went out and got this old wino who hung around town," They tied a bottle of liquor to the lever and brought him up and told him, 'You can have that bottle if you pull the lever.

"And that's how the last man was hanged in the old jail."

I don't know who the prisoner was or what he'd done to meet such a fate, and trying to find records on it is nigh impossible.  Many of the old records are stored in an old metal warehouse down by the river.  It's leaky and not climate controlled and if you could even find it, it's probably destroyed by water and mold and rats and roaches.  

The old Natchez Jail, built in 1891

The jail is open for visitors, who can still go upstairs and see that trap door and its lever.  So many stories in a small Southern town, many of which are lost to the ages.  Yes, you can learn things from your elders. 

After a time, I'd bring a small tape recorder with me on those rides, and hide it under some magazines or trash in Daddy's truck.  If he knew he was being recorded, he wouldn't talk.  I encourage you all to listen to those tired, old stories your grandparents and parents talk about because after they're gone, you'll wish you'd paid more attention, gotten the names right, and the stories.  Because every time a person dies, a library burns down.

For further reading:

The Night the Music Died in Natchez

Smoot's Grocery: Bringing the Blues Back Home