Bramlett & 0' Bannon: One bullet two dead men, Part II - Stories from the Tree

Last week I introduced you to a member of the Bramblett clan, Larkin Bramlett, who, in an alcohol-induced rage, killed his neighbor and fellow mill operator Benjamin F. O'Bannon in Cherokee County, Alabama back in 1854. Larkin was arrested,  broke out of jail, was re-arrested, was tried by a jury in Jacksonville, Alabama and was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. His appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, and all that is left to tell of his story is the administration of justice. and the moral, if there is one.

I am indebted to Jacksonville journalist Eric Wayne Key, who pieced together Larkin's story from the archives of the Jacksonville Republican newspaper and from court records, and published the story in the November 5, 2013 edition of the Jacksonville News. Key writes:

Thursday before the hanging, the wagons and carriages started rolling into town. Carroll County, Ga., was represented by at least 15 wagons each loaded with 8 or 10 people. People came from all corners of the map. Barefooted boys and girls, old men and women, large slaves with little ones following behind them, small boys on mules – sometimes as many as three on one mule. Grown men on switch tail ponies with the women walking behind them. Oxcarts, horse-drawn wagons, buggies, carryalls and carriages - every imaginable type of person and form of transportation were exhibited this week.

The day of the hanging, confusion filled the streets. The tavern on the Square ran dry. People were drunk and fighting. Every split-rail fence around the Square was broken down. The National Guard was summoned to control the chaos. Nothing like this had ever happened in Jacksonville before. At 10:30 a.m., March 5th 1858, some 50 National guardsmen with muskets and bayonets, commanded by Captain D. P. Forney. worked their way through the crowd. Upon their arrival, the noise rose to a deafening roar as the people exclaimed, 'There he is! He's coming out!" Constable Fleming drove a four-horse drawn hearse with a coffin in the bed up to the front door of the jail. Every face of every man, woman and child up across the hill was now turned to the jail and every eye on the jail door.

After some delay, Sheriff Farmer emerged with 33-year-old Larkin Bramlett in chains. He was pale and thin but seemed unusually calm. His hair was long, his face, sharp with features with thin lips and a narrow nose. He seemed quite surprised at the vast throng of spectators there to witness his execution. Walking and conversing quietly next to Bramlett was the Rev. A. E. Vandervere, who, on the journey to the gallows, would try to get a confession out of Bramlett, but would fail. Also walking with them was attending physician. Dr. M. W. Francis who was in charge of tending to Bramlett up to his final moments alive. At times, Bramlett could be seen laughing and then abruptly losing his smile. The men helped Bramlett board the hearse.

When Fleming cracked the whip and the horse set forth, Bramlett was positioned, seated and chained on top of the very coffin which would forever hold his body. The hearse departed from the jail and drove up the hill, rounded the Square and headed south on what is now Church Street for about a mile and a half near Rabbit Town Road where the gallows had been constructed in a gorge of the mountain. Some 10,000 spectators followed the hearse to the gallows. There assembled, the throng measured almost a mile deep.

When Bramlett reached his final destination he was assisted in putting on a shroud and a pair of white gloves. His shoes were removed and replaced by a pair of socks. He then walked up the scaffold stairs to the gallows, assisted by Sheriff Farmer and a deputy. After a brief sermon by Rev. Vandervere the sheriff set about placing the noose around the prisoner's neck, and at 25 minutes after 1 p.m., Larkin Bramlett. enveloped in his white shroud, wearing his white gloves, left this world and a story that would be lost for 150 years.

A shudder and a murmur ran through the crowd. The excitement was long gone. There was a deep sorrowfulness in the air. The crowd turned and slowly made their way back to town. The liquor was gone but no one cared, for it was the drink which had started this mess in the first place. Mothers would use this parable to scare their husbands and sons for years to come. Rev. Vandervere later revealed that Larkin Bramlett confessed that his trouble started in 1845 when he "took up the habit of intoxication."

Rev. Vandervere never got his confession of guilt from Bramlett. He commented six days after the hanging on the matter: "...Were it not for so many hard sayings in his confession, censuring men of high respectability, I could, from what he said and seemed to feel, have indulged at least a hope that he was saved; but such gross inconsistency leaves me in wonder and astonishment. I visited the poor fellow often before his unhappy end; and from what I could learn, he appeared anxious to be saved, and in fact seemed to believe that God would save him; but Mr. Editor, those condemned justly, should not plead justification before God. as a ground of acceptation, but plead guilty and his mercy for Christ's sake, if they expect to be saved. I wish and pray that all may take warning by the awful end of Larkin Bramlett."