ONE morning in July, 1854, a planter named Williamson, living six miles
from Selma, Alabama, was sitting with his wife and a child on the veranda
of his dwelling. Immediately in front of the house was a lawn, perhaps
fifty yards in extent between the house and public road, or, as it was
called, the “pike.” Beyond this road lay a close-cropped pasture of some
ten acres, level and without a tree, rock, or any natural or artificial
object on its surface. At the time there was not even a domestic animal
in the field. In another field, beyond the pasture, a dozen slaves were
at work under an overseer.
Throwing away the stump of a cigar, the planter rose, saying: “I forgot
to tell Andrew about those horses.” Andrew was the overseer.
Williamson strolled leisurely down the gravel walk, plucking a flower as
he went, passed across the road and into the pasture, pausing a moment as
he closed the gate leading into it, to greet a passing neighbor, Armour
Wren, who lived on an adjoining plantation. Mr. Wren was in an open
carriage with his son James, a lad of thirteen. When he had driven some
two hundred yards from the point of meeting, Mr. Wren said to his son: “I
forgot to tell Mr. Williamson about those horses.”
Mr. Wren had sold to Mr. Williamson some horses, which were to have been
sent for that day, but for some reason not now remembered it would be
inconvenient to deliver them until the morrow. The coachman was directed
to drive back, and as the vehicle turned Williamson was seen by all
three, walking leisurely across the pasture. At that moment one of the
coach horses stumbled and came near falling. It had no more than fairly
recovered itself when James Wren cried: “Why, father, what has become of
Mr. Williamson?”
It is not the purpose of this narrative to answer that question.
Mr. Wren’s strange account of the matter, given under oath in the course
of legal proceedings relating to the Williamson estate, here follows:
“My son’s exclamation caused me to look toward the spot where I had seen
the deceased [_sic_] an instant before, but he was not there, nor was he
anywhere visible. I cannot say that at the moment I was greatly
startled, or realized the gravity of the occurrence, though I thought it
singular. My son, however, was greatly astonished and kept repeating his
question in different forms until we arrived at the gate. My black boy
Sam was similarly affected, even in a greater degree, but I reckon more
by my son’s manner than by anything he had himself observed. [This
sentence in the testimony was stricken out.] As we got out of the
carriage at the gate of the field, and while Sam was hanging [_sic_] the
team to the fence, Mrs. Williamson, with her child in her arms and
followed by several servants, came running down the walk in great
excitement, crying: ‘He is gone, he is gone! O God! what an awful
thing!’ and many other such exclamations, which I do not distinctly
recollect. I got from them the impression that they related to something
more—than the mere disappearance of her husband, even if that had
occurred before her eyes. Her manner was wild, but not more so, I think,
than was natural under the circumstances. I have no reason to think she
had at that time lost her mind. I have never since seen nor heard of Mr.
Williamson.”
This testimony, as might have been expected, was corroborated in almost
every particular by the only other eye-witness (if that is a proper
term)—the lad James. Mrs. Williamson had lost her reason and the
servants were, of course, not competent to testify. The boy James Wren
had declared at first that he _saw_ the disappearance, but there is
nothing of this in his testimony given in court. None of the field hands
working in the field to which Williamson was going had seen him at all,
and the most rigorous search of the entire plantation and adjoining
country failed to supply a clew. The most monstrous and grotesque
fictions, originating with the blacks, were current in that part of the
State for many years, and probably are to this day; but what has been
here related is all that is certainly known of the matter. The courts
decided that Williamson was dead, and his estate was distributed
according to law.