By G. Wright Lankford
Harmony, June 27—The change of a bridge location on the North Carolina highway Route No. 26, between Statesville and Elkin, has recalled a gruesome murder which took place near here more than a half century ago, a murder mystery that was never fully solved and which leads many tales and superstitions among North Iredell negroes and ignorant whites.
Some 50 or more years ago the body of a woman, Margaret Seamont, was found near this bridge with her throat cut half way through in front. Two negroes were tried and one of them convicted for the murder and then several years later some lone traveler reported seeing a “ghost” of a headless woman standing on the bridge. Since then various superstitious people familiar with the story have imagined seeing such a ghost and many queer tales have been told. Of course, intelligent people knew better when the first story was told and have known better than to believe any similar “yarns” since, but that does not alter the legend and the mystery. It has now become one of the old ghost stories of this section, believed by the ignorant class of people and laughed at by people who know that such things cannot happen.
There are only a few people living here now who were alive at that time of the murder, and there are only two or three who know the actual knowledge any of the circumstances surrounding the mysterious death of Margaret Seamont.
To the casual traveler along state highway route 26, there is nothing unusual about the little bridge over the Jim Smith branch, a small stream flowing south about halfway between the small town of Harmony and the smaller community of Houstonville, four miles away. The branch is called the Jim Smith branch because a man by that name lives on the northeast of the bridge today. But local travelers seldom pass that way that someone does not remark, “Over there is where that woman was found murdered 50 years ago.”
In those days people traveled through the thinly settled north Iredell in ox carts, wagons drawn by mules and horses, and there were a few buggies. A narrow trail called a road crossed the country over practically the same route now traversed by the state highway. What is now known as the Jim Smith branch was then an ordinary country stream with probably a different name. The road crossed it at practically the same place at which the present highway crosses it, but on either side was a dense thicket which stretched away for a long distance. Three or four hundred yards up the hill in the direction of Elkin and to the left of the road lived Margaret Seamont with her widowed mother. It is said that the woman was a rather striking figure and rustic beauty, but she was poor and her mother was poor.
One spring day early in the morning or late in the afternoon—no one seems to know just what time—a white man and a negro servant drove along the road with a double team of mules. The mules leaped and snorted fiercely and the negro driver had considerable difficulty in controlling them. After he had passed the place where they had become frightened, he returned and found the body of a woman lying near a pile of rock close to the road.
There are two men in Harmony who viewed the body at the time: C.A. Grose, prominent North Iredell county farmer and a member of the merchandise firm of C.A. Grose and Brother, of this place, was on his way home from Statesville soon after the dead woman was found and he saw her body. Mr. Grose is now 62 years of age and he says that he was only about 10 or 12 years old at that time. “Uncle Cass” Dalton, a negro who lives near here, also saw the body.
In those days it was a grave offense to move a dead body found under such circumstances until the coroner could make an investigation. The road was rough and travel hard. By the time the coroner reached the place, the body had remained in the spot for 10 or 12 hours perhaps, and the news of the murder had spread far and near. Great throngs viewed the scene of the murder.
These two men who saw the dead woman say that her throat was cut from ear to ear in one great gash and that it was cut deep. A second gash also had been made, shorter and not as deep as the first. Very little blood was found on the scene, leaving the impression that she had been killed at another place and her body brought to the spot where it was found.
The dead woman had been an expectant mother and this aroused certain suspicions which never materialized. An investigation into the movements of the woman the day before her death revealed that she had visited the home of a negro to borrow some corn meal for bread. A negro at his home, Baldy Gaither, who became one of the best loved old negroes in the country, was arrested under suspicion. George Graham, another negro, told Cass Talton the negro revered to above, on the night of the murder was supposed to have taken place that he had killed a woman. He was arrested and, according to “Uncle Cass” today told that he and Baldy Gaither had committed the murder. Feeling ran high in this county and the two negroes were taken to jail in Wilkesboro. The case dragged along for six or seven months, and friends of Baldy Gaither expected to see him convicted and hanged. They never expected anything else for George Graham. George told that Baldy had held the woman while he cut her throat. The woman’s condition at the time of her death, the gruesome appearance of her body, and the horror of the manner in which she had been murdered stirred the blood of the people. It was the sensation of the whole country for months.
John Tharpe, another well-to-do farmer of this section, is another man who was living here at the time and who remembers something of the case. He is 67 years old and admits that when he had to drive an ox wagon within a mile or so of the place where the woman lay dead awaiting the arrival of a coroner that he was badly frightened. Mr. Tharpe says that the human life was held dearer then than now and that such a murder was must more unusual than today.
The trial of the two negroes was held in Wilkesboro. Up to the time of the trial, according to Uncle Cass Dalton, George Graham stuck to his story that Baldy Gaither ahd held the woman while he cut her throat. As people remember it now, George changed his story and admitted that he had committed the murder alone. It is said by these old people that prominent white friends of Baldy had despaired of his life, but the confession of Graham saved him. According to them, the evidence seemed tangled, and it was believed that certain white men had planned the murder and hired George Graham to carry out the actual killing. This never came up in court, however, and until this day no one knows the true story of Margaret Seamont’s death unless George Graham finally told the truth.
Some of the old people say that George was sentenced to be hanged, others that he was sentenced to 99 years in the state penitentiary. Those who remember it, the former who say that the governor changed the sentence to life imprisonment. At any rate, he was not hanged but died in prison soon after being sent there. According to belief among the people of North Iredell at that time as expressed by the people who were living here then and who still live here, George Graham was not the only ne connected with the murder. The whole truth remains a mystery in the minds of those people who still know the history of the case, and this mystery makes the story and legends connected with it all the more interesting to people who pass over the Jim Smith branch and have the murder recalled to them.
Sensible people take no stock in the ghost stories told about the bridge, but there are negroes in this section who are still afraid to pass alone over the little stream on nights when the moon flits through the clouds and especially on nights when clouds cover the moon and there is a mist.
Going from Harmony to Elkin, the road makes a sharp bend to the right and another back to the left, just as it crosses the Jim Smith branch. Just beyond the bridge and to the left of the road the rocky spot where the body was found is now covered with dirt. But the place is recalled and the new hard surface road will cross the stream about 100 feet higher up the water course. Mrs. Tharpe and Mr. Grose can tell wonderfully interesting stories about the killing and the fright among people after it was over. Young people still with the natural morbid curiosity of human beings, enjoy listening to them when they meet at the stores and loitering places and some one starts talking about the strange murder which took place at the Jim Smith branch many years ago.
From page 5 of The North Wilkesboro Hustler, Wednesday, July 8, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92072938/1925-07-08/ed-1/seq-5/
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