Pickens County Courthouse (Carrollton, Alabama)
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Pickens County Courthouse | |
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| Location | Carrollton, Alabama |
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| Coordinates | 33°15′42.37″N 88°5′42.31″W / 33.2617694°N 88.0950861°WCoordinates: 33°15′42.37″N 88°5′42.31″W / 33.2617694°N 88.0950861°W |
| Built | 1877 |
| Architectural style | Italianate |
| NRHP Reference # | 94000441 [1] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | May 19, 1994 |
| Designated ARLH | July 23, 1976 |
The Pickens County Courthouse in the county seat of Carrollton, Alabama is the courthouse for Pickens County, Alabama. It is famous for a ghostly image that can be seen in one of its garrett windows, claimed to be that of freedman Henry Wells.
According to a common version of myth, Wells was arrested for burglary and arson, and lynched by a mob after his arrest. He was alleged to have burned down the second courthouse in 1876 (built to replace one destroyed by Union forces during the Civil War). By 1878 this third courthouse was completed, although the windows were not installed until February through March. The courthouse was rebuilt.
This time period was one of volatile social tensions. In 1877, the federal government ended Reconstruction and withdrew its troops from the South. White Democrats had regained control of state legislatures and passed measures to impose white supremacy. Wells was arrested in January 1878 and charged with the courthouse burning two years before. He was held in the new courthouse garret. He was taken out and lynched by a white mob before receiving any trial.
Historic sources say that Wells died of wounds after being shot while fleeing arrest in January 1878. But other freedmen were lynched at or near the courthouse, including four black men and a woman shot and killed in their cells in September 1893.
Origins of the story
The story of the appearance of the face in the courthouse window seems to have been a conflation through myth of two historic events, that of the lynching of Nathaniel Pierce, and that of the arrest and shooting of Henry Wells, who later confessed to burning down the courthouse,, likely under coercion, and died of his wounds. White guilt over the lynching may have contributed to the account of Wells cursing the town and threatening they would be haunted by him.
This period was one of turmoil, as the federal government was withdrawing the last of its troops from the south, formally ending Reconstruction. White Democrats had already regained control of the state legislature and on the local level, white minorities used racial violence to impose and maintain white supremacy. As the 19th century progressed, the rate of lynchings rose, mostly directed at black men.
According to the West Alabamian, which was Carrollton's only newspaper at the time of the events, Nathaniel Pierce was being held on charges of murder when, on September 26, 1877, an armed mob forced their way into the jail where he was being held, took him outside the city, and lynched him. There was no indication that Pierce’s lynching had anything to do with the burning of the courthouse.
The whites in town already suspected Henry Wells and an accomplice, Bill Buckhalter, of the crime. A story in the West Alabamian on December 13, 1876 said that Henry Wells and Bill Buckhalter were suspected of robbing a store on the night the courtroom was burned. The story also reported that stolen merchandise from the store was found in their homes. But that supports their part in robbery, not arson.
Buckhalter was arrested in January 1878. He confessed to the burglary, and blamed Wells for the burning of the courthouse. Wells was caught a few days later. When confronted by the police, he tried to flee, and was shot twice. He confessed to burning the courthouse, likely under coercion, and died from his wounds five days later.
These two events appeared to have been combined into the commonly told myth of how the face appeared in the courthouse window, but neither Pierce nor Wells could have been the "face in the window." Both Pierce and Wells died before the windows were installed in the new courthouse. The West Alabamian reported that windows were being installed in the courthouse on February 20, 1878. These windows were the windows in the main courtroom, which were the first windows installed due to a court session due to take place in the middle of March. The garret windows, including the one with the ghostly face, were not installed until weeks after Wells’ death.
Face in the courthouse window
What follows is the commonly told myth of how the face was etched into the window.
On November 16, 1876, the people of Carrollton, Alabama watched as their courthouse burned to the ground. The Pickens County Courthouse had been a source of pride for them. Their first courthouse had been burned down by invading Union Army troops during the American Civil War. In the difficult days of the Reconstruction, when materials were scarce and money was even scarcer, rebuilding the courthouse seemed to be an impossible task. Yet, through hard work and deep personal sacrifices by residents, the courthouse was rebuilt. It stood as a symbol of defiance in the face of defeat by the Union.
Yet, less than twelve years after Union troops had set fire to the town's first courthouse, the new one burned in 1876. Some said it was a burglary gone wrong. Even as work began on a third courthouse, the townspeople demanded vengeance for the arson. Not swayed by the lack of circumstantial evidence, they identified Henry Wells as a suspect; he was a freedman who lived near the town.
Henry Wells was said to have a horrible temper, and he had been involved in several brawls. People said he constantly carried a straight razor, and was not afraid to use it. Despite these rumors, however, there was only vague circumstantial evidence against him in the burning of the courthouse.
But it was Alabama in 1878, and Henry Wells was a black man accused of burning down a symbol of town pride. He was charged and arrested on four counts: arson, burglary, carrying a concealed weapon and assault with intent to murder. He was taken to the sheriff's office, located inside the newly completed courthouse, to await trial.
As word spread through the town of Wells' arrest, the sheriff could sense trouble brewing. As the first few drunken men began heading toward the courthouse, the sheriff took Wells to the high garret of the new courthouse, and told him to keep quiet. But as the angry mob gathered below, Wells' fear got the best of him. He went to the window, and looked down on the crowd. He yelled defiantly, "I am innocent. If you kill me, I am going to haunt you for the rest of your lives!" Just then, a bolt of lightning struck nearby, flashing the image of Wells' face, contorted with fear, to the crowd below.
The lynch mob forced its way into the courthouse, and took their victim outside, even as he continued to proclaim his innocence. They killed him.
Early the next morning, as a member of the lynch mob passed by the courthouse, he happened to glance up at the garret window. He was shocked to see Wells’ face looking down at him, just as it had the night before, when it had been illuminated by the flash of lightning. He rubbed his eyes and cursed his hangover, but when he looked back up, there was Wells. He screamed, and as others arrived, they all remembered Wells' prediction. “If you kill me, I am going to haunt you for the rest of your lives!”
The face remains in the courthouse window to this very day. No amount of washing has been able to remove it. On at least one occasion, it is said that every window pane in the courthouse was broken by a severe hailstorm; every pane, that is, except that with Wells' face.
Another local version of this story is that while Wells was awaiting trial for being falsely accused of raping a white woman (a common accusation in lynchings), a lightning storm brewed, and an angry mob gathered below to lynch him, and he told them, "If you lynch me, you will forever see my face." At this time lightning struck the very window in which he was standing. From that day forward, no amount of washing, or replacing that window, has been able to remove his face.
The image on the window
The Alabama Historical Association erected a historic marker in 1974 telling the role of the courthouse and the myth of Henry Wells' face in the window.
The image on the window is easily seen, although it is more face-like from some angles than from others. It is said that the image is only visible from outside the courthouse; from inside the pane appears to be a normal pane of glass.
Since the photo was taken, the city of Carrollton has installed a reflective highway sign with an arrow pointing to the pane where the image appears. There are permanent binoculars installed across the street from the window for those who wish to get a closer look.
In 2001, the courthouse was threatened with demolition, and the face was covered with a piece of plywood spray-painted with a smiley face. Due to a public campaign to save the face in the window, the courthouse is being renovated as funds become available.
Racial aspects of the story
The legend is related to the racism and white racial terrorism in Alabama during and especially after the Reconstruction Era, including lynching. According to a 2015 study, Pickens County had 15 lynchings, all before 1917. Together with two other counties that each had 15 lynchings, it is the third-highest total of any county in the state.[2]
Among these lynchings were five that took place on September 14, 1893. A white mob stormed the county jail in Carrollton and shot to death Paul Archer, Will Archer, Emma Fair, Ed Guyton, and Paul Hill, freedmen who had been arrested on charges of burning down the mill and gin house of a white man. No trial had been held. Two weeks before that Joe Floyd was lynched in Carrollton.[3]
John Harding Curry, who worked as a probate judge in the courthouse, recalls being concerned during the civil rights demonstrations in Alabama of the late 1960s and early 1970s that someone might damage the courthouse window, as it could be seen to symbolize an era of terrible racism. However, although the town had some instances of race-related vandalism, the window was never touched.
As Alan N. Brown has recounted it, another man working as a probate judge agreed to tell folktales to a 5th-grade class from a black school in Birmingham. Although he had never delivered the Wells story to a black audience, he told the students the story about the face in the courthouse window, ending his tale with a moral; "You might ask what that face in the courthouse is saying," he told the students. "It says to me, 'Don't ever let this happen again!'" He asked the students if they had any questions. One little boy raised his hand and asked, "How do you know that's a black man up there?"[4]
Spreading the story
Some version of this story was formed in the years after installation of the courthouse windows. In the later 20th century, it was included in compilations of ghost stories and folk tales published by whites. In this period of more than 80 years after events, separate events had repeatedly been combined into one myth: Henry Wells' story was included in Kathryn Tucker Windham’s book of Alabama ghost stories, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey (1969); it also appears in Phantom Army of the Civil War and Other Southern Ghost Stories (1997), edited by Frank Spaeth and selected from FATE magazine; and Ghost Stories from the American South (1985), edited by W.K. McNeil.
Representation in other media
In 2009 a play about the myth related to Henry Wells, the burning of the second Courthouse, and the marking of a window in the new courthouse was commissioned from playwright Barry Bradford by First National Bank of Central Alabama. Beginning in April 2010 the play - The Face in the Courthouse Window - [5] has been produced each Spring in the courtroom of the Courthouse. All proceeds from the play go toward preservation of the Courthouse.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ National Park Service (2007-01-23). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
- ↑ "Supplement: Lynchings by County/ Alabama: Pickens", 2nd edition, from Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, 2015, Equal Justice Institute, Montgomery, Alabama
- ↑ Lynching in Carrollton, Alabama, 14 September 1893, Equal Justice Initiative; accessed 25 August 2016
- ↑ Alan N. Brown, Pickens County Courthouse", 2001, University of West Alabama; accessed 26 August 2016
- ↑
- Windham, Kathryn Tucker; Figh, Margaret Gillis. (1969). 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. The University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0-8173-0376-6.
External links
- "Skeptical Inquirer - The glaring garret ghost". Retrieved March 9, 2006.
- "Lightning Portrait of Henry Wells". Retrieved March 9, 2006.
- "Pickens County Courthouse". Alabama Ghostlore. Archived from the original on February 18, 2006. Retrieved March 10, 2006.
