[Note: This originally appeared as a column several years ago in The Nashville Graphic]
Maybe you remember that song that helped start the folk music scene of the late 1950s and 1960s.
Maybe you remember the Darlings “scratching one off” for Andy Griffith.
Or, maybe you just are into folklore.
At any rate, in May 1868, Tom Dula from Wilkes County was hanged for murder.
This solidified The Legend of Tom Dooley as a North Carolina folklore legend, complete with murder, conspiracy, complicated love triangles, affairs and 19th century celebrities. Dooley has been made out to be a dupe, an innocent man, a womanizer, a murderer, and the victim of a scorned woman. In truth, he might have been all of these.
In 1958, the Kingston Trio recorded a version of a song about Dooley that at the least had roots going back 40 years or so. But their version generated such huge interest that the single sold over 6 million copies, and garnered international attention to folk and roots music. The Darlings (aka The Dilliards) played another version in one of their appearances on the Andy Griffith Show, and there have been other recordings that changed the story and the characters over the years.
But Tom Dula was a real person, and there was a real story that reads more like a modern TV series or popular movie.
On May 25, 1866, Laura Foster left her home on horseback, telling a friend she was off to meet her fiancée, Dula. Dula was seen heading in the same direction later that day, but Foster was never seen alive again.
Dula was an immediate suspect, and several searches were conducted for Foster. Dula fled the county for Tennessee, and found work on a farm. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and Wilkes County deputies crossed state lines to capture after getting assistance from Dula’s boss.
In August, a woman named Ann Melton told her friend Pauline Foster that she near were Laura Foster was buried. In September, a body was recovered in a shallow grave and Melton and Dula were indicted for murder.
As the trial began, things got R-rated, especially for the 1860s. Dula was a womanizer and had been having an affair with Melton since he was 15. He also had been having an affair with Pauline Foster, Laura Foster and at least one other woman at the time of the murder. As it turns out, Dula had syphilis and had passed it to Ann Melton, Melton’s husband, and Pauline Foster. He claimed to have gotten it from Laura Foster, and had been overhead threatening her in public.
Dula hired Zebulon Vance as his lawyer. Vance was quite the celebrity, having served at North Carolina governor already, and in the future would be a U.S. Senator. At the time, he was regarded as one of the best lawyers in the state. He managed to get Dula’s trial moved, and the got Dula and Melton’s case severed. Dula was convicted, but Vance appealed all the way to the N.C. Supreme Court and got a new trial. A new trial started in January 1868, but the evidence just couldn’t be shaken and Dula was convicted. Just before heading to the gallows, he wrote a note claiming that Melton had nothing to do with the murder, and that note was able to help her get an acquittal.
Over the years, storytellers and songwriters have offered theories and changed facts, taking turns making Melton and Dula out to be victims or either cold-blooded killers. Laura Foster tends to come out as an innocent young woman in all of them. The farmer who employed Dula in Tennessee gets changed to a sheriff in one version and in another, the sheriff is corrupt. While the true story offers a lot to cover in a short, made-for-radio song, none of the versions get it right.
This is yet another reason why people love books and movies about true stories. Most often, nonfiction is the most interesting reading because the twists and turns of the stories go beyond what can be made up as fiction. Those in the entertainment business have a low standard for what they think we can understand and process and often dumb things down. This is why getting an education from TV and movies “based on a true story” can be very dangerous.
[Sources: N.C. Folklife Institute, UNC Libraries, The Andy Griffith Show, The Ballad of Tom Dooley.]
An endlessly fascinating story. Well done!
I appreciate the kind words!