American Pastimes starts with contemporary indie-acoustic bands; and then a couple of local groups Cat's Cradle and Dave Houser & Friends (both recorded at the Home Grown Music Festival); then there's some election-year politics. We do an extended dive into the musical history of the folk legend "Tom Dooley" (see below) followed by 20's and 30's high-energy square dance tunes, a set of high-energy bluegrass tunes, old-time country tunes recorded in 1960's Beserkeley CA, and hot string bands to wrap it all up.
An American Ballad and #1 Hit about Adultery, Syphilis, and Murderous Revenge.
The song that made folk music a viable industry was the Kingston Trio's 1958 recording "Tom Dooley," a murder ballad based on actual events. A version of the song was first recorded by G.B. Grayson & Henry Whitter in 1929. Grayson was a distant cousin of one of the protagonists of the story. Their lyrics are inspired in part by a poem by 19th century North Carolina poet Thomas Land. In 1938 banjoist Frank Proffitt made a recording of a song that he learned from a great-aunt whose parents knew all the individuals involved in the murder. The KIngston Trio's version was based upon Proffitt's recording, and Frank shared some royalties with the trio.
I met her on the mountain
There I took her life
Met her on the mountain
Stabbed her with my knife
On May 25,1866 Laura Foster left her home in Caldwell County North Carolina on her father’s horse and was never seen alive again. A few weeks later a drunken Pauline Foster (probably no relation to Laura) told others that she and Tom Dula (pronounced Dooley) had killed Laura. As this revelation spread throughout the county Dula disappeared. He went to Johnson County, Tennessee using the name of Hall and got a job working briefly on Col. James Grayson’s farm. While he was gone the Caldwell County Sheriff began questioning Pauline who denied involvement but implicated Dula and Ann Foster Melton. A warrant was issued and the Sheriff sent two deputies on the trail of Dula.
This time tomorrow
Reckon where I'll be
Hadn't-a been for Grayson
I'd-a been in Tennessee
They eventually made contact with Col. Grayson who helped them overtake the fugitive. The deputies returned with him to the Wilkesboro Jail and in early September as Dula sat in jail, Laura’s body was found buried near his home. She had been stabbed. With Pauline as the State’s key witness Dula and Melton were indicted. Tom had two trials and he was defended by Zebulon Vance the ex-Governor of North Carolina who provided his services pro bono, perhaps because Tom had been a Confederate soldier.
Dula was 22 years old in 1866 when he finally returned home to Reedy Branch from the civil war. Reedy Branch is in the hill country above the Yadkin River near the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His family was not land-owning gentry of the fertile valley. They were hill people, the folks who worked the land owned by the gentry; “hillbillies” to outsiders. They were poor, unschooled, hardscrabble laborers, scratching a living from their homestead gardens or as tenant farmers, and from whatever work they could do for their well-off neighbors in the valley. When Tom returned home, he returned to all of this and to the loving embrace of Ann Foster Melton.
Ann and Tom had begun their affair when they were 14 or 15 years old. Ann was married at the time to James Melton, an older man, apparently a cobbler and a pretty handy worker who was relatively well off for a hill person. Ann was still married to James when Tom returned from war. They picked up where they left off romantically and James looked the other way…literally. Court testimony detailed how all three shared the same bedroom. And just as Ann’s long-term relationship with husband James didn’t keep her away from Tom, Dula’s long-term relationship with his lover Ann didn’t stop him from becoming involved with Ann’s cousin, Pauline Foster.
Pauline had moved to Reedy Branch in 1866 to work for James and Ann in order to earn money to pay for medicine to treat her case of syphilis. She admitted on the witness stand that she had sexual relations “on occasion” with Tom. On the witness stand Ann’s brother also admitted to having sex with Pauline. Along with her promiscuity the court record also revealed her alcoholism.
So who was the murder victim Laura Foster? Possibly she’s related to Pauline and Ann in some way but the record isn’t clear on that. The court record established that she lived five miles away in German’s Hill and was 22 years old. The folklore presents her as sweet, young, and virtuous, but the documentary evidence suggests that she was of “easy virtue.” On the witness stand Laura’s father Wilson Foster described how he had caught Tom and his daughter in bed “on one or two occasions.” Others also testified to having “intimate relations” with her. The local doctor testified that he treated Tom for syphilis and that Tom told him that he got it from Laura.
Pauline and others testified that Tom said that he was going to kill Laura because of the infection. Pauline also testified that Ann Melton wanted to kill Laura, although it wasn’t clear whether it was because of the venereal disease or out of jealousy. By the end of the trial the evidence showed that all the individuals involved were promiscuously involved and infected (at one point a witness blurts out “yes, we all have the pox!”) but it was unclear about who infected who. In the end Laura was murdered, perhaps a scapegoat, perhaps out of jealousy, perhaps because of pregnancy. Laura is buried in German’s Hill. Her gravestone is still there.
This time tomorrow
Reckon where I'll be
Down in some lonesome valley
Hangin' from a white oak tree
The evidence against Dula was purely circumstantial and hearsay. The prosecution’s key witness against him was Pauline; clearly alcoholic, possibly infected by Tom, and not a very reliable or sympathetic witness. He was convicted anyway and was hanged in Statesville. The night before his execution on May 1, 1868, he wrote out a confession that exonerated Ann Foster Melton. At her trial the following fall Ann was found innocent.
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you're bound to die
Dula stood on a cart that was pulled out from under him, and died suspended from the makeshift, pine cross beam placed between two uprights – not from a white oak tree. Despite his written confession, on the gallows that day he purportedly stated “I did not harm a hair on the girl’s head.” His family claimed his body and took him to Elksville, North Carolina for burial.
While the Frank Proffitt/Kingston Trio song is short on details it clearly blames Dooley for the murder. Some however doubt that justice was served. Doc Watson had his doubts. He often performed a version of the song that was informed by the highly detailed Grayson & Whitter recording. Doc added to it Dooley's claim of innocence. Watson grew up in North Carolina near the area where the murder took place. His great-grandmother was an acquaintance of Ann Melton and was her caregiver at the time of Ann’s death in 1874. According to Doc, Ann had eventually married the local sheriff and as she lay dying in the presence of her husband and Doc’s great-grandmother, Melton confessed to being the sole murderer of Laura Foster.
Hang down your head, Tom Dula. In North Carolina your grave marker has the date of your death wrong. And your other monument, a hit song that everyone knows, probably has your story wrong.
On American Pastimes: G.B. Grayson & Henry Whitter's 1929 "Tom Dooley," Frank Proffitt's 1938 "Tom Dooley," Doc Watson's 1964 "Tom Dooley," Bobby Bare's 2012 "Tom Dooley" (Kingston Trio cover), Rob McHale's "Laura Foster" and "Tom Dula (Set Me Free)" from 2016 CD "Tom Dooley & Friends."
Source: Primarily from “The Ballad of Tom Dula” by John Foster West. Published by Parkway Publishers, Boone, North Carolina.2002.
