1786: Tom, “faithful, industrious, healthy slave”
August 9th, 2013 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
On August 9, 1786, in the state of Franklin (in what is now eastern Tennessee), a black slave named Tom was hanged for murder.
Tom had poisoned John Fuller Lain, a white man. The circumstances of the murder and Tom’s motive for it have been lost to history; all we know is that Lain was not his owner. Tom’s owner, William Evans, actually hired counsel to defend him, but the court refused to hear it.
Tom was imprisoned in July of that year, tried and convicted on August 8 and put to death the next day.
Aptly for a man of Franklin, Evans was concerned about the Benjamins. He filed a lawsuit against the sheriff for wrongful destruction of his personal property, but this was dismissed. Doggedly, on May 2, 1799 — nearly thirteen years after Tom’s death — Evans petitioned the General Assembly asking to be reimbursed for the value of the dead man, whom he described as “faithful, industrious, healthy slave … in the prime of life.”
Edwards reckoned Tom was worth £100. A hundred people signed the petition, but the General Assembly — by now the Tennessee General Assembly, since “Franklin” had failed as an independent entity — refused to cough up the funds.
On this day..
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- 1870: William Dickson, the last in Kansas for a lifetime - 2018
- 1941: Sheyna Gram and the Jews of Preili - 2017
- A Day in the Death Penalty Around the Martyrology - 2016
- 2000: Brian Roberson, "Y'all kiss my black ass" - 2015
- 1849: Friedrich Neff, 1848 Revolutions radical - 2014
- 1934: Anna Antonio, enough for a million men - 2012
- 1961: José Isaías Constante Laureano, the last executed in Mexico - 2011
- 1856: Elizabeth Martha Brown, Tess of the D'Urbervilles inspiration - 2010
- Themed Set: Thomas Hardy - 2010
- 1943: Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, conscientious objector - 2009
- 1993: Mohamed Mustafa Tabet, serial rapist with a badge - 2008
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Capital Punishment,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,History,Murder,Other Voices,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Slaves,State of Franklin,Tennessee,USA
Tags: 1780s, 1786, august 9, john lain, william evans
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This is rather nitpicky on my part, I know, but your map shows West Virginia as being separate from Virginia, something that didn’t happen until roughly 75 years after Franklin was absorbed by Tennessee.
John Fuller Lain (Lane) was my ggggg grandfather. The story that was passed down in the family was that he was poisoned by one of his own female slaves, putting scorpion venom in his drinking water, because he was working her too hard. Finding out about Tom from this site only a few weeks ago has been quite a revelation. Was William Evan’s Tom a scapegoat?
However he died, Lain definitely was not poisoned in the manner you describe. Scorpion venom is harmless when swallowed; it’s only toxic if injected directly into the bloodstream. So even if you could somehow “milk” enough venom and put it in someone’s food or drink (something that sounds difficult to do, to say the least), your intended target wouldn’t die.
The issue for me isn’t the type of poison used, but why was his family telling the story in the way they did– his own female slave? In the inventory made of his estate after he died intestate includes mention of a male slave, Gabe, and a 27 year old woman named Fan, an infant Peter and a 3 year old Tom. Was little Tom big Tom’s son? Were Fan and Tom a couple, and was JFL threatening that relationship? Was Mrs. Lane involved (Elizabeth Cloud Lane)?
You are absolutely right Claude Lane, I totaaly afree with you.
And Evan Tom was not a scapegoat I think so….