The Hanging Tree

As a young boy, I spent a lot of time with Grandpa. We made trips to Springfield two or three times a week to go shopping. We went to little country cafes and diners for breakfast and lunch. We stopped in at Great Uncle Walter's or Jim's to "shoot the shit" or play a hand of cards, depending on if any of the other boys were there or not. But my favorite times with Grandpa were the times when we'd poke around the countryside in his pickup, Grandpa lazily puffing away on a Vantage cigarette, telling me stories of the past.

Oh there were the stories of the Capone gang and their hideout down in the river bottoms. Grandpa said his dad had been invited there once to play a game of cards with Al Capone himself but begged off because he wasn't sure he could trust those big city devils. And there were the stories of the long days Grandpa and his brothers spent in the fields as boys. There were stories of tragedy and stories of comedy. Stories of bold heroism and bitter cowardice. Stories of love and betrayal. I loved these stories, and I'd sit in the passenger seat of Grandpa's old blue Ford in rapt attention, the summer sun bringing out droplets of sweat on my forehead, as we cruised around talking.

One of my favorite stories, though, was the story of the hanging tree. One day, we were driving around, and Grandpa pulled up behind Stroh's gas station, pointing at the tall, sprawling oak tree that rose up behind it next to the railroad tracks. "I'm gonna tell you a story you ain't never gonna read about in any history books," he said.

"A long time ago before Oakford was a town," he began, "an angry mob hung a man from that tree." The words trickled out of his mouth and pooled in the cab of the truck between us.

"But why?" I asked.

"Well, because he killed his brother," Grandpa said, solemn as a headstone.

"What happened?"

"There used to be a bar and an inn and a mill out at Bobtown. These two brothers, I don't recall their names now, they was in the bar out there. These two brothers got to argyin' about something or another and they were pretty drunk. They got to pushing each other and a fight broke out. One of the brothers, he knew where the bartender kept the shotgun behind the bar. That one brother, well, he grabbed that shotgun and just shot his brother deader than dogshit.

"Times were pretty rough back then. It wasn't nothing for a fight to break out. Hell it was a pastime watching men get drunk and have a fight out in the dirt. But nobody took kindly to a killing, especially a killing of one of your own.

"That brother knew he was in deep so he dropped that shotgun, and he took off on the run. A group of Bobtown men got together and set out in a manhunt. They tracked him and found him in a barn not far from this here spot where we are right now. They dragged him out of that barn and talked about what to do with him. After a long talk, they decided to drag him back to jail and see that he got the justice he deserved.

"Well, they loaded him in a wagon and started back. As they was passing by this old oak tree, one of the men, he says, 'Why don't we string the sumbitch up and have justice served right here?'

"Well, those other men, they had their anger up, and they thought that sounded like a damn fine idea. So, they strung him up and hung him to death on the spot. Then they all went home and called it a day."

"Whoa," I said. I couldn't believe it. This was a tree I rode my bike past every day. It was the tree that greeted strangers coming into town from the south.

"And that wasn't the worst of it," Grandpa continued, lighting a cigarette and drawing at it slowly out of habit, "they didn't take him down. They just left him there for the buzzards to pick away at him. The tree was close enough to the old wagon path that they thought it would serve as a nice warning that murderin' wasn't 'llowed in these parts."

"How long did he hang there?"

"I don't know, exactly. Story I heard was that he hung there for quite awhile before a preacher'd had enough and come out one day and cut him down. The old preacher apparently buried him back there in the woods somewhere. In an unmarked grave."

I looked up and down that tree. I didn't have words, as I imagined a man hanging from the tree. I knew exactly which limb it was, too. I could just feel it. I imagined that man, his hair blowing in the breeze, and his body swaying ever so slightly from side to side, and I could begin to smell the stench of him as the sun hurried up the decomposition, and I could see the birds circling overheard waiting to swoop down for a bite or two.

Grandpa looked at me. "Some stories don't make it in history books," he said grimly. "From what I hear, nobody officially acknowledges this happened at all. Back then nobody wanted to fess up to a murder in their town. So, I reckon officially there was no two brothers and there was no murder. Which means there was no hangin' either."

"Except there was, huh, Grandpa?" I asked, my eyes as big as grapefruits.

"There sure was, Johnny." He slipped the truck into low gear and we pulled slowly around toward the grain elevators and away through town. I turned as we drove away and watched the tree. Where it had once seemed so strong and proud to me, it suddenly seemed tired and angry and ashamed.

Note: I started writing this sketch a couple of years ago. It's been in a rough place for awhile, and I'd still like to draw a few elements out of it. As I've been doing research to see if I can find any information about the two brothers and the hanging tree, I came across a book called History of the Carrollton, Illinois Area 1821 - 1989 which includes a story that sounds similar called "The Lynching of Charles MacCauliffe." I think more than likely Grandpa's story is a viral, word-of-mouth version of this much more well-documented version of the story from Carrollton.

What's fascinating to me about this story and the story from the Carrollton area is how old folk stories travel and become enmeshed in the cultural identity of a place where the events never actually took place. How the cultural geography is shaped to accommodate the story. Furthermore, I'm fascinated at how much this story affected me as a boy. I thought of that story every time I saw that tree behind Stroh's gas station. I even went trouncing through the woods back there in search of that unmarked grave. When we went there last week to take pictures, this story and all its images came rushing back to me. Evidence of the power of story.