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Civil War Still Haunts Marshall Street
by Bill States
The haunted window?
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Some say that from a window in an old house overlooking Marshall's Main Street, the apparition of a Madison County sheriff keeps his eyes on the town where he failed to keep order 144 years ago.
In May of 1861, before the guns of Fort Sumter had cooled, the Civil War came to the sleepy town of Marshall. As local historian Bruce Philips tells it, "In 1861 there was a referendum. It was held all over the state to pick delegates to go to Raleigh to decide whether or not this state would withdraw from the union and go with the Confederacy or whether it would stay with the Union and go with the North. And that was not a foregone conclusion how it would go.
The room where Sheriff Merrill died
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"There was a lot of disagreement in a lot of places in this state, but especially in the mountain counties where there were normally not too many slaves and where the decision was not clear. A lot of people didn't want to withdraw. A lot of them didn't want to go to war. Some of them, in fact my great grandfather, said, "I ain't got no dogs in that race." That's a quote. In fact he stayed out of the war until they drafted him, and then he took off and joined the Union Army.
"But anyway, on the day that the referendum was held, they had a big fuss about it in Marshall. The Sheriff was there, and there was a big crowd, and there was some drinking going on and people getting loud and boisterous, shooting their mouth off and hollering and cussing and all of this stuff. And the sheriff was part of the crowd that wanted to pull out of the Union and join the Confederacy. There was a lot of other people who didn't, and for some reason with a lot of hollering and yacking going on, the sheriff pulled a gun and shot into the crowd and killed a young man whose name was Tweed.
"Well, he, Sheriff Merrill, was in the minority. So he takes off up the street. And the boy's dad was in the crowd, too. And he went on up the street and into this house. The house is still there. They're working on it and renovating it again.
"Tweed came into the house behind the sheriff, and the sheriff went up the stairs and there's a bedroom at the top of the stairs and somebody else was up there. I don't remember who it was, but the sheriff went by him and got into the bedroom. And so there was enough noise going on. I don't think he knew exactly what was going on, but Tweed was coming running up the steps. And he just came right by that person, whoever it was.
And there was the sheriff, so he just…killed him.
"Of course, Tweed knew he was in trouble, so he took off for Kentucky and joined the Union army, but I think seven days later they found him behind a building with a rifle ball in his head. Unsolved.
"There's always a story. There's a window upstairs in that house. There's a chimney goes up both ends of that house, but beside of the chimney on the courthouse side there's a window which was right about where Tweed ended up when he shot. There've been people who claim (And I'm not telling you this for a fact, because I never saw it.) they could see a man standing in that window, looking down the street. Now the description of that man matches the description of Sheriff Ransom Merrill.
"The man who owned the house at the time was a fellow named Lawrence Allan. Lawrence was the clerk of superior court in Madison County at that time. You know a lot of people with political influence would organize a company of soldiers. Some of them would organize a regiment, and he organized what would become the 64th Confederate Regiment. But he owned that house, and he still owned it in 1863, so you get two stories that run together. This part is true though.
"Allan had some kids and his wife. They lived in that house. Now some people came from Laurel to buy salt, because they raised hogs in the mountains and that's the meat that they had. They came to Marshall to buy salt, but the merchants in Marshall wouldn't sell them any salt. I've been told that these guys were told, "We're not selling you salt. We're saving what salt we've got. There's a shortage of it anyway. And we're saving it for good loyal Confederate people. So the men from Laurel came back at night and took the salt anyway. In fact, they broke into every store in Marshall and most of the houses, including that house of Lawrence Allen's. They were also looking for shoes, which were in great shortage everywhere. And blankets. And maybe some other clothes.
"Two of Allen's children were sick in the bed. I'm not sure whether they had flu or it was pneumonia or whatever. They even took the blankets off of their beds, and the quilts. One of the results was: those two kids died. And so the 64th Regiment went after these people on Laurel, and that's what led to what's known as the Laurel Massacre. But when they make a movie of it they don't ever tell that. They don't tell that story right. I'm hoping Mars Hill College will."
More information about the Tweeds and Sheriff Merrill can be found in the Ramsey Center for Regional Studies at the College. In Madison County Heritage North Carolina, Volumes I and II you can read accounts contributed by members of both families, including the following:
"In April 1861 Sheriff Ransom P. Merrill, advocating secession, and Neely Tweed, a strong unionist, got into a political argument over secession and the Civil War. Merrill shot Neely's son Elisha, causing Neely to get revenge by killing Merrill. Neely had to flee to protect his family. He enlisted in the Union Army on April 12, 1862, in Co. D, 4th Regt., Tenn. Infantry. He died nine days later after predicting he would die at a certain time on that day. Neely is buried at Flat Lick, Kentucky. When Neely died, Lucinda (Neely's Wife) was expecting her twelfth child. She was a window for about 52 years and died at age 92 after breaking her back while she was staking a cow."
Another record talks about Sheriff Merrill. "Ransom P., was Sheriff of Madison County. He was killed on May 13, 1861 while on duty. He was a man worthy of his position and in general esteem of his fellow citizens."
Historian Bruce Phillips, PhD., MHC Class of '58, grew up in Madison County and became County School Superintendent. He has generously shared much local knowledge with The Hilltop Reporters. |
Still another account says that Merrill, whose "friends had sought to quench his thirst with a proffered jug" had time to shout from the window "Come up here all you Black Republicans and take a shot about with me!" before Tweed killed him.
"Now I can take you to show you Sheriff Ransom's grave," says Bruce Phillips. "My guess is, it's about a mile from (the Country Hub in Mars Hill) where we're sitting. There's not over a half a dozen graves. The property belongs to Greenwood Edney. Somebody's put up a new tombstone, because the one that he had was made of soapstone like a lot of them were back in those days. But anyway his name's on it and so forth."
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