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CASWELL COUNTY

In Search of Justice

Vex not his ghost: O! Let him pass; he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.

William Shakespeare

Ghosts are often associated with people who have met violent deaths either as a result of crimes or accidents. And so it is with the ghost that haunts the courthouse in Caswell County. Since State Senator John Walker Stephens was murdered in 1870 in a room below the main courtroom, his ghost has inhabited the halls of justice.

Located in the heart of Yanceyville, the Caswell County Courthouse was erected in 1861. It survives today as a magnificent piece of nineteenth-century architecture. Fire caused serious damage to the structure in 1953, but an extensive restoration project in 1968 resulted in its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places six years later.

A state historical marker on the street adjacent to the court-house calls attention to the murder of John Walker Stephens, which occurred in the building a decade after it was constructed. Though he was elected to the state legislature, Stephens has been described as a miscreant. He earned a dubious reputation as a scoundrel, criminal, and scalawag during the days of Reconstruction in North Carolina.

Before his arrival in Caswell County, Stephens drew the ire of many Conservatives—the opponents of Reconstruction—with his nefarious activities that exploited friends and family alike. In nearby Rockingham County, he was tagged with his infamous nickname, “Chicken,” following a series of lawless incidents. He killed two chickens belonging to a neighbor after the animals had wandered on to his property. His subsequent arrest led to an overnight stay in jail. Once Stephens was released, he reacted like a madman by assaulting his neighbor with a stick. When two bystanders came to the aid of the hapless victim, Chicken pulled a pistol and shot both of them.

After settling in Yanceyville, Stephens continued this pattern of reprehensible behavior. In fact, in preparation for his relocation to Caswell County, he sold his mother’s house without her knowledge and attempted to abandon her. His devious scheme was temporarily foiled when the unfortunate woman hunted him down in Caswell. However, soon after she moved in with her son, Chicken resorted to the ultimate solution. His mother’s lifeless body was discovered beside her bed one morning. Her throat had been slit. According to her son, the mortal wound resulted from a fall onto a cracked chamber pot.

Despite his behavior, Stephens remained popular with the local political power brokers. In fact, he was appointed director of the Freedmen’s Bureau by Judge Albion W. Tourgee. This new cloak of authority emboldened Chicken, who soon emerged as the alleged culprit and mastermind behind the destruction of barns, crops, and livestock on the farms of political opponents. Even though the cause of the raging inferno that leveled the Yanceyville Hotel and a number of downtown structures was never proven, most fingers pointed at Stephens.

His reign of crime unchecked, Chicken proceeded to fix the 1868 election so that Judge Tourgee could hold his place on the bench. But more importantly, he ensured his own election to the state senate.

In Raleigh, Chicken had a political ally in Governor William W. Holden. Because of threatened violence by the Ku Klux Klan in Caswell and surrounding counties, the governor, at the request of Stephens and other Republican leaders, prevailed upon the legislature to consider a bill that would give Holden the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. When news of the potential loss of the basic freedom from unlawful restraint made its way into the hinterlands, many law-abiding citizens were out-raged. Death threats were communicated to a number of Republican senators. One fled to the Midwest, but Chicken, although alarmed, was not about to leave his base of power in Caswell County. Rather, he turned his house into a fort and carried three firearms at all times. And just in case, he purchased a substantial insurance policy on his life.

As it turned out, no amount of protection would have saved Chicken from his fate. There were simply too many people out to do him in.

Some of his most ardent detractors formulated a secret plan to permanently rid the county of this menace. Their grand scheme was put into action on May 21, 1870, at the Caswell County Courthouse, which stood almost within sight of Chicken’s residence. On that day, Conservatives gathered in the courtroom on the second floor to select their candidates for the upcoming election in August. State Senator Stephens happened to be in the courthouse at the time. At the direction of Frank Wiley, a former county sheriff, he went to a small office on the first floor. It was in this room that Chicken had once operated the Freedmen’s Bureau.

Chicken was unsuspecting of Wiley because the senator had recently been in conversation with him concerning another run for sheriff. Nonetheless, when he walked into the room, which was then being used for wood storage, Stephens found three angry conspirators waiting to kill him. James Denny, one of the trio, suddenly had second thoughts, walked out of the room, and informed Wiley that the job was not yet finished. Incensed by the turn of events, Wiley grabbed John G. Lea, a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan, and screamed, “You must do something! I am exposed unless you do!” Lea was only too happy to oblige. He and approximately eight of his associates stormed into the room, where they promptly strangled and stabbed Stephens to death. After finishing their deadly business, the men left the room and locked the door behind them. The key was disposed of in County Line Creek.

A search party composed of the senator’s two brothers and some friends began looking for Chicken after he failed to show up for the evening meal. Once they had scoured the downtown area—including the accessible portions of the courthouse—the men called off the search until daybreak. When they peeped in the window of the locked room at the courthouse the next morning, they were appalled to see Stephens’s body in a fetal position on top of the stacked wood.

No one was ever convicted of the crime. It was not until the death of John Lea, the last surviving member of the band of killers, that the details of Chicken’s murder were made public. Lea’s sealed nine-page affidavit, opened after he was buried, provided the gory details of the revenge exacted on the senator.

In the wake of the murder, Governor Holden dispatched a three-hundred-man militia force to Caswell County to subdue subversive activities and arrest disloyal activists. The force was headed by a former Confederate deserter, the infamous George W. Kirk. By the time the soldiers arrived in Yanceyville, they realized that things were out of hand. The pendulum had swung in favor of the Conservatives. Most folks seemed to believe that Chicken Stephens had received a fair measure of justice.

As for Governor Holden, the citizens of North Carolina soon took care of him in a less violent fashion. After he was convicted of six counts of subverting the laws of the state, he was impeached on March 22, 1871, making him just the second governor so removed from office in United States history.

Should you visit the historic courthouse at Yanceyville, you can see the room where Chicken Stephens worked and died. But take care if the door closes behind you, for the ghost of the senator—which is said to visit the room on occasion—may very well be the responsible party. Why the ghost comes and goes from this room is unknown. Perhaps it is simply haunting the office where Stephens worked as agent for the Freedmen’s Bureau. Or maybe it is seeking justice by searching for the murderers. In either case, beware! Perhaps the ghost is anxious to continue the misdeeds that were the hallmark of the late senator.