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DAVIE COUNTY

Justice from beyond the Grave

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Oscar Wilde

Over the last fifty years, as the television set has become an almost universal fixture in the American home, the popularity of the courtroom drama has never waned. From Perry Mason and The Defenders in the fifties and sixties to the myriad attorney programs on the current television schedule, these dramas have glamorized the lives of trial attorneys but have done little to present a realistic view of daily activities in the courtroom. Unlike the grueling tedium of real-life trials, the shows of this genre are invariably resolved by the appearance of a surprise or star witness out of the blue. Yet not even the incomparable Perry Mason—the most legendary of all attorneys on the screen—was able to win a case through evidence provided by a ghost. Nevertheless, that is just what happened in a celebrated legal proceeding in Davie County in 1925.

This true North Carolina trial drama has as its central character and its ghost Mr. James L. Chaffin. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, Chaffin lived with his wife and four sons—John, James Pinkney, Marshall, and Abner—on a farm several miles from Mocksville, the seat of Davie County. In the summer of 1921, Chaffin suffered a serious fall that proved to be fatal. In the wake of his tragic death, his will—duly executed and attested by two witnesses on November 16, 1905—was probated at the courthouse in Mocksville. For reasons not specified in the document, Chaffin left all his property to his third son, Marshall, and made no provisions whatsoever for his wife or other three sons. Although the disinherited family members were chagrined and hurt, they could find no legal grounds to file a caveat to the will or to challenge its authenticity.

The Chaffin family seemed to be making significant progress in healing its wounds until the day in 1922 when Marshall died. Under the terms of his estate, all of the property he had inherited from his father—including the Chaffin farm—went to his wife and minor son. Though this disposition inflamed the family sensitivities, there seemed to be nothing that Mrs. Chaffin and her three disinherited sons could do. But things were to change four years later with the appearance of the ghost of James L. Chaffin.

The ghost of the family patriarch began manifesting itself to the second son, James Pinkney Chaffin, in early 1925. As a result of the spirit’s nocturnal visits over the course of several months, young Chaffin made his way to Mocksville in June during the busy farm season to file a lawsuit, in which he challenged the validity of his father’s will of 1905. By the time Chaffin v. Chaffin came to trial in mid-December 1925, the case had attracted the attention of legal scholars as well as laymen because of the strange allegations made by the widow and three sons.

When James Pinkney Chaffin took the witness stand, the courtroom was packed. He began his testimony by offering a rather bizarre tale: “In all my life, I never heard my father mention having made a later will than the one dated in 1905. But some months ago, I began to have vivid dreams, in which my father appeared at my bedside. At first, he did not say anything. He just stood there and looked at me with a sorrowful expression. He seemed to have something on his mind—as if he felt that, in his lifetime, he had done something wrong and wished that he could set it right.” The witness then expressed to the court his longstanding belief that his father had not done right when he left everything to Marshall. However, Pinkney had not initially equated that problem with the appearance of his father’s ghost. “It did not occur to me that this could be what was worrying him,” he testified. “I did not attach any importance to it.”

Then came the night when the ghost was costumed in the same black overcoat that the elder Chaffin had worn in his lifetime. Pinkney explained to the court that the apparition of his father had moved close to the bed, pulled back the overcoat, pointed to the inside pocket, and said, “You will find something about my last will in my overcoat pocket.” With those words, the ghost had vanished. Pinkney woke up the next morning convinced that he had not dreamed the encounter. He noted in his testimony, “I was sure that my father’s spirit had come back from the grave and spoken to me.” Acting upon the instructions supplied by the ghost, Pinkney had asked his mother about his father’s old overcoat. When she informed him that the garment had been given to his older brother, he made a hasty twenty-mile trip to the farm residence of John Chaffin in nearby Yadkin County.

After Pinkney told his brother the story of their father’s most recent visit, the two took the overcoat from the closet with the expectation of finding a will. Pinkney’s testimony revealed what they discovered instead: “When I examined the inside pocket, I found the lining had been stitched to the coat. I cut the stitches, and inside the lining was a little roll of paper tied with a string. Written on that piece of paper, in my father’s handwriting, were these words: ‘Read the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis in my daddy’s old Bible.’”

Pinkney promptly started out on the journey back to his mother’s, where his grandfather’s Bible was located. In the course of that trip, he realized that it might be prudent to have an impartial witness on hand when he examined the Bible. To that end, he persuaded a neighbor, James Blackwelder, to accompany him.

Mrs. Chaffin could not readily put her hands on the Bible. After an exhaustive search, it was finally located in a chest in the attic. With his mother, his wife, his teenage daughter, and Blackwelder looking on, Pinkney picked up the Bible. He described to the court what happened next: “The Bible was in bad shape, and while I was handling it, it fell into three pieces. Mr. Blackwelder picked up the part containing the book of Genesis and turned the leaves with the twenty-seventh chapter. At that place, two leaves had been folded together, forming a pocket.” And there it was—James L. Chaffin’s last will and testament. Introduced into evidence at the trial, it read,

After reading the 27th chapter of Genesis, I, James L. Chaffin, do make my last will and testament and here it is. I want, after giving my body a decent burial, my little property to be equally divided among my four children, if they are living at my death, both personal and real estate divided equal; if not living, share to their children. And if she is living, you must take care of your mammy. Now this is my last will and testament. Witness my hand and seal.

James L. Chaffin

This January 16, 1919

Even though the handwritten will was not witnessed, it was valid under state law because several witnesses offered testimony that it bore the handwriting of James L. Chaffin.

After the will was presented, the twenty-seventh chapter of Genesis—which chronicles how Esau was tricked out of his birth-right by Jacob—was read to the court.

By that point in the trial, Marshall’s widow had heard and seen enough. Before the matter could be submitted to the jury, the parties reached a settlement.

At the conclusion of the legal proceedings, skeptics descended upon Mocksville after reading accounts of Mr. Chaffin’s ghost. Pinkney was quick to respond to the doubters: “Many of my friends do not believe that it is possible for the living to hold communication with the dead, but I am convinced that my father actually appeared to me on several occasions—and I’ll believe it to the day of my death.”