Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on the life of Robert Lee Madison.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.
-“Hamlet,” Act V, scene iii

In the fall of 1885, young Robert Lee Madison had just finished teaching a three-month term of school in Tennessee and was having something of a “dark night of the soul.” He had intended to attend medical school in keeping with the family wishes (his father had been Robert E. Lee’s personal physician), and now he was distressed. He found he wanted to continue teaching — actually felt impelled to do so. It was at this point that a letter arrived from his older brother, Monro, who was living in Whittier, North Carolina. Monro urged him to come to Carolin. “The mountains are beautiful, the climate is ideal and opportunities are unlimited.”

On a cold December night, Robert arrived in Asheville and climbed aboard a train bound for the village of Charleston (now Bryson City). There, Monro floated him across the cold Tuckaseigee in a flat-bottomed boat and left him in a Mrs. King’s boarding house. Robert basked in the warmth of a fireplace, slept peacefully and awoke to eat a hearty breakfast in the fog-shrouded mountains. The adventure had begun.

While teaching at Qualla, Madison became obsessed with the idea of starting his own school — and he spent endless hours planning for the event. He found people eager to talk about such a school in Qualla, Whittier, Sylva and Cullowhee; unfortunately, no one had the required resources. He needed a building, textbooks, willing students, assistants ... and a salary. Each time he found a proper setting, something was missing. The building was there, but there was no money — or the students were available, but there was no building.

Shortly after his arrival, Madison decided to visit Charleston for the specific purpose of discussing a school with some local residents. On the morning of July 9, 1886, Madison arrived in the village with several friends to find the streets crowded with people. The village had a festive atmosphere, and Madison inquired as to the occasion. “Today is the hanging of Jack Lambert,” said a local resident.
Madison had heard the story — the murder of a popular man named Dick Wilson prior to his arrival and knew that Jackson Lambert, a Cherokee, had been convicted. Distressed, Madison told his friends that he didn’t wish to remain for such a tragic event. However, discovering that they had every intention of remaining, Madison decided to make the most of the event by recording the execution for posterity.

The scaffold had been erected across the river from Charleston, in a spacious field (approximately where the Bryson Baptist Church is now located). Madison, pencil and tablet in hand, took his place at the foot of the scaffold where he dutifully recorded the details of the last public execution in western North Carolina. Madison’s description of this event is especially significant in view of the fact that the condemned man was not guilty of the murder — a fact that would not be known for many years.

According to Madison, Lambert had been taken to Asheville since Charleston did not have an appropriate jail, and returned to Swain County the night prior to the execution. As a consequence, two law officials — Sheriff Rose of Buncombe and Sheriff Welch of Swain — were present. The family of the condemned man was present, standing quietly beneath the scaffold, and Madison noted a nervous posse of heavily armed men stationed nearby. When Madison inquired about the posse, he was told that persistent rumors indicated that friends of Jack Lambert intend to attempt to save his life.

Lambert was escorted to the gallows by Sheriff Welch, who positioned the condemned man over the trapdoor and pinioned his arms and legs with leather straps. A black cap was placed over his head.
When preparations were complete, Sheriff Rose of Buncombe County appeared on the ground before the scaffold and spoke to Lambert. He said, “Jackson Lambert, now that you stand here before God and Eternity, I ask you one final time, did you kill Dick Wilson?” Lambert immediately replied, “I did not.” At this point, Sheriff Welch shook Lambert’s hand (although it was pinioned to his side) and briskly descended the steps whereon he immediately pushed the lever that released the trap-door. Lambert fell and hung suspended between heaven and earth.

Madison noted that at the moment Lambert fell, a woman screamed and the crowd uttered a low moan. A young teacher from Ohio fainted and fell across Madison’s feet. Since the sides of the scaffold were not enclosed, the crowd had an unobstructed view of Lambert. The fall did not break his neck, and the condemned man slowly strangled. According to Madison, the only audible sound now was Lambert’s desperate struggle to breathe. Time seemed frozen as Lambert’s shoulders rose and fell in hitches. According to Madison, the death struggle lasted 14 minutes.

When a physician finally stepped forward and verified that death had occurred, Lambert’s family immediately rushed forward and removed the rope from his neck. The body was quickly conveyed to a two-horse wagon and the family left the site of the execution at considerable speed. Madison later learned that there was a reason for the hasty departure. Lambert’s family had employed a physician to await them on the road inside the Qualla Boundary where an attempt was made to resuscitate Lambert. The doctor applied a galvanic battery to Lambert’s heart in a futile attempt to revive him. This, then, was the rumored “attempt to save Lambert’s life.”

Immediately following the execution, Sheriff Welch mounted the scaffold and cut the execution rope into short pieces which he threw into the crowd. There was much unseemly scrambling for these items since a superstition which was common in the region (and elsewhere) held that such tokens were talismans and could be used to cure sickness and ward off evil.

Finally, Madison noted that many years later, a man on his deathbed in Dillsboro admitted that he had killed Dick Wilson and that he had stolen Jack Lambert’s pistol to do it. This explained a cryptic remark made by Lambert to his family during his trial, “I didn’t kill Dick Wilson, but my gun did.” The murderer had told Lambert that if he told the court about the true circumstances of Wilson’s death, Lambert’s family would suffer. Many years later, the Lambert family gave a letter of some 20 pages to the descendants of Dick Wilson. The letter set forth all of the concealed details attending the murder.

In 1938, Robert Lee Madison published a series of articles in the Asheville Citizen-Times entitled “Experiences of a Pedagogue in the Carolina Mountains.” There were 17 installments in the series, and each chapter contained information regarding Madison’s life, including the founding of Western Carolina University. Throughout all of the installments, Madison staunchly maintains that he seemed to be both a witness and a participant in the major events of the region’s history. To support this contention, he described a remarkable series of “accidental meetings” and chance occurrences which seem to indicate “forces conspired to place him at the center of fateful events.” The aforementioned episode, the hanging of Jackson Lambert, is described in the first of the 17 installments.

 

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