The Ballad of Frankie Silver

A rumor was prevalent in Burke County that Silver wrote some verses which were tantamount to a confession of her guilt and read them while on the scaffold to the surrounding throng just before she was executed.

The mind of Squire Waits A. Cook, a highly respected justice of the peace in the Enola section, was a veritable storehouse of legends and events of Burke County’s earlier days. He told me that the verses Frankie had allegedly written were composed by a Methodist minister whose surname was Stacy.

– Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr.

Burke County Courthouses and Related Matters