Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. Really turns you well. We're live.
Every time. Every time. You know what would be nice? What?
Fair warning. Oh, like hey Holly, by the way, stop singing your stupid-ass songs and get with it. Oh well, hey Holly, it's time. Wow, that was really sweet.
You did well. I'll put it in. Stop singing your stupid-ass songs and get with it. Get with it.
It's time. It's time. Welcome back. Oh, oh, sorry.
Let's not die. It has been a while. The last time we were here, we talked about shit. Really?
We did. We talked about the manure crisis. That's right. I mean, this is quality podcasting.
Yeah. I don't know why we haven't won awards. I don't know either. I mean, clearly we deserve them.
Oh my gosh. And so last week we didn't have an episode. No. We, the week before we pulled from the Patreon vault and then last week, we just didn't have an episode that I, you know, we did ask our audience, you know, tell us some of your favorite of our shenanigans.
Your favorite memories? Yes. You know, songs, stories, you know, taxes. By the way, I did mine and I got a refund.
I did too. Good for you. It was not a good refund, but I got my back, so I'll take it. Absolutely.
Yeah. Absolutely. So what a lot of people reported back was somebody said, they loved heart in a box. Tried and true.
Heart in a box and, you know, if you know, you know, you know, you know, well, Holly, what a great segue speaking of music into this episode. Hang on. My mom's texting me. What does she want?
This is a schmuckie. She's asking if Granny has the dog. Yes. I think so.
Mom, we're recording. Mom, we're recording. She doesn't listen. She used to.
She did. I think she's just really far behind. My mom recently told me that she really enjoyed the solder children. Wow.
That actually was the heart in the box. I was like, that was like two years ago. That's why she said it was and I'm in 2023. So, wow.
Indeed. Yeah. So, wow. They're not like the rest of you.
No. You're special. You're special. What were you saying?
What was your musical? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're going to talk about the ballad.
Tom Doolie. You heard that ballad? Tom Doolie. Would you come home?
That one? No. No. That's Bill Bailey.
So I don't know. This one, yeah, it's pretty good. Is it as good as my hits? Yeah.
Yeah. I don't see who sings it because we have this playlist that when we're doing house things, it's a for some reason. Yeah. It's for some reason on the last lab by Kingston Trio.
There's just my favorite version. Okay. So, if you're if you want, look up Tom Doolie by the Kingston Trio and that's the ballad that we're talking about. I'm going to listen to it.
I mean, they're version. They didn't originally write it, but their version of it is my favorite. Okay. So you heard it long before?
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I knew that there was a story connected to it, but I didn't know the story.
And is it within like Apple? I guess it's within Apple. Yeah. It's just a county.
Oh, okay. So the other side of Winston Salem. Okay. Yep.
So we're going to talk about it. And if you look at it, so his name is spelled Tom D-U-L-A. So Doolie, but it's pronounced Doolie. That's weird.
It is really weird because I was saying Tom Doolie. The more that I read through this, I was like, Oh, wait, that's actually, it was actually pronounced Doolie. So when people wrote the ballad, it's written out D-O-L-E-Y. Okay.
So it's the same person, but the referencing just spelled two different ways. Okay. And labor and you need a Doolie. Yeah.
Tom will be there. You probably don't want them. No, I don't know. Probably not.
Okay. So Tom Doolie was born to a very poor Appalachian Hill Country family in Wilkes, North Carolina. He was the youngest of three brothers and one sister named Eliza. So he attended school and quote, probably played with the female fosters.
So apparently their cousins and Laura and Pauline like lived with them. So they're calling them like foster children. But their cousins? Okay.
It's weird. But they weren't in state custody. That's horrible. Well, and their last name was also Foster.
Oh, okay. The foster kids. The foster kids. But they're also last name is Foster.
So yeah. I don't know if I like this person. You shouldn't. And the whole thing is not great because as they grew up, Tom and Anne, who was, you know, one of the cousins, became intimate.
Aw, sh-d-be. Yeah. Anne's mother found Anne and Tom and bed together when Anne was 14 and Tom was 12. Oh, gosh.
Yeah. So not great. Okay. Moving on.
So three months before he turned 18, which was on March 15, 1862, Tom enlisted in the Confederate Army. He was a private and company K, which was a 42nd North Carolina Infantry Regiment. He was captured during this time, but he was actually released in April of 1865. He wrote a 15 page account of his life as well as a note that exonerated Anne from this whole like, ancestral relationship.
Yeah, ancestral relationship. Well, so what was the excuse for being in bed with your cousin? You know, I don't know. We were rasslin.
Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't want to know. Her private parts. And how weird. So people thought it was kind of weird though that how well he wrote because he was raised in such poverty and like literacy was not really a thing for poor people back in the day.
Maybe he learned it in the military. He even got it. Maybe then Yankee saw him had a rat. Perhaps he did play the fiddle.
Okay. And it was considered by those who knew him well to be a ladies man. Well, absolutely. He didn't meet a family member he couldn't entertain.
Yeah. So there were some rumors. So why this is a rumor that he played the banjo? Okay.
Wait, so it shouldn't be a rumor that he was born in Cadym with his cousin, right? But guess what? I heard you played the banjo. You played the banjo.
So rumors were that he played the banjo in the army for Zebulan Vance's benefit and entertained the colonel with his antics and such. But apparently that was false because you know, Vance Zebulan was a or Zebulan Vance was a pretty big colonel during that time. That was so when the story of him playing the banjo got around. He was sweating like a whore in church on a Sunday.
Yeah. So yeah, I don't know why that's important, but it felt like something we should mention. That is. Yeah.
So during his time in the war, he was wounded several times in battle. Both of his brothers also died in the war. And that left Thomas, his mother's only remaining male child. I bet she just cried and cried and cried.
Not, you know, the loss of course, but then you're left with this kid. Yeah, right. Sorry about that. Not great.
No. So he did use his musical talents in the army. Maybe on one of the like surviving muster rolls, he's listed as a musician and a drummer. I guess that wasn't a secret.
I guess not. So he could drum, but not the banjo. So back to Anne. And she pregnant by him yet.
No, she married an older man named James Melton. He was a farmer. Okay. He was a cobbler and a neighbor of both fosters and then do at least.
But in no relation. No relation. No relation. He was not really good.
Spread it out a little bit. Yeah. He served in the war as well. He was in the battle of Gettysburg, actually, which is interesting.
Both Melton and Dually were captured and sent to an ordered prison camp. And they were released after the war and returned home. Shortly after his return, Dually and Anne hit it off again. No.
Back together. No. No. You know what?
Yeah. It was that secret banjo playing that just really solidified it. Yeah. Well, here's the thing.
So he resented. There's a thing. That's your freaking cousin. Well, he gets worse.
Oh my God. He gets worse. So he was, I don't know if he was like just having a friendly relationship with Anne because then he began intimate relationship with Laura Foster, who was Anne's cousin. So then is it cheating on his cousin with his cousin?
I guess so. Are we going to go on more? Eventually? Maybe.
I don't know. It's really weird. I saw him diddling. You know, I was banjo and I just couldn't control my sentence.
Yeah. Okay. Go on back to it. I'm not convinced that Talbot and were cousins.
They might not have been cousins. I think they were just neighbors. Sorry. We got read it wrong.
Okay. All right. So. Okay.
Okay. So he was having relations at 12 his 14 year old neighbor and yeah, he got hot and heavy with her again until until he got a cool cousin. No, Anne's cousin. So I don't think he's with any cousins.
Sorry. They're gonna be so confusing. Oh, my lord. Okay.
Okay. I'm not begging any of these. That we know of his song. Sure.
He's not begging any cousins. He is begging Anne and her cousin Laura, but not in a group situation. Correct. Okay.
I don't think there's any incest here. Who knows? We called them the fosters. They were our cousins, but they were kind of like foster kids because they were in our house and Haha.
Their last name was Foster. So then you know, she was 14. I was like, look at those boobs. Let's do the thing.
And then mom walked in and I was really embarrassed. I don't tell anybody about my banjo playing, but you can tell them how I defloured my cousin. Please do. No.
So yeah, no, I don't think they're cousins. I think they're just neighbors. But back in that time, you never know they might have been cousins. Listen.
And I mean, I think this is pretty obvious by listening to me. I have family who was family. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I think we all did.
I mean, if you didn't marry your first cousin in Procreate, you weren't doing it right. Apparently. I mean, yeah. So a lot of my family married my family.
Wow. Yeah. And then you have me and all your answers or all your questions are answered. Yeah.
Wow. Not my questions are answered. No, I mean, sorry, that was confusing. I just, got two lines kind of confused because my thoughts are real small.
We're going to go to the eye doctor together. We're going to both get so progressive lenses. Yeah. So he's not banging his cousin, but he is banging cousins.
Excellent. So well, I, yeah, independently, like one night. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So, Wow. That was a whole ride.
Yeah. Sorry. Now we've now we're all caught up. That's what she said.
So folklore has it that Laura, who was aunt's cousin, who was not Doolies cousin. Yeah. Not his cousin. Nobody's related.
That we don't love. Correct. She gets pregnant. Okay.
And she and Julie decide that they have to elope. As you would. As you would. So on the morning she was to meet Julie, which was May 25th of 1866, Laura quietly left her home and rode off on her father's horse.
She was never seen alive again. I don't know if you should be horse riding well pregnant. I mean, be dangerous, but also I think she met up with a banjo player. She's kind of sounds like so it's really not known, like the true story of what happened that day.
But there's many, many stories and they implicate Ann Melton. Oh, jealousy, perhaps some tales claim that Ann murdered Laura because she was jealous that Julie was marrying her. The story say that Doolies suspected Ann had killed her, but he still loved Ann enough to take the blame himself. So it was Ann's word that actually led to the discovery of Laura's body leading to further suspicion of her guilt.
How was she killed? That's a great question. We're going to talk about it maybe. Um, no, in this case, she would have been killed by her cousin.
Yes. So actually, and other people. Oh my god. That's more because Paul made testified that and actually taken her to the grave one night to make sure it was still hidden.
But the body was still hidden. Yeah. So the other cousin knew about this. I think so.
That's a lot of cousins. And not a lot of secrets, y'all. I mean, we're worried about the damn banjo and yet we're like, oh yeah, I got her body buried over here. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Cool. Yeah. So witnesses, there was a trial.
Oh, great. Let's talk about the trial. Yeah. Please.
Witnesses at the trial testified that Doolie made an incriminating statement that he was going to quote, do in the one who gave him the puck. Let's play a game here. What do you think the puck is? Some kind of, well, I mean, it's all like chickenpox, but honestly, some sexual sexually transmitted disease.
You're on the right. So syphilis. Syphilis. Oh, he's going to lose his mind and go crazy.
Great. Yeah. So, um, he had the syph and was going to do in the ones that gave it to him. So he thought that Laura was the one he gave him the syph.
Yes. So the testimony suggested that Doolie believe that Laura had given him the syphilis, which he had been passed on to him. However, the local doctor testified that he had treated both Doolie and and for syphilis using blue mass. I don't really know what that is.
I'm going to Google it. Go ahead and Google blue mask. Okay. Um, and he had also treated Pauline for syphilis.
Oh, my gosh. And she was the first to have been treated. So many people believe that Doolie caught it actually from Pauline who then passed it on to Ann and Laura. So he is saying it all these guys.
Not his, but so blue mass refers to a historical medical treatment for syphilis, primarily consisting of mercury, which was commonly used in the 17th to 19th century. It was essentially a mercury filled pill or solid mass that was administered to patients suffering from syphilis. Awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. So, some people believe, yeah, that he was he had been banging Pauline got the syph. Yep. And then she'd been banging a lot of other people.
Yeah. Then hooked up with Ann. Great. They've heard the syph.
Great. She's a James it too. Right. Then he hooked up Laura who also had the syph.
He gave for the syph and a baby and the baby. And then now she's dead. So they locate the grave. Her decombos body was found with her legs drawn up to fit in the shallow grave.
She'd been stabbed once in the chest. People say, you know, that it was a gruesome like leveraged triangle murder and just the public ate it up. They were all over it. So Dully's role in the murder is actually still debated.
After the murder, he stopped at the home of his relative Thomas Dully, who they're all the same. Is this his cousin? Did he name him? Did he have the syph?
Does anybody else want to woo Mercury pill? I think everybody had the syph. So he had fled the area before Laura's body was found after locals accused him of murdering Laura. So he called himself then Tom Hall.
Like so he fled to this relative was like, Hey, call me Tom Hall. Not Tom. And even though you're Tom Dully. Yeah.
You're also Thomas Dully. Like none of this makes any sense. Yeah. So he calls himself Tom Hall.
And then he works for like a week for this Colonel across state lines in trade Tennessee, which also doesn't make any sense. So he's like on the run, it seems like. But at least he found steady employment. Yeah.
And his secret of the banjo is still kept safe. Yeah. So Grayson is mentioned in the song about Dully. And from that came the myth that he had been Dully's rival for the love of Laura Foster.
But Grayson actually had no prior connection to any of them. So now who's Grayson? He's the guy that he's working for. Okay, okay, okay.
Colonel James Grayson, who he's for some reason working for now, finding steady employment. Oh, yeah. So once Dully's identity was known, Grayson actually helped the Wilkes County group bring him in. Good.
But yeah, he wasn't like a part of the affair at all. Well, you've got to make the song more entertaining. Yeah. So following his arrest, former North Carolina governor, Zebulan Vance represented him pro bono.
And to the end of his life maintained that Dully was innocent. He succeeded in having the trial move from Wilkes Road to Statesville since it was believed that Dully could not get a fair trial in Wilkes County. Nevertheless, he was convicted. And although he was given a new trial on appeal, he was committed again.
His supposed accomplice, Jack Keaton, who I don't know where he came into this at, but apparently he was probably he was set free. Of course. On the first year. Well, Anne was acquitted.
Oh my gosh. So yeah, I bet just because she was a woman. Yeah. Oh, there's no way she could have done it.
Yeah. So he was sentenced to death. And as he stood at the gallows, he said, quote, gentlemen, I did not harm a single hair on that fair lady's head. End quote.
He was executed on May 1st, 1868, nearly two years after Laura Foster's murder. Dully's younger sister and her husband actually retrieved his body for burial. So yeah, a lot of issues with this. Yeah, sorry.
So in 2001, this is a a good job. So this is North Wilkesboro presented a position to an American governor Mike Easley asking that Tom Dully be posthumously pardoned. No action was taken. But honestly, just here's the thing.
So if she's pregnant and he's like, yeah, let's get married. How many times have we heard this story? I mean, hell, we were in the tavern drinking. We have a girl gets off because she's pregnant by her boyfriend thinking they were going to get married.
So she I mean, it's not too far-fetched. No, I mean, we were probably, you know, we're cousins. We were probably on a horse watching, you know, and that was the last horse. But yeah, I mean, so it makes sense that I mean, they could have been in on it together.
Yeah. Him and Anne, we're like, listen, we got to take care of this. We can be together with our, you know, syphilis parts. Right.
Yeah, we can go bat shit crazy together. Everybody's got the sith. Everybody's got the sith. And then nobody cares if we're banjo flip.
Right. So let's be advanced. Let's talk about some myths that came into this. I love this.
So obviously, there's a lot of folklore and stuff that goes around this guy's life because it just sounds pretty insane. Absolutely. So back to the banjo. I knew it.
So one of these is that doula came through the war without a scratch with governor Vance making use of doula's supposed talents with a banjo for his own entertainment, which we talked about. Banjo saved lives. Apparently they do. But that was like, that's like a huge thing.
Like, when you look up this guy, they're like, oh yeah, he came through the war because he played the banjo for this colonel. And he didn't. So they are like, there's no like report on anybody's military record that showed that he ever played the banjo for this guy. And that's why he came to the war unscathed.
None of this makes sense. And I don't know why that's such a big part of the story, but like they really wanted us to know that he did not play the banjo. Here's what happens. When the Yankees start coming, you just start playing, you know, your banjo and they will stop in their tracks and say, you know what, we made a mistake.
We're just going to retreat and let you go. But no, that can't be true because he was arrested and housed in a Yankee. Right. Right.
But maybe, you know, entertaining the Yankee prison staff with his secret talent that we didn't talk about in this hour. Apparently not. The banjo is awful. That's too bad, but our sift trading well, that's important that we speak of it.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So the final little like tail here is that Anne confessed to the murder on her deathbed.
She allegedly confessed to having killed Laura and a fit of jealousy and begged Tom to help her conceal the body. People in the area still say that on her deathbed and saw black cats on the walls, they could hear and smell, big and frying. I don't even know what to do with this story. What?
It's amazing. I love it. Civil shows and there are black cats. Did she die of syphilis?
I assume so. Yeah. She's seeing things. Yeah.
I'm going to assume this. So if you all don't know syphilis while it starts in your nether, yeah, yeah, it moves to your brain and basically causes you to go insane. So I guess this is what was happening to her. That's what you get from messing around with your neighbor who we initially thought was your cousin who secretly played the banjo.
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of references to him and music and popular culture. Thomas Land wrote the song Tom Dually.
Originally, there's been several people that have covered it and have done it. I strongly recommend the Kings' Intro. The version is my favorite. So yeah, there's a whole bunch of different things about it in popular culture.
What a ride. Yeah. You know, do you think that he's turning over in his rave that people know the truth about the banjo? I don't know.
I don't know why the banjo is so important to this story. But I think because this guy, you know, Zebulon Vance ended up representing him, pro bono, people were trying to figure out like how were they connected? Like why would he represent him? And maybe that's where they were in the army at the same time.
So people kind of came up with this idea of like, oh, he played the banjo for him and they were buddies. But they didn't play the banjo for him. Just weird. Like this, there are just so many pieces of this.
It's weird. But at least Anne would confess on her deathbed. Perhaps. Assuming that was true because she also had Cephalous, which was crazy.
And good thing that they're not actually cousins. Sorry about that. I mean, that was pretty wild. I mean, that would have been a lifetime movie.
Yeah. It's like, you know, we did have that bitter blood murder in that same area where they were cousins and that was in the 70s. So it was happening. 1800s.
And all of the colleagues I have that are out that way are like, oh my gosh, now you're just talking people that were products of incest, which they are not. And I clearly claim that, you know, while my parents and grandparents are not related in any way, it is highly likely that, you know, some of the ones way on back way on back probably, you know, felt a real kinship with your kin, well, especially in their downstairs parts. Oh, I feel like this would be better if they had been cousins. Me too.
Like I hate a lot of cousins. Yeah, like I went back and like reread that line because I'm like, that doesn't feel right. And it wasn't. Also would suggest to Pauline play any kind of part.
I mean, she seemed to be the original carrier of Cephalous. Yeah. She was spreading her joy to everybody. Yeah, everybody.
So realistically, she kind of was banging cousins. If you think about it, I mean, she was banging Dually, Dually was banging the other cousins. I mean, so really, it's kind of like she was. Kind of like she was.
She was the whore of the family. Yeah, she gave them all the sift. Yeah. I mean, what a wonderful thing, you know, to have a commonality in the family reunion, you know, I mean, like over some barbecue and be like, how's your itching?
It's like, oh, well, yeah, I mean, I took my special blue pill. Yeah. You know, it really brings families together, especially like the holidays. Yeah, I got you a blue pill.
Oh, it's so sweet. Thanks. What are your holiday celebrations? Lots of people have to have lots of blue pills, lots of blue pills, lots of things, you know, why does that new baby have a hand on top of its forehead?
Oh my God. Well, and you know, then you just explained, well, you know, when when DNA is replicated. They're going to think you're from issues. No, I just want you to know, all right, here's a new thing.
My son is not the product of any familial relationship. His father is not related to me in any capacity. That's good. That's good.
That's good. My parents are not related. My grandparents were not related. My great grandparents were not related.
Beyond that, though, beyond that, there is some evidence that maybe points to some other things. I'm not going to get into it here. That's a genealogical discussion that we could have on another platform. However, I do want to say it makes a lot of sense when you look at my dad's side of the family and the craziness that his ensued.
You go, yes, yes. Yeah. So my grandfather went so outside of he wanted to get the hell out of Cleveland County, North Carolina, that he married a New Yorker. Wow.
He went far. Yeah, he said absolutely. We know that. He said, hey, all know.
So he went up and he found a, you know, rough-tawkin smokin. Yankee. And he brought it down south. Wow.
Yeah. It was amazing. And here I am. Here you are.
You know, some generations later. Yeah. Yeah. It's really a beautiful story.
None of us have the sift that I know of. That's good. And dare I say it, none of us play the banjo. That is the true.
Yeah, it really is. But she's made of that in the generations with no banjo playing. Yeah, I know. No, you know, I enjoy singing, but I don't really have otherwise I can't play an instrument.
My dad's brother plays the banjo. Shh. Oh, not the banjo. It's not the banjo.
No. But he does have sift. Sorry. Sorry if you listen.
Oh, I hope not. Okay. No. He doesn't have sift.
He does play the banjo. And the guitar. He gave me my first guitar. Glad you said guitar.
Yeah. I still have it. I don't play it. Have you ever tried to learn?
Do you get it? Okay. Yeah. Not because I'm so very uncyclical.
So have you ever tried to get the sip? Can't say I have. Can't say I'm not sought out. It's not been part of my requirements when dating must have sift.
It really adds to your dating profile. Yeah, sure does. Don't play banjo must have sift must have sift. We must be related.
Seeking sift. Seeking cousin with sift. Yeah. Let's end this.
What's wrong with us? We're probably related. We're cousins with sift. No, we don't.
And we're not cousins. No. Well, this was fun. That's not doing that again.
There's so many things. So if you are from that area and you have something to say about Tom Dually, syphilis, cousins, cousins, banjo, shh, banjos, you just let us know and you can do so by email. We can't even say it at mountainmysteries.appleletchen at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at mountainmysteries.
haresetails from Appalachia. You can find us on Instagram at mountainmysteries.appleletchen and for more kind of this crazy ridiculous dumb ass content, find us on patreon.com slash mountainistries. See me feed air because do you have a shout out? Yeah, I'm working on it.
I'm getting there. Hang on. Please hold on every time. Every time.
Well, I tried to blow up my phone and I was logged out. So now I'm trying to do it on a computer and I'm trying to do it on a computer. And it is. I do have my wife.
I do. It's just slow. Wow. Yeah.
I don't even know why I gave you my Wi-Fi. I'm automatically connected. That's terrifying. I don't remember at what point.
I was like, here you go. I don't know either. I don't even know if we're there yet. I apparently we are because I have it.
I got to hit. Oh, there we go. There we go. All right.
Here we are. We're moving on. That's great. We're doing it.
We're doing the thing. Wow. I've heard barely. Okay.
Let's go. Dallas, Texas. You know what? That sounds good.
Get us a little bit away from here. I'm here. Yeah. No story.
We're highly recommended. Yeah. So, um, hopefully you have a wonderful next week. Your downstairs isn't burning and, uh, you know, get that checked out.
That's right. You don't play the banjo and please don't hook up with any of your cousins. Don't do that. No.
All right. See you next week. Bye. Bye.