Assignment 7

1.          Hanging Elephants transports us to the landscape of the western North Carolina Appalachian Mountains at the turn of the twentieth century. Set against the backdrop of the unprecedented trial and hanging of Mary, a circus elephant in 1916, the novel focuses on a family who becomes embroiled in an event that will alter their lives forever. The narrator and story teller is a one hundred and five year old woman named Evie. As Evie relates the story of her life to her great granddaughter, family secrets are revealed and lives become intertwined.

2.          The hanging of an elephant changes the lives of a rural Appalachian family for generations.

3.          A one hundred and five year old woman, in the Appalachians, recalls the hanging of an elephant and the devastating effects to a community.

Ramblings of stuff…not the actual writing.

The Setting

Erwin, TN and Western NC in 1916-1920. Erwin has just become a major town due to the coal being found in the mountains and the expansion of the railroad and because of the mining of feldspar.
Erwin in located in Unicoi county TN. Unicoi was first inhabited by the Native Americans. This part of Appalachia was discovered during the Civil War.  Army officers who‘s campaigns brought them through Appalachia notice the tremendous amount of natural resources….lumber, coal and minerals. They came back after the war and invested in the region. Erwin was originally called Vanderbilt.  They named the township Vanderbilt in order to get northern land speculators interested in the region. George Vanderbilt was building his mansion, The Biltmore Estate, and the community wanted to attract attention and investors by using his name.

The largest employers in 1916 were the Clinchfield Railroad and the pottery companies. The CC&O transformed Erwin from a small town of 500 to a boom town of 2000. The railroads coming into Appalachia helped to strip the area of three great resources….lumber, coal and the mining of minerals. The Tri-Cities/ Unicoi region also became major petrochemical production centers
At this time the deforestation of Appalachia was petering out due to the over timbering of the land.

Erwin lies in a valley surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. The beauty of the place is incredible. The mountainous terrain was helpful for those who made their living in the moonshine trade. During the late 1800’s a law was enforced to collect taxes from illegal moonshine. Since moonshine was a way of life for many people, the tax was seen as an intrusion into their only way to make money. The tax soon bred informers, raids, moonshining clans that ruled entire counties, and shoot outs with the tax collectors. The sides in this conflict were not always clear cut. Moonshiners would inform on each other to gain their rival's market. Stills could be hidden from revenuers and alcohol could be run through the forest, on backwoods trails, without detection.

The people of the Appalachia, at the timing of this book, were relatively uneducated. Their heritages were mostly made up of the Irish, Scottish and Native American. This heritage is reflected in their speech patterns and in their music. In fact, the speech patterns and music influence is still felt today. They tended to be divided into family groups or groups that lived near one another. In Unicoi County in 1916 there were approximately 70 black people.  Unlike the rest of the south, black people had not been slaves in this area in the 1800’s. Since Appalachia was mountainous, there was little in the way of huge farms needing slave help. However, they did arrive in the Appalachians after the war and most were brought in by the railroads as laborers. They faced prejudice in the Appalachians as they did in other parts of the country. They tended to live together in a group. There is substantial evidence of the KKK being alive and well in Erwin TN in the early 1900’s.

The Native American influence was still present in the early 1900’s. The Cherokee legends and myths intertwined with the Scotch-Irish folklore. The Cherokee had taught the immigrants how to grow corn and squash. They had also been fundamental in teaching the newcomers about medicinal plants and methods of healing. This element was very important to Appalachian families, as doctors and hospitals were few and far between. People who became ill would often not survive a three to four day journey to the nearest medical doctor.


The Event

Hanging Elephants will center around two events that happen within a close time frame and shake the foundation of the young Evie MacLaren.
The first event is true and happened in 1916. It begins with the Sparks Traveling circus visiting the nearby town of Kingsport TN. Everyone had anxiously awaited the circus coming nearby. The main attraction of the Sparks Circus was an elephant named Mary. She was billed to be the largest living mammal on the planet. She could perform amazing tricks, such as playing music on a set of horns, standing on her head and pitching a baseball. Everyone was excited to see Mary.

In Virginia, Mary’s long time trainer and handler had become ill. In order to keep the circus on the road, Charlie Sparks advertised for a new handler. A man name Red Eldridge stepped up and wanted to take on the opportunity.

Mary had been considered a part of the family for Charlie Sparks and his wife. Since they had no children, she had meant the world to both of them. Charlie believed in the kind treatment of his circus animals and rough handling or abuse of the animals was not permitted. It is said that Charlie spoke of this to Red Eldridge many times. It was a code Charlie lived by and he expected all his employees to do the same.

There is little known about Red Eldridge. The accounts of him are varied and mostly inaccurate. The one thing that is for certain is on the ill fated day of Sept. 12, Red did not follow Charlie’s request for treating the animals with kindness.

As the circus parade weaved through downtown Kingsport it was greeted by a large and fascinated crowd. Mary was the leader of the parade. It was a hot day, and most accounts say that while they were walking through the town, Mary walked slightly off course to pick up a watermelon that was lying nearby. When she did, Red Eldridge used a hook that was often used to prod the animals in the correct direction. Most of the time the hook was gently used….Red, however, hooked Mary behind the ear and pulled hard as he yelled commands to her.
Mary did not respond well to his prodding. She picked Red up by the trunk and slammed his body into a fruit drink stand. Then it is reported that she walked over and squashed his head with her giant foot. This caused wide spread panic and a local blacksmith fired at Mary. The bullets, they say, bounced off her hide. The crowd began chanting “Kill the elephant.”

So in an unprecedented move, the Kingsport police arrested Mary and staked her down by the railroad. Charlie Sparks and his wife were devastated. At the news that an angry mob was on their way to kill Mary the Sparks circus boarded their train and headed southward. The news of “Murderous Mary” had already spread and the mayor of the next town, Johnson City, denied the circus a place to stay. So the circus continued to Erwin TN.

Floods had caused the railways to be blocked and Erwin was the only place to stop. By that time, Charlie and his wife knew that they must put Mary down. The considered many options, but settled on what they thought would be the most humane…hanging until death. Erwin was a repair station for the railways and had the only crane large enough to attempt the hanging. So on Sept 13, 1916 the city of Erwin TN, hanged Mary until she died.

In Hanging Elephants, I am attempting to tell the story of Mary, but also of another elephant that existed at that time. Some accounts say that it actually happened at the hanging of Mary and other say that the event happened two years later. Since this is fiction, I plan on taking a liberties with the facts.

Living near Erwin, it has always occurred to me that there are not any black people around. After asking that question to several people in town, I sensed a strong prejudice that seems to run deep among them. So I came up with the idea of the other elephant in the closet, so to speak, would be the hanging of a black man who would intermesh with the family in my book.

While doing research this week, I find that my idea is an actuality.  There is one report that the hanging of two black men was at the same time as Mary. This report is unsubstantiated. The other reports that is documented…is that two years later a black man was accused of trying to kidnap a young white woman. As he was dragging her across the river, two white men shot him. They pulled his body out of the water, dragged it behind a train car, build a fire in the center of town and gathered up all the black people in Erwin. Then they made them watch as they burned his body. While the fire was blazing, they told all the black people to gather up their things and get out of town or they would all be burned alive!
Unbelievable!!!! To this day…there are no black people in the township of Erwin.
I will find away to hook these events together to contrast one another…therefore the title—Hanging Elephants.

{{u}b}The Character

The main character in this book is a thirteen year old girl named Evangeline MacLaren. When the book opens she is twelve years old and is being brought to her Grandparents, who live in the mountains above Erwin, by her Uncle Alaister. Evangeline’s (Evie’s) mother died and her Uncle can no longer care for her.

Evie has many questions and is looking forward to meeting her Grandparents, who she has never seen. Her Grandfather, Summerlad, grew up in New York City.  He was born in Scotland, but his family immigrated to United Stated when he was three.  Summerlad always yearned for adventure and instead of taking over his father’s wealth; he left the north in search of the true meaning of life. His adventures took him far and wide, but they ended when he met his wife Inola, in Western North Carolina. Inola is a Cherokee Indian. Her family hid in the forest during the Trail of Tears and remained in the mountains.

During the next year, Summerlad and Inola will play significant parts in Evie’s life education….as well as the mountain themselves.

Summerlad and Inola had three children. The eldest was Evie’s mother, Arabella. The youngest was Evie’s Uncle, Alaister. The middle daughter, Aileen, will also become an important character and the catalyst of the hanging of her lover Caleb. Interracial marriages were tolerated among the whites and Cherokees. However, interracial mating between whites and blacks were not. The characters of Aileen and Caleb will become the other “elephant in the closet.”

I plan to contrast the event of Mary…to honor Mary…with the hanging of Caleb and the removal of black people from the area.

Evie will be the eyes and ears of the book. Her discoveries and all the horrific images of those discoveries will haunt her and her family for the next several generations.

Evie is telling her story to her great granddaughter and namesake, Eva. In the present time Eva is struggling with a relationship in Atlanta and while she is writing her families story, she meets a young man in the mountains. Some way, I am going to tie them all together to show how although our prejudices have progressed and lessened over the years…they still have a long way to go.