American Evolution Podcast

NARRATOR

are these words: “… killed at Court Street Baptist Church on the night of October 16, 1878, aged 17 years and two months.”

Maria’s tombstone prompts some questions:
At Lynchburg’s Old City Cemetery, long ago called the Methodist Cemetery, is the grave of Maria Wilson. On her tombstone, beneath the image of a dove and her name,
First of all, who was Maria Wilson? Who were her parents? Did she have brothers and sisters? What did she do for a living?

She was 17 years old in 1878, which means she was born in about 1861. Had she been enslaved?

And how did she die?

Was she murdered at the church (a story we’re all too familiar with today)? Did she have an accident?

What is the history of Court Street Baptist Church? What role did it play in the community?

What happened to Maria, and how might her story shed light on the lives of African-Americans in late and post Reconstruction-era Lynchburg, Virginia? What was life like for a young African American woman, living in the shadows of enslavement and in the grips of Jim Crow.

The news of what happened on the evening of October 16, 1878, was reported in newspapers all over the United States and as far away as England, Scotland and Wales, under headlines like, “The Lynchburg Calamity,” “The Fatal Panic,” “Terrible Disaster,” and “Trampled to Death.”

REPORTER 1 (Lynchburg News, Lynchburg, Va., October 17, 1878).

Court Street Baptist Church was crowded last night to its utmost capacity to witness a marriage ceremony conducted by the pastor Rev. Mr. Morris. Every seat on the floor and in the gallery was filled, and the aisles were packed with witnesses to the event.

After the ceremony was concluded and the bridal party had retired, religious services were commenced, when an alarm was raised that the gallery was falling, followed by the cry of “Fire!”

REPORTER 2 (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, November 9, 1878)

… someone shouted, “The gallery is falling!” This alarm was followed by cries of “Fire!” when an indescribable panic instantly seized the large audience. There was a general rush to the doors and windows. … On the second floor, those who first reached the head of the stairs were so pressed on by the panic-stricken crowd that they were thrown down and those who followed shared the same fate, until they were piled almost to the head of the stairs.

Upon this mass of writhing humanity the throng that followed trod. Men and women rushed over it, careless of everything, so that they made their escape. The consequences were terrible.

Many persons were either trampled or smothered to death, and more were badly wounded. Some, who were near the bottom bore a weight which every moment threatened to crush their lives out.

Many, seeing the obstruction of the stairway, jumped from second or third story windows …

REPORTER 3 (The Iola Register, Iola, Kan., October 26, 1878)

The colored minister shouted for them not to jump out, but out they leaped like sheep, falling on top of each other as they landed.

NARRATOR

One of the people who jumped from an upper window was Maria Wilson. A reporter later imagined what Maria went through that night in her final moments.

REPORTER 4 (Lynchburg News, Lynchburg, Va., October 18, 1878)

The view from the window through which Maria Wilson jumped to instant death is fearful. Whether her neck was broken by concussion against the fence or pavement is not known, but certainly 99 in a hundred would never know afterwards that they had attempted the leap.

NARRATOR
What happened at the church that night? What caused the fire? Did it cause the building to collapse? Was it arson? A 19th-century domestic terrorist? It was reconstruction, after all. Was it the Klan?

Our resident historian, Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz, discussed these and more questions with some local community members.

GROUP DISCUSSION
Kelley will ask the following questions:

Variants for Vivian Camm and John Hughes:

What is your name and how are you connected to this story?
When you hear the name Mariah Wilson, what comes to mind?
What is the history, as you know it, of the Court Street Baptist church?
How big is the congregation?
How does the church memorialize the tragedy/victims?
Tell me why the church is important to its members, and to the larger community?
What stories did you hear growing up about the Fire?
Why do you think she jumped? What do you think she was afraid of?
What is the history of Court Street Baptist Church? What role did it play in the community?
Do you think that Lynchburg is typical or exceptional with regards to the history of race relations?
Why do you think the fire story stuck?

NARRATOR

Next, Kelley talks with a local history professor for another perspective on the Court Street Baptist Church Panic.

Variants for John D’Entremont

What was life like for African Americans in VA in 1878?
What was going on politically?
Was Virginia typical or exceptional in terms of race relations?
What were plausible employment opportunities for African Americans during this time?
What kind of environment did Maria grow up in, she born in 1861, passed in 1878?
What would Maria have been afraid of?
How important were churches during this period?
Why do you think the fire story took hold?

Discussion topics
Maria Wilson/family (challenges of finding information about African-Americans in the public record, censuses, etc.)
19th century weddings
Church history
Court Street congregation history
Local African American community
Memory of other accidents (City Hotel 1875, Main Street building 1878, Liverpool Theater 1878)
Reconstruction
Terrorism
The “fire”
Fake news/challenges in telling “accurate” history

American Evolution themes addressed
African Americans in the Jim Crow era
Entrepreneurial and innovative spirit

NARRATOR

Because we don’t have a time machine, we don’t know exactly what Maria experienced that night. We don’t know the thoughts that were running through her head as she tried to escape the church.

But one way to imagine these things is through reenactments and historical fiction. Through these, we can bring the story to life in ways the written record cannot.

With that said, we’ll let Maria tell her story.

MARIA

It was the 16th of October, 1878, and my friends and I were on our way to the Colored Baptist Church on Court Street to see Mary Rives and Jack Averett get married. It was to be the wedding of the year, and I was so excited because everyone was supposed to be there.

Oh, and sure enough, when we walked in to church, I saw all the seats on the floor had already been taken! And my heart just sank because I knew exactly where we were going to have to sit…in that horrible, decrepit old gallery.

But even though the thought of being all the way up there made my stomach turn sour, nothing was going to keep me from seeing that wedding.

So, I swallowed my fear, made it up the stairs, and sat down like there wasn’t a worry in my head.

Ah, but when the ceremony started, I completely forgot about how scared I’d been. The whole event was beautiful, and so was Mary. She wore the most elegant, ivory dress, with beads and lace all over it.

I remember thinking, “That’s exactly the way I want my wedding dress to be. Fancy and beaded and layer after layer of the finest material.”

Afterwards, while Pastor Morris went on with the revival services and I was still dreaming about my wedding gown, out of nowhere, I hear this loud “Pop!” that sounded like glass breaking.

The rest of the people in the gallery heard it, too, because we all moved at the same time to see where the noise had come from.

Well, when we did this, I could hear our entire weight shift and then the balcony suddenly made this wretched groaning and cracking sound, like the floor beneath our feet had woken up from a great nap and was stretching its boards.

See, if you had heard the way that gallery creaked, how it sounded like it was splintering and falling apart that very moment, you would understand why we all panicked.

Someone yelled, “It’s gonna collapse!” and another shrieked, “Fire!” and then it seemed like the entire congregation started screaming at once.

People were running everywhere and pushing each other, trying to get out of that church before it fell apart or caught fire.

My friend Millie and I got ready to run, too, but as we turned to go down the stairs, we could tell they were all backed up with people and there was there was no way we were getting out that way.

I remember seeing this old man, wide-eyed and paralyzed with fear, standing in the middle of the exit to the steps and people were just pushing right past him, no one offering to help.

There was a moment when he looked right at me, his eyes pleading…and then someone shoved him down real hard and the old man just disappeared under the sea of bodies.

Then more and more people started piling up on each other in the stairwell and I could see some were getting trampled and hurt really bad and I just knew that old man couldn’t have survived under all that.

Through it all, I couldn’t get the image of me in a wedding dress out of my head. Except this time, the dress I was imagining was all ripped and torn from being twisted up in the jagged remains of the gallery.

The more I thought of not being able to wear that dress, and not living to see my wedding day, the more I knew I had to get out of there.

And as I could hear the tortured screams of the people being crushed in that stairwell, I knew I had to find another way out.

As I was turning around to look for something—anything!—out of nowhere I see my father’s friend Henry ram his shoulder right into one of the church’s large, pane-glass windows, shattering it to pieces, and then he proceeds to jump…right…out…of…it.

Millie and I rushed to the windowsill, and just as we got there and looked out—it was so far up, at least 30 or 40 feet high—we could see Henry hit the ground, and then get right up like nothing was hurt on him, though it did look like he messed up his ankle real bad.

That was it. I had found my escape.

I grabbed Millie’s hand, looked her in the eyes, and she understood immediately what I wanted to do. By then, a few other people in the gallery noticed what Henry had done, and I could hear someone shout, “We gotta jump!” and they started to run towards us.

Well, I was so afraid they were going to shove me out of that window before I had a chance to steady myself and go out on my own, I squeezed Millie’s hand real tight and we stepped up onto the window ledge, looked at each other and without another thought, just…jumped.

(pause)

I tried to land on my feet, but Millie got twisted up in me and before I could right myself, we hit the ground. I saw her face smack hard against the pavement and the sound it made was all wrong.

I tried to aim for the grass, but I had jumped too far and hit my head right on that beautiful, wrought iron fencing I had always admired every time I came to church.

The last thing I remember seeing was more people jumping out that window. I wanted to tell them to “Stop!,” but I was dead before the word left my lips.

My biggest regret, though, was that I’ll never be able to wear that beautiful wedding dress I had been dreaming about, and that I never lived to see my wedding day.

NARRATOR

Maria was killed that night, along with 8 other women. Dozens were injured. In addition to Maria, the dead included:

Adeline Burks, a 50-year-old domestic worker

16-year-old Ann Cox

Mary Henry, a 60-year-old cook

14-year-old Emma Powell

19-year-old Virginia Robertson

Maria Ransom, 19

and

Millie Wood, a 26-year-old cook

Next to each name, the local Board of Health recorded a three-word cause of death: stampede at church.

Little did they know, at the time, however, that the building was not collapsing. It wasn’t on fire, either. Newspapers later blamed the panic on falling plaster in what was said to be a condemned building or a mischievous boy with a peashooter who had broken some glass. Whatever, the reason, there was nothing to fear that night but the outcome was tragic nonetheless.

American Evolution, Virginia to America, 1619 to 2019 celebrates the 400-year history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Through public events, legacy projects, and initiatives like this podcast, American Evolution commemorates the people and historical events that occurred in Virginia and continue to shape who we are in the Commonwealth today.

For more information about the American Evolution celebration, visit AmericanEvolution2019.com. To learn more about the “Little Did They Know” podcast, and for photos, extras and other information relating to today’s episode, visit LittleDidTheyKnow.com.

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