On Feb. 8, 1894, 6,000 people showed up at the gallows on Liberty Street across from where Smith Reynolds Airport is today to watch Peter DeGraff hang for the murder of his 19-year-old girlfriend, Ellen Smith.
As it turned out, that was the last public hanging in Forsyth County.
Randy Furches, a descendant of DeGraff, has updated "Poor Ellen Smith," a traditional bluegrass song about the murder, and recorded it in time for the 115th anniversary of the hanging.
Furches, who grew up in Winston-Salem and now lives in Greensboro, didn't hear about DeGraff until he was an adult. Pointing out a 1979 story in the Twin City Sentinel marking the 85th anniversary of the hanging, his mother, Mildred Furches, said, "You know, this guy is a relative of yours."
It was only then that he learned that DeGraff's sister, Mary, was his mother's grandmother.
Never mentioned
Furches was intrigued enough to find out more about the sordid tale. Some of what he knows comes from Edith DeGraff Thornett, whose grandfather was DeGraff's brother, Peter.
She, too, never heard about DeGraff when she was a child.
"It was never mentioned," she said.
Thornett, who works at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, found out much of what she knows through research in the North Carolina Room at the Forsyth County Public Library. She also has a copy of a picture of DeGraff that had been hidden behind another picture for many years, presumably because the family was ashamed of DeGraff.
As with any such story, there are gaps and contradictions.
Here, more or less, is the tale:
DeGraff and Smith met when both were working at the Zinzendorf, a hotel in the West End neighborhood where the offices of Leonard Ryden Burr Real Estate are now. DeGraff was the sort of man who liked his whiskey and always carried a pistol.
Smith may have become pregnant. Some say that discord arose because DeGraff wouldn't marry her. Some say the problem was that she was already interested in another man. No one is sure. What they do know is that, on July 18, 1892, DeGraff sent Smith a note declaring his love and asking her to meet him. The note was in her pocket when her body was later found with a bullet through her heart on the Glade Street hill near where the YWCA is today.
Last-minute confession
DeGraff eluded capture for some months and was arrested only after he came back to the scene of the crime, apparently to try to contact Smith's spirit. During his time in jail, DeGraff claimed he was innocent. It was only from the scaffold that he acknowledged his guilt and warned others against the dangers of reckless living.
In some versions of the tale, he also wrote the song "Poor Ellen Smith."
"It's iffy," Thornett said. "You don't know whether he really wrote it or not."
We do know that groups that have recorded a version include the Kingston Trio. In some versions of the lyrics, the murderer acknowledges his guilt. In others, he maintains his innocence.
Furches makes his living as a regional sales director for the Regency Companies, which services employee benefits for other companies. He would be happy to make his living as a songwriter and musician.
"My music is my release," Furches said.
For his version, Furches started with a version of "Poor Ellen Smith" in which DeGraff claims innocence and inserted lyrics in which DeGraff acknowledges his guilt in his thoughts. Furches recorded the song here in Winston-Salem at Ambition Recordings and posted it on his MySpace page at www.myspace.com/randyfurches.
"The whole thing has been a mystical experience -- to be reconnected to a part of my family that no one would talk about," he said.
■ Kim Underwood can be reached at 727-7389 or at kunderwood@wsjournal.com.
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