The open door marks Robert E. Lee's pew. Here he came for spiritual guidance
The murdered woman had objected to the presence of her neighbors' pets on her place, especially the goats, which were prying and curious, as well as other tame animals which belonged by right in the barnyard, but preferred the drawing room. Ill feeling sprang up, quarrels, lawsuits, all the dreadful sequel of a neighbors' feud. At the trial circumstantial evidence piled up and up. It was not enough for conviction. The inmates of "Goat Castle" were acquitted. Even so, black distrust was their portion from many of their fellow townsmen.
Some people from Alexandria were making the Natchez pilgrimage and came unwarned upon "Goat Castle." Lovely strains of music could be heard, coming from an old piano, sometimes improvised, sometimes a bit of Bach, Mozart, Chopin, played with much feeling. As the strangers approached the house they were shocked at the dilapidation—sash missing in the windows, doors off hinges, boards decayed and missing from the house and porch. Embarrassed, they hesitated to enter when to the door came a man, the musician. Speaking in a quiet voice, he asked them in. Upon the piano a large hen was standing, perfectly at ease. The deterioration of the interior was more pronounced than that of the outside—springs bursting through upholstery, beds unmade and without linen, neither carpets upon the floors nor curtains at the windows. Animals wandered in and out at will. Yet upon the walls hung some portraits and the furniture had been good. There were many books. The man was obviously cultivated in his speech and manner. The host collected the stipend for entering the place and proceeded to show the tourists the house, which was interesting, and his inventions, which were not; a collection of senseless, pitiful, useless things.
Upstairs, and downstairs, into this room and that they were taken to be shown an "invention." Each room was more squalid than the last. Finally the end in sight, escape near at hand, the gentleman said, "I'll show you something," and took the Alexandrians into a room opening off the hall. There was a large mahogany bookcase, sealed by a court order, which the host opened at will, carefully replacing what he took out after it had been examined. One of the strangers, flipping the pages of an old book, saw the signature of Robert E. Lee, Alexandria, Virginia. Startled, she asked where the book had come from. "It was my father's," was the simple reply. "That is my father," pointing to an old oil portrait of a clergyman. "He lived in Alexandria. He was rector of Christ Church."
Not long after this a Negro, arrested in the West, but formerly employed in Natchez, was purported to have confessed to the murder for which these people had been tried and acquitted.
