This heroine, in the wilds of the western world, had undoubtedly quoted from the Declaration of Independence the charge against Great Britain “for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury,” and had also probably suggested to the mind of the court, for the first time, the question as to whether treason could be committed against a government by a person who had never acknowledged allegiance to it.
The order granting Barker a trial by jury, unlike other orders of this court, is not clear. It bears on its face evidence of confusion in the court; and this, taken in connection with the fact that the court adjourned immediately after granting the order, renders it certain that this wonderful woman was, for the time being, in absolute control of this marvellous court.
Did she try to secure the services of a lawyer and fail? I do not know; but I do know that these old records fail to disclose the presence of an attorney as counsel for a single one of the various defendants who were tried by the court on a charge of treason. There were at this time, according to the old records, about six attorneys practising regularly in the court, and the records recite their presence as counsel in other cases at that and other courts. Were these attorneys too patriotic to appear in these cases, or too timid from a personal or business standpoint?
The court afterward relented, and Barker was released on his own recognizance, and never tried. Ruined in fortune, ostracized by friends, broken in spirit and in health, he could not endure his changed condition in life. He died soon after his release from prison, and the brave, faithful, noble but broken-hearted wife speedily followed her husband to the grave, leaving two or three children, the oldest a boy of some five or six years. They were taken by a gentleman and his wife who had no children, but a brother of either Barker or his wife soon came and removed them from scenes and faces that it was well for them to forget forever.
The little graveyard in which this brave man and his noble wife were buried was remembered by old people in Washington and Sullivan counties as late as thirty years ago. When I first saw and knew this graveyard as the one in which they were buried, it looked much like a thicket fenced in, but the old crooked rail fence around it was fast rotting down. There were some large trees in it, the largest a wild cherry. Later, the fence was entirely gone, as well as most of the trees, and cattle were lying on the graves in the shade of the trees. Still later, the trees were all gone save the lone wild cherry, and there was not a stone or a mound left: the owner of the land was plowing over the dust of the dead.
The world’s heroes are not those only who talk face to face with death at the cannon’s mouth, and wet battle-fields with their crimson life-tide.
FOOTNOTES:
[F] If the motives that prompted many of the tories to adhere to the British crown during the Revolution were measured by the more modern political standards of selfishness or self-interest, there be many now who could not make mouths at their memories.
[G] Grandfather of the writer.