More on Maria

(expanded slightly from a blog comment)

("Mrs Nobles took an ax...")

In summer 1895 Maria became involved in a cause célèbre in the Nobles murder case. An Elizabeth Nobles encouraged a black farm worker, Gus Fambles, to kill her husband. It was a particularly gruesome crime, Gus used a hatchet and Elizabeth was accused of finishing the job before they buried the body – one newspaper claimed while he was still alive.

Both were found guilty and sentenced to death. The thought of a white woman and a black man being hanged together caused consternation and a campaign was started to save her. Maria added her thoughts in the Atlanta Constitution for August 11, 1895.

Billed as “Mrs Maria Jourdan Westmoreland, the well known writer and missionary” her comments basically covered women’s rights and responsibilities. She was not against the death penalty, but if Elizabeth was to be spared then surely Gus should be spared also.

She argued: “If women desire to usurp the place which God, in His infinite wisdom has seen fit to accord to man by making him ‘the head of the woman,’ why, then to be consistent, they must use the prerogative of men, not only in commonplace every day affairs, but if convicted of murder, they must be content to die like men for the privilege.”

After justifying capital punishment by reference to scripture, she argued (with a fine flourish of alliteration): “If the death sentence on Mrs Nobles is commuted to life imprisonment, then a similar clemency must of necessity be extended to her accomplice, the poor, forlorn, forsaken, forgotten, and seemingly friendless negro, Gus Fambles.”

She said that if Mrs Nobles was reprieved she would raise funds for a new trial for Gus. She concluded: “Clemency for one means clemency for both.”

The matter rumbled on through various courts until 1897 when just before the scheduled execution, Mrs Nobles was reprieved. She died in prison in 1916. It was too politically sensitive to hang Gus Fambles without her, so he was reprieved as well. He died in prison in 1914.

One other point to add on the Westmoreland story. While it would be wrong to automatically link suicide with mental breakdown, it should be noted that Maria’s first husband Dr Willis F Westmoreland died in the State Mental Asylum, and her son Dr Willis F Westmoreland Jr shot himself in 1935.