Tar Heel History _
By Daniel Conover
The Legend Of Nance Dude
There's still debate over the 1913 murder of a I laywood County girl
and her grandmother charged with the crime.
Ringed by the Balsam. Pisgah
and Cataloochee ranges. Hay¬
wood County, just west of
Asheville, is home to some of
North Carolina’s best postcard views.
But stashed in the attic boxes and fam¬
ily trunks of this Smoky Mountain high
country are postcards of
л
different sort:
faded black and white photographs of a
small rock crevice lined with what
appears to be dirty laundry. A closer
look reveals the small IxkIv and blond
locks of two-and-a-half-year-old Rolx-rta
Ann Putman. The postcard is a pho¬
tograph of her death cell.
Little Roberta died in 1913. but the
crime and the morbid postcards com¬
memorating it haunt Haywood County
to this day. The bare facts are chilling
e\en in an age almost numb to child
abuse: a lively toddler taken from her
home, led up the cold Hanks ol Ad Tate
Knob, imprisoned behind rocks in a tiny
cairn and left to the mercy of a raw
Smoky Mountain February.
But what pushes this story into the
realm of legend is the person who plead¬
ed guilty to the murder Roberta's 65-
vcar-old grandmother.
Born Nancy Conard. her neighbors
knew hei as Nance Dude, a nickname
inspired by her relationship with a local
moonshiner named Dude Hannah.
Small, weather-beaten and poor. Nance
Dude seems the perfect image of an evil
hill-country murderess. Sharp, expres¬
sionless face. Long, stringy hair.
Gnarled, calloused hands.
Passed down through the generations.
Nance's legend endures. But so too do
the doubts. Eighty-one years later, many
ol those who rememlrci douly her guilt
— and cast their suspicions even closer
to home.
Probably a native of cast Tennessee.
Nance was bom in 1848. She'd been mar¬
ried once, with a daughter. Sarah Maran-
da Elizabeth Jane (“Lizzie") Kerlev. to
show for it. Somewhere along the line she
fell in with, but never married. Dude
Hannah. Her neighbors scornfully
renamed her.
The official story is
that Nance look
Roberta by the hand
one day in February
1913 and led the
child away up Utah
Mountain on a foot¬
path toward Way-
nesville. telling every¬
one she was taking
her granddaughter
to the county welfare
home, which was usu¬
ally reset ved for the
elderly.
Nance returned
quickly — hours
faster than one could
walk to the welfare
home and back —
and told everyone the child had been ac¬
cepted. Her neighbors, however, grew
suspicious, and someone checked with
welfare officials. They said they'd never
seen Roberta.
Moving quickly, the sheriff arrested
Nance. Lizzie, and Lizzie's husband, 19
year-old Will Putman, carrying the trio
from their Cove Creek home to the
county jail in Waynesville. In the end.
only Nance would be charged.
Meanwhile, a massive search party-
fanned out over the rugged terrain,
eventually finding Roberta on Ad Tate
Knob in a tiny cave overlooking what is
now U.S. I lighway 19. 1 ler I tody. < lot lied
in seven filthy dresses, lay beside pieces
of uneaten candy: her stubby toddler fin¬
gers had been gnawed away.
The news Hushed through the county
like a flash flood. A lynch mob formed
outside the old Haywood Courthouse.
The State/Fcbroiry 1944
31
demanding that Sheriff Bud Leather-
wood deliver the old woman from her
cell, leathcrwood ran thccrowd off, but
the trial had to Ik- moved to neighboring
Swain County for feat that 12 impartial
jurors could not 1m* found in Haywood.
On advice from her lawyer. Nance, a
hickory-tough 100-pounder who would
survive 15 years ol prison laboi before
her life sentence was commuted, plead¬
ed guilty to avoid the death penalty.
There is no evidence, however, that she
ever confessed to the murder. She took
her secrets to the grave in 1952. a 1 0'1-
year-old loner who spent the hist 24 years
of her life in a solitary cabin near Biyson
City.
But if Nance didn’t do
it. who was she covering
for? Her supporters gen¬
erally accuse Lizzie and
Will. And they site com-
|M-lling circumstantial evi¬
dence to support their
claims.
Twenty-four years old
and pregnant with Will's
child when Roberta dis¬
appeared. Lizzie was "a
sort of trampy-looking
thing" who had been
married at least once be¬
fore. says Cove Creek
native Iowa Chambers.
I laywood's sketc hy bit th.
death and marriage
records Show at least one
previous marriage — to a man named
Walter Putman, also of Cove Creek, in
1906.
Roberta was likely a product of their
union and probably carried the name
Putman from Walt, not Will. The kin
relationship between Will and Walt,
though possibly close, remains unclear.
But what could have motivated them?
A woman who says she was a blood rela¬
tive of Nance's claimed she knew.
“(Will) told (Lizzie) he'd marry her if
she got rid of the little girl." says the
woman, who refuses to give her name.
“Nance may have done it. but I.iz/ie and
Will helped."
In fact. Lizzie and Will were married
right around the time of Roberta’s
death. February 8. 1913. in Waynesville.
But that doesn't change the minds of
those who believe Nance look the fall to
protect her daughter's marriage. Count
