The fact that the story was “known to most of this south-central Carolina town’s older residents” when the 1955 article was written is consistent with a community that had carried this tale for four decades as a piece of local oral history — whether as the embellished version of something that actually happened, or as a story that grew from a smaller kernel of fact, or as a community tradition that had become so well-established that distinguishing between what was remembered and what was embellished had become essentially impossible.

The Doctor Who Made the Diagnosis

The physician at the center of the 1915 events was identified in the 1955 account as Dr.

D.

K.

Briggs of Blackville.

He was described as the doctor who had been called to examine Essie Dunbar after her collapse and who had declared her dead, finding no signs of life.

The 1955 Augusta Chronicle article was occasioned by Dr.