Liberty and Justice for All, Denied

Klansmen took William Guthrie from the Franklin jail at midnight on July 17, 1868, and shot him twice in the head; a coroner's jury blamed persons unknown. On August 15 masked men came to Samuel Bierfield's store, killed him and mortally wounded his clerk, Lawrence Bowman, while a third man, Henry Morton, escaped. Freedmen's Bureau officers sent from Nashville judged a letter tying Bierfield to the Ezell killing a forgery, and white residents would not help them. One man was arrested and freed on an alibi. No one was ever convicted.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carnton — 1.9 mi
  The McGavock farm in Franklin, worked by 44 enslaved people in 1860, that became the largest field hospital of the Battle of Franklin.
• Fort Negley — 16 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• National Museum of African American Music — 17 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Ryman Auditorium — 17 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Liberty and Justice for All, Denied — steps away
• Union Headquarters — 0.3 mi
• The Franklin Riot of 1867 — 0.3 mi
• Reconstruction — 0.3 mi