On a cool, rainy day in November of 1879, an eighteen-year-old named Laban Walker fell from the gallows to his death in the small village of Trout’s Hill, West Virginia. The story of his execution for the murder of a saloon keeper has echoed down through the past century and a half from the descendants of thousands of people who braved the wind and rain to watch a young man die. Laban Walker’s crime and death are part of a larger story of violence and dysfunction in a family and community set against the power struggle between political figures. In the end, the death of Laban Walker has become the most enduring legend of a community.