Hello, I have been doing alot of research on my husband's Nash family and I ran across an old article talking about a Murder. From the area that the paper talks about I have to guess that this family is connected with mine and that the older relatives have cut this family out of any records. The paper mentions a Walker Nash having a son named Tom Nash who killed a lady he was seeing who also happened to be the mother of his child and had one on the way. There is also an Edith Nash and a Lovey Nash also mentioned in the story. This all happened in 1844. Here is a little of the interesting story. Patsy Beasly was murdered about 12 miles north of Marshville in a little finger of Anson a few hundred yards from the Union Co. line. According to the old people Tom and Patsy were "carrying on an affair" which resulted in the young women expecting another child. This was August of 1844, and Patsy had carried her small son, whose name has long been forgotten to a spring near the now abandoned Jesse Parker Store. She went to do the family wash. There is conflict about how long Patsy was missing before her body was found. The most of the old people in Union and Anson and Stanly say Patsy was missing for three days before her body was found in the woods near the spring. According to this version, her body was rotting in the summer heat and her infant son was found crawling around on the ground near the body of his mother. The abandoment of the little boy certainly seemed a factor in the public opinion which largely believed that "hanging was too good for the man who killed Patsy Beasly". Patsy had been shot, stoned and "stomped". Neighbors came in and built a rail fence around her body to protect it from the hogs that roamed freely in the country side because there was then no stock law. Legend says that the little boy was taken by a well-to-do family, was reared and became a very useful citizen. (this is neat) The Primitive Baptist minister was preaching his Sunday sermon at Jerusalem Church and he took the Patsy Beasly murder for his topic. Before opening the Bible for his text, he laid a rather large flint rock on the pulpit. As he unfolded the foul murder of Patsy Beasly, he suddenly seized the rock and said: "The man who killed Patsy Beasly is in this church house and I am going to smash his head with this rock" He picked up the stone and drew back his arm as if to hurl it. It was August and the windows were open. Young Tom Nash jumped through an open window and ran like a jackrabbit. Of course he was caught and found guilty of the murder, and he was sentanced to be hung in Troy on Friday, the 8th of Oct. 1847. The article came for Messenger and Intelligencer Wadesboro, NC 9-8-1971 some of it is missing incase someone could get me the rest of the article it might have more clues on who Thomas and Walker were related to. Hope I did not upset anyone by posting this but as you all know there is good and bad in every family. As a church sign I saw in Va this summer said. There is some sap in every family tree. Thanks, Kimberly Nash