Carol McCabe Booker further solidifies her reputation as a first-rate author with publication of another Chesapeake Country true-crime saga, The Farmer's Wife. Booker, a Washington journalist and lawyer, took up residence along the Western Shore with her late husband, pioneering journalist Simeon Booker, With him, Carol wrote significant histories from the civil rights era, including Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter's Account of the Civil Rights Movement.
Her Chesapeake-centric series began in 2021 with a history of a fabled waterside community, Cove Point, (complete with a Russian princess). Next came The Waterman's Widow, a true-to-life mystery, best-seller online and a staple at many libraries.
In The Farmer's Wife, Booker unearthed the story of a murder in a mid-Bay hamlet, a killing covered nationally in the late 19th century and labeled by the Baltimore Sun, "one of the most revolting murders in the annals of crime." In an interview, Booker discusses what draws her to historical nonfiction and the eventful times in which her story is set. And good news: She plans another book, she reveals beneath.
Q—Like The Waterman’s Widow, The Farmer’s Wife includes many fascinating details about what was happening along the Chesapeake Bay and in Southern Maryland at the time of the crime. What did you find noteworthy about 1877?
A—It was an incredible year, right from the outset. For example, in January, a full two months after the U.S. presidential election, there was still no clear winner. That would not be determined until about 60 hours — just over two days! — before a new president (whoever it would be) was to be sworn in at the end of President Grant’s term at noon on March 4.
The year had also begun with one of the worse freezes in recorded history on the Chesapeake Bay. Oystermen were stranded miles from their home ports, facing starvation if they didn’t freeze to death first. And when the thaw came, the ice floes tore schooners in half and even pushed a lighthouse off its legs and down the Bay.
In another consequential development, on May first, the Board of Calvert County Commissioners banned the sale of alcohol — more than four decades before the national Prohibition Amendment to the U.S. Constitution!
And against much of this background, newspapers across the country focused for months on the cold-blooded murder of a young farmer’s wife in a tiny hamlet in Southern Maryland, the trial, and the stomach-churning aftermath.
Q—One might conclude you are drawn to the forgotten heinous crimes in Chesapeake country. What is the appeal for you? Is it the story? The history? The legal process, given that you’re a lawyer?
A—It’s a combination of the history of the era, the science available to solve the crime, and the legal process involved in the prosecution of the alleged murderer. In The Waterman’s Widow, for example, the difficult economy was likely a motivating factor leading to the oysterman’s death. In both that case and The Farmer’s Wife, forensics played little if any role in solving the crime, because the science simply wasn’t that advanced. In 1877, for example, an expert could tell that a stain on clothing was caused by the blood of a mammal, but not exactly what mammal. Both cases relied on circumstantial evidence. When they came to trial, both sides were represented by the best lawyers in the state. And that’s where a new factor came into play, although it may or may not have ultimately determined the verdict. As the poet Robert Frost succinctly put it: “A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide which side has the better lawyer.” As a practicing lawyer for more than 30 years, I found the legal thinking in both cases very interesting.
Q—Your new book is a bit different from The Waterman’s Widow in that there is less mystery about guilt. Yet the pacing for the reader was superb. Did these books present different challenges?
A—Yes, they did. And that is one of the reasons it was so helpful to discover that this was a year full of fascinating, sometimes stunning, events from Solomons Island to Washington, D.C. and points in between, while Henry Norfolk calmly and consistently proclaimed his innocence during more than five months in the Annapolis jail.
Q—In The Waterman’s Widow, newspaper archives were a key source for you. For The Farmer’s Wife, were newspapers again helpful?
A—Very much so. Newspapers all over the region—throughout Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—and even across the country, carried the story all the way through the trial and aftermath. The Baltimore Sun was most helpful for its reporting on the trial from day to day. This was crucial since the Maryland State Archives didn’t have (or couldn’t find) the transcript of the trial, although it had the inquest result and the indictment.
Q—Henry Norfolk, the farmer in The Farmer’s Wife, comes off as a particularly unlikable, even loathsome fellow, from his early behavior after his wife was found dead until the end of the book. Do you as the author have a sense of Henry Norfolk’s motivations, what made him tick?
A—I’m not a psychiatrist, but I can’t help thinking he was mentally ill. His mother suggested as much soon after the murder.
Q—You’ve delighted readers twice now with true crime stories along with Cove Point on the Chesapeake, with its wonderful characters and its sense of place. Might there be another Booker book somewhere in mind?
A—I can’t stop now! Southern Maryland is so rich in history and fascinating people. I’m too curious about other events we can explore with the benefit of hindsight and science. I’m reminded of the inscriptions on two statues in front of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. One is "The past is prologue” and the other: “Study the past.” So yes, as the saying goes, "God willin’ and the creek don’t rise…” there’ll be another book.
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