The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Gavin Stevens calls the warden at the penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, to gather information about Samuel Beauchamp.

Belle Worsham tells Gavin Stevens that the parents of Mollie and Hamp Worsham were slaves who "belonged to my grandfather" (357).

Hamp's wife, "a tremendous light-colored woman in a bright turban," lends her powerful soprano voice to the ritual ceremony for the lost Samuel Beauchamp (361). She and her husband, Hamp, live with Belle Worsham.

Belle Worsham's father leaves his daughter "the decaying house" in which she still lives (356). And "when [Mollie Beauchamp] took [her grandson] to raise," she named him after this man (358).

Miss Worsham is "quite old" and "thin" (356). Though impoverished now, she is the granddaughter of a man who owned slaves, including the ancestors of Mollie, whose (honorary) maiden name of Worsham acknowledges the sisterly relationship the two women had before Mollie's marriage. Belle Worsham lives in "the decaying house her father had left her," and with the help of Mollie's brother Hamp and his wife supports herself by raising and selling "chickens and vegetables" (356).

Mr. Wilmoth edits the Jefferson newspaper. He is described as "an older man, though with hair less white than [Gavin] Stevens', in a black string tie and an old-fashioned boiled shirt and tremendously fat" (355). Wilmoth helps Stevens keep word of Samuel Beauchamp's execution from reaching Jefferson and contributes a significant amount of money to bring back Beauchamp's body, saying that "even if I could help myself, the novelty will be almost worth it. It will be the first time in my life I ever paid money for copy I had already promised beforehand I will not print" (360).

Samuel Beauchamp is convicted of and executed for shooting and killing a Chicago police officer.

Samuel Beauchamp's unnamed mother was the oldest daughter of Lucas and Mollie Beauchamp. She dies while giving birth to him.

Gavin Stevens is one of Faulkner's most well-used characters, appearing in 16 different fictions. He is descended from an old Yoknapatawpha family. He knows the larger world - "Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard; Ph.D., Heidelberg" (353) - but is deeply committed to his home, which he serves for years as the county attorney. The narrative is not being entirely ironic when it refers to Stevens as "the designated paladin of justice and truth" (364), as shown by his determination chivalrously to treat and serve both the black woman Mollie Beauchamp and the white lady Miss Worsham.

The "census-taker" collects information from Samuel Beauchamp inside the jail near Chicago (352), handily providing the reader with a great deal of background on Samuel in short order. The census-taker is described as just a year or two younger than Beauchamp.