The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

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" (259). Wilmoth is willing to help Stevens keep word of Samuel Beauchamp's execution from reaching Jefferson and does contribute 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.

As Lucas Beauchamp, this man is a central character in the book version of Go Down, Moses and again in Intruder in the Dust, but he is only mentioned in passing in the story "Go Down, Moses" - and called Luke. When Gavin Stevens begins raising money to bring Samuel Beauchamp's body back to Jefferson, he says, "I understand old Luke Beauchamp has some money in the bank" (261). Luke/Lucas is Mollie/Molly Beauchamp's husband and so Samuel Beauchamp's grandfather, but it is unclear how involved he is in the latter's upbringing.

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

Miss Worsham tells Stevens that Mollie "gave [her grandson] my father's name" (261). The narrative tells us that Samuel Worsham left his daughter Belle "the decaying house" she continues to live in (260).

When Gavin Stevens is first trying to track down Samuel Beauchamp, he briefly considers consulting the sheriff.

Samuel Beauchamp is convicted of and executed for shooting and killing a "Chicago policeman" (259).

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

Samuel Beauchamp's father "deserted him" when he was born and is "now in the state penitentiary for manslaughter" (258). Gavin Stevens recalls him as "not only violent but bad," and implicitly attributes his son's criminality to what he inherited from this man's "seed" - though Mollie Beauchamps blames Roth Edmonds for her grandson's behavior (258).

As he tells the census taker, to whom he identifies himself by his real name, Samuel Worsham Beauchamp was "born in the country near Jefferson, Mississippi" (256). Like well over a million rural black southerners by the 1930s, he has relocated to the urban north. According to him, his "occupation" in Chicago before he shot and killed a policeman was "getting rich too fast" (256); according to Gavin Stevens, he was a criminal involved in the numbers racket.

The worker for the 1940 U.S. census who visits Samuel Beauchamp in the penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, is described as a "spectacled young white man" with a "broad census taker's portfolio" (256). He is a "year or two younger" than Butch Beauchamp, and he has probably never been wealthy, since the shoes Beauchamp wears are described as "better than the census taker had ever owned" (257).