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Still another puzzle was the scrawled note found in the back seat of the Cadillac. An apparent fragment of a song about separation from a lover, sometimes assumed to have been written by Williams that night: "We met we lived and dear we loved / Then came that fatal day...." Undated, it could well have been written earlier in the trip, or back in Alabama.

The news of his death traveled fast. It even arrived in that day's papers around the country that Hank Williams had died in Oak Hill, W. Va. Newspapers reported that he was 37. Many thought he looked 10 years older than that. But he was only 29.

When word got to the shocked crowd in Canton, the audience sang, "I Saw the Light." Williams' services in Montgomery saw the biggest crowd since Jefferson Davis's funeral. In 1953, reporters found it remarkable that the crowd was biracial.

By Jan. 2, the headlines were saying, "Mystery Shrouds Death Of Singer Hank Williams: Hillbilly Star Believed Dead Hours Before Taken To Hospital."

Swann Kitts, the officer who pulled over the Cadillac Carr was driving in Blaine, was given authority to investigate; an unusual situation, considering he was a witness. "After investigating the matter," Kitts concluded, "I think that Williams was dead when he was dressed and carried out of the hotel. Since he was drunk and was given the injections and could have taken some capsules earlier, with all this he couldn't have lasted over an hour and a half or two hours." In spite of Carr's insistence that Williams spoke in Bristol and must have died in the Virginias, biographer Escott agrees that Williams probably died in Knoxville, and that version seems to be accepted by his family.

In the 50 years since, most of the witnesses have died or vanished. Dr. Cardwell maintained his downtown office until he retired in the '70s; he died in 1984. Charles Carr, at 68, is still alive, and resides in Montgomery. We were unable to reach him for this article. Knoxville has a lot of musical distinctions, but can't honestly claim Hank Williams as its own. Knoxville was, however, the home of Williams' greatest influence, Roy Acuff; it's a place he seems to have known in his life; and, by persuasive accounts, it's the place where he died. Whether it's appropriate for Knoxville to claim a piece of the legacy of this southern Alabama boy who became one of the 20th century's greatest songwriters makes, at least, for a provocative question.

For several centuries, European pilgrims would honor Christian martyrs by making their way to the sites where they died–or, if you prefer, where they last lived–and found some satisfaction in just being there on the day. Some would argue that Hank Williams was the secular American equivalent of Thomas Becket, a pop-culture martyr.

Originally Published: December 12, 2002 • Metro Pulse

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