The Mysterious Marble Slab  

An audacious misdeed is rectified.

Greensboro Jewelers Building

Back in the 1820’s, Greensboro boasted a bakery and candy factory.  The bakery was located under the store now known as Greensboro Florist.  A stairway from the sidewalk to the basement led to the oven, located under the sidewalk.  An eight inch cast iron flue carried up and off the sweet smelling smoke from its place at the edge of the sidewalk.  In fact, the flue remained there at the edge of the sidewalk until only a few years ago. This underground bakery had a sales room for customers, but not many folks had access to the workroom.  The owner’s secret process of baking and candy-making was carefully guarded. 

Around this time, Mrs. Charity Grimes ordered a marble slab to mark the grave of her beloved and recently departed daughter, Lucy Adeline Grimes-Gresham.  Not long after the slab had been placed over the grave, it mysteriously disappeared and no trace of it could be found.  If anyone in the town knew where it was they were  dumb as a clam. The old saying that “murder will out”, however, proved true in this case.

Somehow Mrs. Grimes learned that there was a suspicious looking marble slab in the underground bakery, which was being used in making candy.  She immediately paid the bakery a visit and demanded that she be shown the slab.  With no recourse, the baker led the way to the secret chamber, where the slab lay upside-down upon a table.  The surface of the marble slab was smooth and polished.  Mrs. Grimes demanded that she be shown the under-side of the slab.  Alas, it revealed the name of her beloved daughter.
 
​“They say,” Aunt Charity engaged in some conversation that her name did not imply and that the baker did not misunderstand her meaning.  Her ultimatum was that if the slab was not thoroughly cleaned and placed where it belonged by daybreak the next morning, the aforesaid baker would find himself in the Old Rock Jail that stands just behind the courthouse.  He complied immediately, and the marble slab was returned to its proper place in the cemetery.