THE WORST CUP OF COFFEE
© 2025 Terry Harmon
My 3x great-granduncle, William “Billy” Mast, and his wife Mira lived along Watauga River, not far from the present-day site of the Mast Farm Inn in Valle Crucis, North Carolina, and in the fall of 1849, they lost their lives on the same day. They were believed to have been murdered by virtue of drinking poisoned coffee. Two versions of how this transpired have been passed down through the years, both involving a slave woman named Millie.
The first version states that Millie put wild parsnips in the Masts’ morning coffee. Millie’s motive for the crime has been debated. Some claim that her lover, a slave named Silas Baker, was the instigator of the plot, and public sentiment at the time held “Sile” as guilty as Millie. Sile belonged to Elizabeth Baker, who was the object of affection and first true love of Billy Mast’s uncle, Jacob Mast, who had moved to Texas in 1833. Following the death of Jacob’s wife, he returned to North Carolina to woo Elizabeth. When their engagement was announced, Sile and Millie believed the couple would return to Texas and take Elizabeth’s slaves with them, including Sile. Although there was never any tangible proof against Sile or Millie, it was later believed that the pair devised a plan to murder Billy and Mira Mast with the thought that, once they were dead, their slaves would be sold, and Jacob Mast would probably buy Millie and take her to Texas alongside Sile. In the end, Jacob and Elizabeth Mast did take Sile to Texas, but John Whittington bought Millie and later sold her to others in Tennessee.
The other version of this story claims that Millie had been washing clothes at the home of Billy’s parents, David and Polly Mast, when she stole twenty-dollar gold piece belonging to their son Andy. Millie then gave the money to Charles, a slave belonging to John Mast, to have changed for her. Charles took the money to Henry Taylor’s store at Valle Crucis, and Andy Mast was present and recognized the coin as his own because he had previously marked it. When questioned, Charles laid the blame on Millie who, in turn, tried to hold Will Shull responsible. Will was a seventeen-year-old mulatto slave, who belonged to Joseph and Lizzie Mast Shull. When Will heard of Millie’s false charge, he loaded a small shotgun, intending to shoot Millie, but he was stopped by Polly Mast, who told him Millie had confessed. As a result of her confession, Millie received a severe chastisement from her master, Billy Mast. Resentful of her punishment, she put the poison parsnips in the coffee to kill Billy only. It has been said that she never intended to harm Mira Mast, who did not usually drink coffee, but on that fateful morning she partook of the potion with her husband.
Neither of the couple died immediately, but Billy began feeling the effects after he arrived at his worksite, where he was building a bridge over the Watauga River, a mile below Shull’s Mills. Upon becoming ill that morning, he obtained medicine from his uncle, Phillip Shull, and then returned to work. Soon, however, he had to go home, and he died that night about the same time as his wife. They left behind five orphaned children. One of them, David Patterson “Pat” Mast, would eventually serve two terms as mayor of Winston, North Carolina.
Billy and Mira Mast are buried in the Mast-Taylor Cemetery at Valle Crucis, their individual tombstones bearing the same death date and confirming their shared demise.