Lynchings of Women in the United States: The Recorded Cases, 1851-1946 (Twenty-First Century Works)

Lynchings of Women in the United States

BY

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WORKS KERRY SEGRAVE AND FROM MCFARLAND

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Lynchings of Women in the United States The Recorded Cases, 1851–1946 KERRY SEGRAVE

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London

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Segrave, Kerry, 1944– Lynchings of women in the United States : the recorded cases, 1851–1946 / Kerry Segrave. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7864-5898-1 softcover : 50# alkaline paper 1. Lynching — United States — History —19th century. 2. Lynching — United States — History — 20th century. 3. Women — United States — History —19th century. 4. Women — United States — History — 20th century. 5. African American women — United States — History — 19th century. 6. African American women — United States — History — 20th century. 7. Racism — United States — History. I. Title. HV6457.S44 2010 364.1' 34 — dc22 2010021066 British Library cataloguing data are available ©2010 Kerry Segrave. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover image ©iStockphoto.com Manufactured in the United States of America

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Table of Contents Preface 1 Introduction 3 The Chronology, 1851–1898 21 The Chronology, 1901–1946 101 Bibliography 173 Index 183

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Preface This book is about the lynching of women in America over the almost 100 years from 1851 to 1946. That period was dictated because of a lack of material outside of those dates. There have been no documented cases of women being lynched in America since 1946. No incidents appear to have been documented in the period 1800 to 1850. For the purpose of this book, lynching is defined as the extrajudicial murder of someone by a mob (defined herein as three or more people) for any of a variety of reasons. Victims were sometimes taken out of jail cells or removed from the custody of law enforcement officials with justice denied or suborned. Often the lynching was to reinforce something vague and undefined — such as social norms. Often the lynching was to maintain the status quo as when whites lynched blacks to maintain and reinforce their position of power and dominance and what they saw as the inferiority of the black race. And most lynchings fell in that category. Almost all lynchers were white; about 78 percent of all victims were black. In order for a case to be included in this book, it had to appear in one of several sources, the most important being the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s list or the lynching calendar available on the autopsis website. Other sources used were the various online newspaper databases such as the Proquest series of historical newspapers, which included the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Constitution, and the Chicago Defender, among others. Also searched were the various state historical newspaper databases available online such as the Missouri State historical newspaper website and similar websites for Utah, Colorado, and others. Also used were individual newspapers online historically such as the Brooklyn Eagle. As well, 1

Preface

the website newspaperarchives.com was searched. Search terms used included “woman lynched,” and “lynching of a woman.” Those terms were also reversed, and the words “female” and “girl” in the place of “woman” or “women” were searched. Also used were the terms “murder,” “mob violence,” “mob attacks” and “mobs” in conjunction with woman, women, girl, and female. The first two terms were the ones that produced the greatest number of hits, and turned out to be the best indicator of an actual case of lynching. For the remaining terms and words, most hits were simply noise. The hits that were accurate did not produce a complete record of the cases, but led to specific information. Once a name, place and a date were found, those were used to fill out the case or get a little more information. All incidents described as a lynching in the press accounts have been included in this book. That is, all the lynching incidents included herein have been defined as a lynching by someone other than I. While I have endeavored to include all lynchings of women that took place during the period 1851 through 1946, undoubtedly I have missed some. All definitions produce certain problems and a few cases have been included that perhaps stretched the definitions somewhat. For example, there is no irrefutable proof that Beatrice and Laura Sims were lynched but the evidence points strongly to that conclusion. Peb Falls was found lynched days after the event. No witness was ever found and she may have been murdered by a single individual rather than a mob. However, the symbolism of her body dangling from a rope attached to a tree limb argued otherwise. Several incidents that appeared in the NAACP listing or in the lynching calendar could not be confirmed by me in any other source and so they are included herein as a simple, unexplained listing.

2

Introduction To condemn and punish by lynch law was a practice that came to the USA in the late 1770s. In those early years the infliction of punishment was usually limited to such things as whipping, tarring and feathering, or the like. Fairly soon, though, to lynch someone meant to inflict only one type of punishment on the victim — capital punishment. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 2nd edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, volume 9, pp. 137–138) defined lynch law as the practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; but limited now to summary execution. According to the entry, the origin of the term had not been determined. It was often stated that the expression arose from the activities of Charles Lynch, a justice of the peace in Virginia who, in 1782, was indemnified by an act of the Virginia Assembly for having illegally fined and imprisoned certain Tories in 1780. However, a Mr. Albert Matthews was said to have shown there was no evidence to show Charles Lynch was ever concerned in acts such as those which from 1817 onward were designated as “Lynch’s law.” It was possible that the perpetrators of those acts may have claimed that in the infliction of punishment not sanctioned by the laws of the nation, they were following the example of Lynch; or there may have been some other man of that name who was an organizer of such activities. Some speculated the term was derived from the name of Lynch’s Creek in South Carolina, which was known to have been in 1768 a meeting place of the “Regulators,” a band of men whose objective was to supply what they perceived as lacking in the Carolinas, regular administration of criminal justice, and who committed many acts of violence on those suspected of “Toryism.” As far as the OED was concerned, particulars supplied by A. Ellicott, 3

Introduction

along with other evidence, clearly established the fact that the originator of Lynch law was Captain William Lynch (1742–1820) of Pittsylvania in Virginia. According to Ellicott, that self-created judicial tribunal was first organized in the state of Virginia about the year 1776, with another piece of evidence giving the date definitely as 1780. According to the OED the first published appearances of the term “lynch law” came in 1811, then 1817 and then 1819, referring mostly to things that happened in the late 1700s. “The Lynch-men associated for the purpose of punishing crimes in a summary way without the tedious and technical forms of our courts of justice,” went the 1811 reference. Related terms such as “lynch,” “lyncher,” “lynch mob,” and “Judge Lynch” (as a general description of the practice) all made their first appearance in print in the mid to late 1830s. In the online historical newspaper database newspaperarchive.com, which has at least some material going back to the end of the 1700s, the first appearances of such terms were in 1835 and 1836. In the late 18th century, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, was plagued by criminals who could not be dealt with by the courts, which were too remote. That led to an agreement to punish such criminals without due process of law. Both the practice and the punishment came to be called “lynch law” after Captain William Lynch, who reportedly drew up a compact on September 22, 1780, with a group of his neighbors. Stating that Pittsylvania had “sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men that have hitherto escaped the civil power with impunity,” those who signed the compact agreed to respond to reports of criminality in their area by confronting the person or persons suspected of a crime, “and if they will not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporeal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained.” If lynching began as a method of punishing suspects for alleged specific crimes — that is, the dispensing of justice where officially constituted justice was deemed nonexistent or too slow — it quickly changed into something else. It changed from non-capital to capital punishment, and it moved away from punishing people for specified misdeeds to a practice that mostly existed to reinforce social norms — such as racism in the South — and to help various social classes maintain and impose their views and beliefs on the other classes, the out-groups. In the end the practice of lynching was no longer about supplying justice when it was not provided by the state 4

Introduction

but it was about power, control, terror and intimidation; it was about rage and hate, and the unleashing of all that was bestial in humankind. Writing in the Criminal Justice Review (volume 33, 2008, pp. 64–88), David V. Baker looked at “black female executions in historical content” and found the lynching of women had an antecedent in the legal execution of female slaves. Beginning with the execution in Massachusetts of Maria, a young slave woman, for arson and murder in September 1681, officials executed 58 slave women before 1790 and 126 slave women from 1790 to Emancipation. That is, three times as many slave women were executed in antebellum slavery as in colonial slavery. Of the 109 slave women executed for murder where historical records sufficiently identified victims, 67 murdered a member of their master’s family and 35 murdered unrelated victims. White people constituted more than 91 percent of the victims of slaves condemned to hang in colonial Virginia. An example was the slave Jenny, hanged in chains for poisoning to death her master in Maryland in 1770; it amounted to a punishment of death by starvation. Authorities in Virginia burned alive a slave named Eve for poisoning her master with a spiked glass of milk. After the execution officials quartered Eve’s body and displayed it in public. Sexual brutally often marked a slave woman’s life, and later, after Emancipation, it was often visited upon the females who were lynched. Celia was judicially executed in Missouri in one such case in the slave era. Seventy-year-old Robert Newsome bought 14-year-old Celia and forced sexual relations on her immediately after the purchase, and repeatedly. One night when Newsome went to Celia’s cabin to rape her yet again, she hit him with a piece of wood, killing him instantly. Celia was pregnant for the third time by Newsome and was quite ill when Newsome approached her for the last time. On the occasion of her trial the court was concerned only whether Celia had a right to defend herself against her master’s assault. The trial judge declared she had no such right. As far as the court was concerned, Celia had no sexual rights over her own body because she was Newsome’s property and she should have submitted to the demands of her master. Celia was found guilty of murder and executed by hanging on December 21, 1855. Baker found that legal and duly constituted jurisdictions executed far fewer black women during Reconstruction than in colonial and antebellum slavery. Records confirmed that five black women were hanged for murder between 1866 and 1877 in mostly Southern jurisdictions. 5

Introduction

One incident happened when Kentucky authorities hanged 12-yearold Eliza in February 1868 for murdering Walter Graves, a two-year-old white child who was in her care. The babysitter confessed to the killing after the family’s white neighbors threatened her with lynching. During the girl’s trial the judge rendered her confession involuntary and inadmissible, given the threats of lynching she received. However, a jury still convicted Eliza of murder. By 1866 all the Southern states had enacted codes to regulate the lives of black people. After 1865, newly emancipated black women swelled the ranks of Southern prison populations, with black females numbering 40 to 70 percent of all women committed to Southern penitentiaries. Contributing to the reduced legal executions of black women during Reconstruction, argued Baker, was an increase in white violence to black people as a means of imposing punishment. Black lynchings became commonplace during Reconstruction, he wrote. Racial violence was a pervasive feature of everyday life for black people during that period, with Southern whites employing the activities of vigilante groups to terrorize blacks. Thus, the assault, murder, lynching, politically repression, and execution of black people continued throughout Reconstruction. In Baker’s view the vulnerability of Black women to white male sexual violence was greater in the postbellum period than it had been during slavery. Jim Crow segregation came to dominate as an institutional means of subordinating blacks with the collapse of Reconstruction, and by 1890 Southern society had fully established the legal separation of black people. That Jim Crow era ushered in another killing period for black people. Judicial and extrajudicial executions killed more than 8,100 black people in the period, reported Baker. The white justice system killed 4,707 black prisoners while white lynch mobs killed another 3,445 blacks. “The killing of Black women was particularly heinous; White mobs lynched White females but there is no confirmation that White female lynching victims suffered the savagery inflicted on Black women,” concluded Baker. Between 1882 and 1968 the Tuskegee Institute recorded 3,437 lynchings of black people and 1,293 lynchings of white people (“Lynching in the United States,” Wikipedia). Numbers for lynchings prior to around 1880 seem to be nonexistent, although the totals for the years after that seem to be reasonably reliable. Dr. Arthur Rapper was commissioned in 1930 to produce a report on lynching. He found that 3,724 people were 6

Introduction

lynched in America from 1889 through to 1930. Over 80 percent of those victims were black; less than one-sixth had been accused of rape. Practically all of the lynchers were native whites. “The fact that a number of the victims were tortured, mutilated, dragged or burned suggests the presence of sadistic tendencies among the lynchers. Of the tens of thousands of lynchers and onlookers, only 49 were indicted and only 4 have been sentenced,” said Rapper (spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlynching.htm). More or less accurate numbers for lynchings exist for the later years due to the pioneer work in compiling such records that was undertaken by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was to be found in their publication Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889 –1918 (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969 [1919]). For the period 1889 to 1918 the NAACP found a total of 3,224 lynching victims across America — 2,522 (78.2 percent) were black victims and 702 (21.8 percent) were white victims of lynch mobs. Of the total number, 390 (12.1 percent) of the lynchings took place in the North and West of the nation while 2,834 (87.9 percent) took place in the South. For that period the NAACP found a total of 61 females (1.85 percent) were lynched. Fifty of them were black; 11 were white women. Thus, white males comprised 691 (98.5 percent) of the 702 white victims while black men totaled 2,472 (98.0 percent) of the 2,522 black victims. From the NAACP data, women were lynched in the following states in the period 1889 to 1918: Alabama (seven blacks, no whites); Arkansas (5, 0); Florida (2, 0); Georgia (5, 0); Kentucky (3, 1); Louisiana (4, 1); Mississippi (11, 1); Nebraska (0, 1); North Carolina (0, 1); Oklahoma (2, 0); South Carolina (4, 0); Tennessee (1, 2); Texas (6, 3); Virginia (0, 1). Figures given in the Wikipedia entry “Lynching of Women” (a link from the main entry “Lynching in the United States”), were slightly different. According to this source the total number of women lynched in the United States since 1889 was 83; 66 being black women, 17 being white. Those victims were spread over 17 states as follows: Mississippi (14 blacks, one white); Texas (8, 2); Alabama (9, 0); Georgia (8, 0); Arkansas (6, 1); South Carolina (6, 0); Louisiana (4, 1); Tennessee (3, 2); Kentucky (2, 2); Oklahoma (2, 2); Florida (3, 0); Missouri (1, 1); North Carolina (0, 1); Virginia (0, 1); Nebraska (0, 1); West Virginia (0, 1); Wyoming (0, 1). Somewhat different statistics were presented for the state of Mississippi in Lynchings in Mississippi: A History 1865 –1965 by Julius E. Thompson 7

Introduction

( Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007). For the period 1890 to 1939, Thompson found 18 black women and no white women were lynched in Mississippi. Totals by decade were as follows: 1890–1899 (184 black men, six black women, five white men); 1900–1909 (137, 4, 11); 1910–1919 (100, 5, 2); 1920–1929 (60, 2, 2); 1930–1939 (49, 1, 2). Overall, for the entire period 570 people were lynched in the state; 530 black men (92.9 percent), 18 black women (3.1 percent), and 22 white men (4.0 percent). James Elbert Cutler in Lynch Law (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969 [1905]) presented different figures as well. During the period 1882 to 1903 he found that a total of 40 black women and 23 white females had been lynched in America. While the lynching of men was pervasive and numbered into the thousands, it was relatively rare for a woman to be lynched, with the proportion of females lynched being, roughly, about two percent of the victims. It was as rare, relatively, to lynch a black woman as it was to lynch a white woman. Part of that likely had to do with the place held in society by women. That is, they were viewed as non-violent, passive, and the moral and ethical centers for humankind, and so forth. It was not fair play for a man to hit a woman and, apparently, not fair play to lynch a woman. While black people were treated vilely in America during the period covered by this book, the women as much as the men, that treatment stopped short of lynching, most of the time. The fact that women, black and white, were lynched relatively rarely, and in roughly the same proportion by race, indicated that when it came to lynching gender trumped race, apparently. When a woman was lynched it sometimes generated editorial comment from newspapers, sometimes expressing outrage over such activity and sometimes expressing surprise over the rarity of such a thing. When Charlotte Harris (see herein, 1878 March 11) was taken from legal custody by a mob in Rockingham County, Virginia, and lynched, her murder was decried in many news accounts. It was one of the first lynchings of a female that drew editorial comment — that is, something other than a brief recounting of the facts. Remarking on the case the Washington Post declared, “The lynching of a woman is the latest novelty in crime.” More attention than usual may have been devoted to her case because the first women’s rights movement was then in the first decade of its life and was drawing much media coverage. However, not all the observations of the media were critical of the Harris lynching. An editor with the Independent newspaper 8

Introduction

of Helena, Montana, stated, “The strong-minded females are continually raving about women being deprived of rights that men enjoy. They have gained one point already. A woman was lynched last week in Virginia, a distinction that has hitherto been accorded to men only.” After Mrs. Cuddigan (herein 1884 January 18) and her husband Michael were lynched near Ouray, Colorado, an editorial in the Leaderville Daily Herald (Colorado) decried the application of lynch law in general and added, “The citizens of Ouray have distinguished themselves by a most outrageous and barbarous act of lawlessness. They have lynched a woman ... it is the boast of Americans that a woman’s weakness will shield her from violence at the hands of a true American, except it be commanded by the law.” Continued the editor, “The men of Ouray can find no apology for their brutal conduct by the plea that the woman was guilty. All the world knows that a woman may be coerced by the power of her husband and compelled to do a thing at which she herself would naturally revolt.” Lynch law was rarely excusable, he argued, and the application of the law was not so lax in Ouray that public policy demanded that “a mob of strong men should drag a weak, defenseless woman out of jail in the middle of the night and choke her to death like they might a dog.” After Kate Maxwell (herein, Ella Watson 1889 July 21), the “Cattle Queen,” was lynched near Sweetwater, Wyoming, it was revealed that the entire story had been a fiction. All the supposed events of Kate’s life had been invented and, presumably, sold to the Eastern tabloid press to present and reinforce lurid stereotypes of the Wild West, and of women. A woman had been lynched at the time and place specified, but her name was Ella Watson and she had nothing in common with her fictional stand-in, invented by party or parties unknown. A Pittsburgh newspaper did comment on the lynching of a woman with respect to this case, but only to the extent of remarking on its rarity. “In the Northwestern section the other day a woman was lynched for stealing cattle. This is a novelty in the lynching line. The Judge [Lynch] has heretofore confined his attention to the male sex.” Bob Sims led a gang that clashed with the law in and around Mobile, Alabama, in 1891 and into the first days of 1892. Two members of that gang were his daughters Beatrice Sims (see herein 1892 January 5) and Laura Sims, who were most likely lynched. (It was not certain they were lynched but the evidence pointed to that conclusion.) In the wake of the 9

Introduction

reports that the two women had been lynched, a journalist remarked, “The south claims to be chivalrous to women beyond any section of country in Christendom, yet such a thing as the hanging of a woman by lynch law could scarcely have happened in the north under any circumstances.” Not long after the report of the lynching of the two women and their uncle, a terse denial of the murders, which raised more questions than it answered, was issued by a law enforcement official. However, few believed it. Another journalist explained that the “lynching of women is such a revolting matter that a denial has been published.” After the lynching of three members of the Lowman family, including Bertha Lowman (see herein 1926 October 8), in Aiken, South Carolina, an editorial in the Kingsport Times (Tennessee) stated it was regrettable enough at any time when a mob defied the laws and constituted officials to lynch helpless prisoners without a trial or justice, “but in the case of the lynching at Aiken still further shame was heaped on the members of the lawless mob because of the fact that one of the victims was a woman! Because of this feature, and because of the number lynched, this was one of the most disgraceful examples of mob lawlessness that has been recorded in recent years.” Time passed and there were no arrests in the Lowman lynching. When a second grand jury was formed to investigate the crime, its members were addressed by presiding Judge Johnson who urged them to indict the guilty parties as the eyes of South Carolina and of the United States were on Aiken. Speaking to the issue of the lynching of a woman, Johnson declared, “I do say that a lynching is a deliberate, willful and cowardly murder, than which crime there can be no greater. Any lynching is a cowardly murder, but the lynching of a woman is the lowest form of murder that I have yet heard of.” The Tuskegee Institute, in Tuskegee, Alabama, defined “lynching” in 1940 in the following way: “there must be legal evidence that a person has been killed, and that he met his death illegally at the hands of “a group” acting under the pretext of service to justice, race, or tradition,” with a group defined as three or more people. In a Kansas statute that defined “lynchings,” the number of people constituting a mob was not stated: “Any collection of individuals assembled for an unlawful purpose, intending to injure any person by violence, and without authority of law, shall for the purpose of this act be regarded as a mob.” There was often little to choose from between a mob and a posse. In theory a posse was legally constituted 10

Introduction

and thus had the right to shoot suspects who were armed and resisted arrest. In practice, though, there was often little or no difference between a mob and a posse. Lynching had to do with individuals supplanting the law and acting in defiance of the law. On that basis the general practice of compilers of lynching records has been not to include in such records persons put to death in what were commonly classified as riots. In a riot there took place the promiscuous killing of individuals while in a lynching particular individuals were seized and put to death for alleged specified offenses. Such distinctions perhaps accounted for the difference in numbers from various sources presented in this book. However, it was a distinction that often broke down in the case of women who were murdered. Often a specific male was sought by the mob, seized and lynched for a specific crime. That is, it was a lynching by most definitions. But a woman was often seized and lynched as well because she happened to be the man’s wife or girlfriend and, most importantly, was present when the man was seized. Members of the mob had not set out to lynch a woman but did so anyway, knowing full well the woman had no role in the supposed crime. Presumably the bloodlust of the mob swept them along. Thus, many of the women portrayed in this book were murdered promiscuously, as happens in a riot, but were just as clearly lynched. One of the most important, and tireless, figures in the fight against lynching was a black journalist by the name of Ida Wells. In 1884 when she was editor of Free Speech, a small newspaper in Memphis, she carried out an investigation into lynching. Ida discovered that during a short period, 782 black men and women had been lynched by white mobs. Of those deaths, some 66 percent were lynched for such minor offenses as public drunkenness and shoplifting. On March 9, 1892 (as reported in the website spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlynching.htm), three black businessmen were lynched in Memphis. When Wells wrote an article condemning the lynchers, a white mob destroyed her printing press. They said that they had intended to lynch her but she was visiting Philadelphia at the time. Unable to return to Memphis, Ida Wells was recruited by the progressive newspaper, New York Age. She continued her campaign against lynching and Jim Crow laws, and in 1893 and 1894 she made lecture tours of Britain. While there in 1894 she helped to establish the British Anti-Lynching Committee. In 1898 Wells wrote to U.S. President William McKinley and asked 11

Introduction

him to take action against the lynching of black people that was taking place in the Southern states. She said, “For nearly twenty years lynching crimes have been committed and permitted by this Christian nation. Nowhere in the civilized world save the United States of America do men, possessing all civil and political power, go out in bands of 50 to 5,000 to hunt down, shoot, hang or burn to death a single individual, unarmed and absolutely powerless.... To our appeals for justice the stereotyped reply has been the government could not interfere in a state matter.” Thirty years later, writing in Crusade for Justice (1928), Wells stated, “No torture of helpless victims by heathen savages or cruel red Indians ever exceeded the cold-blooded savagery of white devils under lynch law. This was done by white men who controlled all the forces of law and order in their communities and who could have legally punished rapists and murderers, especially black men who had neither political power nor financial strength with which to evade any justly deserved fate.” Wells added, “The more I studied the situation the more I was convinced that the Southerner had never gotten over his resentment that the Negro was no longer his plaything, his servant, and his source of income.” At the turn of the 20th century in America (according to the Wikipedia entry “Lynching in the United States”), lynching had become a photographic sport. People sent picture postcards of lynchings they had witnessed to friends and relatives. The practice had become so base, a latter-day writer for Time magazine (Richard Lacayo, “Blood at the Root,” Time, April 2, 2000) noted that even the Nazis “did not stoop to selling souvenirs of Auschwitz, but lynching scenes became a burgeoning sub department of the postcard industry.” By 1908 the trade had grown so large, and the practice of sending postcards that featured the victims of lynch mobs was so repugnant, that the United States Postmaster General banned the cards from the mails. In Without Sanctuary, a book put together by James Allen containing a collection of postcards that portrayed lynchings , Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Leon F. Litwack wrote, “The photographs stretch our credulity, even numb our minds and senses to the full extent of the horror.... The men and women who tortured, dismembered, and murdered in this fashion understood perfectly well what they were doing and thought of themselves as perfectly normal human beings. Few had any ethical qualms about their actions.” Litwack did not believe lynching was the outburst of crazed men 12

Introduction

or uncontrolled barbarians but the triumph of a belief system that defined one group as less human than another: “For the men and women who comprised these mobs, as for those who remained silent and indifferent or who provided scholarly or scientific explanations, this was the highest idealism in the service of their race. One has only to view the self-satisfied expressions on their faces as they posed beneath the black people hanging from a rope or next to the charred remains of a Negro who had been burned to death.” What was most disturbing for Litwack about those postcard scenes was the discovery that the perpetrators of the crimes were ordinary people, “not so different from ourselves — merchants, farmers, laborers, machine operators, teachers, doctors, lawyers, policemen, students; they were family men and women, good churchgoing folk who came to believe that keeping black people in their place was nothing less than pest control, a way of combating an epidemic or virus that if not checked would be detrimental to the health and security of the community.” Not every observer, though, thought of the lynch mob as just ordinary folk, as a random selection from the larger population of the area. In February 1905, Ray Stannard Baker described a typical lynch mob in “What Is a Lynching” in McClure’s Magazine (spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USA lynching.htm): “Well, on Monday afternoon the mob began to gather. At first it was an absurd, ineffectual crowd, made up largely of lawless boys of sixteen to twenty — a pronounced feature of every mob — with a wide fringe of more respectable citizens, their hands in their pockets and no convictions in their souls, looking on curiously, helplessly. They gathered hooting around the jail, cowardly, at first, as all mobs are, but growing bolder as darkness came on and no move was made to check them.” For Baker it was a mob from the back rooms of the warming saloons of the town; and it included also the sort of idle boys who hung around cigar stores. The newspaper reports were fond of describing lynch mobs as made up of the foremost citizens of the town, wrote Baker. But, he added, “In no cases that I know of, either South or North, has a mob been made up of what may be called the best citizens; but the best citizens have often stood afar off ‘decrying the mob’ ... and letting it go on. A mob is the method by which good citizens turn over the law and the government to the criminal or irresponsible classes.” The effect of it all, he argued, was that a dry rot, a moral paralysis seemed to strike the administrators of a town faced with a lynch mob. What, he wondered, could be expected of 13

Introduction

officers who were not accustomed to enforce the law, or of a people not accustomed to obey it, or who made reservations and exceptions when they did enforce the law or obey it. After the lynching of a black man that he had witnessed, Baker stated, “That was the end of that. Mob justice administered. And there the Negro hung until daylight the next morning — an unspeakably grisly, dangling horror, advertising the shame of the town. His head was shockingly crooked to one side, his ragged clothing, cut for souvenirs, exposed in places his bare body; he dripped blood.” He continued, “And, with the crowds of men both here and at the morgue where the body was publicly exhibited, came young boys in knickerbockers, and little girls and women by scores, horrified but curious. They came even with baby carriages! Men made jokes: ‘A dead nigger is a good nigger.’ And the purblind, dollarsand-cents man, most despicable of all, was congratulating the public: ‘It’ll save the county a lot of money.’” Even after the lynching, Baker felt the mob was not through with its wrong: “Easy people imagine that having hanged a Negro, the mob goes quietly about its business; but that is never the way of the mob. Once released, the spirit of anarchy spreads and spreads, not subsiding until it has accomplished its full measure of evil.” A few years later in “Following the Color Line” in American Magazine (1908), Ray Stannard Baker wrote, “If the white man sets an example of non-obedience to law, of non-enforcement of law, and of unequal justice, what can be expected of the Negro? A criminal father is a poor preacher of homilies to a wayward son. The Negro sees a man, white or black, commit murder and go free, over and over again in all these lynching counties. Why should he fear to murder?” An editorial in the publication The Charleston in 1918 observed, “There is scarcely a day that passes that newspapers don’t tell about a Negro soldier lynched in his uniform. Why do they lynch Negros anyhow? With a white judge, a white jury, white public sentiment, white officers of law, it is impossible for a Negro accused of a crime, or even suspected of a crime, to escape a white man’s vengeance or his justice.” From the Vicksburg Evening Post of May 4, 1919, came the following description of a lynching: “All social classes, women and children, were present at the scene. Many ladies of high society followed the crowd from outside the prison, others joined in from neighboring terraces. When the Negro’s corpse fell, the pieces of rope were hotly contended for.” 14

Introduction

Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese soldier who visited the United States not long after World War I. He wrote about a lynching for a French magazine in 1924 and said, in part, “When everybody has had enough, the corpse is brought down. The rope is cut into small pieces which will be sold for three or four dollars each.” Roy Wilkins interviewed famed Louisiana politician Huey P. Long for the publication The Crisis in February 1935. Wilkins asked Long about a recent lynching in his state and about attempts then underway in the U.S. Legislature to enact a federal anti-lynching act. Long ignored the question about the bill. Of the lynching Long said, “Too bad, but these slips will happen.” He then pointed out there had been just seven lynchings in Louisiana over the previous two years. “This one slipped up. I can’t do anything about it. No sir,” continued Long. “Can’t do the dead nigra no good. Why, if I tried to go after those lynchers, it might cause a hundred more niggers to be killed. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” Wilkins persisted and said to Long, “But you control Louisiana.” To which Long replied, “Yeah, but it’s not that simple. I told you there are some things even Huey Long can’t get away with. We’ll just have to watch out for the next one. Anyway that nigger was guilty of cold blooded murder.” When Wilkins pointed out that his own supreme court — Louisiana’s — had granted the victim a new trial, Long stated; “Sure we got a law which allows a reversal on technical points. This nigger got hold of a smart lawyer somewhere and proved a technicality. He was guilty as hell. But we’ll catch the next lynching.” In his book You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), Southern author Erskine Caldwell wrote of Mississippi. He said the white farmer there had not always been “the lazy, slipshod, good-for-nothing person that he is frequently described as being.” Somewhere in his span of life he became frustrated, Caldwell declared. He felt defeated and he felt the despair and dejection that came from defeat. He was made aware of the limitations of life imposed upon those unfortunate enough to be made slaves of sharecropping. “Out of his predicament grew desperation, out of desperation grew resentment.... In a land that has long been glorified in the supremacy of the white race, he directed his resentment against the black man,” said Caldwell. “His normal instincts became perverted.... He became bestial. He released his pent-up emotions by lynching the black man in order to witness the mental and physical suffering of another human being.... When 15

Introduction

his own suffering was more than he could stand, he could live only by witnessing the suffering of others.” Not long after the lynching of Roger and Dorothy Malcolm and George and Willie Mae Dorsey, together [see herein], Paul Robeson gave a speech on lynching in Madison Square Garden, on September 12, 1946. He said, “The swelling wave of lynch murders and mob assaults against Negro men and women represents the ultimate limit of bestial brutality to which the enemies of democracy, be they German Nazis or American Ku Kluxers, are ready to go in imposing their will.” Calling on United States President Harry Truman to take action, Robeson observed, “The leaders of this country can call out the Army and Navy to stop the railroad workers and to stop the maritime workers [from labor strikes]— why can’t they stop the lynchers?” Roger Rosenblatt in “Confronting the Past,” February 17, 2000 (PBS Newshour), commented on the fact that ordinary people did these lynchings was deeply disturbing; that they manufactured a social rationale for their acts was still more disturbing. “Look for a while at the picture of the lynching of Rubin Stacy, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 1935,” he wrote. “Look first at Stacy, then turn to the little girl in the summer dress, looking at Stacy, and then at the man behind her, perhaps her father, in the spotless white shirt and slacks and the clean white skimmer. They will stand there forever, admiring the proof of their civilization.” In 1937 Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from New York, saw a photograph of the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. Meeropol later recalled how the photograph “haunted me for days” and inspired the writing of his poem “Strange Fruit.” He was at the time a member of the American Communist Party. Using the alias Lewis Allan, he published the poem in the New York Teacher and later, in 1939, in the journal New Masses. After seeing Billie Holiday perform at a club, Café Society, in New York, Meeropol showed her the poem. She liked it and after working on it with Sonny White, turned it into the song “Strange Fruit.” In July of 1939 the record made it to number 16 on the charts. However, the song was denounced by Time magazine as “a prime piece of musical propaganda” for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Over the years many efforts were made to pass a federal anti-lynching law but, for the period covered by this book, none were successful. George 16

Introduction

Henry White, the last former slave to serve in the United States Congress and the only black in the House of Representatives, proposed a bill in January 1901 that would have made the lynching of American citizens a federal crime. He argued that any person participating actively in or acting as an accessory in a lynching should be convicted of treason. The bill was easily defeated. Starting in 1909 (from Wikipedia’s main entry “Lynching in the United States”) legislators introduced more than 200 bills in Congress to make lynching a federal crime, but they failed to pass, mainly because of opposition from Southern legislators. Because the Southern states had effectively disenfranchised blacks by the beginning of the 1900s, the white Southern Democrats controlled all the seats of the South, with nearly double the Congressional representation that white citizens alone would have been entitled to, based on their population numbers. United States President Theodore Roosevelt made public statements against lynching in 1903, following the death of George White in Delaware. However, in that same year he refrained from commenting on lynching during his Southern political campaign. In his sixth annual State of the Union message on December 4, 1906, Roosevelt against spoke publicly against lynching. Theodore Roosevelt did make public a letter he wrote as President to Governor Winfield T. Durbin of Indiana (after the governor had successfully used the National Guard to disperse a lynch mob). Roosevelt said, “Permit me to thank you as an American citizen for the admirable way in which you have vindicated the majesty of the law by your recent action in reference to lynching.... All thoughtful men ... must feel the gravest alarm over the growth of lynching in this country, and especially over the peculiarly hideous forms so often taken by mob violence when colored men are the victims — on which occasions the mob seems to lay more weight, not on the crime but on the color of the criminal.” He added, “There are certain hideous sights which when once seen can never be wholly erased from the mental retina. The mere fact of having seen them implies degradation.... Whoever in any part of our country has ever taken part in lawlessly putting to death a criminal by the dreadful torture of fire must forever after have the awful spectacle of his own handiwork seared into his brain and soul. He can never again be the same man.” Because of such pronouncements, Theodore Roosevelt lost some support among 17

Introduction

whites, especially in the South. Threats against him grew to such an extent that the Secret Service increased the size of his detail. In the 1930s United States Senators Robert F. Wagner and Edward P. Costigan agreed to draft a bill that would punish the crime of lynching. They drafted the Costigan-Wagner bill that would require local authorities to protect prisoners from lynch mobs. It proposed to make lynching a federal crime and thus take it out of the hands of state administrations. However, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to speak out in favor of that bill. He argued that the white voters in the South would never forgive him if he supported the bill and he would therefore lose the next election. Although the Costigan-Wagner bill received support from many members of Congress, opposition from Southern legislators was virtually unanimous. Southern senators used a filibuster to prevent a vote on the proposed bill. In 1947 in the wake of the quadruple lynching of Roger and Dorothy Malcolm and George and Willie Mae Dorsey, U.S. President Harry S Truman’s administration published a report that advocated making lynching a federal crime, among other civil rights reforms. However, the Southern Democratic block of senators and congressmen continued to block needed federal legislation. The ideology behind lynching, connected directly with the denial of political and social equality, was perhaps stated most overtly by Benjamin Tillman, Governor of South Carolina 1890–1894 and later a United States Senator (from 1895 until his death in 1918). “We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.” This book contains data for 97 separate lynching events in which one or more women were murdered by a mob; 57 of them occurred in the period 1851 to 1898 while the other 40 took place in the years 1901 to 1946. In total, 115 women were lynched; 90 (79 percent) of them were black females, 19 (17 percent) were white women, and 6 (4 percent) were Hispanic, uncertain, or “half-breed.” During the period 1851 to 1898, 44 black women were lynched in a total of 36 incidents, 17 white women in 16 incidents of lynching and five “others” in five separate lynching incidents. In the cases of the murders of black women, there were 29 instances of a single woman being murdered and seven instances of multiple murders — 18

Introduction

six cases of two victims each time and one case of a triple murder. All the instances of white women and “others” involved the murder of a sole victim, with one possible exception. Two white women (the Sims sisters) were probably lynched together. This example was only “possible” as the certainty of their death was not clear. There was a change in the pattern of lynching for the period 1901– 1946, as compared to the earlier period. In the first half century the female victims of lynching were primarily black (44 out of 66, or 67 percent) while in the second half century black victims comprised at least 46 of the 49 victims (92 percent). Of the three not identified as black, two were described in a listing as white women lynched together. However, no confirmation could be found and the location was said to have been in an Indian village in Indian Territory. The other female may have been white or black. Those 46 black women died in 38 separate incidents, with eight of the incidents each involving a double murder. Illustrating how unusual it was to lynch a woman was the fact that most of the women were not lynched alone (or with only one or two other females) but were lynched in the company of one or more males. That is, the murdered women often had nothing to do with any alleged or supposed crime but rather they were swept up by the insane fury of the mob. Of the 97 lynching incidents outlined in this book, in only 36 instances (37 percent) were women lynched alone. During the period 1851 to 1898, women were lynched alone in 23 (40 percent) of the 57 incidents while in the period 1901 to 1946, the number was 13 (32 percent) out of 40 incidents. In the 74 instances in which a black woman was lynched, 27 (37 percent) cases involved murdering a woman alone, while in the 17 incidents in which white women were murdered, six (35 percent) of those involved a woman alone, similar ratios. With respect to geographical distribution of the lynchings, the ones that occurred in the first period to 1898 were spread over 19 states, with Alabama and Kentucky leading the way with eight lynchings of women each. Those 57 lynchings took the lives of 44 black women, 17 white women, and five “other” females. For the second period to 1946, the geographical distribution dropped to 13 states, with Georgia and Mississippi leading the way with eight lynchings each. All those states had lynchings in the earlier period. The six states with women lynched in the first period, but none in the second, were: California, Virginia, Colorado, Nebraska, 19

20

Introduction

Wyoming, and West Virginia. Those 40 incidents in the 1901 to 1946 period took the lives of 46 black women and three others. The geographic distribution for 1851 to 1898 was as follows (by state, alphabetically): Alabama, 8 incidents (10 blacks, 3 whites, 0 others); Arkansas, 4 incidents (3 blacks, 1 whites, 0 others); California, 1 incident (0 blacks, 0 whites, 1 other); Colorado, 1 incident (0 blacks, 1 white, 0 others); Florida, 1 incident (2 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Georgia, 2 incidents (2 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Kentucky, 8 incidents (5 blacks, 2 whites, 2 others); Louisiana, 3 incidents (3 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Mississippi, 5 incidents (5 blacks, 1 white, 0 others); Missouri, 1 incident (1 black, 0 whites, 0 others); Nebraska, 2 incidents (0 blacks, 2 whites, 0 others); North Carolina, 2 incidents (1 black, 1 white, 0 others); Oklahoma, 1 incident (0 blacks, 0 whites, 1 other); South Carolina, 3 incidents (3 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Tennessee, 6 incidents (4 blacks, 2 whites, 0 others); Texas, 5 incidents (4 blacks, 1 white, 1 other); Virginia, 2 incidents (1 black, 1 white, 0 others); West Virginia, 1 incident (0 blacks, 1 white, 0 others); Wyoming, 1 incident (0 blacks, 1 white, 0 others). The geographic distribution for 1901 to 1946 was: Alabama, 1 incident (1 black, 0 whites, 0 others); Arkansas, 2 incidents (3 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Florida, 3 incidents (5 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Georgia, 8 incidents (10 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Kentucky, 2 incidents (2 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Louisiana, 3 incidents (3 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Mississippi, 8 incidents (10 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Missouri, 1 incident (0 blacks, 0 whites, 1 other); North Carolina, 1 incident (1 black, 0 whites, 0 others); Oklahoma, 3 incidents (2 blacks, 2 whites, 0 others); South Carolina, 3 incidents (3 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Tennessee, 2 incidents (2 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others); Texas 3 incidents (4 blacks, 0 whites, 0 others).

20

The Chronology, 1851–1898 Josefa Segovia 1851 July 5 • Downieville, California J. Ballou of Palo Alto and San Jose, California, reminisced in 1924 to a newspaperman about the lynching in Downieville, California, of a Hispanic woman known only as Juanita in many accounts; Josefa Segovia appeared to have been her full name. Ballou was 94 years old when he recalled the July 5, 1851, lynching. When the event occurred, Ballou was a young man prospecting on the Yuba River, which flowed through Downieville. Juanita was widely referred to as the first and only women to have been lynched in California. When Ballou went to town on July 4 to get provisions, Governor Weller was campaigning for office and the town was full of people who had come to hear Weller make a speech. That morning Ballou heard from other people he ran into what happened the previous evening. Frank Cannon, a man described as being a quarrelsome and successful American miner, had also come to town from one of the gold-laden creeks nearby. There was much gambling and drinking in Downieville with the main gambling and drinking house kept by a man named John Crayeroft. Inside that house on the night of July 3 was a Mexican who played there regularly. With him was his companion, a Mexican woman named Juanita. It was not known if the couple was married, but they lived together as man and wife in a little house on the town’s main street. Frank Cannon and his companions, all drunk, tried to force their way into the house occupied by Juanita and the Mexican gambler later that night. However, they were rebuffed and driven away. Cannon and his friends were very indignant and went away to get a larger crowd. The assumption was that Cannon and his friends had tried to get into the house to rape the woman. When 21

The Chronology • 1860

Cannon and a larger crowd returned to the house they succeeded in forcing an entrance. Somehow, Juanita managed to stab Cannon, killing him. By then it was in the early hours of July 4. According to Ballou, there was great indignation on the part of the American and mining population that Cannon should have been killed. Thus, on July 5, Juanita was put on “trial” by the mob in an empty building in one of the main streets of the town. Most of the community’s population milled around outside the building waiting to hear the results. A crier stood at the door of the improvised “court room” and told the people what was happening inside. Lynching talk was in the air and it was commonly said, “The woman is only a ____. Hanging is too good for her.” Only one effort was made to save the woman’s life. A lawyer from Nevada, in town to hear Weller, mounted a box and began to plead with the crowd: “Gentlemen, let’s see fair play. Let’s see if murder has really been committed.” At that point the box was knocked out from under him and he fell to the ground. The lawyer said no more. A few minutes later word came that the woman had been found guilty of murder. Juanita was swept out of the building and dragged by the mob of men to the bridge over the Yuba River. Ballou said he followed the crowd and observed that a scaffold, with the noose over the beam, had already been erected on the bridge. At that point Ballou turned away his gaze and Juanita died in that minute. SOURCE : “Woman up in the west.” Fairbanks Weekly News-Miner [Alaska], January 21, 1921, p. 15.

Teney (black) 1860 October 27 • Fulton, Missouri In the house of a Mr. Barnes, some eight miles outside of Fulton, Missouri, lived a female slave identified only as Teney, who was described in one account as being of “irascible and dangerous temper” and who had frequently been enraged by one member of the Barnes household, an 18year-old daughter, Susan Jemima Barnes. On Saturday morning October 27, 1860, the slave Teney was sent to work in a cornfield and the rest of the Barnes family went off to attend a meeting of some sort, leaving Susan alone in the house. Upon returning home that afternoon the family was horrified to find Susan had been beaten to death and the floor and walls of the dwelling were splattered with blood. The dinner table had been set, evidently by Susan, and her knitting work lay disarrayed on the kitchen 22

The Chronolog y • 1868

floor. Evidence of a violent struggle could be found in the kitchen and other rooms of the house with a trail of blood and gore also being found going from room to room. Susan was found with her head so beaten and damaged that virtually no bone remained unbroken. Besides a blunt instrument having been used as a weapon it was believed that a knife had also been used on the young woman. A coroner’s inquest was held immediately and Teney was called before it and where it was acknowledged that Teney had some difficulties with Susan. It was revealed that on the day of the murder the slave had changed her dress. Due to her contradictory stories about the reason for changing the garment suspicion was aroused. Thus, a search for the dress was started, and it was soon discovered hidden in the cornfield, completely covered with blood. That was sufficient evidence for the coroner’s inquest to declare Teney had murdered Barnes. As well, a bloody and battered shovel was discovered. Reportedly, when Teney was confronted with the discovered dress she confessed to the murder. Immediately, she was placed in the custody of Deputy Constable Henry Willing who rode off with his prisoner toward the jail at Fulton. Willing was worried by the rumblings among spectators and neighbors that violence was the answer, and so he left for the jail at once and as fast as he could. However, he was not fast enough. A few miles from Fulton the pursuing mob overtook Willing and his prisoner. The mob demanded Willing hand over his prisoner and Willing, surrounded, outnumbered, alone, and facing a mob of 40 to 50 men, gave the slave Teney to the crowd. The mob took Teney to the nearest tree where they lynched her by hanging her until she was dead. SOURCES : “Atrocious murder in Missouri.” New York Times, November 7, 1860, p. 3. “A young lady murdered by a slave.” McKean Miner [Smethport, Pa.], November 10 1860, p. 2.

Unidentified Black Woman 1868 September 10 • Northport, Alabama SOURCE : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html [no confirmation found].

Miss Cummins (black) 1868 September • Pulaski, Kentucky • Lynched with: Mr. Cummins (father), Mr. Adams (blacks) SOURCE : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html [no confirmation found].

23

The Chronology • 1869

Mrs. Henry Reed, Mrs. Matt Nickles (blacks) 1869 October 4, October 8 • Jackson County, Florida • Lynched with: Henry Reed (husband), Mr. Reed (son — both on October 4), Matt Nickles (husband), Mr. Nickles (son — both on October 8) (blacks). All of the above were listed as victims in the lynching calendar. While no specific confirmation was found with respect to the Reed family, or the Nickles family there was a reference to Sam Fleishman (also in the lynching calendar, as having been lynched on October 5) and the general disturbance between blacks and whites that took place in and around Marianna, Jackson County, Florida, at the time. According to a news report during the period from September 28 until October 4, some half a dozen “cold blooded murders had been committed, and assassinations are the order of the day.” Throughout that period, Marianna and vicinity had been in a state of lawlessness. Reportedly, Sam Fleishman, a Republican merchant, had been recently taken from his family and business by a gang of “desperadoes,” carried into the State of Georgia, and then forbidden to return under pain of instant death. About 30 black people were quietly attending a picnic near Marianna when they were fired upon from an ambush. Wyatt Young, a leading colored Republican and the little son of Benjamin Livingstone were killed in that attack. Colonel McClellan, described as “a leader among these lawless men,” and his daughter, who were sitting on the plaza of a hotel near by, were fired at by the enraged blacks, with McClellan being seriously wounded and his daughter instantly killed. Armed men then shot down at his door a black man named Oscar Greenberry and attacked another (a black constable) who fled to the woods, pursued by an infuriated mob who searched the countryside for him for several days. A loyalist and a black man, while riding along together, were fired upon from the bushes, both being seriously wounded. Many citizens of the area were said to have been compelled to flee for their lives from the attacks of the desperadoes. Civil officers were described as being powerless to make arrests, to protect the innocent, to punish the guilty, or to enforce the laws. It was also reported that mobs scoured the area on foot and on horseback, armed to the teeth, in numbers ranging from 12 to 30 men and did not hesitate to shoot down any who incurred their displeasure. On October 13, Florida Governor Harrison Reed announced that a $20,000 reward 24

The Chronolog y • 1870 • 1871 • 1872

would be paid for the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators who, on September 28, in Marianna, Florida, fired upon a picnic party and killed Wyatt Young and Spencer Livingstone. SOURCE : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html [no confirmation found]. “Lawlessness in Florida.” Bangor Daily Whig and Courier [Maine], October 19, 1869, p. 2.

Mrs. John Simes (black) 1870 September • Henry County, Kentucky SOURCE : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html [no confirmation found].

Unidentified Black Woman 1871 September 13 • Wilkinson County, Georgia • Lynched with: Matthew Deason (white) About midnight on Wednesday, September 13, 1871, a party of unknown men gagged and killed Matthew Deason, Sheriff of Wilkinson County, Georgia, and a black woman in his employ, and then threw their bodies into a mill pond nearby. The bodies were recovered on Friday morning at which time it was found that Deason had a gunshot wound in the head while the remains of the woman gave evidence of having been badly mutilated with a knife. SOURCES : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html “News brevities.” Wisconsin State Journal [Madison], September 15, 1871, p. 1.

Mrs. Samuel Hawkins and Ms. Hawkins (daughter) (blacks) 1872 November 1 • Fayette County, Kentucky • Lynched with: Samuel Hawkins (husband, black) On Friday night, November 1, 1872, a band of armed men entered the house of Samuel Hawkins, a black man who lived in Hickman Precinct, Fayette County, Kentucky. That mob took Hawkins, his wife, and his daughter out of the house and in the general direction of the Licking River. It was “thought” the mob drowned all three in that river. No reason was reported in the media as being a cause of the attack. No verified confirmation of the lynchings was found SOURCE : “From Cincinnati.” Janesville Gazette [Wisconsin], November 4, 1872, p. 1.

25

The Chronology • 1876 • 1878

Mrs. Ben French (black) 1876 May 3 • Warsaw, Kentucky • Lynched with: Ben French (husband) (black) At Warsaw, Kentucky, between 11:00 P.M. and midnight on May 3, 1876, Ben French (perhaps Trench) and his wife were taken from the county jail in that city where they had been incarcerated for poisoning an old and wealthy black man named Jacob Jones. The couple were taken by a mob of masked men and hanged from the limb of a tree about two miles from town. According to a report, the couple had invited Jones to tea and while he was eating Jones was seized with the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Shortly thereafter he died. Motive for the murder was thought to have been a desire on the part of the Frenches to obtain possession of some of the property owned by Jones. In the words of a reporter, the couple were regarded as “bad characters, and it is not probable that any steps will be taken to discover the participants in the hanging.” And, apparently, no steps ever were taken. SOURCES : “Hung to the limb of a tree.” Petersburg Index and Appeal [Virginia], May 6, 1876, p. 1. “Crimes and casualties.” Logansport Weekly Journal [Indiana], May 13, 1876, p. 1.

Charlotte Harris (black) 1878 March 11 • Rockingham County, Virginia One of the first lynchings of a woman to draw editorial attention was the case of Charlotte Harris in 1878. That is, attention as to the nature of the crime as opposed to the brief recounting of the bare facts. Perhaps one of the reasons was that none of those lynched before Harris appeared to have been a white Anglo, only blacks plus one Hispanic. What may have led to a degree of editorial outrage over the murder of Harris, a black, was the beginnings then of the first phase of the women’s movement, then in its early stages but generating a lot of attention and controversy. It had already succeeded in bringing the concerns of women to the forefront as never before. The Harris case started on March 10, 1878, when a black boy named Jim Arbegast was placed in the jail in Rockingham County, Virginia, on the charge of having burned the barn of Henry E. Sipe on February 28. Because of the destruction of the barn, Sipe lost two horses, two head of 26

The Chronolog y • 1878

cattle, and all of his agricultural implements. Investigation, though, was said to have revealed the fact the torch was applied at the instigation of a black woman named Charlotte Harris, who was said to have had some grudge against the Sipe family. A warrant was procured for the arrest of Harris, and on the evening of March 11th, Sipe and a few others who had set out to find her, arrested her and returned with her in custody. They overtook her about two miles east of Earlysville in Albemarle County. Harris was taken at once before Magistrates Shipp, Malden, and Argenwright, who conducted a preliminary investigation. With the evidence described as “strong” against Harris, she was ordered committed to jail. At the conclusion of the examination, the hour being late, the woman was placed under a strong guard to be maintained throughout the night with Harris to be transported the following morning to the county jail at Harrisburg. Apparently she was held in someone’s private dwelling or perhaps some sort of a public building. That guard was composed of four men. Things remained quiet only for a brief period of time because around 11:00 P.M., two men with their faces blackened rushed into the building with drawn revolvers and demanded the prisoner be handed over to them. While these two groups were talking, there was a sudden rush of many more armed men — all with faces blackened — into the building. They seized Harris and dragged her outside and up the road some 400 yards to a tree. There five members of the mob bent the tree down and a rope was attached to the limb and to the neck of Harris. And, said a reporter, “In another instant the tree was let go and the victim was jerked into mid-air, where in a few moments she expired and the disguised lynchers disappeared.” The reporter added that it was an awful penalty for the crime of which she had been accused, “the like of which has hardly ever been heard of in a civilized community.” Before it reported the facts about the lynching of Harris, the Washington Post declared, “The lynching of a woman is the latest novelty in crime.” In an account from a St. Louis newspaper, reprinted in the Atlanta Constitution, the writer declared the lynching of Harris “has called for the denunciation of all law-abiding citizens. Rockingham County is one of the wildest and most uncivilized in Virginia, and many of its inhabitants are almost barbarians.” When the reporter asked Governor Holliday of Virginia what action he would take in regard to the outrage, the Governor 27

The Chronology • 1878

said he planned to offer a “liberal” reward for the arrest of the perpetrators. Then the reporter moved on to address the cause of the lynching. Without the slightest bit of evidence, he concocted a bizarre and fanciful reason for the crime. “The lynching of Charlotte Harris is but another leaf in the calendar of lust and lawlessness of the God-defying and law-breaking denizens of the rocky crags of the Alleghenies, many of whom live in the caves and huts, beyond the reach of the law’s hands.” In Rockingham County about a year earlier a Mr. Lawson, was murdered by his wife Louisa Lawson who had been a “voluptuous but virtueless wife.” For that crime her paramour Mr. Anderson was hanged and Louisa was sentenced to death, but the governor commuted the sentence to one of life imprisonment. Returning to the lynch mob, the journalist said they thirsted for blood because some of their ringleaders were paramours of Louisa “and were enraged and disappointed when the governor’s commutation saved her life.” He added, “The terrible deed of lawlessness, it is said by the people of the county, was done in the spirit of revenge. The outlaws could not get the blood of one woman and they determined to have the blood of another.” In this account of the Harris lynching it was said, “After they had attached the rope to the neck of their victim, they suddenly let go, and the shrieking female was jerked up into the air with frightful velocity.” If the attention devoted to the women’s movement had caused some sympathetic comments angry about the idea of lynching a woman, it also generated some in the other direction. “The strong-minded females are continually raving about women being deprived of rights that men enjoy. They have gained one point already,” stated an editorial in a Montana newspaper. “A woman was lynched last week in Virginia, a distinction that has hitherto been accorded to men only.” A month after the lynching, a dispatch from Richmond, dated April 17, declared the innocence of Charlotte Harris was “fully established” and the boy accused of burning the barn had been tried and acquitted of that charge in court. SOURCES: “Lynching of a woman.” Elyria Constitution [Ohio], March 21, 1878, p. 1. No title. Washington Post, March 12, 1878, p. 2 “The lynching of a woman.” Daily Constitution [Atlanta], March 15, 1878, p. 1. No title. Independent [Helena, Montana], April 3, 1878, p. 2. “Mob justice.” Oshkosh Daily Northwestern [Wisconsin], April 17, 1878, p. 1.

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Millie Thompson (black) 1880 July 29 • Jonesboro, Clayton County, Georgia • Lynched with: Bob Thompson (black, brother — he may have survived) On the night of July 29, 1880, in Jonesboro, Georgia, a black man by the name of Joe Thompson was dragged out of his cabin and severely beaten by a mob of masked men. As well, his wife was seriously beaten and his 16-year-old son Bob was wounded so seriously that he was not expected to live; his married daughter Millie Thompson (often called Millie Johnson) was shot to death by the same mob. Ten arrests were made in the case immediately and those white men were lodged in the jail. As a result of a request from local officials, the Governor of Georgia ordered the militia to go down from Atlanta, as it was feared blacks in the area might try and lynch the white prisoners. Due to the callout of the militia, a Texas newspaper editorialized on the event, pointing out a difference found so frequently in the administration of Southern justice. First of all, the editor agreed that calling out the militia was the right and proper thing to do when it became apparent the ten prisoners might be lynched, he then added, “The course pursued in the case is so different from that in which the perpetrators of an outrage are colored men. When colored men are arrested for killing persons the troops are called out ‘after’ the lynching has taken place.” Joe Thompson was about 50 years old but was described as an “old and decrepit negro.” His cabin was a rude hut about 12 feet square and stood on the edge of the cotton field that he tilled, near the village of Jonesboro, 20 miles from Atlanta. He was said to be known in the community as a “poor, honest, ignorant, and unoffending negro.” On the night of the attack all six people normally resident in the hut were home — the four people attacked and Millie’s two very young children. Close to midnight, 15 to 20 masked men carrying torches showed up and broke down the cabin door. Four of them rushed in, seized the old man and yelled, “God damn you, we came here to give you a good beating.” He was dragged outdoors and held by the four while a fifth man whipped him from head to foot. At the same time another group of men were whipping Bob Thompson. Not satisfied with that, one of them fired a shot into him leaving him mortally wounded. [While early accounts made it clear Bob was certain to die, he was still alive, barely, and he may have survived.] 29

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Meanwhile, Millie stood up in the bed where she was sleeping between her two children only to be shot dead by a single shot to the head and to fall lifeless back on to the bed between her children. To complete the assault, members of the mob severely beat Joe’s wife, an “aged and helpless negress.” With their work done, the mob members rode off, returning to their homes. The reason for the assaults went back one year in time, when Joe was at work on the farm of James McElroy in Fayette County, Georgia. One day John Gray, McElroy’s brother-in-law, came into the field where Joe and his son Bob were at work. Gray accused Bob of stealing a plow from him. Bob denied that he had done so. Gray got angry and struck the boy. Joe then intervened to prevent his son from being beaten. However, Gray then turned on Joe and severely beat the old man who could offer but little resistance. Joe had Gray arrested for assault and battery. So clear was the testimony against Gray and so conclusive the evidence that Thompson was innocent of the theft, that Gray was found guilty and fined $100. Enraged by that outcome, Gray issued threats against Thompson. A fearful Thompson family hastened to leave Fayette County and to settle on a farm near Jonesboro. Apparently Gray let his fury simmer for almost a year before he assembled a crowd of 15 or so men to travel by night 20 miles for the purpose, said a reporter, “of murdering inoffensive women and of whipping his socalled offending son. What a travesty upon the civilization of the nineteenth century and the boasted equal rights of our republic!” Another newspaper commented, “If a crime as horrible and as appalling as this can be committed with impunity, what security is there in Georgia for the colored man? How long will it be before the assassins will begin to select their victims among the white citizens?” Of the arrests made for the attacks, all ten prisoners, one of whom was John Gray, were residents of Fayette County. Despite the wearing of masks and their blackened faces, Joe Thompson had identified one of his attackers as Gray. On July 30 an armed mob of whites arrived in Jonesboro from Fayette County and demanded the release of the white prisoners. It was a demand that was refused. A company of 50 armed citizens were placed as a guard around the jail, and it was at that point a request was forwarded to Governor Colquitt to dispatch the militia immediately to the scene. He did so, and on July 31 the militia returned to Atlanta, bring30

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ing the 10 prisoners with them. Citizens of Jonesboro had got together and offered a reward of $200 for the apprehension of the murderers. Still, it all meant little to a cynical reporter from the Midwest, who wrote, “But of what significance is this? Nothing. Outrages as horrible as this have been perpetrated upon negroes in Georgia before. Indignation meetings have followed, rewards been offered, but for what.” And, “Seldom indeed does it occur that the murderers of negroes in the manner described above are ever sentenced before a court of justice in this locality.” And that was the end of the media coverage. SOURCES : “Extra press report.” Galveston Daily News, July 31, 1880, p. 1. “The Georgia fiends.” Eau Claire Weekly Free Press [Wisconsin], August 12, 1880, p. 1. “Ku-Klux outrages.” Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], August 14, 1880, p. 1 “The Georgia case.” McKean County Miner [Smethport, Pennsylvania], August 12, 1880, p. 4.

Judy Metts (black) 1881 April 9 • Martin’s Depot, Laurens County, South Carolina On Sunday night, April 3, 1881, the barn of Mr. J. S. Blalock at Martin’s Depot, Laurens County, South Carolina, was set on fire and burned to the ground. So near was the barn to the house that the rumor quickly spread that the real purpose of the arson was to also burn down the Blalock house. Mr. Blalock conducted his own investigation and convinced himself that the arsonist was a black woman named Judy Metts, who lived on his property. On Saturday, April 9, Blalock went to see Trial Justice N. S. Harris at Clinton, where he swore out a warrant for her arrest. Harris placed the warrant in the hands of Constable Samuel Gary who arrested Metts around 8:00 P.M. on that Saturday night and started taking her with him back to Clinton. Two miles from Martin’s Depot, a party of men on horseback overtook the constable and his prisoner. All members of the mob had masks over their faces. Some of the party took charge of the constable and some took charge of his prisoner. The two groups then rode off in opposite directions. Gary was held by his section of the mob for about one hour and was then told to “git,” which he did without delay, returning to Clinton alone. On the next morning the body of Metts was found about a quarter of a mile from where the lynchers had first taken control of her. Metts was found hanging from a tree. One day later the coroner’s inquest returned a verdict that Metts came to her death by hanging at the hands 31

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of persons unknown to the jury. Later that same day Metts was buried by the black community. Apparently no steps were ever taken to discover the identity of the lynchers. Metts left a husband and an unstated number of children. Two years earlier Judy Metts had been accused of burning the dwelling house of a Mr. Simpson but she was never tried for it. SOURCE : “A Negro woman lynched.” Washington Post, April 16, 1881, p. 1.

Mary Sullivan (white) 1882 September 29 • Shady Grove, Kentucky In the wake of the lynching of Mary Sullivan on September 29, 1882, at Shady Grove, Kentucky, a journalist related “the strange story of lawless love and lawless hate” connected with the crime. Mary was about 31 at the time of her death. The story went as follows: In Caldwell County, Kentucky, there lived on the bottoms of the Tradewater River two families destined to most terrible ends — the Campbell family and the Sullivan family. Or, more precisely, the young adults in those families — Reilly, J. B., and Bud (the Campbell sons) and Tom and his sister Mary (the Sullivan offspring). “They were considered neither better nor worse than those about them. They were ignorant and rather shiftless, but so were many others in the neighborhood.” Soon, though, the county people in the vicinity began to say strange things about the girl, Mary. She was described as a bright, quick girl of 20 [making it around 1871], with light hair, light blue eyes, and a little above medium in size. “No man for miles around could outlift her. With gun or pistol she was a dead shot. On horseback there wasn’t a boy in the county who could ride faster over rougher country, or who dared to commit half the dare-devil pranks that Mary constantly delighted in,” went the story. As well, she rode a horse like a man and cared little that her limbs were exposed thereby. “Mary had lost all sense of girlish delicacy, and half the young men of the neighborhood openly boasted that she had bestowed her favors on them. The effect of all this in a quiet county neighborhood can hardly be imagined.” Mary Sullivan’s name became the byword for all that was infamous. Area matrons told stories to one another about Mary and her midnight rides and crimes. For the boisterous behavior, if that’s what it was, of her very early adulthood soon changed to more serious criminal behavior as time passed. Mary was seen more and more often with the Campbell boys, and 32

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once or twice she was seen with them and her brother Tom late at night with the group dashing at great speed over the county roads. Coincidentally, at the same times, the most daring robberies began to be committed in the northern end of the county. Farmers found their smoke houses open night after night. Several stores were broken into and robbed, but no culprits were named or apprehended. One old farmer did come forward to say he recognized Mary, at the head of the Campbells, break into his smoke house. A day so after that Mary rode up to the old farmer’s house and demanded to know why he said what he did. Pulling out a revolver and aiming it at the farmer, Sullivan asked if he had seen her at his smoke house. After he stammered out an apology, the old man never again uttered a word against the Campbells or the Sullivans. Among the most vocal denouncers of the gang was a man named Felkers, who lived a few miles away from them. One night, in 1879, two men, later revealed to be Tom Sullivan and Reilly Campbell, rode up to the Felkers’ place, took him and his old wife outside and beat them severely before riding off. With intense public feeling aroused over that beating, a mob was organized and about 40 men rode out to the Campbell place. Mary and Tom somehow got wind of the action and were at the Campbell place when the mob arrived. All five members of the gang were barricaded inside the small log hut of the Campbells. When the mob arrived they demanded the immediate surrender of the whole gang. Mary taunted the vigilantes by yelling, “Come and get us, you cowardly dogs!” Gunfire was exchanged by the groups, but the mob, being in the open and exposed, soon retired. No one was hurt on either side except for Tom Sullivan who suffered a gunshot wound from which he soon recovered. Following that affair, the gang reportedly became bolder and robberies became more frequent. And, around this time, Mary Sullivan met Crockett Jenkins. She met him around the spring of 1880 and the pair quickly became lovers. Jenkins had lived some miles away but he soon moved into the Sullivan place “and the illicit love of the two was the talk of the county.” Almost immediately Jenkins became a full-time member of the gang. However, early in August 1882 Jenkins grew tired of Mary and began to see another woman. For some time Mary was ignorant of what was going on, but when she did begin to hear the rumors, she raged, “I will kill Crockett Jenkins if he dares to betray me,” to more than one listener. Sometime in early September Mary accused Jenkins of infidelity. A physical struggle 33

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broke out between the pair that might have led to serious injury if not for the fact that others in the area separated them. Crockett stormed out of the house. By this time the Campbells had moved to a little grocery store they ran in the area, some four miles away from Princeton. A day or two after the fight between Mary and Jenkins, a group of men from Princeton happened to be riding by that store — they had all been drinking freely — when one of them, in a rash moment, fired off a shot in the direction of the store. Thinking they were under another mob attack, the Campbells rushed out of the store and began firing. The mob returned the fire but then galloped on to town. One day later, amidst much public excitement, a mob was assembled in the town to exterminate the gang. Robberies had continued in the area and everyone “knew” they were all the work of the gang. Forty heavily armed men, with masks over their faces, swooped down on the grocery and surrounded it. Reilly Campbell was killed in the ensuing exchange of gunfire while Bud Campbell was dragged out and lynched to a tree. No other members of the gang were there at the time. A night or so after that some men returning from a visit to a neighbor’s thought they heard a man’s voice pleading with some one for mercy. They were not positive, but thought the person addressed was called “Mary.” The next day the lifeless body of Crockett Jenkins was found swinging from the limb of a giant oak at the top of a tall hill. Acknowledging there was no “positive proof ” that Mary murdered Jenkins, the reporter nevertheless declared, “The moral proof that Mary Sullivan committed the crime, assisted by her mother and sister, seems to be conclusive.” Mary and her mother and sister were arrested for the Jenkins’ lynching but because there was no positive proof all three were discharged. When Mary returned home she found death’s head notices glaring at her, warning her to leave the neighborhood. By this time all the rest of her friends and gang members were dead, wounded, or had left the area. Bud and Reilly Crockett were dead, as was Jenkins. The fate of the third brother, J. B. Campbell, apparently went unrecorded but he was absent. Tom Sullivan had left the area to recover from his earlier wound, which had started to trouble him again, while Mary’s mother and sister had fled the area. As September drew to a close, Mary found herself alone and an outcast. While she had briefly been under arrest at Princeton, she hired guards in order to keep out of jail; to pay those guards she mortgaged two milk 34

The Chronolog y • 1884

cows. On Friday night, September 29, 1882, en route to Princeton to redeem her property, she stopped to spend the night with Norman Hubbard. About 8:00 P.M. that evening a mob of about 50 men went to the residence of Hubbard and called for Mary. She was hustled off to the same tree that was used in the lynching of Jenkins and hanged from the same branch of the tree. Her body was found there the next morning. Near the tree was found a basket containing some of her clothing and $40 in gold. The body was cut down and buried at Shady Grove. Another reporter summarized her life by writing that she was “a woman who respected no one and who knew no fear. Given over to sinning in early life, her career has been checkered with sin upon sin.” A neighbor declared, “Why, she was the terror of the neighborhood, and I tell you, if I didn’t know she was in the ground I wouldn’t be telling you this. With the pistol or rifle she was a crack shot; in a hand to hand fight she was a perfect lioness.” SOURCES : “Mary Sullivan’s crimes.” Atlanta Constitution, October 12, 1882, p. 1. “A woman lynched in Kentucky.” Decatur Daily Republican [Illinois], October 11, 1882, p. 2.

Mrs. Cuddigan (white) 1884 January 18 • Ouray, Colorado • Lynched with: Michael Cuddigan (husband, white) Sometime in September or October 1883, Mary Rose Matthews, described as a “bright, winsome little girl of 10 years” was adopted from the Denver Catholic Orphan’s Home by Mike Cuddigan and his wife, who lived on a ranch 10 miles from Ouray, a small mining camp in the southern part of Colorado. Just three or four months later, on January 13, 1884, Mary Rose died and was buried by the couple on a distant part of the ranch. However, it was discovered the girl was employed in work much too heavy for one so young and that she was cruelly treated. On the 13th of January the child was found by a hunter, crouched in an insensible condition beside a haystack near the Cuddigan home. When notified of the situation, Cuddigan took the child home but she died a few hours later. On the next day the child was buried by the couple with the neighbors knowing nothing about the situation. Her sudden and mysterious death, along with her quick burial, led to suspicions being raised, and neighbors approached the coroner who exhumed the body of Mary Rose. A post mortem at Ouray showed the child had been terribly maltreated and finally 35

The Chronology • 1884

killed. Her body showed numerous scars, knife wounds, broken bones, and bruises. Both of the girl’s feet had been frozen and both legs and thighs showed strong indications also of having been frozen. On the right knee were four wounds and on the left knee there was a cut two inches long over the knee cap. The left thigh had three wounds. As well, the left hand was frozen and there were several small wounds on the forearm, the elbow being baldy bruised. On the right hand the fingers and thumb were frozen completely to the second joint and there were several wounds on that arm. Also, the forehead had sustained a heavy blow from a blunt instrument and a similar wound appeared on the back of the head. All the evidence indicated murder, and Mr. and Mrs. Cuddigan and Mike’s brother-inlaw John Carroll were immediately arrested and taken to Ouray where they were held in temporary custody at the Delmonico Hotel. Between midnight and 1:00 A.M. on January 18, a band of masked men went to the hotel, overpowered Sheriff Rowels and his deputies, and took the prisoners away. Carroll was taken off separately and threatened with lynching but as the mob determined he was not at the Cuddigan’s during the time the girl was ill-treated, he was released. Cuddigan and his wife pleaded with the mob for mercy, but, said a reporter, “As their ears had ever been deaf to the pleadings for mercy from little Rose when the lash and other weapons of torture had been applied to her so the vigilantes closed their ears to the cries of the prisoners.” They were taken outside the town limits where Mrs. Cuddigan was hanged to the ridgepole of a house while her husband was strung to the limb of a tree on the opposite side of the road. “The work was quietly and neatly done.” When the Cuddigans were taken from the hotel, two of his brothers and another brotherin-law were present and heavily armed but they dared not defend them. Bishop Machebeauf, of the Catholic Church of Denver, received a telegram on January 19 from friends in Ouray denouncing the lynching and declaring the Cuddigan family were respectable people and hitherto above suspicion of such a deed as was charged against them. The murder of Mrs. Cuddigan marked the first time a woman had been lynched in Colorado and prompted the following editorial from the Liberty Tribune [Missouri]: “The lynching of the woman in Colorado was an outrage on decency and our boasted civilization, no difference how guilty she may have been. Punish by law, and in the case of a woman never go beyond a proper term in the penitentiary.” 36

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A couple of days after the lynching a journalist declared, “Public sentiment at Ouray unanimously endorses the lynching of Cuddigan and wife.” As of January 21 the bodies of the couple were lying side by side in the town and open to public view; their remains had been visited by hundreds of people. “Their features are terribly distorted, even showing that they had died a horrible death from strangulation.” Officials at the Cedar Hill Cemetery refused to permit the bodies of the couple to be buried there, and Father Servant, the pastor of the Catholic Church at Ouray, refused to officiate at the funeral. As well, the two brothers of Cuddigan refused to have anything to do with the bodies, and as a last resort Coroner Haggard took the remains to the Cuddigan ranch and there gave them a decent burial. There were no mourners; the only people in attendance being officials and curiosity seekers. When Cuddigan was lynched he had $240 in his pocket and the Coroner used that money to pay for the burial. The bed upon which little Rose Matthews was compelled to sleep during the bitter cold nights just preceding her murder was on public exhibition in Ouray. It consisted of four gunny sacks basted together, nothing more. Both sides of the gunny sacks were blood stained. “Indignation is around in the breast of everybody who looks upon them,” said an account. An editorial in the Leadville Daily Herald [Colorado] declared, “The citizens of Ouray have distinguished themselves by a most outrageous and barbarous act of lawlessness. They have lynched a woman…. It is the boast of Americans that a woman’s weakness will shield her from violence at the hands of a true American, except it be commanded by the law.” And, “The men of Ouray can find no apology for their brutal conduct by the plea that the woman was guilty. All the world knows that a woman may be coerced by the power of her husband and compelled to do a thing at which she herself would naturally revolt.” Whether innocent or guilty, the editor argued, the couple were entitled to a fair trial by a jury. Lynch law was rarely excusable, he argued, and the administration of the law in Ouray was not so lax that public policy demanded that “a mob of strong men should drag a weak, defenseless woman out of jail in the middle of the night and choke her to death like they might a dog.” However, he was convinced that the Cuddigans were guilty, without a doubt, and that each of them deserved the death penalty. One journalist wrote that Michael Cuddigan was well known in the area and that he owned a good ranch and a comfortable home, bought 37

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from the profits he had realized as an Indian trader. His countenance was described as “not repulsive” and that he had not previously been considered a bad man. Two years earlier he had married a Miss Carroll in Denver. Both Cuddigans were at least six feet tall. “She had thick, sensuous lips, a brazen look and a sharp tongue,” went the account. “She would have been called handsome by admirers of the Amazonian style.” Michael was around 40 years of age; Mrs. Cuddigan was a few years younger. Another Colorado newspaper, the Fairplay Flume, remarked that the lynching of Mike and his “fiend wife” was generally applauded by the state press. The newspaper editorialized, “It was a piece of exact justice that Ouray has no reason to feel ashamed of.” One of the men charged with investigating the lynching and bringing the perpetrators to justice was Judge Gerry. He remarked, “It is a direct insult to the laws of Colorado, as it is also to me. I shall make every effort possible to discover and bring to punishment the men who were concerned in the lynching of this man and woman.” And, “Offenses of this kind, occurring within my jurisdiction, shall not be allowed to pass unnoticed. If the people in this district are dissatisfied with their laws they can mend them through their representatives.” As newspaper editors and opinion makers in Colorado debated the lynching, Dr. B. S. Tedmon, one of the physicians who examined the body of Mary Rose Matthews, wrote a letter to a newspaper in which he declared that while he believed in law and justice as the proper method to determine punishment, he had a different opinion in this case after examining the body. He felt compelled “to make this case an exception and differ with you [the editor of the Fort Collins Courier had decried the lynching] by saying: ‘I can now see how the people of Ouray were justified in hanging the Cuddigan fiends.’ And I believe could you have stood with me and seen the lacerated, bruised, cut and frozen form of the once beautiful and innocent child, you would say that hanging was too easy, too mild a punishment for such wretches.” Tedmon continued, “It was a sickening sight to behold. Few were the men and women who could look upon the scene without dropping a tear over the form of that ill treated child. Add to this the fact as given by several physicians upon examination that the child had been outraged [raped] by Cuddigan himself, who would then say, give them a chance for their lives?” One of the things that bothered Tedmon and brought him around to favor the lynching was the lack of judicial 38

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executions in the mid–1880s in Colorado or in the United States. According to the numbers he presented, in Colorado in 1883 there were about 200 people murdered and not a single murderer had been punished by death, except for a few cases wherein the alleged perpetrator had been lynched. Some 2,600 murders had been committed over the same period in America and only about 125 murderers were judicially hanged, plus a few more that had been lynched. In another Colorado newspaper, an editor declared the people lynched for the murder of Matthews “were beasts. They took the frail child from a comfortable house in the convent in Denver and murdered it in the most horrible manner. It is a pity they could not be hung again. The people of Ouray may be blamed for this act. They should not be.” With respect to the reported fact that Mrs. Cuddigan was pregnant when lynched, the editor stated; “God help the child she would have borne. If she murdered one, she would have murdered the other. In the general justice of popular opinion it will be shown that the Ouray people did right, and that the world owes them thanks for ridding it of the horrible monsters whom they disposed of.” This editor also worried about the likelihood that if the couple had been legally tried they would have escaped capital punishment: “According to Colorado precedent neither of them would have been hung — certainly not the woman.” He concluded, “The Ouray people had before them the prospect of a lengthy and costly trial which would hardly result in the punishment deserved, and they prevented the expense and disposed of the case in their own effectual way.” Mary Rose Matthews was buried in Denver on February 2. Her remains were exhibited in that city on February 1 and viewed by hundreds of what were called “morbidly curious people.” Around the same time the estate of the Cuddigans was assessed at a value of $4,500 over liabilities. It was left to their young male child who was then in the charge of one of his uncles. Judge Gerry’s thundering words about bringing the men responsible for the lynching to justice, when he addressed the opening of the grand jury at the Ouray term of the court, did not translate into any effective action. In the middle of May 1884, it was reported that not a single vigilante had been indicted, and not a single person had been arrested in connection with being a member of the mob. And nobody ever was. SOURCES : “Lynching husband and wife.” New York Times, January 20, 1884, p. 1. “A woman lynched.” Liberty Tribune [Missouri], January 25, 1884, p. 1.

39

The Chronology • 1884 No title. Liberty Tribune [Missouri], January 25, 1884, p. 2. “Boss Chaffee.” Leadville Daily Herald [Colorado], January 22, 1884, p. 1. “The Ouray murder.” Leadville Daily Herald [Colorado], January 22, 1884, p. 2. “The Ouray horror.” Fairplay Flume [Colorado], January 24, 1884, p. 3. No title. Fairplay Flume [Colorado], January 24, 1884, p. 1. “Ouray tragedy.” White Pine Cone [Colorado], January 25, 1884, p. 2. No title. White Pine Cone [Colorado], February 1, 1884, p. 2. “The fiendish Cuddigans.” Fort Collins Courier [Colorado], February 7, 1884, p. 4. “Court notes.” Buena Vista Democrat [Colorado], February 7, 1884, p. 1. “State news.” Buena Vista Democrat [Colorado], February 7, 1884, p. 2. No title. White Pine Cone [Colorado], May 16, 1884, p. 2.

Jane Wade (white) 1884 October 13 • Cherokee County, Alabama • Lynched with: J. R. Dorsey (white) On October 8, 1884, occurred the murder of Mrs. Mary H. Davis in Cherokee County, Alabama. Near Alpine, Chattooga County, Georgia, J. R. Dorsey, the uncle of Davis, and Jane Wade were arrested for complicity in the crime. The sequel to that tragedy took place on Monday night, October 13, when Dorsey and Wade were taken by a mob from jail in the community of Centre and lynched. Toward midnight on that date a mob composed of nearly 40 men, and all armed with shotguns, arrived in Centre. Only three or four of them were masked. It was believed that the mob came from Chattooga County. The mob proceeded so quietly to the jail that the citizens of Centre were not disturbed from their sleep, and the mob met with no opposition. The sheriff of Cherokee County was not at home when the mob arrived at the jail, and his wife, along with a young brother of the sheriff, had charge of the jail. Having aroused the sheriff ’s wife, they told her the sooner Dorsey and Wade were surrendered to them the better it would be for her. Three masked men then seized the keys and entered the jail. When the cells of Dorsey and Wade were reached, the pair were taken out of the jail without difficulty and placed in a buggy. Wade wept bitterly, but neither she nor Dorsey made any efforts at resistance. A little less than a mile from town the cavalcade halted. The buggy containing the two victims was driven under a tree and a rope placed around the neck of each and fastened to two limbs of the same tree. Then the buggy was driven out from under them and Dorsey and Wade were dead in a few minutes. Dorsey’s neck was broken while Jane Wade died of strangulation. 40

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A coroner’s jury held an inquest and delivered the standard verdict that the pair came to their deaths at the hands of parties unknown. Large numbers of people in the area came to the town of Centre to view the bodies. J. R. Dorsey was 74 years old, and up to the beginning of the Civil War he was said to have been considered one of the most prominent citizens of Cherokee County. He left considerable property. Jane Wade was reported to have been 46 years old but “a woman of bad character.” Dorsey took up with her several years earlier, and out of troubles connected with that relationship came the murder of his niece, Mrs. Davis. Some of the news accounts described Wade as a prostitute, while the age of Wade was given variously as, 46, past 50, past 60, and so forth. Dorsey was also reported as being the postmaster of Alpine. Also, most accounts listed a second person killed when Davis was murdered. Sometime around the end of September, it was said, Dorsey shot Mrs. Davis in her own doorway and then shot to death her guest, C. C. Jones, supposing he was her husband. A motive for that crime was unknown but speculation was that it came about from jealousy. According to one account, when the pair was taken out of jail by the mob, Wade confessed that Dorsey had indeed killed his niece Davis and Jones, but protested her own innocence. When the bodies were being strung up they were riddled with bullets and were left hanging for some time. SOURCES : “Double lynching.” Evening Observer [Dunkirk, New York], October 23, 1884, p. 1. “Lynching.” Daily Miner [Butte, Montana], October 22, 1884, p. 1. “Particulars of the double lynching.” Galveston Daily News, October 23, 1884, p. 1.

Eliza Taylor (white) 1885 March 15 • Spring Ranch, Clay County, Nebraska • Lynched with: Thomas Jones (brother, white) On January 8, 1885, six miles southwest of Fairfield, Nebraska, a man named Edwin Roberts was killed by someone and suspicion fell upon the two sons of Eliza Taylor. Some two months later the boys were still confined to the county jail, awaiting trial. Eliza Taylor and her brother Thomas Jones were suspected of being accessories in the killing of Roberts, as well as being suspected of having committed many other crimes that had occurred in the neighborhood over the previous 10 years. Reportedly, the people of the vicinity had lived in terror of Taylor and her gang, and the 41

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Jones and Taylor families in general. After the murder of Roberts a vigilante committee was organized for the protection of the people, and that body gave the members of the two families 30 days notice to leave the county. It was a warning that was ignored. Then, at about 1:00 A.M. on Sunday morning, March 15, a group said in the initial reports to be composed of 50 masked men went to the home of Tom Jones and extracted him and Taylor from the residence. Jones and Taylor were marched off to a nearby railroad bridge and hanged from that structure. The bodies were left swinging from the bridge until around 3:00 P.M. on Sunday afternoon when the Coroner cut them down and held an inquest. A couple of days later a newspaper sent a reporter to the area to piece together the story. Some people told the journalist the mob contained 50 to 70 people while others declared the group did not consist of more than 12 to 15 men. In conclusion the reporter stated he was confident the mob consisted of no more than 15 people at the outside. When the mob arrived at the house it held eight people. The other six were Mrs. Jones (mother of Tom and Eliza), Eliza’s five-year-old daughter, Maggie, three adult males named Nelson Celey, John Foster, Mr. Clark, and a boy whose name was unknown. As soon as the mob arrived it demanded Jones and Taylor come out. However, they remained barricaded in the house but did not fire on the mob although the house contained many firearms. After talking for some time the mob threatened to bomb the house if the two people in question did not surrender themselves. Finally, Jones agreed to come out, and then Eliza followed. The other four males from the house were taken off in one direction and held for a number of hours but finally released unharmed. Taylor and Jones were taken off together in a different direction — to the bridge. When the mob told the pair what they intended to do, the couple began to plead for mercy, but such pleas fell on deaf ears. When they arrived at the bridge upon which they were to be hanged, they were given time to pray before the ropes were adjusted around their necks and they were, in the words of the reporter, “shoved off into eternity.” Following the lynchings the men went back to the house, where they had left the two females, and begged the pardon of Mrs. Jones for intruding before they took their final leave. When the Coroner held his inquest later on Sunday, he learned nothing about the identities of the members of the lynch mob. Tom Jones was 42

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about 30 years of age. Although he had never had an enviable reputation among his neighbors, he always managed to get along pretty well with them until the time when Roberts was murdered after which he was looked upon with suspicion. He was unmarried and his mother kept house for him. Eliza Taylor was 38 to 40 years old and was said to never have had a good reputation in the neighborhood. “She is not a tall woman but rather short and stout and has rather a coarse expression about her face that is seldom seen in a woman,” said the reporter. After the murder of Roberts and the imprisonment of her two sons she was fearful enough about community retaliation that she always remained overnight at the home of her brother Tom, going back and forth to her own home — about one mile distant — only during the day. She was always afraid to stay at her own home although she was always armed or had arms handy. The house of Jones was made of sod with walls about four feet thick. It had two windows and one door and “its outside appearance is anything but comfortable looking but the inside is suggestive of a den rather than a house,” went the account. “There is a row of wooden pillars running through the center to support the roof and on the one side are the sleeping rooms which are divided off like the stalls of a stable. In the other side are also two beds and a stove of very ancient appearance. A rude table and one or two chairs seemed to be the only things in the way of furniture which the house contained.” When the reporter tried to question Mrs. Jones about the events, he got no information but did report: “On being asked a number of questions by our inquisitive reporter in regard to the affair she answered in a tone and manner which with the rude surroundings made the cold chills chase each other up and down his back.” However, he did conclude there was an organized gang of hard characters in the Taylor and Jones families who would and did engage in just about any criminal activity. Of late there had been a number of fires in the area, stock had been killed and various other crimes had been committed. Because of this, the reporter surmised it was the intention of the community to rid itself of the two families for good. The two brothers of the murdered pair — Frank Jones and John Jones — had each received a warning to leave the county within 30 days. Even though the members of the mob were not masked — contrary to earlier reports — nobody had any idea who they were. Concluding his remarks, the journalist describe Eliza’s two boys, still in prison awaiting trial: “Right 43

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here we will say the boys are pronounced as about as brutal looking boys as a person would wish to see,” and before the time Roberts was killed they had, allegedly, shot at some of the neighbor boys because of some spite that they had against them. SOURCES : “The mob hangs a woman.” Daily Journal [Freeport, Illinois], March 16, 1885, p. 3. “A man and a woman lynched.” New York Times, March 17, 1885, p. 2. “The Clay County lynching.” Daily State Journal [Lincoln, Nebraska], March 19, 1885, p. 3.

Harriet Finch (black) 1885 September 28 • Pittsboro, Chatham County, North Carolina • Lynched with: Jerry Finch (husband), Lee Tyson, John Patisall (blacks) On the night of Monday, September 28, 1885, three black men and one black woman — Jerry Finch, his wife Harriet Finch, Lee Tyson, and John Patisall (sometimes Pattishill)— were taken from jail cells at Pittsboro, Chatham County, North Carolina, where they stood accused of the murders of the Finch and Gunter families, by a mob and hanged from a tree near the public road one mile out of town. The lynching was viewed as a sequel to the murder of the Finch family in Chatham on the night of July 4, 1885, and of the murder of the Gunter family near the same spot about 21 months earlier, around January 1884. When the Gunter family was found murdered, it merited only the briefest mention in the newspapers. Sometime near January 1, 1884, Mrs. Olive Gunter, 80, her daughter, and her granddaughter were murdered by an ax wielded by a person or persons unknown in Chatham County. Apparently no suspects were ever identified and no reports surfaced outlining the state of any investigation. It was a horrific crime that was quickly forgotten by the media. A year and a half later another multiple murder took place in the very same area, near the community of Moncure. In this second homicide Edward Finch, 75, and his sister Sallie Finch, 80, whites, were murdered. As well, a black boy aged about 16, Ephraim Ellington, and employed as a servant by the Finch couple was also killed. All were murdered between midnight and daylight on Sunday morning, July 5, 1885. All three victims had their throats cut. It was also evident that all three had first been felled with a blow from an ax before their throats were slashed. Several hundred 44

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dollars had reportedly been stolen from the Finch household and that the robbers had become murderers to assist themselves in escaping detection. Noted in the earliest reports of this homicide was that the scene of the crime was only a mile away from the site of the Gunter murders. As a result, it was reported, “Great excitement prevails in this entire section among all classes of people, and earnest efforts are being made to discover the murderers of whom there are believed to be several.” This time, though, the authorities found a suspect. Jerry Finch, a former slave of Edward Finch, was found at his home washing blood from his clothes. He was immediately taken into custody. In light of the second multiple homicide, speculation began that it must have been the same perpetrators in both cases. Apparently the Gunters had also been murdered for money and, said an account, “The motive and the instrument of death being the same in both cases, and the parties murdered being old and helpless, as were the Gunters, it is strongly believed that the same party or parties committed both murders.” A few days later, on July 7, it was announced that two black men were then in custody as suspects in the Finch case, Jerry Finch and Lee Tyson. Even then rumors of a possible lynching swirled around the area, if more evidence was secured against the men in jail. Three other blacks were also viewed as suspects in the case, but not named. According to the later reports, of the $840 in the Finch house only $240 had been taken as the robbers had been unable to locate the remainder. Upon investigation of the case, the following information came to light. On Saturday night, July 4, Jerry Finch and Tyson, who had a “bad reputation,” were in Pittsboro where they remained until 11:30 P.M. when they left for home. Caught in a sudden rain storm they sought shelter in a cotton gin house where they remained for some time, not reaching home until just before daybreak and falling immediately into bed. They both wore new shoes that day. Jerry lived with his wife Harriet Finch, his child, and his sister. Sunday morning, as usual, the sister left home to go to Edward’s place to do the milking. She noticed the door ajar and called for the servant boy, but, getting no answer she went on and milked. Returning, she passed the house again and called once more but still got no answer. She went to the home of a neighboring white man named Mr. White (Edward’s natural son and heir of Edward) to tell him she was worried that something was wrong. White got some other neighbors and entered the 45

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house whereupon he found blood all over the floor and the three butchered bodies. Examination revealed the fact that two men with new shoes, whose tracks “well agreed” with those of Jerry and Tyson had crossed a ploughed field and come to Edward’s house, and then had returned. On the Sunday morning Harriet Finch washed her husband’s pants and hung them out to dry where they were discovered still wet, although Harriet claimed to have washed them two days earlier, on Friday. Also, some threads of material found on a fence rail in a path made by the shoes in question appeared to match a frayed spot on Jerry’s pants. Some time later Patisall was arrested in connection with the Gunter murder, and possibly also the Finch killings. The verdict of the Coroner’s jury was slow in coming as it was understood if its finding was adverse to the prisoners the likelihood of a lynching was strong. In due course that jury declared the four should be held and tried on murder charges. With respect to the sentiment of the town it was said, “A majority of the people appeared to be well satisfied that these people were guilty of both murders.” When the mob arrived at the jail and demanded admittance, the jailer refused, but they forced him to open the door and take them to the cells holding the four accused people. Next the mob took the four out of the jail and marched them to a place on the public road a mile from Pittsboro and there they hanged all four to one tree. “All was done in a quiet and orderly manner,” said an account. There was no surprise in the lynching as it was said to have been expected for weeks. More detail was provided, though, on earlier events. On the morning of Sunday, December 24, 1883, it was discovered that on the previous night Mrs. Olive Gunter, 89, and Miss Jane Gunter, 64, had been murdered and the eight-year-old granddaughter of Olive had been “perhaps mortally wounded.” Baxter Gunter, father of the child, had found the bodies that morning. Olive had received two blows from the edge of an ax while Jane had received a blow from the butt of an ax that had crushed in her skull. She had also received two other blows from the blade of the ax. The little girl received two bows from the blunt end of the ax. According to this account there were no signs of a robbery and nothing was missing. An inquest was begun the next day and while several blacks were arrested and questioned, all were released. Baxter Gunter was arrested and feeling against him ran high but he was able to prove his innocence. Although the little girl’s skull had been fractured in 17 places 46

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she had survived, although not in the best of condition. Months elapsed but the identity of the perpetrators remained a mystery. The coroner’s jury in that case did not adjourn until March 20, 1884. In all 17 witnesses were examined but the verdict of the jury was divided. Some thought there was insufficient evidence to designate a guilty party; other jury members believed that circumstances pointed to Baxter Gunter as the culprit. After the Finch murders the coroner’s jury investigating the crime met from time to time but hesitated to render a verdict, fearing that lynching would follow a decision against the prisoners. On the night of August 26, masked members of a mob took custody of Harriet Finch and Jerry’s sister and swung them to a limb of a tree in an effort to make them talk. Each woman was suspended twice but each persisted in declaring that they knew nothing about the murder. On September 8 the jury returned its verdict that the three victims in the Finch murders had met their deaths from blows on the head inflicted by an ax in the hands of Jerry Finch, Harriet Finch, Lee Tyson, and some other party or parties unknown to the jury. At that point Harriet was arrested and joined the three men in jail. The lynching followed, said a reporter, “almost as a matter of course.” SOURCES : “West and south.” Waterloo Courier [Iowa], January 2, 1884, p. 2. “Horrible murder and robbery.” Galveston Daily News, July 7, 1885, p. 1. “Brutally murdered while asleep.” New York Times, July 7, 1885, p. 1. “Alleged murderers jailed.” Galveston Daily News, July 8, 1885, p. 1. “Negro murderers arrested.” New York Times, July 9, 1885, p. 1. “A triple murder.” Landmark [Statesville, North Carolina], July 10, 1885, p. 2. “A ghastly scene.” Marshall Statesman [Michigan], October 2, 1885, p. 1. “Four negroes lynched in Chatham.” Landmark [Statesville, North Carolina], October 2, 1885, p. 2. “A chapter of horrors.” Aiken Journal and Review [South Carolina], October 7, 1885, p. 1.

Eliza Woods (black) 1886 August 18 • Jackson, Tennessee Eliza Woods, a 70-year-old black woman, was taken from her jail cell in Jackson, Tennessee, on the night of August 18, 1886, and hanged by a mob. She was in jail because she was accused of poisoning her employer, Mrs. Jessie Woolen, the white wife of a well-known citizen of the area. She maintained her innocence to the last. According to one account she had a “bad reputation.” She was hanged from a tree in the courthouse yard. The mob waited for no more evidence than the fact the dead woman’s 47

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stomach contained traces of arsenic before the white men seized the prisoner, tore the clothes off her, put a rope around her neck and demanded a confession. None was forthcoming and Woods remained silent as the mob dragged her naked through the streets by the neck. While hanging from the tree Woods was riddled with bullets. Reportedly, the sentiment of the community was in sympathy with the act. Despite the behavior of the lynchers one newspaper report declared, “The mob was orderly and dispersed quietly.” SOURCES : “A woman is lynched.” New York Times, August 20, 1886, p. 3. “Hanged by a mob.” Galveston Daily News, August 20, 1886, p. 2. “Lynched a woman.” Logansport Journal [Indiana], August 20, 1886, p. 1.

Unidentified White Woman 1889 January 19 • Tiptonville, Lake County, Tennessee • Lynched with: Unidentified White Men (two — her husband and her father-in-law) At Tiptonville, Tennessee, a landing on the Mississippi River some 150 miles north of Memphis, in December 1888, a young man married a daughter of Mrs. J. F. Atcheson, a widow. When the young man’s father learned his son’s new mother-in-law possessed $300 or $400, he concocted a plan for himself, his son and his daughter-in-law to murder the old lady and thus gain possession of her money. The plan was agreed to and the crime committed. Neighbors learned of the crime and fixed the guilt upon the trio, who quickly fled the area. A posse of indignant citizens followed the trio, overtook them, and hanged all three to the limb of a tree. No other reports seemed to have surfaced about the crime perhaps because, as the one report put it: “Tiptonville is practically almost as remote as Shanghai, being without railroad or telegraph connection with the outside world.” SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “The trio lynched.” Indiana Progress [Indiana, Pennsylvania], January 23, 1889, p. 6.

Mrs. John Puckett (“half breed”— white/native Indian) 1889 February 15 • Lyon Creek, Adair County, Oklahoma Territory • Lynched with: John Puckett (half-breed) Reports from the Choctaw nation, Indian Territory in Oklahoma Territory, stated that on the night of February 15, 1889, John Puckett and 48

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his wife were taken from their cabin on Lyon Creek by a party of men and hanged. A stepson of Puckett’s was severely flogged and afterward tied to a tree, in which position he remained for 48 hours before being discovered. The Pucketts were charged with numerous crimes and had been ordered to leave the nation several months earlier. According to the report, the pair was “half breeds,” of Cherokee extraction. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “Wholesale hangings.” Janesville Daily Gazette [Wisconsin], February 21, 1889, p. 3.

Ella Watson (white) (also known as Kate Maxwell) 1889 July 21 • Sweetwater, Carbon County, Wyoming • Lynched with: James Averill (white) Of all the women profiled in this book, the most notorious was Kate Maxwell, also known as “Cattle Kate” or “cattle queen.” Many of the accounts of her life and exploits were colorful, contradictory, and came close to being the stuff of cheap dime novels. The reader of this account of Maxwell’s life and career should, while doing so, exercise more skepticism than that displayed by some of the reporters as they gathered the “facts” in the first place. Agreement existed among the accounts on the basic details — Maxwell was lynched because she and her gang had been rustling cattle on the Wyoming range for at least a few years. All agreed that Kate lived outside the law and led a wild, colorful, and distinctly unladylike existence. Details, though, were often highly contradictory. One account, remembering Kate six months after her death remarked, “She was the daughter of honest, poor working people of New England, but, being pretty and eager for adventure, she ran away from home with a circus, and afterward joined a troupe of burlesque actors, with whom she wandered to the West. There she bought land, and plunged into the vices of the lowest class of cowboys.” Interesting, certainly, but it was not likely true. In the dozens of articles on Kate, none spoke of her early life, except this one. Thought to be about 30 when she was lynched, Kate did not reliably come into the public record until about 1884 or so, when she was about 25 years old. A man by the name of Maxwell had a ranch at Sand Creek, Wyoming, at that time. He used to make trips to Chicago every fall to sell cattle and spend a certain amount of that money there “doing the 49

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town.” On one of those trips to Chicago he met a woman named Kate, who worked as a variety hall singer, and married her. And so the soon to be notorious Kate Maxwell found herself living on a ranch in Wyoming in 1884 or 1885. Mr. Maxwell was described as a quiet sort of fellow who ran his small ranch operation without attracting any attention. Nothing indicated there was any illegal activity going on in connection with his ranch. Before Maxwell died, his ranch was known to every fleet-footed Indian runner and prize fighter in the area, however, as Kate introduced her influence. Races, prize fights, dog fights, and cock fights became almost daily events at the Maxwell place, and it increasingly became a gathering place for a tough class of people. Kate had induced her husband to send to Chicago for an old lover of hers, Tom Mason, an ex-faro dealer, who was made foreman of the ranch. Somewhere along the way Mr. Maxwell died — later rumors surfaced that he had been poisoned to death by Kate. After Maxwell died, according to an account, “the place became notorious, and today it is headquarters for the most reckless gang of cowboys and half-breeds in the Territory.” It was also said that Kate entered upon her new life (as sole master of the ranch) with a spirit and zest that had seldom been equaled in so short a period of time. For her it was an easy step from the footlights of the concert hall in Chicago to the everyday life of ranch owner at Sand Creek. “After her husband’s death, so strong was she in the hold that she had gained over the desperate men who were associated with her in conducting its affairs that she found no difficulty in easily maintaining her position as the mistress,” explained one account. Her men were reported to be devoted to her and boasted of her horsemanship and steady aim whenever they could. Reportedly, Kate killed one man, at least, and wounded another. A drunken Mexican insulted her at a roundup, and before anybody else could react, Kate had shot him dead. On another occasion, one of her own men presumed to call her “Katie” one day and she shot him in his right arm, to teach him manners she explained. Washakie, a Shoshone Indian chief who was also a government scout, used to visit the Maxwell ranch regularly. He brought with him several of his fast-running tribal members and raced them, for money, against people Kate put up, usually men from her ranch. Invariably, Kate lost. At least until she imported a professional sprinter from Chicago who hung around the ranch posing as an ordinary cowboy until the next visit from Washakie. 50

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This time the Shoshone lost and the Indians parted philosophically with their money, ponies, blankets, and guns — having been bet on the race — without realizing the trick. In the fall of 1888 Kate took nearly all her stock to Chicago and returned home with considerable money. However, neighboring cattlemen, the large stockholders, noticed that very shortly she had more cattle on her spread than before she sold off her herd. Soon rumblings were heard that, in consequence, Maxwell’s career was likely to be cut short at any time. She was accused of the most venal sin known among stockmen, that of rustling. Maxwell and her boys were adept at picking up strays on the prairie and applying the ethic of “finders keepers.” The Maxwell ranch was believed to be the headquarters of the greatest gang of rustlers ever known in the Territory. Rustling was the altering of brands on cattle. Increasingly, the other stockmen in the area spoke of retaliation. James Averill was the postmaster of Sweetwater, Wyoming, and had arrived in the state some four years earlier, around 1885. Apparently he was appointed postmaster for no reason other than that his ranch was centrally located. In his short time in Wyoming, he was said to have killed two men. One was shot in the back from under cover while the other was killed during a row over a card game. No trial was held in either case, although Averill was threatened with lynching. However, his victims were not people of any prominence and the events were soon forgotten. As a postal official he was described as not entirely satisfactory. Several men with whom he had quarreled had their letters sent to a post office 50 miles away rather than risk a conflict with Averill. Somehow James and Kate became a couple. As the winter season arrived in Wyoming in late 1888, the ranch had plenty of provisions and lots of cash after a prosperous year. One problem was that all of the male employees of Kate’s ranch, except Tom Mason, spent a good deal of time in a gambling establishment run by Mike Farley and Joe Boden at the new town of Bessemer. They lost heavily and were soon after Maxwell for an advance in wages on the coming season’s pay. She lectured them severely but to no avail. The cowboys continued to lose money to Farley and Boden. Hearing rumors that gambling at the place was rigged against the players, Kate sent Mason in to investigate. He reported back to her that the men were being robbed systematically by crooked games. A furious Kate strapped on her gun and started for Besse51

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mer with Mason. When the pair entered the gambling palace, Maxwell walked up to Farley and demanded the money be returned to the cowboys he had robbed it from. Farley only smiled and tried to draw his gun but Kate was quicker and covered Farley with her gun. Other cowboys employed by Maxwell made an appearance and took over the place temporarily. Mason showed the cowboys the rigged equipment and Maxwell relieved the place of all its cash, said to be $9,000. Some of the furious cowboys wanted to lynch Farley and Boden but Maxwell ordered the lives of the two men be spared. However, the pair were ordered to leave town permanently after each was given $20 and placed on a horse. After they had gone half a mile, if they had looked back they would have seen their gambling den consumed by flames. A different account had it that Kate had been robbed by her own men of $1,500 (to be used by them to gamble) the day before her visit to the casino and that had been the precipitating cause of the visit. Farley and Boden were severely beaten, almost lynched, and then driven out of town. Maxwell announced she would divide the gamblers’ money among her own people. And after the casino was torched, all hands returned to the Maxwell ranch where a dance and a general good time followed. On the morning of Monday, July 22, 1889, the bodies of Kate Maxwell and James Averill were found dangling from the same limb of a large cottonwood tree near Sweetwater. “The discolored faces of the pair who had so long defied the officers of the law and plundered their neighbors, their tongues lolling from between their swollen lips and their twisted limbs contorted by agony, complete a ghastly picture,” observed one reporter. Their offense was stealing and branding range cattle. They had a large bunch of cattle recruited from the herds of the stockmen of the area. They had operated boldly, having little to fear due to the fact the large stockmen of the area were not loved by the general population because of the large tracts of land they controlled. Thus, it was felt unlikely that a jury would convict the rustlers. Kate was said in this account to be “the equal of any man on the range. Of masculine physique, she was a daredevil in the saddle, quick on the shoot; and adept with the lariat and branding iron. After her gambling hall escapade, she became dissolute. Her relations deserted her and she formed a partnership with Averill.” The discovery of about 75 head of freshly branded and stolen calves in the Maxwell and Averill corral was made Saturday afternoon, July 20, by a detective employed by 52

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the area stockmen’s association to protect its members from just such activity. That detective was driven from the ranch by a woman who sent a couple of shots his way. As a result the stockmen were even more incensed. Averill and Maxwell had already been warned to leave the area, but the pair declared they would not leave the county. Later that Saturday a number of stockmen gathered at a designated spot a few miles from the Maxwell ranch. They crept up on the house quickly and suddenly rushed the place. Quickly they overpowered Kate and James. Reportedly, Averill “weakened at once and began blubbering and whining. Kate was made of sterner stuff, and her blasphemy could not be approached in vileness or variety.” Then the pair were taken outside and lynched to the cottonwood tree. By then it was likely early Sunday morning, July 21. They kicked for a long time, perhaps 10 to 15 minutes. In this lynching, as in virtually all of them, the victims did not die immediately from a broken neck but died slowly, strangled to death, a process that could take up to 15 minutes. Before dying, Maxwell said she wished her style of living and the manner of her dying be kept from her mother and that she wanted the proceeds of her property to go to some charitable institution. According to this account; “An inquest will be held over the remains, but the lynchers will not be punished and scarcely pursued.” A different account of the lynching said the mob was comprised of 15 to 20 men. Herein it was claimed that both victims were asked to speak before they were lynched. Averill spoke only of his office as postmaster, naming a certain individual he did not want as his successor. Before riding away after the lynching the members of the mob fired several bullets into Averill’s body. In a third account it was reported the mob lured the pair out of Maxwell’s house before capturing them and as a final act the mob riddled the bodies of both of them with bullets. In its summary of Kate’s career, the Washington Post described her as “a woman of nerve, and her many escapades brought her into prominent notoriety before the Rocky Mountain public more or less frequently the past four years.” She was “a woman of undoubted pluck and spirit, and whenever she pleased could be most fascinating in her manners and conversation. She was above the average height, with black hair and eyes and regular features. She was regarded as rather handsome, but for a scar on her chin. She was little over thirty, and fond of dress as a society woman despite her rough life and surroundings. She wore silks and velvets, with 53

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an abundance of jewelry when about the ranch or in town.” The Post presented quite a different account of the lynching. Herein it was said the pair were in a wagon late Saturday en route to Casper when the lynch mob surprised Maxwell and Averill and captured them. While in the act of hanging them, a cowboy named Buchanan, who was a friend of Averill and had witnessed the capture, began to fire on the mob. They returned the fire and chased Buchanan but he got away and rode into Casper to alert the authorities. Warrants were sworn out for the supposed lynchers and a deputy sheriff with a posse of seven men left Casper on Monday morning for the scene of the murders. Two of those men returned to Casper a day later, on the 24th, to report the posse arrived on the scene early on Tuesday morning and found the bodies still hanging from the tree. When cut down they were removed to a neighboring ranch where an inquest was held. The verdict was that Kate and Averill met their deaths at the hands of John Durbin, Tom Sunn, E. J. Rothwell, Sam Johnson, and a man named McLean. The bodies were placed in one box and buried at the ranch. Sheriff Watson had, reportedly, arrested some of those named and was then bringing them to Casper. Sunn and Rothwell had confessed to their part in the lynching. Those named were among the most prominent stockmen in the area. Durbin lived in Cheyenne, and was a pillar in the Methodist Church there. Rothwell was the son of a wealthy New York businessman and Tom Sunn was an old pioneer scout and guide who had been all over the west. A few days after the lynching, a Pittsburgh newspaper editorialized on lawlessness and crime in different section of the USA. With reference to Maxwell it said, “In the Northwestern section the other day a woman was lynched for stealing cattle. This is a novelty in the lynching line. The judge [Lynch] has heretofore confined his attentions to the male sex.” As mentioned earlier, much of the above account had the ring of cheap dime novel material; and that was it exactly. The foregoing story was all false. A woman had been lynched at the place and time outlined above but her name was not Kate Maxwell, who was a fictional character that did not exist; none of the exploits attributed to her had happened. That started to become apparent with a July 26 account in the Galveston Daily News that mentioned cowboy James Buchanan “who was friend of James Averill and Ella Watson who were lynched Monday night.” There followed the Buchanan version of the lynching with the article inserting 54

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“Ella Watson” into the account where readers would have expected to see “Kate Maxwell.” No explanation was given for the change of names. In fact, it was not even noted in passing by the account. A couple of days later a longer account in the Salt Lake Tribune cast more confusion on the situation when it declared, “The dime novel literature telegraphed from Cheyenne Monday night regarding the lynching of James Averill and Ella Watson Saturday last is the veriest bosh.” This account also followed the James Buchanan version of the lynching. After Buchanan exchanged shots with the lynchers he rode 50 miles to Caspar to alert the authorities. When the deputy sheriff and his posse of men reached the place described by Buchanan, they found the following : “Hanging from the limb of a stunted pine growing on the summit of a cliff fronting the Sweetwater River were the bodies of James Averill and Ella Watson. Side by side they swung, their arms touching each other, their tongues protruding and their faces swollen and discolored almost beyond recognition by the exposure of almost twenty-eight hours. It was a ghastly picture.” Common cowboy lariats had been used for the lynching and both victims had died by strangulation, neither having fallen more than two feet from the drop. After the inquest delivered its verdict, the two bodies were placed in one box and buried on the ranch of Ed Healy, to where the bodies had been taken for the inquest and the verdict from the jury impaneled by Coroner Emery delivered. After which Sheriff Watson and his posse proceeded to the ranch of Tom Sunn who admitted he was one of the lynchers and who readily gave the names of the others. Taking Sunn into custody, the party proceeded to the ranch of E. J. Rothwell who also, reportedly, readily admitted that he had assisted in the hanging. This account also substituted the name “Ella Watson” for “Kate Maxwell” without noting the change or explaining the reason, which must have added to confusion among the readers. At the same time that a few media outlets were mentioning Ella Watson, albeit without explanation, other articles, the vast majority, continued to report on the lynching of Averill and Kate Maxwell. For example, on August 1 the Cheyenne Weekly Sun ran a brief article on Kate [a reprint from the New York World]. That account remarked that it seemed the business of being a cattle queen had is disadvantages: “The cowmen of Wyoming did not like Kate Maxwell’s style and so they lynched her. The fact that she was a cattle queen did not save her fair neck.” And: 55

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“It wasn’t a very gallant thing for the boys to do, but Kate’s methods of getting cattle were not such as to popularize her on the plains. Her social life, too, was a trifle shady, and cowboys are particular.” Even the Wyoming newspapers continued the fiction, and the confusion. By the end of July excitement over the double lynching was said to be increasing and the feeling was strong that the lynchers should be punished. The sheriff of the area had by then arrested Thomas Sunn, E. J. Rothwell, Earnest McLean, Robert Connor, and John Durbin, all charged with lynching. Those men were all wealthy stockmen and the largest taxpayers of the county. Those arrested men were given a hearing and released upon the posting of $5,000 bail each. This account remarked that Averill, though a “desperate border character” was a man of fine education and had once been a student at Harvard University. Finally, around August 1, some of the confusion was explained. A brief story noted that Kate Maxwell, reported to have been lynched with Averill, “is a myth, and all the stories that are told of her desperate exploits have been ‘fakes.’ The woman who was lynched was one Ella Watson. The Kate Maxwell woman is a purely imaginary creature.” A fuller explanation came from the Boomerang [Laramie] newspaper. Actually, it had hinted at the truth many months earlier, back in the middle of March 1889 — fully four months prior to the lynching — when it observed; “Kate Maxwell, the daring and desperate heroine of one of the latest Cheyenne ‘fakes,’ forms the subject of a half-page illustration in the last Police Gazette. She is represented as cleaning out a gambling joint in the paper town of Bessemer.” Some days later the same newspaper continued in its cynical stance by remarking on the number of letters for Kate Maxwell piling up at the post office (generated by all the fanciful stories printed back East), and which, it implied, would never be collected. It ran the fuller explanation on August 8: “The woman who was hanged with Jim Averill would turn over in her grave could she know how she was being heralded abroad as ‘Cattle Kate…’ The death incident on the Sweetwater is being buried out of sight in the blood and thunder tale of Cattle Kate’s daring career which is now going the rounds with numerous amplifications.” It was observed that Cattle Kate “who never actually lived on earth, will yet live in verse and story.” Even the dime novel writers had caught inspiration from the theme and “one of these frightful nightmares” that had just appeared was A Woman’s Wild Life. The scene of “the 56

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woolly yarn” was laid in Bessemer and “more people figure in the story than Bessemer ever saw at one time.” With respect to Ella Watson, a rancher of long-standing in the area told a Boomerang reporter, “Instead of being anything like the mythical Kate, the Watson woman was her exact opposite. She was slouchy and filthy in appearance, but when it is said that she was a prostitute all has been said that can be said about her.” And, “She was neither bold nor daring; she was an arrant coward. She could not ride horseback nor could she throw a rope. She was the commonest kind of a woman.” Late in September 1889 it was reported that Watson and Averill had not been living together. Watson was said to have occupied a ranch a few miles north of the ranch occupied by Averill. R. W. Cahill, half-brother of Averill, was then living in Averill’s ranch and promising to do all he could to bring the lynchers to justice. However, a reporter remarked that even though indictments had been obtained from the Coroner’s jury against some of the most prominent cattlemen of Wyoming, “it will be extremely difficult to secure a conviction before a jury.” In fact, it proved to be impossible. Toward the end of October 1889, the Carson County, Wyoming, grand jury that had been investigating the lynching of Averill and Watson adjourned, without obtaining indictments against those accused of the lynching. The only witness to the affair had been cowboy James Buchanan. Mysteriously, by the time the grand jury met, he had disappeared. And there the matter ended. It remained unknown as to who created the fictional Kate Maxwell and why. Presumably it was some enterprising individual who understood the needs of the Eastern tabloids and gutter press for scandal and stories from the Wild West that titillated readers and kept alive various myths about the West, regardless of the reality. Nothing indicated Watson had any idea of what went on, or that she shared in any of the income from the scam. For that matter, nothing indicated Watson was a model for the Maxwell character, perhaps only an inspiration, at most. One possibility was that the creator of the story was a reporter on the Boomerang. It was the only place that published an account challenging the idea, vaguely, before the lynching, that Maxwell was real. The creator must have been local, in order to continue to generate false stories up to and including the first and false stories of the lynching. That is, false in the details. In this account in this book everything about Maxwell up to and including all 57

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reports on the lynching that did not use the Buchanan version, were false. But they did represent what some people wanted to believe about the Wild West and about women. SOURCES : “Kate is a rustler.” Logansport Pharos [Indiana], February 21, 1889, p. 1. “Cattle Kate.” Evening Herald [Syracuse, New York], February 22, 1889, p. 6 “Kate Maxwell dead.” Decatur Daily Despatch [Illinois], July 23, 1889, p. 1. “Man and woman lynched.” Sandusky Daily Register [Ohio], July 23, 1889, p. 1. “Cattle Kate Maxwell.” Salt Lake Tribune, July 24, 1889, p. 1. No title. Pittsburgh Post, July 25, 1889, p. 4. “Lynching bee.” Daily Enquirer [Utah], July 26, 1889, p. 1. “Cattle Kate’s career.” Washington Post, July 26 1889, p. 7. “The cattle-queen.” Mitchell Daily Republican [South Dakota], January 15, 1890, p. 2. “Lynchers arrested.” Galveston Daily News, July 26, 1889, p. 1. “The true version.” Salt Lake Daily Tribune, July 28, 1889, p. 3. “A disagreeable business.” Cheyenne Weekly Sun [Wyoming], August 1, 1889, p. 1. “Not Kate Maxwell.” Jackson Sentinel [Maquoketa, Iowa], August 1, 1889, p. 2. No title. Boomerang [Laramie, Wyoming], March 14, 1889, p. 4. “Cattle Kate.” Boomerang [Laramie, Wyoming], August 8, 1889. “The Sweetwater lynchers.” Hamilton Daily Democrat [Ohio], September 26, 1889, p. 1. “Telegraphic notes.” Decatur Daily Republican [Illinois], October 22, 1889, p. 4.

Mrs. Wigginton 1891 March 16 • Mount Sterling, Kentucky A mob in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, came close to lynching the Wigginton family, composed of John Wigginton, Mrs. Wigginton, and the couple’s four sons, on Tuesday night, March 10, 1891, when it was learned in the community that John and his sons were allegedly the ones who had poisoned William Ferguson, B. C. Watts (son-in-law of Ferguson) and Miss Boyd (granddaughter of Ferguson). While Boyd had survived the other two had died from the effects of the poison. Two of the Wigginton boys were then under arrest and in jail; one of them was just 10 years old. It was the 10-year-old who confessed, saying his father bought arsenic and sent two of his boys to Ferguson’s house where one of the boys slipped into the kitchen and put the arsenic in the coffee pot after supper. Next morning the cold coffee was used with the fresh coffee and the family was poisoned. Wigginton and Watts had raised tobacco the previous year and there was a dispute between them over $17 from the proceeds of the crop. It was for that reason, reportedly, that Wigginton wanted to kill Watts. A few days later, on March 16, a mob went to the Wigginton home where they found no one at home except Mrs. Wigginton. They took her 58

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out and hanged her. Then they set off on a search for John and the other sons, who had apparently all fled the scene. As to the two boys in jail, they were said to be well-guarded. An unsuccessful attempt to lynch those two had taken place at the jail, earlier on the 16th, but the 35 well-armed men detailed to guard the Wigginton boys had repulsed the mob. SOURCES : “Reign of king mob.” Chillicothe Constitution [Missouri], March 17, 1891, p. 1. “Wigginton and Watts.” Bismarck Daily Tribune [North Dakota], March 13, 1891, p. 1.

Roxie Elliott (black) 1891 April 15 • Centerville, Bibb County, Alabama Roxie Elliott was a black school teacher who gave birth to an illegitimate child around the first of April 1891, in Centerville, Bibb County, Alabama. In her efforts to hide her “shame” she carried the infant to a dense thicket where she tied a rope around the newborn’s neck and hanged it from a tree, killing it. Later the child was discovered by passing hunters and a Coroner’s investigation brought out the facts of the case. Elliott was placed under arrest, no later than April 5. No other reports of the case appeared in the media but a listing in the lynching calendar said Roxie was lynched in Centerville on April 15, 1891. SOURCES : the lynching calendar www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html “A negro girl’s unnatural crime.” Review [Decatur, Illinois], April 7, 1891, p. 1.

Mother of Wesley Lee (black) 1891 May 1 • Lowndes County, Mississippi • Lynched with: Wesley Lee (son), John Barrentine, Monroe Walters (blacks) John Barrentine, Wesley Lee, Monroe Walters and the mother of Wesley Lee, all blacks, were hanged by a mob in Lowndes County, Mississippi. That happened around May 1, 1891, but the case did not become public knowledge for more than a week, at which time the first news accounts appeared. Some time earlier an attempt had been made to poison Captain Henry Barrentine and his family. However, the poison was discovered before anyone drank the water to which it had been added. John Barrentine and Wesley Lee were first arrested and given a preliminary hearing, but never reached the jail to which they were committed. A crowd of armed men hanged them from the limb of a tree, near Caledonia, Mississippi. 59

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Those two men, it was said, confessed they had made the poisoning attempt and also that they had poisoned Barry West, who died in August 1890. As part of their confession the pair implicated Monroe Walters and Wesley Lee’s mother. Walters was captured at Birmingham, Alabama. While he was being transported by train from Birmingham to Columbus, Mississippi, a mob of 20 men overpowered the guard, took Walters out to some nearby woods where they lynched him. Sometime after Wesley Lee was lynched the body of his mother was found lynched from the same tree. SOURCE : “Four negroes lynched.” New York Times, May 10, 1891, p. 2.

Ella Williams and Eliza Lowe (blacks) 1891 August 7 • Henry County, Alabama • Lynched with: William Williams (husband), Willis Lowe (husband) (blacks) On Friday, July 31, 1891, the residence of William Davis, a prominent farmer in Henry County, Alabama, was burned to the ground with the family narrowly escaping with their lives. Two days later, on Sunday, August 2, Ella Williams was arrested and confessed to saturating the house with coal oil and setting it on fire. Her confession implicated her husband William Williams and a married couple named Willis Lowe and Eliza Lowe. On Friday, August 7, the other three were arrested and while the officers were transporting all four of them to jail, a mob overpowered the officers, seized the prisoners, shot them all to death, and threw their bodies into the nearby river. SOURCE : No title. Janesville Gazette [Wisconsin], August 8, 1891, p. 1.

Lou Stevenson (black) 1891 September 27 • Hollandale, Mississippi • Lynched with: Grant White (black) On Saturday night, September 26, 1891, a black woman named Lou Stevenson called white bartender John Davis outside from his saloon in Hollandale, Missouri. While Stevenson engaged Davis in conversation a black man named Grant White appeared on the scene and shot Davis dead, without provocation and for no apparent reason. Lou was detained immediately while White fled the area, only to be quickly captured. Speculation was that Stevenson and White had conspired to kill Davis although no motive was reported. When the pair was reunited at the scene of the 60

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crime, an infuriated mob hanged both White and Stevenson to a railroad bridge. SOURCES : “Lynched.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], September 29, 1891, p. 1. “Negro man and woman lynched.” Decatur Review [Illinois], September 30, 1891, p. 1.

Beatrice Sims, Laura Sims (whites) 1892 January 5 • Mobile, Alabama • Lynched with: Bob Sims (father, December 25, 1891), Tom Savage (Dec. 25), Tyree Savage (Dec. 25), Neal Sims (uncle, January 5, 1892), Unidentified White Men (2 — on January 5), Harry Hinton ( January 20) (all whites, except Hinton — black) In the area around Mobile, Alabama, a group of people led by Bob Sims came to the attention of the authorities in the summer of 1891. Increasingly the Sims gang — as the group came to be called in the newspapers — ran afoul of law enforcement officials and area residents. Sheriffs went after them because the Sims gang — family members from the Sims clan, many members of the Savage family, and others — dealt in illicit alcohol, they were moonshiners. Also, their religious views set them apart from citizens in the area and, combined with the odd behavior of patriarch Bob Sims, antagonized those neighbors. As time passed in 1891, clashes involving the Sims gang grew more and more violent until the end of 1891 and into the first few days of 1892 when several violent episodes saw all of the Sims gang dead, all lynched. At Bladon Springs, Alabama, in August 1891, United States marshals conducted a raid on Sims and his relatives in which two men were killed and one seriously wounded. Jim Sims (a brother of Bob) was the wounded man. He died on Friday, August 21. However, his death was not as a result of the shootout with law enforcement officials. Rather, the people of Bladon formed a posse, took him from the bed in which he lay and strung him up to the limb of a tree. Bob Sims escaped from the deputies during that confrontation and then sent word that he was going to come back to Bladon with 40 men to paint the town red with blood. A few days later, still in August, Bob Sims sent word to Sheriff Moseley of Mobile that he was in the mountains of Choctaw County with 45 followers and that they were well-armed and waiting in ambush for Moseley. Soon the sheriff arrived in Bladon with 50 men of the county armed with rifles, shotguns, and pistols. Stopping overnight at Bladon, Moseley 61

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got all possible information he could from the locals concerning the location of Sims and his gang. Speculation was that the Sims gang would come to Bladon, but when they did not appear, Moseley and his posse set off for the hills. However, they did not locate the Sims gang. Someone who did locate the gang was Sheriff Walner and his posse, who trailed the gang from Alabama and at about 1:00 A.M. on August 30, captured six members of the gang. Walner had received information the Sims gang was hiding in a vacant house near De Soto, Mississippi. That house was surrounded and all six of the occupants were captured. Bob Sims had left the house some time prior to the raid and was nowhere to be found. Those captured were Joseph Mosely, C. P. Savage, F. D. Savage, Mose Savage, (three brothers) Tyrell Savage, and William Savage (two sons of C. P.). Rumor had it that Sims was then at a house 13 miles further west from De Soto. Marshal Walner left some of his men to guard the six prisoners while the others sped off to the other house. Reaching that building just at daybreak, they surrounded it. When they entered the house they found only the wife of Bob Sims and several of his young children. Bob himself was again absent. Traveling further east the posse captured two more of the gang some two miles further along. The six captured at the first house were said to have all admitted to being members of the Sims gang. Early in September, revenue agents returned to Montgomery, Alabama, from the chase after Choctaw County moonshiner Bob Sims. While he had eluded them, the agents had discovered and destroyed a large still that he had been operating near Womack, Alabama. It was also reported that 10 families of followers of Bob Sims in his “peculiar religious belief ” had been chased away from their homes by the residents of the vicinity where they lived. The most notable thing which the officers found about the deserted homes was said to have been the uniform cleanliness. Just before Christmas 1891, Bob Sims took the revenge he had promised back in August. According to this account, back then, Bob Sims, described herein as “leader of a company of religionists in Choctaw County” had been arrested for running an illicit distillery, which he claimed to have divine authority to run. Two of his brothers, fellow believers, rescued him, killing a bystander and wounding the deputy in charge in the process. One of the brothers, Jim, was killed. Bob and the other brother escaped and the gang had been on the run and was being sought ever since. 62

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On the night of December 23, 1891, Bob and his gang reappeared near Womack Hill and attacked the house of John McMillan, who had been a member of the pursuing posse. They set fire to the house and as McMillan and the other occupants rushed out, the gang fired upon them. John Kennedy (McMillan’s father-in-law) was killed; John McMillan was shot three times and, it was said, “will die.” A 12-year-old niece of McMillan was shot to death while a 10-year-old nephew was shot and burned to death in the house. Belle McKenzie, a school teacher boarding at McMillan’s, was shot twice in the neck; one other occupant of the house was shot but not mortally wounded. Next, the Sims gang broke into McMillan’s store, robbed it of what goods they wanted, and set it on fire. As the Sims gang fled the area on their horses, they shouted they would be back on the next night to burn out and kill Dr. Brown and Frank Tute, also members of the original pursuing posse. Two of the members of the Sims gang that night, reportedly, were Bob’s two adult daughters, Beatrice Sims and Laura Sims. They were dressed in men’s clothes and armed with Winchester rifles. In the wake of that attack a large body of men was assembled and that posse went off in pursuit of the gang. The assault on the McMillan family aroused both the citizens and the authorities to more action. Troops and armed men were then flocking to the Sims homestead where the desperado and his associates were said to be holed up. A journalist confidently predicted, “Sims and his desperate associates are more than likely to be wiped off the face of the earth within the next twenty-four hours.” Alabama’s governor had ordered the first regiment of state troopers to the scene and the sheriff left with his posse on December 25 for the scene. The troops had with them a field piece for bombardment, as it was believed the Sims gang would never surrender but would fight to the death. By the afternoon of December 25, the homestead had been surrounded by the early arrivals and shots had been exchanged between the two sides with one of the members of the sheriff ’s posse being wounded. One member of the Sims gang was captured — John Savage. Speculation was that six members of the gang were barricaded in the homestead, Bob, Beatrice, and Laura believed to have been three of them. The military unit that set out to confront the Sims gang consisted of 20 fully armed men and a six-pound fieldpiece. Further details on the first skirmish at the Sims barricaded homestead revealed that 60 men, the early arrivals, surrounded the house and some 40 shots were exchanged before 63

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the six members of the gang retreated to the strongly fortified house. It was expected that before long some 700 men would have arrived and surrounded the homestead. More information of the August arrest of Bob and his two brothers detailed that after being arrested the three prisoners were kept guarded overnight in a room at the hotel in Bladon Springs. That night relatives of Sims surrounded the hotel and after killing two officers and a private citizen and losing two of their number, they rescued Bob and his remaining brother and escaped. While the gang was being pursued after that escape, a mob visited Bob Sims’ home and destroyed “everything he had in the world” and Bob vowed vengeance against every man in that party all of whom, to the number of 37, he swore to kill. First move in that direction by Bob was the attack on McMillan. Before firing that house he and his gang called to the occupants, six in total — two men, two women, and two children—to come out and surrender. When the occupants refused, the house was set on fire. As the occupants were finally forced to flee the flames, the Sims gang opened fire on the helpless victims. When the gang had finished looting the store, they made for Sims’ homestead, six miles distant. Soon a posse was formed, set off in pursuit, and exchanged shots with the gang before its members barricaded themselves inside. At that point the posse ceased firing and a courier was sent to Alabama Governor Thomas G. Jones to ask for aid. Sheriff Gavin of Choctaw County thought that was the best course of action rather than sacrifice the lives of his men, who were at the mercy of the Sims gang’s bullets whenever they advanced on the house. As the early arrivals that had the house surrounded waited for military help, occasional shots were exchanged with the gang. Later on Christmas afternoon the Sims gang surrendered, after the sheriff obtained the military cannon and trained it on the homestead. At that point Bob offered to surrender if the sheriff would guarantee him and his followers protection from members of the posse. Finally it was agreed the Sims gang would be carefully guarded and taken to the county jail. Then the gang members laid down their arms and came out of the house with the men put in irons and the women placed under guard. All of them then set out for Butler, the county seat and site of the jail. However, observed a reporter, “there is an impression that the guard will be overpowered and the prisoners lynched.” And that was indeed what happened. Still later on the night of December 25, while the posse in charge of the party was en route to Butler, a mob of men overpowered the guard and 64

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hanged three men: Bob Sims, Tom Savage and an adolescent with the surname Savage. The idea of allowing the gang to surrender in the first place did not sit well with many in the posse who were clearly out for blood. It was thought it was only the fact that women were in the house that compelled the posse to agree to a surrender — to extend mercy to the occupants. Also, it was believed to be the fact of women in the house that had caused Bob Sims to even consider the option of surrender. When the outlaws finally exited the house on Christmas day at 4:30 P.M., cowed in part by the military cannon trained on them, the posse was surprised to see not a gang of desperadoes but seven people, four of whom were women. There were two adult males and an adolescent boy, young Savage. In addition there was Bob’s wife, Beatrice, Laura, and a third daughter of Bob’s. At 5:00 P.M. the prisoners had been placed in two wagons — men in irons in one, women in the second — and the party had set off for Butler. When the surrender took place Sheriff Gavin had about 200 armed men surrounding the house and at his disposal. As part of his guarantee of protection, Gavin furnished a guard of fifty armed men to take the gang to Butler. To furnish the guard Bob Sims picked out 25 men from those available while Gavin selected the other 25. After the party set off for Butler, it got no more than a mile from the surrender site before it was overtaken. Before that mob (presumably it was all or part of the 150 or so men who had surrounded the house and not been selected for guard duty to Butler) overtook the Sims gang, it came across a man named Con Savage, a man related to the aforementioned Savage clan, and said to have been implicated in the gang’s activities. The mob stopped long enough to lynch Con from the nearest tree before resuming its pursuit of the gang. When the mob overtook the lead party, the guard offered no resistance and Bob and the three men were taken charge of by the mob. Bob and Tom Savage were put in a buggy, had ropes put around their necks, and secured to a pine tree. When asked what he had to say Bob replied, “Feel my pulse and see that I am no coward. I am willing to meet my God.” The pair was told to stand up in the buggy and, as they complied, the horse was whipped and the pair was strangled to death. Then the other two Savages were dealt with in the same way. All of the Savages protested their innocence and begged not to be killed. After all four had been hanged, their bodies were riddled with bullets and the mob dispersed. While many of the accounts of the lynching of Bob Sims and the Savages were quite thorough and 65

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detailed, none of them, curiously, mentioned the fate of the four women who surrendered and were also in the party on its way to Butler, in a separate wagon from the men, when the mob overtook them. Apparently, somewhere along the way they were released. Meanwhile, acts of revenge against the Sims family and property continued. At Shubuta, Mississippi, on December 26, a mob hanged John Sims (brother of Bob) and Mosely Sims (nephew of Bob). Back in Alabama, the mob returned to the homestead where Bob surrendered, and burned it and all the outbuildings to the ground, and killed every living thing that was found on the place, except for the family (perhaps the women had returned there), who had to escape to a neighbor’s place. The Sims family said they were going to leave the area. A posse some 500 strong was then in the process of hunting for Neal Sims (brother of Bob). Reportedly Neal had assembled about 40 men and intended to seek revenge. Neal was the other brother who had rescued Bob from his captors in Bladon back on August 20. According to a journalist, Neal “firmly believes that his brother was a prophet from God and had divine sanction to kill off the devil’s agents — namely the officers of the law.” News came from Womack Hill, Alabama, that on Tuesday night, January 5, 1892, Neal Sims, Beatrice Sims, Laura Sims, and two other men were on their way from Womack going in the direction of Leak, Mississippi, a known rendezvous point for the gang, and were met by the posse searching for Neal. It was supposed that Neal resisted arrest and was lynched and that the rest of the party attempted to intervene on Neal’s behalf and they were all strung up to an oak tree along the roadside. No sooner had that report been published in many outlets than a terse denial was issued by the sheriff of Wayne County at Waynesboro, Mississippi, the nearest telegraph station to Womack Hill. A black man named Harry Hinton, who had been implicated in the massacre of the McMillan family was captured near Demopolis, Alabama, around January 6, 1892, and taken to the jail at Butler. To forestall any mob violence, the sheriff spread the word that Hinton had died of wounds received when he was arrested. However, that deception was uncovered and on January 20 a mob stormed the jail at Butler, took Hinton outside and lynched him. A day or two earlier, Belle McKenzie, the teacher who boarded at the McMillan’s home and was wounded in the December 23 attack, died of her injuries. 66

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Near the end of January an article was published that dealt a little with the background of Bob Sims and wondered if he was insane. After noting the saga of the Sims gang had made riveting reading across the county, the reporter observed, “The south claims to be chivalrous to women beyond any section of county in Christendom, yet such a thing as the hanging of a woman by lynch law could scarcely have happened in the north under any circumstances.” Few subscribed to the idea that Beatrice and Laura had not been lynched, despite the denial. According to this account, when he was a boy of 10, Bob Sims was a most pious Methodist who prayed in camp meetings even at that tender age. He was thoroughly exemplary in his conduct and was intellectually bright. He went into the Confederate army as a soldier and it was recorded that he was a good soldier. But after he came out of the army, two mental characteristics that his acquaintances had not noticed before began to develop in him. One was vanity; the other was a fierce and cruel temper. As that temper grew people shrank from him. That increased his vanity until he set himself up as a leader and founder of a religious sect. He taught that all the laws of society and all governments were instruments of the devil, therefore it was a religious duty to resist them. Instances of his fiendish mind were recorded that led the recorder of the account to believe he must have been insane. Bob used to entice his neighbor’s hogs and other livestock near his premises with a show of food. As the animal reached out its tongue to get the food, Sims would suddenly raise an axe or knife he had in readiness and with one blow cut off the tongue. More than once he chopped off the foot of a neighbor’s cow and drove the creature limping home on the bleeding stump. As well, he was fond of catching other people’s chickens, pulling the feathers off them alive and then releasing them. A different account of his background also declared things started to go wrong after the Civil War, after summarizing that by January 1892 all of the Sims clan and gang were gone, mostly dead but a few were just gone. Right after the Civil War Bob Sims was said to have been expelled from the Methodist church for “general recklessness of speech and demeanor.” He was described as a rugged and muscular backwoodsman, an orphan reared no one knew how, with a native shrewdness, a gift of the gab, and a wild, unbalanced intellect. He preached a compound of Mormonism, communism, and anarchism, and soon had some 60 followers 67

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and was “a terror to the whole community.” All who offended him had to suffer. He cut out the tongues of cattle, cut off their hooves, shot horses and avenged himself in many other ways. He manufactured moonshine whisky so the federal authorities got after him. After the August 1891 incident, Beatrice and Laura went to the state governor and tried unsuccessfully to intercede for their father, then they threatened vengeance on all their enemies, with the culmination being the attack at McMillan’s place. As they butchered the helpless people fleeing the burning house “the Sims gang yelled and blasphemed in language too horrible for publication.” When a neighbor who had witnessed the attack made oath that he had seen Laura and Beatrice in the attacking party, participating and cheering on the men, it was thought their fate was sealed. Clearly not believing the two women escaped lynching, he concluded, “Lynching of women is such a revolting matter that a denial has been published, and it is even claimed now that one of the Sims men, Bob’s brother Neal, escaped.” While it is not certain that Beatrice and Laura were lynched, that was the most likely outcome, and for Neal as well. After that date nothing more was ever published about those three people. Apparently they were not even being sought by the authorities any longer, with the manhunt suddenly, and inexplicably, stopped. When Beatrice and Laura were, presumably, lynched there was no one around at all except hard-core members of the posse, all likely out for blood. It would have been easy to lynch them and dispose of their bodies. When the terse denial of a lynching was made, the sheriff gave no details. Were they captured and released? Were they captured and then escaped? Where they not captured at all? The idea of lynching women was abhorrent to many people who may have had no objections to lynching men, under certain circumstances. Most likely, in this case, someone issued a denial due to the very repugnance of the act and not its non-occurrence. SOURCES : “Another case down south.” Janesville Gazette [Wisconsin], August 24, 1891, p. 2. “Hunting Alabama outlaws.” Centralia Enterprise and Tribune [Wisconsin], August 29, 1891, p. 5. “Six Simites captured.” World [New York, New York], August 31, 1891, p. 6. “Couldn’t catch Sims.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], September 5, 1891, p. 2. “Moonshiner Sims.” Ireton Clipper [Iowa], September 10, 1891, p. 7. “A bloody feud.” Standard [Ogden, Utah], December 25, 1891, p. 1. “Bombarding of Sims.” Daily Times [New Brunswick, New Jersey], December 26, 1891, p. 1. “On their trail.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], December 26, 1891, p. 1.

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The Chronolog y • 1892 “Not mistaken.” Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, December 26, 1891, p. 2. “At a rope’s end.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], December 28, 1891, p. 1. “The Sims war.” New York Times, December 29, 1891, p. 3. “Wholesale lynching.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], January 8, 1892, p. 2. “Denies lynching of women.” Washington Post, January 8, 1892, p. 1. “Another murderer lynched.” Olean Democrat [New York], January 21, 1892, p. 1. “Was he insane? Democratic Standard [Coshocton, Ohio], January 29, 1892, p. 4. “It was a terrible gang.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], February 1, 1892, p. 3.

Mrs. Baker (white) 1892 January • Northern Arkansas • Lynched with: Mr. Johnson (white) Deputy United States Marshal Liggett returned to Fort Smith, Arkansas, on January 18, 1892, after a trip through the northern part of the State in pursuit of moonshiners. He had something else to report — a double lynching that took place in the mountains. Peter Baker, a farmer, was found murdered in his house. His wife and a man named Johnson had fled the county only to return around January 15. Neighbors suspected them of having conspired to murder Baker. As a result of those suspicions, the couple were taken into custody by the neighbors, lashed together back to back and then hanged with the same rope. SOURCE : Two hanged on one rope.” Salt Lake Tribune, January 19, 1892, p. 1.

Mrs. Martin (black) 1892 February 2 • Sumner County, Tennessee During the period 1890 to 1891 a celebrated barn-burning case had excited Sumner County, Tennessee. Eight blacks and a white man were charged with burning barns in that county. One black was lynched by a mob near Henderson, one died before trial and the remaining seven were brought to trail at Gallatin. However, that trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial took place in the fall of 1891 with two of the defendants found guilty and sent to the penitentiary. Two of them were given a new trial and the remaining three were acquitted. Among the latter were two black brothers with the surname Martin. The Martins were warned to leave the county for good. However, they returned around Christmas time 1891. On Tuesday, February 2, 1892, a mob went to the cabin where the boys were staying with their mother, and ordered them to come out. When the brothers refused to do so, the mob began to fire their weapons through the window and killed Mrs. Martin, the mother of the two men. 69

The Chronology • 1892 SOURCE : “Another victim.” Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], February 13, 1892, p. 6.

Mrs. Hamp Briscoe (black) 1892 February 10 • Keo, Arkansas • Lynched with: Hamp Briscoe (husband) and Unidentified Black Man (son) (blacks) Hamp Briscoe, his wife, and his son, who were arrested and placed in a small house at Keo, Arkansas, were all shot dead by a small group of masked men who stormed into the house on February 10, 1892. SOURCES : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html No title. Fort Wayne Weekly Gazette [Indiana], February 18, 1892, p. 8.

Unidentified Black Woman 1892 March 12 • Rayville, Louisiana The lifeless form of a black female was found dangling from a tree on the road leading to Rayville, Louisiana, on Saturday March 12, 1892. It was identified as that of a 15-year-old servant of W. R. Helmer, who resided on the Greenwell place, some 20 miles from Rayville. Reportedly, the girl became offended at a black man, also employed at the same place, and in seeking revenge upon this man, decided to put Rough on Rats [the trade name of a widely and readily available arsenic-based poison that households used in dealing with vermin] into his coffee. However, she put the poison in the coffee intended for the family meal. About nine persons drank it and all became very sick, although all did recover. When confronted, the servant girl acknowledged she intended to kill her target and said she did not care particularly who else suffered. On Friday night a few men set out to escort the girl to jail at Rayville, but they had not gone very far before a party of masked men overtook them and strung the girl up to a tree at the first crossing. SOURCE : “Will poison no more.” San Antonio Light, March 14, 1892, p. 1.

Unidentified Black Woman 1892 November 2 • Calhoun Parish, Louisiana • Lynched with: Unidentified Black Man (brother, November 2) and John Hastings (father, November 5, at Jonesville, Louisiana) (blacks) A black man by the name of John Hastings was arrested and jailed on Saturday, October 29, 1892, for the murder of Zip Norment, of Cal70

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houn Parish, Louisiana. A son of Hastings was killed while resisting arrest at the same time. Then, on November 2, a daughter and another son of Hastings were both lynched. One account noted, of those two: “Neither had any connection with the Norment murder.” A few days later, on November 5, John Hastings was taken from his jail cell at Jonesville, Louisiana, by a mob and hanged. SOURCES : “Lynched two negroes.” Oshkosh Daily Northwestern [Wisconsin], November 2, 1892, p. 1. “Later.” Herald [Eldora, Iowa], November 10, 1892, p. 2.

Mahaley Jackson and Louisa Carter (blacks) 1893 September 10 • Quincy, Mississippi • Lynched with: Ben Jackson (husband, on September 9) and Rufus Broyles (on September 14, at Woodhull, Mississippi) (blacks) Early in September 1893, Thomas Woodruff, a “highly respected” citizen of the community and his five children who lived near Quincy, Mississippi, were taken violently ill and two of the children died. Two weeks later Thomas and the others still lingered but were reported to have little hope of recovery. Quincy was 137 miles east of Memphis. Examination of the well on the Woodruff property disclosed three packages of Rough on Rats (an arsenic-based pesticide) in it and suspicion pointed to a black man named Ben Jackson, who was arrested. During the inquest that followed his arrest, a mob of not-masked men took Jackson from the officers at that inquest and hanged him. A day later, on September 10, the Coroner’s jury examined Mahaley Jackson, Ben’s wife, and Louisa (Lou) Carter, his mother-in-law. They both testified to a knowledge of Ben’s intention to purchase poison for the purpose of putting it down Woodruff ’s well, but the jury discharged them nevertheless. Once again a crowd of armed men formed up, took the two women outside, and hanged them as participants in the conspiracy. As well, the women testified that Rufus Broyles, a “well-known” black man of the neighborhood, had supplied the money with which to buy the poison. After the first lynching Broyles hid himself away and avoided detection until September 14, when he was seen at the community of Woodhull, a few miles away from Quincy. Later that day he was seen again, on that occasion his dead body was hanging from the limb of a tree. 71

The Chronology • 1893 SOURCES : “A negro lynched.” Winnipeg Free Press [Manitoba], September 11, 1893, p. 2. “Life in the sunny South.” Lowell Sun [Massachusetts], September 15, 1893, p. 5.

Emma Fair (black) 1893 September 14 • Carrolton, Pickens County, Alabama • Lynched with: Paul Hill, Polk Archer, Will Archer (blacks) Four black people (five in some accounts), one of them a woman named Emma Fair, were shot to death by a mob in their cells in the jail at Carrolton, Pickens County, Alabama, on Thursday night, September 14, 1893. Others murdered by the masked mob were Paul Hill, Polk Archer, and Will Archer. All four were in jail on the charge of having burned down Ed Wood’s cotton gin and grain mill. A white man by the name of Guyton was also locked up on the same charge but he had turned State’s evidence; the mob let him go when they rushed the jail. Emma Fair and the three other victims were all shot to death in their cells while they were on their knees pleading for mercy. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “News.” Landmark [Statesville, North Carolina], September 21, 1893, p. 2. “Crime and casualty.” Adams County Free Press [Coming, Iowa], September 29, 1893, p. 6.

Mary Waggoner (black) 1893 November 4 • Lynchburg, Moore County, Tennessee • Lynched with: Ned Waggoner (father), Will Waggoner (brother), Sam Motlow (brotherin-law) (blacks) A stage coach made daily trips in 1893 from Lynchburg, the county seat of Moore County, Tennessee, to Fayetteville, Tennessee. Early on the morning of November 4 as the driver passed along the road about a mile from Lynchburg, he came across the bodies of three black men and one black woman hanging from the limbs of a single tree, on separate ropes. All of the dead lived on the farm of Jack Daniels, a well-known distiller; the tree was on his farm. Victims of the lynching were Ned Waggoner, his son Will Waggoner, his daughter Mary Waggoner, and his son-in-law Sam Motlow. Initially, the only cause that was put forward as being the catalyst that led to their fate was that they were supposed to have been implicated 72

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in the numerous barn burnings that had taken place in Moore County and Lincoln County. Reportedly, a mob of over 200 men, all mounted on horses and some wearing masks, from the west end of Moore County went to Ned Waggoner’s house and took him and the other three victims out of the house and lynched all four. As well, Ned’s wife was given a vicious whipping and given three days to leave the county. In the house at the time it was stormed were also two young boys, Henry Motlow and Jeff Wise, who were not harmed. When questioned, the boys said they did not recognize any of the members of the mob. A number of barns had been burned in the two counties and many threats had been verbalized by citizens in the area about what would be done to the firebugs, if and when they were caught. Ned Waggoner was a large man and it appeared that the first attempt to hang him was unsuccessful. That idea was surmised because a broken rope with a hangman’s knot in it was found near his body, and another rope had been taken from a well near by. When newspapers reported on this multiple lynching and while they all reported mostly the same facts, the papers varied considerably in painting the victims as villains. No account presented any evidence of their guilt in the many barn burnings. It was said in the Waukesha Freeman [Wisconsin], “All of the negroes hanged were said to be desperate characters, and were charged with house and barn burning. The mob, it appears, were sure of their guilt.” From New York the World declared, “Waggoner and his family bore a reputation as petty thieves but it was not known that suspicion [for the arson] rested on them.” More damning was the Racine Daily Journal [Wisconsin], which stated, “All the negroes hanged are said to be desperate characters and that the mob had made sure of their guilt, some of its members having overheard them making plans to burn barns and houses.” Also less condemnatory was the Sunday Herald of Syracuse, New York, which reported, “But beyond the fact that Waggoner and his family bore an unsavory reputation as petty thieves, it is not known that suspicion rested on them.” Harshest of all was the Constitution [Atlanta], which asserted, “The negroes all had the reputation of being desperate characters and had recently been warned to leave the county, to which warning they had paid no attention…. They were suspected of the [arson] crimes, and it is said they had been overheard making their plans.” Both of the newspapers that mentioned the Waggoners having been overheard making plans went on to briefly outline the criminal behavior of the family 73

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in the past, with the barn burnings supposedly being in revenge for runins with the law. It was said Ned Waggoner, a year or so earlier, had been sent to the penitentiary on a one-year term for having stolen wheat from a farmer named Womack, while Mary Waggoner had, in the past year, robbed the house of a man named Hobbs and then burned it. And just a few days before the lynching Sam Motlow had allegedly assaulted a white boy. SOURCES : “Barn burners lynched.” Waukesha Freeman [Wisconsin], November 9, 1893, p. 7. “Hanged four negroes to a tree.” World [New York, New York], November 5, 1893, p. 8. “Four were hung.” Racine Daily Journal [Wisconsin], November 4, 1893, p. 1. “Four lynched together.” Sunday Herald [Syracuse, New York], November 5, 1893, p. 6. “Wholesale lynching.” Constitution [Atlanta], November 5, 1893, p. 15.

Unidentified Black Woman 1894 March 11 • Marche, Arkansas On the afternoon of March 11, 1894, Mose Johnson, a porter in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, and a party of black people were walking down a public road between Little Rock and the community of Marche, and were horrified to discover the body of a mulatto woman, estimated to be about 30 years of age, hanging by the neck from a tree. Near the tree was a large barrel upon which, it was supposed, she was placed before the fatal drop. Hanging from her neck and lying across her chest was a placard, which said, “If anybody cuts this body down they will share the same fate.” A different account said the placard read, “Whoever disturbs this body will meet the same fate.” Marche was about seven miles from Little Rock and the body was in full view on the public road. The discovery of the body was the theme of discussion in the pulpits of several black churches in Little Rock that night. When the Coroner’s jury delivered a verdict that the woman was lynched it said nothing whatsoever as to who might have been the perpetrators. That verdict prompted an editorial from Madison that was reprinted in the Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin] and dripped with irony and sarcasm. It said, “such a conclusion seems unwarranted and monstrous. The woman probably died of kidney compliant, or sclerosis of the liver, or something of that sort. Appearances are so deceitful.” 74

The Chronolog y • 1894 SOURCES : “Mulatto woman lynched in Arkansas.” Daily Gazette [Janesville, Wisconsin], March 12, 1894, p. 1. “Mulatto woman lynched.” Evening Herald [Syracuse, New York], March 12, 1894, p. 1. No title. Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], April 14, 1894, p. 4.

Unidentified Black Woman 1894 July 24 • Rocky Ford, Simpson County, Mississippi In the neighborhood of Rocky Ford, Simpson County, Mississippi, blacks held a secret meeting one night in July 1894. Several white men sneaked up to the shanty where the meeting was held and listened in. Presiding over the meeting was an “old” black woman, and those inside were said to be discussing a wholesale slaughter of whites. The old woman told those at the meeting that when the black men got ready to kill the white men, the black women would do their part and attend to the white women and children, and added she would have no scruples about dashing the head of a white baby against a stump. Summoning assistance, the eavesdroppers arrested all those at the meeting. Supposedly, the meeting was the outcome of a visit by a “negro agitator” from Jackson, who carried the news of a recent anti-lynching meeting in New York. When the meeting was broken up, it was said, the men were tied up and whipped severely “and it was reported that the old woman who presided has been lynched.” No definite confirmation of the lynching was found. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “Race war.” Lowell Sun [Massachusetts], July 26, 1894, p. 6.

Mrs. Theodore Arthur (white) 1894 December 5 • Lincoln County, West Virginia As Mrs. Theodore Arthur was walking along the highway near her home in Lincoln County, West Virginia, on December 5, 1894, she was shot from ambush, one ball penetrating her left lung. She died almost instantly. A gang of murderers, who had been committing many crimes in that area for a year, it was said, were supposed to have shot Mrs. Arthur. One account described the victim as “a notorious woman.” SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919].

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The Chronology • 1895 “Murdered from ambush.” Middletown Daily Argus [New York], December 7, 1894, p. 1. “Condensed news.” Portsmouth Daily Times [Ohio], December 7, 1894, p. 2.

Harriet Talley (black) 1895 March 18 • Petersburg, Lincoln County, Tennessee A news report stated that Harriet Talley was hanged to death on the night of March 18, 1895, by a mob near Petersburg, Lincoln County, Tennessee. She was suspected of burning the dwelling of Bayless Marshall, near Petersburg a few months earlier, which was thought to be the catalyst for the lynching. SOURCE : “Woman lynched in Tennessee.” Evening Democrat [Warren, Pennsylvania], March 21, 1895, p. 1.

Mrs. W. E. Holton (white) 1895 March 14 • Brocksburg, Keya Paha County, Nebraska Mrs. W. E. Holton, who lived near Brocksburg, Keya Paha County, Nebraska, was “outraged” (raped) and lynched on Thursday, March 14, 1895, and her body was discovered on the following Sunday. Her body was found in a room of her house with a rope around her neck, along with a hatchet and a hammer beside her. She was living alone at the time as her husband had been sent to an insane asylum two or three years earlier. In the house the authorities found evidence that a great struggle had taken place. Speculation was that the motive for the lynching was to prevent the woman from giving testimony against cattle rustlers, as she had been summoned as a witness against a gang of thieves in the county. She had borne a “good reputation.” Mrs. Holton was described as a German woman about 50 years old and fairly well-to-do. Since her husband Theodore had been sent to the asylum, Mrs. Holton had lived alone on the ranch, the couple having no children. She looked after the cattle they owned and managed to prosper much the same as when her husband was on the farm. They had been in that part of the country for a number of years and were well known to cattlemen of all descriptions. Within a day or two the governor of Omaha had ordered the state’s attorney general to the scene of the lynching to lead the investigation. County Attorney C. W. Lear was at the scene, and on March 20 he 76

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announced he had arrested two men named Hunt and Miller as the perpetrators of the crime and he was bringing them in at once. Reportedly, “They are desperate characters and have been mixed up in a number of lawless affairs.” Tracks of many men’s feet were found in the yard and in the house. Several persons were said to be under suspicion and more arrests were expected. One account claimed there was “no doubt” but the crime was committed by rustlers who had been running off horses and cattle from the neighborhood. Mrs. Holton had been the main witness against a man named Davis who was charged with stealing horses. Davis was being sought but his whereabouts were unknown. As well, a number of alleged rustlers had been arrested but had escaped from jail. Mrs. Holton assisted in securing their convictions. What Hunt and Miller had to do with Davis, if anything, and whether or not they were members of one or more gangs of rustlers was not explained. Apparently the murder was never solved and no one was ever indicted. SOURCES : “A woman lynched.” Logansport Journal [Indiana], March 19, 1895, p. 6. “Woman lynched.” Emmetsburg Democrat [Iowa], March 20, 1895, p. 2. “To investigate lynching.” Perry Daily Chief [Iowa], March 21, 1895, p. 1. “Cowards at work.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], March 19, 1895, p. 1. “Have struck a clue.” Sandusky Register [Ohio], March 20, 1895, p. 1.

Martha Greene, Alice Greene, Mary Deane (blacks) 1895 April 21 • Greenville, Alabama • Lynched with: John Rattler, Zeb Caley (blacks), Unidentified Black Man (April 28) The murder of Watts Murphy, white, in the middle of April 1895 near his home some 14 miles west of Greenville, Alabama, was a prelude to a quintuple lynching of black people on April 21; three women and two men. Murphy was described as “a young man of prominence” in one account and as a “splendid young man” in another article. Watts was the nephew of Tom Murphy, a former Governor of Alabama. When Murphy failed to arrive home at the expected time, his family became alarmed and instituted a search for him. One of the family servants, Zeb, finally told what he knew about the missing man. Reportedly, six black people — three women and three men — were all in a field together working along with Watts, when a dispute arose that ended when one of the men knocked Murphy on the head with the limb of a tree. Others beat him into insensibility after which they carried his body to a secluded area. The women 77

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involved hastily gathered loose brush together, piled it on the body, and set fire to the heap. There was a mystery as to the cause of the murder of Watts Murphy, with different stories in circulation. According to one story, one of the black men conceived the plot to murder Murphy and that he planned the murder as revenge “for an imaginary wrong of a trivial nature.” In any case the confession by Zeb implicated five other blacks, and neighbors of the murdered man took all six into custody. Arrested were Martha Greene, Alice Greene, Mary Deane, John Rattler, and Zeb Caley. The sixth person taken into custody by the neighbors managed to escape. He was not named. That escaped man was thought to have been the one who planned and instituted the murder plot and the one who had swung the piece of wood. Those five people were arrested on Saturday, April 20, 1895, near Butler Springs, Alabama, and charged with the murder of Watts Murphy. Butler Springs was 16 miles from Greenville, Alabama, and a posse of men set out with the prisoners from Butler Springs on that Saturday night at around 11:00 P.M. to take them to the jail at Greenville. At about 3:00 A.M. on Sunday morning the party suddenly found itself surrounded by armed men who seemed to spring up from both sides of the road. The mob, estimated to contain about 100 men, brandished Winchester rifles and quickly took the prisoners away from the deputies. Taking the five prisoners, the members of the mob tied their hands and then took them one by one and hanged them from limbs of trees that lined the road. Later that same morning the bodies were found hanging there by people on their way to church. Said one account, “The affair has created a great deal of excitement here, but it is claimed there was no doubt whatever of the guilt of all the victims of the lynching.” A different account described the mob as “a hundred brave and desperately determined men, with arms in their hands.” One reporter summarized feelings about the lynching among the blacks living in the area when he wrote, “There is some talk about the negroes being highly wrought up. They are especially indignant over the hanging of the women. Whether the women had a hand in the actual killing or were only in the plot, as the negroes now claim, is not definitely known. There many, however, be trouble from them.” About one week later the sixth person was lynched in Butler County for the murder of Watts Murphy. Sheriff Bargainer found his body hanging from a tree on April 29, in the area where the other five had been lynched. 78

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That victim appeared to have been dead at least one day; he still remained unnamed. SOURCES : “Five negroes lynched.” Evening News [Lincoln, Nebraska], April 22, 1895, p. 2. “Five negroes hanged.” Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette [Iowa], April 22, 1895, p. 2. “Five were lynched.” Atlanta Constitution, April 22, 1895, p. 1. “A brutal murder.” Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, April 22, 1895, p. 2. “Died by the rope.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], April 22, 1895, p. 1. “Another one lynched.” Atlanta Constitution, April 30, 1895, p. 1.

Mrs. John Crocker (white) 1895 May 25 • Wharton, Wharton County, Texas • Lynched with: John Crocker (husband), Mr. Crocker (son) (whites) The bodies of the three murdered members of the Crocker family were found lying on the open prairie, about two miles from Wharton, Texas, on May 25, 1895. All of the bodies were full of bullet holes, especially that of John Crocker, having the appearance of having guns emptied into him time after time. The bodies of his wife and son were not so badly “mutilated.” Reportedly, the bloody work was done by a mob composed of people opposed to Crocker remaining in the county any longer. Some two years earlier Crocker’s house was burned. In the previous winter Mrs. Crocker killed a man, and on the afternoon of the day of the killing, a member of the crowd fired on John Crocker, who was thereupon killed by Crocker. Crocker’s son was also said to have sent one of the members of the mob “out of the world.” After the Crockers were lynched a total of 10 men were under arrest. One of them was reported to have made a full confession of the crime but his name was not released. A few days later Sheriff Loessin declared he had arrested a man named Colburn for complicity in the murder of the Crocker family and that he had confessed. That confession was made in the presence of Loessin and Sheriff Sam Reese of Colorado County. When he was first arrested he denied knowing anything about a family named Crocker. But on being told that others had confessed, Colburn admitted he was with the crowd that did the killing. However, he said he took no part in the killing. Loessin arrested Colburn on information received by wire from the sheriff of Wharton County to look out for Colburn as the latter had relatives in Fayette County and when last heard from was going in that direction. Acting on that information, Loessin went to the Cremer farm, about four miles from 79

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LaGrange, Texas, and arrested Colburn without trouble. No further reports were published on the case. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “Killed the Crockers.” Fort Wayne Sentinel [Indiana], May 25, 1895, p. 1. No title. Weimar Mercury [Texas], June 1, 1895.

Mollie Smith 1895 June 28 • Trigg County, Kentucky • Lynched with: Frank Colston A remote section of Trigg County, Kentucky, was the scene of a bloody quadruple tragedy that took place on Friday, June 28, 1895. John Rhodes and Chat Hammond were shot to death by Frank Colston, an ex-convict, and the next morning the bodies of Colston and Mollie Smith were found in the road, riddled with buckshot. Smith was described in some accounts as Colston’s mistress, and in others as a prostitute. Colston had been recently released from the Frankfort, Kentucky, penitentiary, where he had done time for horse stealing. From the time of his release he was out to take revenge against all those who gave evidence against him. Among those were several brothers named Rhodes. The first of the brothers he came across was John, whom he shot to death while Rhodes was in conversation with Hammond. Colston then shot the second man to death. Then Colston went to the home of Mollie Smith where the pair spent part of the night in drunken carousal. Shortly after daylight on Saturday morning both were found dead in the road. There were no clues as to who might have shot them. A later report fleshed out the corrected details somewhat. In this account Colston and Smith armed themselves at her place and went to the home of another farmer but were not admitted, driven off by gunfire from that house. Meanwhile a posse of citizens had been formed and had set off in pursuit of them. That posse came across them as they were trying to get into a boat to cross the Cumberland River. When the pair refused to surrender, the posse exchanged gunfire with Colston and Smith, and finally shot them both dead. According to this account, some 11 murders had been traced to Colston’s door. For example, two months earlier a peddler who went into Colston’s neighborhood suddenly disappeared. About a week after his disappearance his dead body was found. When a search was made of Colston’s house after his death, the goods of the missing peddler were found. As well, Colston was said to have burned barns. 80

The Chronolog y • 1895 SOURCES : “Four slain.” Logansport Journal [Indiana], July 3, 1895, p. 1. “No trial needed.” San Antonio Daily Light, July 9, 1895, p. 1.

Mrs. Abe Phillips, Hannah Phillips (blacks) 1895 July 20 • Mart, Texas • Lynched with: Abe Phillips Jr., Willie Phillips, Ed Phillips (sons) (blacks) Around the middle of April 1895 a dispute arose between Abe Phillips, a black farmer, and Phil Arnold, a white farmer, in which Arnold shot and killed Abe and was in turn killed by Phillips’ son Abe Jr. That tragedy took place in the small community of Mart, some 20 miles outside of Waco, Texas. Ever since the killing of the two men, feelings had been bitter between their friends and families and the Phillips family had been frequently threatened with extermination. It all came to a head at about 1:30 A.M. on July 20 when a loud explosion rocked the village and woke most people up. When people turned out they found the Phillips house fully engulfed in flames. A large stick of dynamite had been thrown into the building destroying it completely. Nine people had been in the house at the time, including the widow Phillips and her six children. Killed were; Mrs. Abe Philips, Hannah Phillips (12), Abe Phillips Jr. (17), Willie Phillips (15), and Ed Phillips (13). The other four people were all badly injured in the explosion and fire. SOURCES : “Texas anarchists.” San Antonio Daily Light, July 20, 1895, p. 1. “Five killed in this case.” Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette [Iowa], July 22, 1895, p. 3.

Unidentified Black Woman 1895 July 23 • Brenham, Texas SOURCE : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html [no confirmation found].

Mrs. James Mason (black) 1895 August 2 • Morris County, Texas • Lynched with: James Mason (husband) (black) At Dangerfield, Texas, seven “whitecaps” called James Mason out of his house on August 2, 1895, and shot him dead. They also shot Mrs. Mason, who was described as “fatally” wounded and his son, although the son was expected to survive. (Whitecaps was a general name given to vig81

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ilante groups that sprang up in various parts of the United States after the Civil War. The name referred to their habit of wearing white hoods. They had mostly vanished from the scene by about 1900. They were not the Ku Klux Klan and many observers considered them to be a non-racist vigilante group that targeted criminals and suspected criminals for vigilante justice.) SOURCES : “Nuggets of news.” News [Frederick, Maryland], August 3, 1895, p. 1. “Saturday, Aug. 3.” Emmetsburg Democrat [Iowa], August 7, 1895, p. 6.

Florentina Suarro 1895 October 14 • Cotulla, Texas On the morning of October 7, 1895, a shooting incident took place at Twohig, Texas, in which H. T. Saul, a prominent stockman of Pearsall, Texas, a male Mexican, and a Mexican girl were all killed. Also, a second Mexican man and a Mexican woman were wounded. Saul owned a large ranch near Twohig. Early on the morning of the 7th, one of his men informed him that a calf had been killed and taken away. After Saul notified Deputy Sheriff N. A. Swink of the matter, the two of them set off to catch the perpetrators. Tracing them a little ways from Twohig, they came across a Mexican restaurant, where they found the carcass of the calf. When they attempted to arrest the two Mexicans who were present, the latter resisted and opened fire on the pair, with the result that all were shot to death except Swink. Reportedly, the other two Mexicans were shot “accidentally” but no details were provided. Both of the wounded people were take to Cotulla, Texas. One week after the original shooting, on October 14, Florentina Suarro, a Mexican woman, was lynched in Cotulla for the murder of Swink. Presumably, she was the Mexican woman wounded on October 7, although the brief report of the lynching did not say so. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “Several were killed.” Galveston Daily News, October 8, 1895, p. 4. “Something that is tolerated in Texas.” Logansport Pharos [Indiana], October 14, 1895, p. 1.

Hannah Kearse (black) 1895 December 2 • Colleton County, South Carolina • Lynched with: Isham Kearse (son) (black) A lynching that took place on Monday night, December 2, 1895, in Colleton County, South Carolina, did not come to light in any widespread 82

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fashion until Thursday night. Even in the area where it took place, the lynching was not generally known until Wednesday morning, when the dead bodies of the two victims, stripped of their clothing, were found — one being an “old woman.” They had been beaten to death with buggy “traces” (the strap of a harness that attached an animal to something, such as a buggy). The man’s offense was that he was suspected of having stolen a Bible and some furniture from a church, and the woman’s offense being that she was supposed to know something of it. Several months earlier, St. Nichol’s Church in neighboring Barnwell County was broken into and robbed of a Bible and some pulpit furniture. A young black man named Isham Kearse, who disappeared from the neighborhood about that time, was suspected of being the thief. He had become somewhat notorious for thefts and had been suspected of burning a store some time earlier. Somehow four Barnwell men learned Isham had reappeared and was at the home of his mother, Hannah Kearse (also called Hannah Walker). They went there on the Monday night, picking up a few men from the Kearse neighborhood to help them — one being Frank Hiers. The party seized Isham, took him from his mother’s house, put a rope around his neck and tied him behind their buggy. Driving rapidly to the ferry dock, two miles away, Isham had to run to remain upright but sometimes fell and was dragged a distance before regaining his feet. On the way a few members of the party returned to the house to get Hannah and Isham’s wife, a girl of 17, who had a five-month-old infant. When all the party had assembled at the ferry dock, none of the prisoners would or could tell anything about the church property. Upon the refusal of all of them to talk, they were all stripped naked and beaten with a buggy trace. Isham received about 150 lashes and finally fell unconscious; the women were likewise severely beaten. Several times Isham pleaded with his tormentors to shoot him. Eventually each of the women broke away and ran into the woods, separately and in different directions. The men built a fire near the unconscious Isham, threw his old coat over him and departed. On Wednesday morning his dead body was found. About 100 years away, in the swamp, was found the lifeless body of Hannah. The young wife managed to get home and was in a critical condition. She told some blacks about the event on Tuesday afternoon, but all were afraid to mention it. Justice Walker held an inquest Wednesday evening, with the bodies still being where they had been found. The jury, “composed almost 83

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entirely of good white men” from the neighborhood, rendered a verdict charging directly four prominent men, one a physician, with the crime. Likely that verdict was the result of the testimony given by Hiers, a white man. Reportedly, he had tried to prevent the crime and it was his evidence that provided all the details of the crime. Dr. W. B. Ackerman, Frank Jenney, Frank Brant, and Wyman Kearse, went on trial on the charge of murdering Hannah Walker, on February 20, 1896, in Walterboro, South Carolina. The courtroom was packed that day as it never had been before. A summary of the crime was given and went as follows. When St. Michael’s church in Barnwell County was broken into the previous fall and a Bible was stolen along with one or two pieces of church furniture, there had been no clues as to who was the thief. However, several lawless acts had been committed in the neighborhood and Isham Kearse was suspected, although there was no evidence against him except “general distrust, the theft of the church property was charged to him.” According to this account Kearse was a young black man of a roving disposition “who sought no regular employment and it is probable that his living was not honestly made.” For some time after the church robbery he did not appear in the neighborhood, but around the first of December news was received that he was at his mother’s house in Colleton County, a few miles over the Barnwell line. Evidence revealed that four Barnwell County men rode across the line and picked up two Colleton County men before the six proceeded to the Kearse house. After taking Isham into custody and setting off with him, two of the men in the party returned to get the two women. After Frank Hiers gave his evidence against the four Barnwell County men, they were arrested and lodged in the Walterboro jail where they remained until the trial. All were described as well-to-do and prominent residents of Barnwell County, with the oldest of them being about 40. Said a reporter, “It has been quite possible for them to have gone out on bond but no attempt has been made in that direction. It is said their apartments in the jail have been nicely furnished and that the prisoners have had a rather pleasant time in their confinement.” What defense would be mounted was unknown. But speculation was that medical testimony would be introduced to prove the whipping could not have caused death; that shortly before being taken by the mob, Isham had drank stolen whisky that was poisoned; and that Hannah fell down in the water and drowned herself. Also, it would be argued that Isham’s wife, in not raising the alarm 84

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and seeking aid immediately, was as much responsible for the two deaths as was anyone. In fact, that idea had already made the rounds in the community. Duncan Bellinger, the prosecutor in the case for the state, acknowledged he had been approached by influential friends of the accused and asked to refrain from making a vigorous fight for conviction. In South Carolina to that date there had only been one man ever convicted for lynching. That was a white man who beat a black man to death. Although the jury found him guilty of manslaughter and recommended him for mercy, presiding Judge James Aldrich sentenced him to 30 years at hard labor, the harshest penalty for manslaughter. Aldrich was presiding in the Walker case. Chief counsel for the prisoners was Robert Aldrich, brother of the judge, and he was assisted, said a reporter, “by practically the entire Walterboro bar.” All of the jury members were, of course, white men. The indictment against the four men was limited to a single charge — the murder of Hannah Walker — probably being that a case for the murder of the woman, against whom there was no charge, hint or suspicion of misconduct, would go harder against the defendants. First witness called was Dr. M. Bellinger, a Barnwell physician and surgeon. Nine days after the murder he and another physician exhumed the bodies of Walker and Kearse for a postmortem examination. In the case of Hannah’s body he found that at least one-half of the tissues were crushed and putrefied and that such injuries could have produced death in a very short time. In all other respects Hannah had been in perfect health and had not drowned — no water was found in the lungs. A day later Rosa Kearse, the 17-year-old wife of Isham and a victim of whipping by the mob, took the stand. She said Ackerman and Jenney took her out of her house, put a rope around her neck, tied her behind a buggy and started it off rapidly. She was jerked down and dragged, after which they walked their horses. When they reached the swamp, Brant, Wyman Kearse, Frank Hiers, and Frank Stanley were there with Hannah and Isham. Hiers and Stanley took no part in the whipping, she said. All three were stripped of their clothing and they were whipped in turn by two men at a time. Isham fell and she stayed by him all night, going home in the morning. Hannah, after being whipped twice, had gone into the swamp. The cause of the whipping was about some books that the men said had been lost. When she told them she knew nothing about the books, they said they would kill them if they did not tell. 85

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The defense had 20 odd witnesses on its list but only four were put on the stand. One was a medical doctor who was intended to counter the state’s expert testimony but “he failed signally to do so and was but a toy in the hands of Solicitor Bellinger.” Two other defense witnesses swore to having questioned Rosa and having been told by her that she did not know the men who did the whipping but it was revealed that both were friends of the prisoners; one was a relative. At least one state’s witness had been intimidated by some of the large crowd of friends of the prisoners from Barnwell County (the trial was held in Colleton County) in town. W. H. Newbold, a detective working under the direction of Bellinger to develop witnesses had been harassed and cursed at in the street. As the case neared its end, a reporter noted the defense had not been strong and that no effort had been made to provide an alibi to the direct testimony to the fact the whipping had been done by the defendants. None of the prisoners had taken the stand. Despite that, the reporter said, “There is no doubt in the minds of any one as to who did the whipping…. At the same time there is a feeling in the air that there will be no conviction. This is the opinion of those who knew the personnel and prejudices of the jury and on that the verdict will depend.” In closing arguments for the defense, Robert Aldrich tried to discredit the testimony of the black witnesses and one of his expressions was that from Rosa Kearse’s demeanor on the stand it was evident she had not been whipped enough. Ordinarily, he continued, that case would have been disposed of in one day [it lasted four days] but the press, from “morbid sentimentality, had exaggerated the crime and scattered it over the four corners of the globe.” Another lawyer, M. P. Howell, made a plea for the prisoners, alluding to their aged mothers and fathers and their other female relatives who were in court. At 7:35 P.M. on February 25, 1896, the jury retired to begin its deliberations. Just before midnight the jury returned with a verdict of not guilty for each of the four defendants. When the verdict was announced the spectators in the still-packed courtroom broke out in applause. Enormous interest had been generated by the case partly because of the prominence of the people involved. Also, it was the first prosecution under the anti-lynching clause of the new South Carolina Constitution. And, noted a journalist, “The crime was one of even more than usual brutality, the motive having been far more trivial than that which has inspired vengeance upon negroes.” After the verdict was rendered the four men 86

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were taken back to jail as they all remained under indictment for the murder of Isham Kearse. An editorial in a Charleston, South Carolina, newspaper declared it was “to be regretted” that the state failed to obtain a conviction in the Walker case because “there could not have been a reasonable doubt in the mind of any juror that the prisoners at the bar caused the death of Hannah Walker and Isham Kearse by the most barbarous torture. The prisoners themselves do not deny it; the jurors do not deny it, so far as we are informed. There is no question anywhere as to the guilt of the prisoners.” The editor felt this failure of justice delivered another “black eye” to the state. “Such crimes are a blot on our civilization and a blight to our prosperity. The good suffer with the bad, the enlightened and humane with the ignorant and barbarous.” Prosecutor Bellinger was determined to press ahead and brought the same four men to trial on the charge of murdering Isham Kearse. With a change of venue secured by Bellinger, that trial took place at Aiken in November 1896. That second trial started on a Tuesday morning and ended at 11:00 P.M. on Thursday of the same week. Basically, it was a repeat of the first trial with almost no new or different information added. The defendants were positively identified, the defendants provided no alibis and they did not take the stand. In this trial the jury deliberated for just 30 minutes before it returned a verdict of not guilty against all four defendants. The prisoners were then turned loose “amid general rejoicing among their friends.” A reporter for an Aiken newspaper commented, “The testimony brought out on this trial mark this crime as one of the blackest and most brutal that has ever been committed in the bounds of this State — yes, or in any other State or country.” SOURCES : “On mere suspicion.” Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], December 6, 1895, p. 2. “Letting light on a lynching.” Atlanta Constitution, February 21, 1896, p. 1. “The wife testifies.” Atlanta Constitution, February 22, 1896, p. 2. “Newbold’s life is threatened.” Atlanta Constitution, February 23, 1896, p. 17. “They were dumb.” Atlanta Constitution, February 24, 1896, p. 2. “Lynchers’ trial draws to a close.” Atlanta Constitution, February 25, 1896, p. 1. “Not guilty of lynching.” World [New York, New York], February 26, 1896, p. 16. “A failure of justice.” Galveston Daily News, March 15, 1896, p. 12. “Notable trial in South Carolina.” Daily Times [New Brunswick, New Jersey], October 28, 1896, p. 3.

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The Chronology • 1895 “The Broxton Bridge lynchers.” Aiken Journal and Review [South Carolina], November 11, 1896, p. 3.

Mary West (white) 1895 December 29 • Lebanon, Marion County, Kentucky • Lynched with: William Dever (white, spouse, common-law) An angry mob estimated to contain about 75 men inflicted what was described as “horrible vengeance on a faithless woman and her paramour” on December 29, 1895, when it burned Mrs. T. J. West to death and killed William Dever, her paramour, at Mrs. West’s home three miles north of Lebanon, Kentucky. When the mob appeared at the residence of West, the only people in the house were the two victims and Dever’s 14-yearold daughter Mary. When the mob arrived at close to 10:00 P.M. at the West homestead, a spokesman for the mob yelled out, “Tom West is dead. Now it’s your turn. William and Mrs. West awoke to find the house surrounded. She rushed to a window and made a wild, hysterical plea for mercy. A dozen bullets rang out in response and the demands for immediate surrender were repeated. Also, Dever asked for a hearing but his request was also greeted with a shower of bullets. Said the mob spokesman, “We’ll give you ten minutes to open up. Then you burn.” A hurried consultation was held inside the house and then the terror-stricken, 14-year-old Mary Dever was thrust outside to plead with the mob. Barefoot and clad only in her nightclothes she sobbed out a plea for her father’s life. “Get out! You’re liable to get shot yourself,” yelled out a member of the mob, and the panicstricken child fled to the cabin of a neighbor. Then Mrs. West appeared at the door and, referring to her pregnant condition, made a last appeal for mercy. It was unavailing and in another moment the house was set on fire. The screams of the trapped couple fell on deaf ears and after the flames reached the living room the members of the mob could see the pair in agony. Just before the roof fell in, the woman was seen to reel across the room and plunge headlong into the fireplace among the burning coals and there she died. Wild with pain, Dever, at the last moment, made a dash for freedom but a score of bullets stopped him within a few steps of the door. In the morning it was Mary, accompanied by the neighbor from the cabin to where she fled, that discovered the corpses, left untouched by the mob. 88

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A reporter summed up the situation by writing that the tragedy “was one of the most brutal that ever occurred under the gruesome sway of dread Judge Lynch. Despite the pleadings for her father’s life from a half-clad, frightened child and the prayers and tears of the ill and helpless woman the mob went through with its work. The cold blooded, cruel, deliberate men only left when certain that both man and woman were dead.” This reporter also believed there “is but little doubt that the members of the mob will be captured, as they were without masks and made no attempt at secrecy.” William Dever was the man who shot and killed T. J. West (husband of Mrs. West) on December 7. Several months earlier, Dever, described herein as a middle-aged widower, was accused by Thomas West, a prosperous farmer of intimacy with Mary West. Quarrel followed quarrel throughout the fall of 1895 between the men and the West couple until Thomas instituted divorce proceedings and declared Dever must die. By chance the two men met in Lebanon. West pulled out a revolver and shot at William, but the weapon misfired and Dever killed him on the spot. On the plea of self-defense he secured bail and scandalized the neighborhood by immediately resuming his relations with Mrs. West, going so far as to move into her home with her, bringing along his two daughters. Relatives of the murdered man swore vengeance. A couple of days later a Coroner’s Jury held a preliminary hearing at which it rendered a verdict of justifiable homicide by reason of self defense, and released Dever. That latter action, of moving in with West, was said to have infuriated the neighbors. As recently as about two days before the killings, Dever had been ordered to leave the county. Not only did he refuse to do so, he flaunted his behavior in the faces of those infuriated citizens to such an extent that threats to lynch him were heard from many quarters. Dever only laughed at those who advised him to leave the area and said it was no one’s business what he did. William moved to the area from Knoxville, Tennessee, about two years earlier, and up until a short time earlier his reputation was fairly good. Dever, who had a wife and family [he was a widower in some accounts] bought a farm near the West homestead. William was described as a dashing, handsome sort of fellow while Mary West was also said to be a handsome woman. They soon became infatuated with each other, and their conduct was no notorious that Thomas West brought suit for divorce. The case was pending when the two men met by chance and West was killed. Mrs. West was reported to have left a family 89

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of children, two of whom were girls and nearly grown. Thomas West, “although a bad man in some respects,” had many friends in the area and speculation was that those friends may have led the mob. A day later a Coroner’s inquest was held into the lynching. By then hundreds of people had flocked to the place to view the scene. At that inquest the Dever child testified that Mrs. West was about to become a mother and she announced that fact to the mob, but it only served to increase the mob’s desire for blood. When the mob ordered the people out, at first a consultation was held in the house between Mrs. West and Dever in which it was decided to send the child out to plead for mercy. Terror-stricken, the little girl was thrust outside in her night clothes to plead with the mob. She did so, but while so engaged a member of the mob yelled at her, “Get out; you’re likely to get shot yourself.” That caused her to flee to a neighbor’s cabin. The inquest was unable to name any of the perpetrators. The scene of the horror was visited by crowds of curious people on the day following the lynching, and it was well before noon that day before the bodies were removed by the undertaker. Mrs. West’s body was charred almost “beyond human semblance.” Overcome by the flames, she had fallen into the large fireplace in the living room and the head was almost burned from the body. Dever’s body had been pierced by at least 20 bullets. Before his desperate dash from the house he had been badly burned and would probably have died without the gunshot wounds. The two oldest children of Mrs. West were said to have been driven from the West home after Dever had moved in, and they had been staying with relatives of Thomas West since that date. SOURCES : “Burned alive.” Daily Gazette and Bulletin [Williamsport, Pennsylvania], December 28, 1895, p. 9. “A faithless woman.” Decatur Daily Republican [Illinois], December 30, 1895, p. 10. “Horrible crime.” Davenport Daily Leader [Iowa], December 30, 1895, p. 1. “Mob cremates a couple.” Hawarden Independent [Iowa], December 26, 1895, p. 10. “Mob cremates a woman.” World [New York, New York], December 30, 1895, p. 14. “Horrible lynching.” Fitchburg Sentinel [Massachusetts], December 30, 1895, p. 8.

Mrs. Patrick Morris (black) 1896 January 12 • Jefferson Parish, Louisiana • Lynched with: Patrick Morris (white) (husband) Patrick Morris, a white railroad hand, and his black wife met with a terrible fate around midnight on January 12, 1896. They lived in a house90

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boat near the Westwego wharf in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, not too many miles from New Orleans. Reportedly, there was a growing sentiment against them “on account of their difference in color, as well as the charge that they kept a disorderly place for negroes,” went one account. They were sitting in their boat that night when a body of men came along and set fire to the hull. As the couple sought refuge on shore they were shot at, hit with bullets, and fell back onto the boat, where they were both consumed by the fire. The authorities of Jefferson Parish claimed they could not discover the perpetrators, despite the fact the 11-year-old son of the victims escaped with his life and claimed to identify several of the crowd, all of whom were white men. However, the citizens in the vicinity said the place was a nuisance and that the couple had been run out of several places. One speculation was that the mob went there for the purpose of giving Morris a whipping, but that he showed fight and that infuriated the crowd and so they lynched him. The affair caused a Galveston, Texas, newspaper to comment, with respect to the claim of Jefferson Parish authorities that the perpetrators could not be discovered, “This settles it, and makes practically certain the re-election of said heroic authorities and the safety of the murderers…. The most alarming feature about such conspiracies and crimes is that they are committed openly, yet ‘the authorities claim that they can not discover the perpetrators’ even before the blood and the ashes of the victims are cold.” SOURCES : “Cremated them.” Newark Daily Advocate [Ohio], January 13, 1896, p. 1. “Blood and ashes in Louisiana.” Galveston Daily News, January 15, 1896, p. 4.

Mrs. William Whaley (white) 1896 December 28 • Sevierville, Sevier County, Tennessee • Lynched with: William Whaley (husband) (white) At about 11:00 P.M. on December 28, 1896, two or three masked men broke into the home of William Whaley and his wife, “poor, but respected citizens” living near Sevierville, Sevier County, Tennessee, and shot them to death. Early speculation was that the attack was in retaliation because William had recently testified against certain individuals before the Grand Jury at Sevierville. Whaley was a 35-year-old farmer and Mrs. Whaley was aged 30. The men who broke into the house through the front door did not 91

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say a word before shooting down the couple. Also present in the house but unharmed, although witness to the murders, were Mrs. Lizzie Chandler (sister of Mrs. Whaley) and the Whaleys’ infant child. A couple of days later it was announced that the killers were believed to be “whitecaps,” members of a vigilante group that marauded in the area and wore white hoods. (While that sounded like the Ku Klux Klan, it was a separate group of vigilantes.) Early in 1897, Governor Taylor of Tennessee announced that a $500 reward had been posted for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderers of William and his wife. As well, leading citizens of the county had banded together to offer a reward of $750 for the capture and conviction of the guilty parties. Later that year arrests were made, and in November 1897 Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton went on trial on a charge of murdering the couple. Charged with being accessories to the crime were Robert Catlett and Robert Wade, although they were not placed on trial. Tipton was said to be one of the wealthiest men in the county. Those events caused a newspaper to declare, “Whitecapism in Sevier County is on its last legs.” And, “The whitecaps practically ruled the county for a long time, and there were several fatal encounters, but no officer dared make arrests. Finally William Whaley dared the whitecap order and gave evidence against one of its number. Then his days were numbered.” In order to increase the likelihood of having a fair trial, or perhaps a trial at all, the Tennessee Legislature created a new judicial circuit annexing Sevier County to Knox County so that a judge from outside Sevier County could be named to try the case — presumably he was less likely to be intimidated. In April 1898, Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton were convicted of the murder of William Whaley. On July 5, 1899, Wynn and Tipton were executed by hanging at Sevierville. Sheriff Davis had taken precautions and had extra guards on duty and prevented an attempted rescue of the two prisoners. It was reported that Wynn and Tipton had been the leaders of a whitecap band numbering 1,500 men that had murdered, robbed, and whipped people throughout the central South from 1892 to 1897. SOURCES : “Shot down in cold blood.” Titusville Herald [Pennsylvania], December 30, 1896, p. 1. “Double murder.” Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], December 30, 1896, p. 2. “Man and wife shot to death.” Portsmouth Times [Ohio], January 2, 1897, p. 3. “Going to prosecute whitecaps.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], March 25, 1897, p. 2. “Murderous whitecaps.” Daily Times [New Brunswick, New Jersey], November 19, 1897, p. 6.

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The Chronolog y • 1897 “Convicted a white cap.” World [New York, New York], November 27, 1897, p. 4. “Whitecap murderers convicted.” Syracuse Standard [New York], April 9, 1898, p. 2. “Two Tennessee whitecaps hanged.” Naugatuck Daily News [Connecticut], July 6, 1899, p. 1.

Unidentified White Woman 1897 March 2 • Morgantown, Burke County, North Carolina • Lynched with: “Indian doctor” SOURCE : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. (no confirmation found)

Mollie Smith, Mandy Franks (blacks) 1897 May 11 • Jeff, Alabama Two black women, Mollie Smith and Mandy Franks, were lynched by a mob on Tuesday night, May 11, 1897, near the town of Jeff, Alabama, on the road from the small village that led to Huntsville. An estimated 20 to 30 men were involved in the lynching of the women from the limb of an oak tree just outside the village. They were hanged for poisoning Joshua Kelly, a well-known citizen of the area. Reportedly they confessed to three attempts on the lives of the Kelly family. Nine weeks earlier the first attempt on the lives of the Kelly family was made. Shortly after eating supper that evening the entire family sickened, and Joshua, the head of the family, died 24 hours later. At first that was thought to have been accidental, but on the following night several members of the family and a number of guests were sickened again after the evening meal, but all of them recovered. Suspicions were raised that the family was dealing with a deliberate poisoning. Clues leading to Smith and Franks were being followed when, on Friday, May 7, another wholesale poisoning took place. On that occasion eight blacks and six whites, all the people at the supper table, took sick right after eating. Incriminating evidence was found on Saturday the 10th at the Kelly home in Jeff in the form of a box of the ubiquitous household pesticide of the era, Rough On Rats (arsenic-based). The poison had been placed in the biscuits that all the affected ate. In some unexplained fashion that finding pointed toward Smith, who worked in the house. She came under greater scrutiny and she was put under a close watch. Suddenly 93

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Smith bolted from the area but was taken into custody on the 11th, as she was headed for the Tennessee state line. Around the same time Mandy Franks, her supposed accomplice, was taken into custody at her home. Franks was said to have readily confessed that she took part in the crime. She said Mollie Smith poisoned the coffee nine weeks earlier and then the sausage a night or two later. Mandy declared she had poisoned the flour on the 7th, at the direction of Mollie. She did it while taking the food from the pantry to the kitchen. With the posse satisfied as to the guilt of the two women, the mob took them to the woods a short distance from Smith’s house and, deaf to the tears, prayers and screams, tied ropes around their necks, lynched them and, said a reporter, “waited by quietly until it was evident they were dead. Without a word they then stole away in the darkness. There will probably never be a clue to their identity.” Another black woman, Jennie Barwell, was in custody and declared she knew the poisoning was going on but did not care to mention the matter. It was also reported that the instigator of the crime was a black man with the surname Williams who, a short while before the first poisoning, had been discharged by the Kelly family for impudence and driven from the place. Rumor had it that he too had been captured and lynched. SOURCES : “Sex is no bar.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], May 13, 1897, p. 1. “Negro girls lynched.” Winnipeg Free Press [Manitoba], May 13, 1897, p. 5. “Women lynched.” Syracuse Daily Standard [New York], May 13, 1897, p. 5.

Peb Falls (white) 1897 September • Cowan Depot, Rockingham County, Virginia Toward the end of September 1897, several hunters found the body of Peb Falls, described as a “notorious white woman,” dangling at the end of a rope tied to a tree in Rockingham County, Virginia. When discovered, the body was in the first stage of decomposition. Said an account, “It is supposed that the woman was hanged by negroes, who have been her constant companions lately.” Another account declared, with no evidence cited, that Falls, “a dissolute white woman was lynched by negroes…. The woman had not associated with her own race for years.” That account went on to add, “She was of little worth and, although she chose negroes for her companions, the authorities are determined to make an example of the lynchers as they will not tolerate the lynching of a white woman by negroes.” 94

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Several days later a longer piece by a journalist revealed more details, from a very sad story. For this writer there was no question as to who lynched her, despite the lack of witnesses. He wrote, the hanging of a “miserable white woman near Cowan Depot, by a mob of angry negroes, seems to cap the climax of lawlessness in the South.” Noting that hitherto the white woman had been the cause or had been made the pretext for a lynching, he added that no white woman had ever before been lynched in Virginia. And, “despite the victim’s degradation the excitement is intense.” Peb Falls, he said, “was an extremely good-looking woman, but absolutely without moral character. Her life has been a hideously depraved one.” Many days after the event there was still no information about the incident in the community. That was despite the fact that ordinarily the participants in a lynching talked freely in the community about their participation and took no great pains to conceal their identity. However, such was not the case in the lynching of Falls. For the reporter that was more proof blacks must have done the deed. If a black man were to admit he had a hand in lynching a white woman, it would have meant a rope and a quick death for him. Her body had been hanging for several days when it was found, in a desolate spot with no residents to be found for many miles around. According to this account, Peb Falls was depraved from her early youth. “She went from bad to the very worst.” At first her downward career was helped by white men, “the worst of their kind. Then she fell still lower and associated with the low negroes.” Such conduct on the part of a white woman was said to have so shocked the white men who had helped kick her downhill that they first warned her and then gave her a coat of tar and feathers. Reportedly, those white men took Peb from a hovel that she shared with black men. They stripped her of her clothing, held her tightly as she screamed, applied hot tar to her body from head to heels, then showered small feathers all over her and turned her loose, naked except for the coating they had applied. As parting advice to her she was told to get some of her “_______ niggers” to pull the feathers off. However, the treatment did not reform Peb and did nothing except to make her a hopeless drunkard, in addition to her other troubles. Peb went on living with “the lowest of the negroes.” From them she got shelter and food, and moonshine whisky. Sometimes she had no shelter and lived rough in the woods on the mountains. The theory that she had been lynched by a mob of blacks was, said the journalist, generally accepted 95

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in the area and would go on being accepted in the area. However, he acknowledged the story might not be true and, “The negroes and the respectable whites believe that the woman was killed by the same set of men who tarred and feathered her, and who were determined to complete her reform at any cost.” Governor O’Farrell of Virginia declared that he would punish the men who had lynched Falls if they could be found, black or white. O’Farrell would not accept the woman’s “wickedness” as an excuse for her murder. Citizens in the area, convinced the lynching was done by blacks said that all questions sank into nothingness compared with the fact that blacks had actually lynched a white woman. “That must never be forgiven or forgotten, even if the woman did sink down to the negro level,” concluded the account. “Universal horror is expressed at the lawless murder, and the community declared its intention to round up the negro killers and lynch them without delay.” No one was ever arrested, it appeared, in connection with the lynching of Peb Falls. SOURCES : “Notorious white woman lynched.” Evening Times [Cumberland, Md.], September 30, 1897, p. 1. No title. Daily Nevada State Journal [Reno], October 3, 1897, p. 2. “Lynched a woman.” Sunday Herald [Syracuse, New York], October 3, 1897, p. 2.

Mary Pearson (white) 1898 January 26 • Adams County, Mississippi SOURCE : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. [no confirmation found]

Lorilla Weaver (black) 1898 August 9 • Clarendon, Arkansas • Lynched with: Will Saunders (son), Dennis Record, Manse Castle (blacks) At close to midnight on August 9, 1898, a mob of about 200 men went to the county jail at Clarendon, Arkansas, took out the four black prisoners implicated in the assassination of John T. Orr on the night of July 30, and hanged them to the tramway of the Halpern sawmill, which was located about 100 yards away from the rear of the jail. Those hanged were: Will Saunders, who allegedly fired the shot that killed Orr; Lorilla (Rilla) Weaver, Will’s mother and cook in the Orr household; Dennis Record (maybe Ricord), described as a “hoodoo” doctor and conjurer who 96

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tried to poison Orr with boiled snake heads; and Manse Castle, who originally volunteered to kill Orr but later transferred the job to Saunders. Rachel Morris, white, was accused of being an accessory before the fact and Susie Jacobs, black, of being an accessory after the fact. However, both of them had fled the area separately and their whereabouts was unknown at the time of the lynching. Speculation was that if those two had also been in custody in the jail, they too would have been lynched. One other person in the jail when the mob arrived was Mrs. Mabel Orr, wife of the murdered man. The Orr couple was white. Earlier on the 9th Mrs. Orr had taken poison and would die from its effects on the morning of August 10, after the mob had completed its work. Leaders of the mob critically examined Orr when they stormed the jail, and while some of the members of the mob favored taking Orr out and lynching her with the others, the majority decided to leave her alone. Presumably that was because it was obvious she would die from the effects of the self-administered poison. She had broken down in jail and made a partial confession to the crime. Somehow she managed to obtain a quantity of poison that she took at around 2:00 P.M. on the 9th and thereafter was severely ill. John Orr, the dead man, had been a theatrical man several years earlier and in 1890 was the manager of a theater in a small Wisconsin town. There he met and married a local girl named Mabel Parker. It was a clandestine wedding as the girl’s parents were bitterly opposed to the union. The couple lived together happily for only a short time. Both were hot tempered and quarrels were frequent. A few years earlier the Orrs settled in Clarendon where the husband engaged in the hardware business. John Orr prospered and was considered wealthy at the time of his death. The couple had a three-year-old daughter. After Orr was shot dead, a Coroner’s inquest charged the seven people named above as being responsible for murdering John and warrants were issued for their arrests. It was alleged that Mabel Orr had hired the black people to kill her husband, whose life was insured for $5,000. Clarendon had been the scene of great excitement ever since Orr was murdered. On the fatal day, Friday, John was making a glass of lemonade in his home when a gunman crept up to a window and fired a shot into his body, from the effect of which he died the following day. At first there was no clue to the identity of the killer. Orr had just returned from choir practice at a church of whose choir he was a member; his wife the organist 97

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there. Bloodhounds were put on the trail but they could not run down the shooter. After the Coroner’s inquest, though, more facts came out, and the allegedly guilty parties were named. Castle was accused of firing the shot that killed Orr but he denied guilt. According to him, one of the black women involved in the case had told him Mabel Orr wanted her husband killed and would pay $200 to have the deed done. Castle at first agreed to the proposition but later weakened and turned the job over to Record. Dennis Record also denied guilt and accused Castle. After the arrest of Mabel and the others, Mrs. Orr admitted she had said to Lorilla Weaver that she wished her husband dead and that she would be willing to give $200 to anybody to kill him. But she said that had been uttered while she was in a fit of anger and that she did not mean it literally. Her husband abused her, she said, and once struck her. Castle was arrested on August 7 and barely escaped lynching on that night. A mob had already formed up and would have lynched him then and there were it not for the earnest appeal on behalf of law and order made by Judge Thomas who appeared on the scene just in time to prevent the lynching. Thomas addressed the mob, beseeching them to let the law take its course and promising the accused would have a speedy trial. A reported three attempts were made to storm the jail and lynch the prisoners, before the final one. Each time the crowd dispersed on the promise the trial would be held speedily and there would be no change of venue or any delay for any reason. On the night of the lynching only the jailer and two deputies were on duty and the mob quickly overpowered those guards. The four bodies remained hanging from near midnight on August 9 until 9:00 A.M. on August 10 and, it was reported, “Great crowds viewed the gruesome sight of a woman and three men dangling six feet from the ground with tongues protruding and ropes cutting into their necks. The negroes seem to endorse the lynching and many of them are open in their expressions of satisfaction over the death of Dennis Record, whose arts of hoodoo and conjuring made him an object of dread and fear to them.” Another account declared, “The mob was a most orderly one, not a word being unnecessarily spoken and not a shot being fired.” From the correspondence of Mabel Orr it was learned that she and Rachel Morris were to remain in Clarendon until Mabel collected the insurance money, and then the pair planned to go to New York where they were to meet two men and form a theatrical company. Mabel was in contact 98

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with several other men through the correspondence bureau of various newspapers — lonely hearts clubs. Mabel called herself Lorilla Weaver in all those letters. One of her correspondents was Mayor Arthur Archer of Caldwell, Ohio. Following the lynching, Deputy Sheriff Milwee of Clarendon wrote a letter to Archer saying; “Your dear Lorilla was lynched here. Please wire disposition of the remains.” It was then that the mix-up in names became apparent and Archer had to admit he knew his correspondent only from a few letters exchanged through a lonely hearts club. SOURCES : “Five.” Marion Daily Star [Ohio], August 10, 1898, p. 10. “Mob avenges Orr’s death.” New York Times, August 11, 1898, p. 5. “Murder, poison, hanging.” Fort Wayne Gazette [Indiana], August 11, 1898, p. 2. “Archer confesses.” Piqua Daily Call [Ohio], August 12, 1898, p. 6.

Eliza Goode (black) 1898 November 14 • Abbeville County, South Carolina Abbeville County, South Carolina, was the scene of protracted race riots in November 1898, resulting in several deaths. On November 14 Eliza Goode, an “aged” black woman, was sitting at home at the bedside of an invalid daughter when three drunken men, who had been firing their revolvers indiscriminately along the road, came up to Goode’s hut and opened fire on the woman through a window. She fell from her chair and died on the floor of her cabin. The other people in the house did not know the men who did the shooting, but, said a journalist, “other people saw them and their arrest will follow. The people of the community are highly incensed at this crime and its authors will be punished.” They were not. SOURCE : “The race war is still on.” Davenport Daily Leader [Iowa], November 15, 1898, p. 1.

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The Chronology, 1901 –1946 Ballie Crutchfield (black) 1901 March 16 • Rome, Smith County, Tennessee Ballie Crutchfield, a black woman who lived near Rome in Smith County, Tennessee, was lynched during the night on March 16, 1901, by a mob who took her from her cabin. Crutchfield was tied up and carried to a nearby bridge where she was shot to death and thrown into a creek. She was suspected of having found a lost purse that contained $120 and then failing to return it to its rightful owner. In a different account it was reported that the mob took Ballie’s brother from the custody of the sheriff and started to take him off somewhere to lynch him. However, he managed to escape from the mob. That, said a reporter, “so enraged the mob that they suspected Crutchfield’s sister of being implicated in the theft” and went off to seize her and to lynch her. A Coroner’s jury called to investigate the death of Ballie returned the usual verdict that the victim came to her death at the hands of parties unknown. SOURCE : “Negro woman lynched.” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette [Indiana], March 17, 1901, p. 14. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919], p. 14

Betsie McCray, Ida McCray (blacks) 1901 August 1 • Carrollton, Carroll County, Mississippi • Lynched with: Belford McCray (son) (black) On Tuesday night, July 30, 1901, when John Talliferro returned home from church, he found his mother and father dead in their room. They had been killed with an axe and had been left with their heads split open. 101

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The family lived near Carrollton, Carroll County, Mississippi. Speculation was that the motive for the crime was revenge. Not long before the murders, a young black man had been caught by the younger Talliferro in the act of attempting to poison the family and was shot. Because of that several relatives of the man had been questioned, including three members of the McCray family, Betsie, her daughter Ida, and her son Belford. As a result of the questioning the three were lodged in the jail at Carrollton. Even then it was understood by all in the area that local residents would make extraordinary efforts to lynch the prisoners. Accordingly, at the suggestion of Judge W. F. Stevens, a committee consisting of prominent area residents, District Attorney W. S. Hill, Dr. Samuel Hart, Walt Turner, L. E. Southworth, and A. H. George went to the jail to examine witnesses, investigate the murders and report to the townspeople, then mostly congregated, in an ugly mood, at the courthouse. Earlier, during the questioning of the McCrays, Ida, it was said, confessed to the knowledge of the murder and stated that her mother Betsie and her brother Belford, helped commit the murders. She further implicated three other black people. Betsie McCray refused to make any statement. That committee of prominent citizens was going about its work on Thursday, August 1, when it was learned that about 75 men, growing impatient at the delay, were ready to storm the jail, take out the prisoners, and lynch them. Immediately, the committee members went to the courthouse and called the people together. It was explained to the townspeople that the prisoners would not be suddenly spirited away and that the final investigations would be held in public in the courthouse. As a final concession to the crowd, four more citizens from “Carrollton’s best”— all neighbors of Mrs. And Mrs. Talliferro — were added to the committee. Following that, the committee returned to the jail to complete its work, but the crowd continued to be impatient and restless. In the meantime Mississippi Governor A. H. Longino had telephoned Judge Stevens to say he would leave Jackson, Mississippi, for Carrollton on the 2:00 P.M. train. Being appraised of this, the committee did its best to stall so that the Governor would have time to arrive and use his influence to cool the situation. However, the crowd grew increasingly restive and at about 4:00 P.M. the committee felt it was necessary to make another report to the people. Hill told the crowd that the committee had concluded after a thorough investigation that while Belford and Betsie McCray knew that the Talliferros 102

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were to be killed and that they had absented themselves from home so that they might have an alibi, the ones who had actually committed the crime had not yet been caught. Hill left it to the crowd as to whether the committee should proceed with the investigation or drop it and have the Coroner’s inquest proceed. The crowd was unanimous in instructing the committee to proceed with the investigation at the jail. However, as the crowd was dispersing from the courthouse they met about 50 men, armed with shotguns and rifles, who had not been in the courthouse to hear the last report. Those men proceeded to the jail, picking up followers as they went, where the Deputy Sheriff promptly opened the door. Several members of the mob, estimated to total 500 white men at that point, brought out Belford, Betsie, and Ida McCray. Judge Stevens, Mr. Hill, Mr. George, and other citizens, begged and pleaded with them, as did Lynn Talliferro, a son of the murdered couple, not to kill the prisoners and thereby subvert the efforts of justice. But the mob resisted all the earnest appeals as it was determined to conduct a lynching. All three McCrays were tied up and carried to a point under a hill about a quarter of a mile from town where all three were hanged. Then the mob fired a reported 500 shots into the dangling bodies. Governor Longino arrived in town just as the mob was returning from the site of the lynching. At the courthouse he addressed a large crowd before he returned to Jackson on the evening train. SOURCES : “Two women lynched by Mississippi mob.” New York Times, August 2, 1901, p. 1. “Two women lynched.” Washington Post, August 2, 1901, p. 1. “Mob lynches two women.” Racine Daily Journal [Wisconsin], August 2, 1901, p. 1. “Negro women lynched.” News [Frederick, Maryland], August 2, 1901, p. 1.

Unidentified White Women (2) 1902 June • Ofukee, Indian territory, Oklahoma Territory Information was received at the United States marshal’s office at Muskogee, Indian Territory, on June 14, 1902, that a woman and a girl were lynched at Ofukee, a village 18 miles west of Okmulgee. Deputies had left for the scene. Ofukee was described as being in the “wildest part of the Creek nation and its inhabitants are mostly full bloods.” SOURCE : “Woman and girl.” Daily Review [Decatur, Illinois], June 14, 1902, p. 1.

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Mary Wideman (black) 1902 December 27 • Troy, Abbeville County, South Carolina • Lynched with: Oliver Wideman (husband) (black) The fourth woman to be lynched in South Carolina, Mary Wideman, died with her husband Oliver Wideman, near Troy, Abbeville County, late on Friday night, December 26, 1902, or in the very early hours of December 27. The situation began earlier that day on the plantation owned by William K. Jay, a prominent white citizen of the area who was a member of the Masons, Woodmen of the World, and other fraternities. Mary and Oliver worked for Jay and occupied a cabin on his place. Earlier that Friday the couple was fighting and had come to blows in their hut; they were fiercely quarreling when Jay happened to be walking by the cabin. He yelled at them to stop fighting or he would order them off his place. The couple stopped fighting but one of them seized a gun, stuck it out the window and shot and killed the planter. Mrs. Jay had heard the commotion and when she looked out of her window she saw Mary and Oliver running away from their cabin. A call to her husband brought no response and when she went outside she discovered his lifeless body. News of the murder of Jay quickly spread through the area and very soon many enraged men were searching the area in an effort to find the pair. One such group met the couple driving in a buggy and arrested them. They were taken back to the Jay plantation where both confessed that Jay had been shot from their house and each accused the other of having fired the shot. It was a story they maintained until the end. The prisoners were then turned over to a constable who set out late that night, still Friday, to take his charges to the Abbeville jail. Around midnight they were intercepted at a bridge by a mob. The buggies were halted and the prisoners dragged off with ropes around their necks. Their frantic appeals for mercy and Mary’s screams were soon silenced. Within a day or two South Carolina Governor McSweeney declared strong action would be taken to arrest members of the lynch mob. “The mob’s indifference to the pleadings of the woman has caused the crime to be generally condemned,” said an account. “Even the south, usually untired of lynchings, has risen in a furor of protest at the killing of Mary Wideman.” It was speculated that perhaps because women had heretofore been immune from mobs that Oliver declared his wife had done the killing, 104

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went some of the rumors. When the mob took them at midnight, continued the account, “each swore the other committed the crime and begged that the other’s life be taken. When ropes were thrown over their heads, the woman began screaming wildly. Then they fought, and in the struggle part of her clothing was torn off.” And, “The man, mentally numbed by terror and half frozen with cold, was passive, but the woman made the woods ring with frantic screams, cries for mercy and pleadings. But there was neither law nor mercy represented in the mob.” That mob hanged the pair from the bridge. When the nooses were affixed and all was in readiness, the couple was pushed off the bridge. As they dangled over the creek, the mob riddled both bodies with bullets. An immense crowd turned out for the funeral of Jay. At the same time the bodies of Mary and Oliver were buried near the scene of the lynching. It was said the blacks in the area remained quiet and kept away from the burial of the mob’s victims. Governor McSweeney was especially annoyed at a return to lynch law within days of the end of his administration. He urged law enforcement officials to make all possible efforts to find the perpetrators, some of whom wore no masks. The fact that the constable who had charge of the prisoners started late at night on a 20mile trip across country, instead of taking his prisoners by rail, led to the charge that he and the lynchers had an understanding. All of the daily papers of South Carolina that commented on the lynching were said to have condemned the crime. SOURCES : “Murder is avenged.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], December 29, 1902, p. 2. “Mob kills a negress.” Daily Times [New Brunswick, New Jersey], December 29, 1902, p. 3. “Woman lynching stirs South.” News [Frederick, Maryland], December 30, 1902, p. 1.

Unidentified Black Woman 1903 June 8 • Smith County, Mississippi • Lynched with: Unidentified Black Men (4) In the early part of June 1903, a white man by the name of Mr. Craft was shot from ambush at Forest, Mississippi. That was in the northern part of Smith County and it created much general excitement in the area. And then a white by the name of Mr. Boyles was wounded, and rage took over as blacks were blamed in both cases. On June 8 in Smith County, 105

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four black men and one black woman were killed. As well, eight to ten blacks were badly beaten with most of the other blacks in the community ordered to leave the area. Speculation was that quiet would return to the area if the blacks ordered to do so left at once. Reportedly, the lynchings and the beatings were administered by men from the part of the county where Craft had lived. SOURCES : “Bloody Mississippi race war.” Semi-Weekly Cedar Falls Gazette [Iowa], June 15, 1903, p. 2. “Negroes killed.” North Adams Transcript [Massachusetts], June 9, 1903, p. 1.

Jennie Steer (black) 1903 July 25 • Shreveport, Louisiana Jennie Steer, the black woman who allegedly administered poison in a glass of lemonade to Lizzie Dolan was lynched by an infuriated mob around sundown on July 25, 1903, on the Beard plantation near Shreveport, Louisiana. Lizzie was the 16-year-old daughter of planter John Dolan and died in agony from the effects of the poisoning. The lynching occurred near the spot where the woman’s alleged crime had been committed. Defiant to the end, Steer denied having anything to do with Dolan’s death. However, stated a reporter, “the proof against her was direct and conclusive, and precluded the possibility of her innocence.” Despite that statement no proof of guilt was produced, at least not in the news accounts. It was claimed that Steer fled from the Dolan household as soon as she discovered that her crime was known. She was pursued by a posse who found her hiding in a hay loft. Refusing to come out, Steer had to be dragged out from her hiding place. Asked why she had poisoned Dolan, Steer denied the commission of the crime. Then she was taken to the Dolan homestead “and fully identified as the woman who had placed the poison in the lemonade.” From there the mob took her to a nearby tree, placed a rope around her neck and again asked her to confess. Once again she refused and denied any guilt. Steer was strung up without making any admissions. While the body was dangling in midair, several bullets were fired into it by enraged members of the mob. The poisoning of Dolan had created intense excitement in the neighborhood of the crime. Lizzie was described as a beautiful young girl who did not have an enemy in the world. The fact that she died in horrible agony and that her funeral had been held on the morning of the 25th all seemed to work to create a mob bent on vengeance. 106

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When it was over, a growing suspicion circulated in the area that Steer must have been connected with the murder of Mrs. Frank Matthews, whose death shocked people of the area several months earlier. Steer, described as a person of “forbidding aspect but a good servant,” had been employed as a servant by Matthews at the time of Matthews’ death. Matthews had continued to employ Steer over the protests of her son and daughter. On the morning of that murder, Jennie was the first one to notify the other residents of the house about the commission of the crime. However, suspicion was not directed toward her at the time as it was believed Matthews had been assaulted and that the perpetrator was a man. Porter Matthews, son of the dead woman, said on July 26 that subsequent developments led both his sister and himself to the belief that his mother had been murdered by a woman and that robbery was the motive. Thirty dollars that Matthews had in the house at the time was missing after the murder “and the condition of Mrs. Matthews’ body indicated that she had been struck by a woman, as the gashes were not deep, such as a man would have been able to make.” Also, it was now said that Mrs. Matthews had not been assaulted. The capture of Steer for the poisoning of Dolan convinced Porter and his sister that if she did not commit the murder of his mother, she certainly knew something about it. He regretted Steer had not been interrogated on that matter before her death. Everything was quiet in the area on July 26 and, reportedly, “There is no apparent sympathy for the negress among the law-abiding blacks of that section.” SOURCES : “She put poison in the lemonade.” Atlanta Constitution, July 27, 1903, p. 2. “Negro woman lynched.” Galveston Daily News, July 27, 1903, p. 1.

Mrs. Luther Holbert (black) 1904 February 7 • Doddsville, Mississippi • Lynched with: Luther Holbert (husband) (black) A “difficulty” arose on February 3, 1904, on the Eastland plantation, two miles outside of Doddsville, Mississippi, and when it was over one white man and two black men were dead and posses were out searching for three other blacks, with the avowed intention of lynching them. John Eastland, a wealthy white plantation owner and Albert Carr, a tenant, were two of the murder victims, killed by Luther Holbert, black, in a shooting incident that grew out of a disagreement between Eastland and 107

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Holbert. When the news of the shooting reached Doddsville, a posse was organized and further shooting occurred in which John Winters, black, was killed. Holbert escaped and posses from nearby communities, such as Greenville, Indianola, and Cleveland, were organized and joined in the pursuit. Sought specifically were Holbert and two other blacks who, allegedly, were implicated with him in the killing of Eastland. John Eastland was a member of a prominent family and relatives had posted large rewards for the capture of Holbert. On February 4 the posse captured the 16-year-old son of Luther Holbert, near Doddsville. A day later it was reported that Luther and his wife had been driven to bay in a dense swamp near Greenwood. On that day they had killed four of the State’s bloodhounds that had tracked them into the swamp. Several hundred men from four counties were at the swamp and were guarding every exit. Unless the couple attempted to break through the cordon on the night of February 5th, the posse planned to beat the area thoroughly the following morning. Holbert’s wife was dressed in male clothing and both she and her husband were said to be heavily armed. During that day two blacks had been shot to death by the posse, in separate incidents, apparently they were both cases of mistaken identity, with the victims each being mistaken for Holbert. Saturday night, February 6th, brought an end to the chase as the exhausted couple was found asleep in the woods by the posse, having traveled over 100 miles in the three days since the shootings. The couple was returned to Doddsville and, on Sunday afternoon, February 7, 1904, the pair was burned to death at the stake by a mob estimated to be over 1,000 people in number. That brought an end to a tragedy that had taken a total of eight lives, engaged 200 men and two packs of bloodhounds in a four-day chase across four counties and had stirred that section of Mississippi to, reportedly, “such a state of excitement as it has never before experienced in its history.” The dead included, Eastland, Carr, Winters, Holbert and his wife, and a revised total of three black men killed “inadvertently” by the posse while pursuing Holbert. According to later reports the difficulty that arose on the Eastland plantation back on Wednesday, February 3rd, occurred in the morning. Holbert and Winters were in Carr’s cabin when Eastland entered and ordered Holbert to leave the plantation. Words were exchanged and Holbert opened fire on Eastland, fatally wounding him and killing Carr. Before dying, Eastland returned the fire and killed Winters. A reward of $1,200 had been posted by relatives of 108

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Eastland for the capture of his slayer. Two brothers of the slain planter participated in the pursuit of Luther and his wife and both were present when the couple was burned to death. Luther’s son was set free on the evening of February 7th, as the mob was by then convinced of his innocence. According to an account in a book, reprinted from the Vicksburg (MS) Evening Post, the end for the couple was particularly gruesome. They were tied to trees and while the funeral pyres were being prepared they were made to suffer the most “fiendish tortures.” The couple were forced to hold their hands out while one finger at a time was chopped off. Then the fingers were distributed as souvenirs. As well, their ears were cut off. Luther was beaten severely, his skull was fractured, and one of his eyes, hit with a stick, hung by a shred from the socket. “The most excruciating form of punishment consisted in the use of a large corkscrew in the hands of the mob. This instrument was bored into the flesh of the man and woman, in the arms, legs and body, and then pulled out, the spirals tearing out big pieces of raw, quivering flesh every time it was withdrawn.” C. C. Eastland, a brother of the dead planter, was in the custody of the sheriff at Indianola, Mississippi, as of September 10, 1904, charged with having caused Luther Holbert and his wife to be burned at the stake. He was placed on trial in that city for the double murder, but that trial ended suddenly on September 21, 1904. When the evidence was all in, the defendant’s lawyer, Senator McLaurin, made a motion for the discharge of the prisoner on the ground there was no evidence whatsoever that showed Eastland had been in any way a party to the lynching. District Attorney Neill said that in view of the failure of the witnesses to connect Eastland with the lynching, he would ask the court to grant McLaurin’s motion. Thereupon the judge discharged Eastland and, said a reporter, “a storm of applause broke out from the vast crowd. Mr. Eastland was almost carried bodily from the court house.” SOURCES : “Three dead in race riot.” Naugatuck Daily News [Connecticut], February 4, 1904, p. 1. “Posse pursues murderers.” Lincoln Evening News [Nebraska], February 5, 1904, p. 1. “Negroes at bay.” Sunday Herald [Syracuse, New York], February 7, 1904, p. 2. “Two negroes are cremated at the stake.” Atlanta Constitution, February 8, 1904, p. 2. “Burned at the stake.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], February 8, 1904, p. 2. “Charge against Eastland.” Atlanta Constitution, September 11, 1904, p. 15. “Negro burning was not proved.” Atlanta Constitution, September 23, 1904, p. 5. Frank Shay. Judge Lynch: His First Hundred Years. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1969, pp. 103–104.

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Mary Thompson (black) 1904 June 15 • Lebanon Junction, Kentucky A mob took a black woman by the name of Mary (perhaps Maria or Martha) Thompson, described in one account as a “mastodonic negress”— she weighed 255 pounds — from the lock-up at Lebanon Junction, Kentucky, at 2:00 A.M. on June 15, 1904, in order to lynch her. On the afternoon of June 14 a white man named John Irwin who lived in the neighborhood requested that the Thompson woman’s son return to him a pair of pliers he had borrowed. The boy claimed he had returned them but would not say where he put the pliers. Irwin reproved the boy for impudence and the lad ran home immediately to tell his mother. Securing a knife, Mary Thompson set off for Irwin’s place, where she found him weeding melons. Without warning she attacked him with the knife and killed him, almost severing his head from his body. Officers arrested the woman but having missed the last train for the county seat, locked her in the local jail. When a mob of 25 to 30 men showed up there at 2:00 A.M., they easily battered down the door, put a rope around Thompson’s neck, dragged her outside to a nearby tree and attempted to hang her. However, the rope broke, perhaps due to her weight and the fact Thompson fought desperately. She managed to wrench herself free from the mob and started to run away, whereupon members of the mob opened fire on her. When she fell unconscious the mob dispersed. At about 5:00 A.M. she was found and taken to her home, still alive. A little later she was removed to a physician’s office, where she died. SOURCES : “Kentucky mob hangs negress.” Atlanta Constitution, June 16, 1904, p. 13 “Horrible death of a murderess.” Ogden Standard [Utah], June 16, 1904, p. 3.

Meta Hicks (black) 1906 November 4 • Mitchell County, Georgia • Lynched with: Jet Hicks (husband — black — on November 8) In Mitchell County, Georgia, a black man by the name of Jet Hicks had been repeatedly warned by John Akridge to keep off of his property. Akridge was described as a “well-known white citizen.” On Saturday night, November 3, 1906, Arkridge learned that Hicks was in one of the outbuildings on his farm. He went to the door of that building and demanded 110

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that it be opened. A moment later the door was opened and he was shot through the head and killed, reportedly by Hicks. Jet escaped and a search was begun. Governor Terrell of Georgia announced the offer of a $150 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer. Relatives and friends of Arkridge in Mitchell County offered a reward, also, of $250. Meta Hicks, the “reputed wife” of Jet was found dead in a field belonging to Arkridge, after the murder of the farmer. On her body were found two bullet wounds. Jet Hicks was arrested on November 7 and was brought to Moultrie, Georgia, at noon. Sheriff Campbell was out of the city and Sheriff Forehand of Dooley, who had charge of the prisoner, kept him at a livery stable for a couple of hours. When rumors of a lynching surfaced, Sheriff Forehand decided to take him to his final destination, the jail in Sale City, Mitchell County. Governor Terrell was notified and he instructed the Moultrie Rifles to protect the prisoner. When they arrived at the stable they learned Forehand had already left for Sale City. And the race was on between the two parties. Meanwhile, after both groups had left for Sale City, a message was received from the Sheriff of Mitchell advising that a mob was being organized at Sale City and asking Sheriff Forehand to meet him at a different city with Hicks. But the message was received too late. Behind the race to Sale City lay fear of the mob. The Moultrie Rifles realized that if the prisoner was delivered to Sale City a lynching was sure to follow. Sheriff Forehand, it was said, was simply trying to discharge his duties and deliver his prisoner to the proper authorities. Forehand arrived at Sale City first and turned Hicks over to the Sheriff there who promptly locked him up. However, Hicks was just as promptly lynched. Forehand reached Sale City at 5:00 P.M. and his prisoner was turned over to the Mitchell County officers who placed him in the city guard house. Then a mob quickly formed, stormed the jail, took the prisoner out, and lynched him. A couple of hours later when the Moultrie Rifles arrived in Sale City the lynching was over, the town was quiet and the mob had dispersed. SOURCES : “Crime a heinous one.” Atlanta Constitution, November 9, 1906, p. 2. “Lynchers beat state troopers to the negro.” Atlanta Constitution, November 9, 1906, p. 1.

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Unidentified Black Women (2) 1907 March 19 • McKamie, Arkansas According to the statement of Mrs. Ella Rhoten, white, she and her two young children were walking along the public road during the day on March 19, 1907, at McKamie, six miles south of Stamps, Arkansas, when they were attacked without warning and without provocation by two black women. Rhoten and her daughter received knife wounds while the woman’s little son was kicked by the women. Those two women were arrested and placed under guard at the local schoolhouse. Later on the same day, at night, a mob showed up at the makeshift jail, took the prisoners outside, and shot the two women to death. It was reported, “The men guarding the prisoners in the school house made very little resistance to the lynchers.” SOURCES : “Women lynched” Fort Wayne News [Indiana], March 20, 1907, p. 7. “Two negro women lynched for attacking white woman.” Post-Standard [Syracuse, NY], March 21, 1907, p. 3

Mrs. Wallace (black) 1908 October 4 • Hickory Grove, Simpson County, Kentucky • Lynched with: David Wallace (husband), Wallace (child), Wallace (child) (blacks) SOURCE : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. [no confirmation found]

Laura Mitchell (black) 1910 April 4 • Keo, Lonoke County, Arkansas • Lynched with: Frank Pride (black) Wiley Mitchell, a black who lived near Keo, Arkansas, went missing around December 24, 1909, leaving his wife Laura Mitchell to wonder as to his whereabouts. At about the same time, or perhaps up to as long as a few months later, another black person went missing. That was Mrs. Pride, wife of Frank Pride. For one reason or another, suspicions were raised and an investigation was conducted. As a result a suspicious mound of dirt was found on the farm where Frank Pride, 50, lived. When it was excavated the body of Wiley was discovered. His brains had been beaten out with a club and it was believed he had been dead since December, 112

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although his remains were not found until early in April 1910. It was believed that Mrs. Pride’s body was likely to be also buried on Pride’s property, but it was not located. As a result of that investigation Frank and Laura (aged 40, perhaps 44) were taken before Justice of the Peace Cox on April 4th and were bound over in custody to await the action of the grand jury. Later on the 4th, the two prisoners were placed in the custody of Constable Mallory of Keo who set off to take the pair to the Keo jail. He had not gone far before he discovered he was being pursued by a mob, apparently after his prisoners. Mallory dodged about but was soon overtaken by the mob who shot Mitchell and Pride to death and then strung them up side by side by the road, where the bodies were discovered hanging on the morning of April 5. Mallory and the prisoners had been overpowered on a farm some four miles north of Keo, where the officer and his prisoners had taken refuge from a storm. Reportedly, the mob was comprised solely of black people from Lonoke County and “the lynching is said to be the only one on record in which the mob was composed entirely of blacks.” SOURCES : “Two of own tribe.” Evening News [Ada, Oklahoma], April 6, 1910, p. 3. “Blacks lynch two negroes.” Atlanta Constitution, April 6, 1910, p. 1.

Laura Porter (black) 1910 August 25 • Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana Unidentified men broke into the jail at Monroe, Louisiana, on July 25, 1910, and carried off a black woman by the name of Laura Porter. She was described as the keeper of a “resort” [brothel] wherein several white men were reported to have been robbed. It was believed the members of the mob took her to the nearby Ouachita River where they threw Porter in and drowned her. Law officers declared they had unearthed a conspiracy that showed the woman had lured intoxicated men to her resort where they were robbed by black men. Laura Porter had been warned many times in recent years to leave town but she had always ignored such demands. At the time of her lynching she was in jail after having been arrested on a charge of larceny. When the mob stormed the jail, five short-term prisoners took advantage of the confusion to make their escape from the Ouachita Parish jail. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919].

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The Chronology • 1910 • 1911 “Mob drowns a negress.” San Antonio Light and Gazette, July 25, 1910, p. 1. “Mob drags her from jail.” Washington Post, July 26, 1910, p. 2.

Hattie Bowman (black) 1910 September 1 • Graceville, Florida • Lynched with: Edward Christian (black) Dangling from a trestle just outside Graceville, Florida, on the morning of September 2, 1910, were found the bodies of Ed Christian, black, charged with shooting Deputy Sheriff Allen Burns, and Hattie Bowman, black, who was arrested on the charge of being implicated in the crime. The pair was taken from the community’s jail on the evening of September 1 by a mob that had, reportedly, “little trouble in overpowering the guards.” Several days earlier an arrest warrant was sworn out for Christian, charging him with the theft of a watch. When Officer Burns arrived at Christian’s home to make the arrest, his call for Ed to come outside was greeted from within by a volley of shots. One bullet struck Burns in the chest while another hit him in the arm. His condition was described as critical. Although posses were organized immediately to capture Christian, he managed to elude his pursuers, at least for a time. Hattie Bowman, meanwhile, was arrested and placed in jail, suspected of having had a hand in the shooting of the officer, although no evidence or details were presented in news accounts. Eventually Christian was found and on September 1 he was returned to Graceville from Dothan, Alabama, where he was captured. After the mob stormed the jail, Bowman and Christian were led out of the jail with ropes around their necks and marched off in the direction of the railroad trestle. After the bodies were found, the Coroner held an inquest at which the jury returned a verdict that Hattie Bowman and Ed Christian met death “at the hands of unknown parties.” SOURCE : “Woman and a man lynched in Florida.” Post-Standard [Syracuse, New York], September 3, 1910, p. 1.

Mary Nelson (black) 1911 May 24 • Okemah, Oklahoma • Lynched with: Mr. Nelson (son) (black) On the evening of May 24, 1911, an armed mob battered down the door of the county jail at Okemah, Oklahoma, bound and gagged jailer 114

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Lawrence Payne, took his two black prisoners out of the jail — Mrs. Mary Nelson (perhaps Laura Nelson) and her 18-year-old son, conveyed them to the Canadian River six miles away, and hanged them from a bridge. It was said that the lynching had been kept very quiet and citizens of the town did not know what had occurred until a farmer drove to town and reported the two bodies hanging to the bridge timbers. At the jail Payne was discovered still bound and gagged. Two weeks earlier Deputy Sheriff H. Loney was shot and killed instantly while he was searching the Nelson house for some stolen goods. Mary and her son were arrested and confessed that they had deliberately laid a plot to kill Loney. One week later Mary Nelson was said to have attacked Payne in the jail house and tried to take his pistol from him. Sheriff J. A. Dunigan declared on May 25th that he knew nothing of the lynching until that very morning, when the farmer reported his discovery of the bodies. In another account the boy’s father confessed to the theft of the goods and was remanded to custody elsewhere. Laura Nelson confessed to the shooting to save her son, who was perhaps only 14 or 15 years old. Mother and son were suspended about 20 feet apart. The woman was raped by members of the mob before she was hanged. SOURCES : “Woman and son lynched.” News [Frederick, Maryland], May 26, 1911, p. 7. “Double lynching.” Lowell Sun [Massachusetts], May 26, 1911, p. 53. Wikipedia entry for “Lynching in America,” links page, “lynching of women.”

Pearl Pettigrew (black) 1911 December 5 • Clifton, Tennessee • Lynched with: Ben Pettigrew (father), Fred Pettigrew (brother) (blacks) Ben Pettigrew was a successful black farmer who lived near Clifton, Tennessee. On December 5, 1911, Pettigrew and his two children were on their way to Savannah, Tennessee, taking a load of seed cotton to a cotton gin there. They were ambushed by four white men who shot the father to death, hanged the children, and then drove the load of cotton under the tree from which their bodies dangled and set fire to it. According to a different account, the three victims were waylaid and tied to the wagon load of cotton whereupon, it was said, the mob built a fire beneath the wagon and stood guard until their victims were cremated. One account said there was no known provocation or motive for the killings while another said the 115

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perpetrators were white land tenants who objected to the occupancy of land by blacks in that area. The case was remarkable, thought the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, because two of the murderers were ultimately hanged for their part in the crime, described as “friendless, ignorant white boys.” Later that day, four white men were fugitives from a posse of prominent planters who sought to avenge the murder of a “respected colored farmer” and the murder of his two children. Bloodhounds were put on the trial and the whole countryside, aroused by the atrocity of the deed, arose and joined in the pursuit. According to this account, nothing about the identity of the murderers was known except that they were white men. There was no apparent motive for the crime. Pettigrew had a reputation for honesty and trustworthiness “unequaled among the colored population of this section of the country, and was regarded as highly as any member of his race in the south.” In this account, Pettigrew was driving a load of cotton on the road when he was stopped by four white men who shot him to death as he sat in the seat of his wagon. Then they dragged his two children from the top of the load and hanged them from a nearby tree. While their bodies dangled from the tree the killers drove the load of cotton under them and set fire to it. Other farmers who were driving along the road saw the blazing cotton and hurried to the scene arriving in time to see the four men escape into the woods. Although they gave chase, they were unable to locate them. All three bodies of the victims were “burned to a crisp” before the cotton was extinguished. The posse that pursued the killers started with about 50 men and four bloodhounds and quickly grew to more than 300 volunteer searchers. In due course two of the suspects were captured. And at Decaturville, Tennessee, on March 2, 1912, a verdict of murder in the first degree was returned against George Sheldon and John Bailey for the murder of Pearl Pettigrew. They stood indicted for all three murders but were tried only on the one count. They were sentenced to be executed by hanging on April 19. On the morning of July 26, 1912, at Nashville, Tennessee, George Sheldon and John Bailey were executed. SOURCE : “Burned to death.” Quincy Daily Journal [Illinois], December 6, 1911, p. 1. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919], p. 20. “Posse seeks four whites.” Coshocton Morning Tribune [Ohio], December 6, 1911, p. 4. “Guilty of murder.” Atlanta Constitution, March 3, 1912, p. 4.

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The Chronolog y • 1912 “Two men sentenced to die on gallows.” Atlanta Constitution, March 5, 1912, p. 5. “Two white men die on gallows.” Atlanta Constitution, July 27, 1912, p. 6.

Bertha Hathaway (black) 1912 January 23 • Hamilton, Georgia • Lynched with: John Moore, Eugene Haming, Dusty Crutchfield (blacks) (names of the men varied dramatically in the accounts) A mob estimated to contain 100 men broke into the Harris County jail in Hamilton, Georgia, on the evening of January 23, 1912, overpowered jailer E. M. Robinson, took four prisoners (three black males and one black female) and hanged them all from trees one mile from town. The bodies of the victims were riddled with bullets, an estimated 300 in total. Lynched were Bertha Hathaway, John Moore, Eugene Haming, and Dusty Crutchfield. Due to the multiple murders, emotions had been aroused in the state after the lynching and Georgia Governor Slayton ordered a special investigation into the outrage. All four of the victims had been arrested and charged with the murder of Norman Hadley, a well-to-do farmer in the area. Hadley had been killed on the night of Sunday, January 21, as he sat in his home, a shot being fired from the outside. The lynching victims were all tenants on the Hadley farm. Sheriff Hadley, uncle of the murdered farmer, claimed he did not believe a lynching would occur and thus he had absented himself from Hamilton when the lynching took place. Public sentiment, however, had been crystallizing in favor of a lynching all day long on January 23, and by nightfall there were a great many area people gathered in Hamilton. Their number was constantly augmented, and by 9:00 P.M. fully 100 men had congregated in front of the jail. As soon as he heard of the lynching, Sheriff Hadley explained, he returned to Hamilton immediately and began an investigation. When the mob arrived at the jail, they broke the doors down, despite the pleas of Jailer Robinson. The victims were hustled out at the point of guns, marched out of town and quickly strung up. And, said a reporter, “Immediately their writhing bodies became silhouetted against the sky, revolvers and rifles blazed forth.” To the last, the four victims protested their innocence. No motive for the killing of Hadley, a popular resident of the area, was known. On the day after the lynching, deputy sheriffs with rifles patrolled the black section of Hamilton to prevent any disorder arising as a result 117

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of the lynching. An inquiry into the lynching, held a day or two after the crime, showed that the mob put at least two innocent persons to death and probably three and that there was no convincing evidence that the fourth person had anything to do with the killing of Hadley. According to this account it was “certain” that Bertha Hathaway, the “mulatto” girl was innocent and that John Cruickshank and Herbert Henderson, two of the three men lynched could easily have established alibis. Hadley was described as an unmarried planter who was infatuated with Bertha. He had been warned to keep away from her. Hadley, however, disregarded the warning and on Sunday afternoon, January 21, he went to Bertha’s home and tried to get her to come out and meet him. He was then shot later from ambush. Henry Anderson, the fourth of the lynching victims was said to have wanted to marry Bertha and this account speculated he may have indeed shot the young planter. Those developments caused great indignation in the area and, supposedly, a determined effort would be made to ferret out the members of the mob. Bertha Hathaway was just 20 years old and “comely.” After the lynching, the bodies of the four victims were left bullet-ridden and strung up to the trees until late in the evening on January 24. Reportedly, blacks were then leaving the area in large numbers and area farmers were having some difficulties in finding laborers. SOURCES : “Three colored men and woman lynched.” Gettysburg Times [Pennsylvania], January 24, 1912, p. 2. “Four negroes are lynched in Georgia for murder.” Oelwein Daily Register [Iowa], January 23, 1912, p. 5. “Riddled them with bullets.” Olean Times [New York], January 23, 1912, p. 1. “Innocent people hanged by lynchers.” Newark Advocate [Ohio], January 25, 1912, p. 4.

Mary Jackson (black) 1912 February 13 • Marshall, Harrison County, Texas • Lynched with: George Sanders (spouse, common-law) (black) A small, four-line news account at the beginning of February 1912 recorded the fact that Paul Strange was shot and killed by a black man in the city of Marshall, Harrison County, Texas, on the night of January 29. Although the killer had been seen as he fired the fatal shot, he had not been captured. Strange was a white man. In a short while a black man named Tennie Sneed was picked up for the crime. When Sneed was arrested he confessed to the killing. He said he got the gun he used for the crime 118

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from Mary Jackson, 40, who lived with George Sanders, 60. Sneed lived in the same house as the couple and added that when he got the gun they knew what he was going to do with it. At close to midnight on February 12, the Harrison County jail was visited by a party of men who made inquiry about Tennie Sneed but were unable to find him and then dispersed as quietly as they came. Deputy Sheriff Scott said he and jailer Burnett were awakened by several men who asked admittance to the jail. They were admitted and asked about Sneed. The men were told that Sneed was not in the jail and had not been, but that Sheriff Sanders had taken him on to the jail at Rusk. At that point the eight to 10 men in the party left the jail. But a mob returned the next night. Somehow that mob had learned the details of Sneed’s confession. Mary Jackson and George Sanders were both being held in the Marshall jail. It was enough for the mob to take the prisoners out of the jail and a little way out of town to hang them from a tree. On Wednesday morning the two bodies were found hanging from one limb of a tree by Professor Strange, brother of the dead man. He was on his way to the school where he taught when he found the lynching victims. He notified the authorities and an inquest was held. Its verdict was that Jackson and Sanders came to their death by strangulation at the hands of unknown parties. Early in March the trial of Tennie Sneed for the murder of Paul Strange was underway in Marshall. While there were no demonstrations of any kind against the prisoner, several units of state troops were on guard in the courtroom at all times and guarded the prisoner as he traveled back and forth between the Marshall jail and the courthouse. No outcome of the trial was reported. SOURCES : “Two negroes lynched near Marshall, Texas.” Evening News [Ada, Oklahoma], February 16, 1912, p. 1. “Paul Strange was killed.” Record and Chronicle [Denton, Texas], February 2, 1912, p. 1. “Party of men visit jail.” Galveston Daily News, February 14, 1912, p. 3. “Sneed jury is secured.” Galveston Daily News, March 2, 1912, p. 8.

Ann Boston (black) 1912 June 26 • Pinehurst, Georgia Ann Boston (sometimes Anne Bostwick), black, stabbed to death Mrs. R. E. Jordan, wife of a prominent planter, on the afternoon of June 25, at Pinehurst, Georgia. Almost immediately Boston was arrested, and 119

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officers transporter her later that day to the jail at Cordele, for Boston’s safety. Still later on the 25th, a mob estimated to contain about 100 residents of Pinehurst and Vienna stormed that jail, overpowered the Sheriff there and took the prisoner from him. Reportedly, that mob was led and directed by women in automobiles. After taking Boston from the jail, members of the mob put her in an automobile and set out for Pinehurst, where, in the early morning hours of June 26, Ann Boston was hanged from the limb of a tree. And, it was said, the men of the mob still acted “on the behests of fashionably dressed women in three big touring cars and a limousine.” When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People investigated the case, the organization declared that “Anne Bostwick, a Negro servant woman subject to violent fits of insanity, who stabbed her mistress to death in one of them,” was lynched. As usual, an investigating Coroner’s jury returned a verdict that she came to her death at the hands of parties unknown. However, observed a reporter, “great crowds attended and saw the shot-riddled body of the Negress cut from the tree.” Sheriff Bennett had made no arrests and none were expected. “The truth is that there is general rejoicing over the lynching of the Negress and the lynchers are known to everybody,” continued the journalist. Bostwick was lynched directly from an automobile. The car in which she was sitting was driven under a tree, a rope placed around her neck and the other end tied to a limb of a tree. The car was driven off at high speed and the victim was left hanging. “Her body was then shot to pieces. Her eyes were shot out and such a fusillade directed at her waist that she was cut in two,” said the account. With respect to the Coroner’s jury verdict, this same reporter remarked that the verdict “was rendered in the face of the fact that the automobiles in which the lynching party pursued the slayer and the sheriff are known to be owned by some of the most prominent citizens of Cordele, Vienna and Pinehurst.” Commenting on Bostwick’s sanity, a Macon Georgia newspaper remarked, “While living here (Fort Valley) the lynched Negress was tried by a jury and found a fit subject for the lunatic asylum but owning to the crowded condition of that institution she could not be received. In her rational moments she was a good reliable servant, but became violent at times.” In an editorial on the lynching of Boston the Lima News [Ohio] 120

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observed that scores of editors had passed judgment upon that Southern mob, but it remained for Henry Watterson, the “grand old editor” of the Louisville Courier-Journal to properly size it up and he did so in the following “brilliant” manner. He referred to the lynching as the latest manifestation of organized lawlessness in a Southern rural community. “The provocation was strong,” intoned Watterson. “The woman had murdered her employer, the wife of a planter, who corrected her for dereliction of duty in the kitchen.” He thought the same crime might have caused a lynching in a state such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, or New York. As an example of a “proper” way to handle such a case, Watterson cited a recent case in Virginia. At Hampton a black woman murdered the woman who had fired her from her job. Virginia law stepped in and hanged the perpetrator “expeditiously. No race friction was caused by a legal hanging,” explained the grand old editor. “The ends of justice were served. Popular vengeance was appeased. A lesson was impressed. Society was rid of an undesirable unit.” He also observed, “Assuredly the negress in Georgia deserved to be put to death.” As far as she was concerned it made little difference whether she was strung up to a tree by a mob or hanged in a jail yard by a sheriff. “It is conceivable that the more deliberate procedure under the law might be the severer punishment, and that there might be a preference from the viewpoint of the person executed in favor of the impromptu hanging.” However, he did admit the peace would have been better conserved in Georgia by the prosecution of the woman and the legal hanging which would “certainly” have resulted. No mercy would have been shown in such a case as that of Ann Boston by a jury of white men, “and the negroes of the vicinity and the state would have applauded the verdict. Negroes are, as a mass, law-abiding and their relations with white persons are good.” Watterson thought that no lesson was taught when murder was answered by murder. A lesson was taught to everyone, regardless of race, by a prosecution and a legal execution vindicating the law that has been violated and avenging, through the state, a crime against the state’s “thoughtfully-made regulations of conduct.” In conclusion the editor declared the Boston lynching served no purpose other than to satisfy the passion of the moment and the mob. “It destroys the opportunity for a salutary hanging. No sentiment will be wasted upon the negress who was lynched. Nobody, white or black, who is capable of detaching the pun121

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ishment from the method, will feel that she got more than she deserved.” He continued, “But the method was that of savages and savagery begets reprisal in kind. There is always greater probability of lawlessness where lawless methods are employed by the determined citizens.” Presenting a different take on the case was the black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, which was then in its infancy. Over time the paper was a forceful voice in countering the often erroneous details, or lack of details, so regularly found, or not found, in the white media when it reported on the lynching of a black person. In its headline about Boston, the newspaper stated, “Georgia brutes again lynch U.S. citizen.” Subheads declared: “The entire world disgusted;” “Daily papers vigorously protest;” and Georgia’s long and disgraceful history of lynching “has reached culmination in the cowardly and brutal lynching of a woman.” Correspondent for the Defender, Mae Clide, said she had recently been in that part of Georgia and “was an eye witness to one of the pleasant (?) festivals indulged in by the white citizens” of the Pinehurst/Cordele area of the state. According to Clide, Mrs. Jordan, the employer of Boston, was in the habit of slapping the face and otherwise abusing her black servant, and on several occasions had injured her severely. “The servant at last, goaded beyond endurance with pain and anger, took the life of her employee by stabbing her.” As to what was afforded the alleged murderer in the form of protection after she was jailed, Clide remarked, “An attempt (?) was made to protect (?) the woman from falling into the clutches of mob law but as is ever the case the officers were overpowered and another human being was lynched and left swinging to a tree. Such are the true facts of the case, and of course none of the leaders of the mob were or ever will be identified.” Clide observed that black servants were hired in the area for a mere pittance, some receiving 50 cents a week and never over four dollars a month, and at such salaries they were required to do the housework, washing, ironing, chores, attend the children “and suffer any humiliation that the educated (?) and charitable (?) white women are pleased to thrust upon her. Her position in the house of such Christian (?) people can better be imagined than described.” And, “In truth, when one enters the home of a southern white as a servant it is as Dante says in his Inferno, namely ‘All hope is lost, ye who enter here.’” Because, within those walls of the homes of white employers “is a roaring, seething antagonism against the race 122

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which the servant represents and the prolonged staying in such an environment will in nine cases out of every ten communicate itself.” So it was in the case of Miss Ann Boston, argued Clide, that being associated with cruelty and evilness her disposition was warped and she took on the animal nature of her surroundings and her betters and, copying their brutality, did in a moment of pain and rage take the life of one of the South’s bulldozing whites. For this was one lone woman taken by a mob of 100 men and hanged. “But all should be grateful that she removed the cause of the trouble in this one instance at least.” Clide went on to list some of the humiliations faced by blacks in the South: in many states blacks were prohibited from owning cars; black chauffeurs were tabooed; articles purchased had to be kept, even if they turned out to be not suitable; a black riding on a horse could not pass a white rider without permission; a black pedestrian facing oncoming white pedestrians had to step out into the road if those whites chose to walk abreast and completely block the sidewalk, and so on. And that was done, she argued, because the white man “is selfish, dirty, low, cowardly, and knows that he can organize a mob of four or five hundred to lynch one colored man and the law will uphold the act.” She did acknowledge that, as in every race, there were exceptions, but in the Southern white population “the exception is conspicuous by its almost total absence. The majority are like thieves in the night, ever ready to give you a sly jab in the side and then call on a mob to help them with what they have started and are too cowardly to finish.” Concluded Clide, “And every lick they get from us is not amiss, and though someone pays the penalty, let us feel glad over the outgoing of every southern white who comes under the category of a blood-thirsty brute.” SOURCES : “Women in autos direct lynching of murderess.” Syracuse Herald [New York], June 25, 1912, p. 1. “Woman is lynched by mob in Georgia town.” Oelwein Daily Register [Iowa], June 26, 1912, p. 2. “Lynching a woman.” Lima News [Ohio], July 1, 1912, p. 1. Mae Clide. “Georgia brutes again lynch U.S. citizen. Chicago Defender, June 29, 1912, p. 1. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919], p. 21

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Mrs. Joe Perry (black) 1913 March 12 • Henderson, North Carolina • Lynched with: Joe Perry (husband), Perry (child) (blacks) SOURCE : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html [no confirmation found].

Marie Scott (black) 1914 March 31 • Wagoner County, Oklahoma On Sunday morning March 29, 1914, a young white man named Lemuel Peace went to the black quarter of Wagoner, Oklahoma, along with other young white men. While he was there that day, a black woman by the name of Marie Scott stabbed him to death with a knife thrust through the heart. Scott was arrested and placed in a cell in the jail at Muskogee. In the early morning hours of March 31, a knock at the door of the jail aroused the sleeping guard. When asked who was there, a voice outside said an officer was there with prisoners. When the jailer, a one-armed man, opened the door he found himself facing 12 revolvers. The masked members of the mob overpowered the guard, tied him up, took his keys from him, and threw him into a corner. Then they threw a rope over Scott’s head, pulled the screaming woman from her cell, dragged her down the street one block away from the jail and hanged her from a telephone pole. An hour later the Sheriff cut down the body. It was reported that the county attorney started an investigation of the lynching within an hour after it happened. A week later Booker T. Washington reported there had been 13 lynchings in the U.S. in the first quarter of 1914, compared to 14 in the same period of 1913 and, “The most striking crime of barbarism in connection with these lynchings was in the case of a woman lynched in Oklahoma on a charge of murder.” When the Chicago Defender newspaper investigated the case, it declared in its subhead: “Oklahoma woman kills seducer; mob lynches her.” And: “Fiends a hundred strong drag victim through the streets of a civilized town like a dog, with a rope around her neck.” According to this account the lynching of Marie Scott at Muskogee “was the fiendish outcome of one of the most hellish outrages in the history of downtrodden womanhood, the result of white man’s lust.” Her story was said to have been like hundreds of others here and in other lawless portions of the country, with the true facts never being told. Marie Scott, at the time of 124

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her murder was six months pregnant, but her paramour, Lemuel Peace, wanted to abandon her and marry a white woman. He offered her $50 to get through her pregnancy but Marie refused. She wanted him to protect her and his child but he refused. “Kill me, then,” she cried, as he began packing his clothes to leave her. He did knock her down when he received the knife thrust that killed him. Mentioned by the reporter was the usual talk after such events as the lynching of Scott that there would be an investigation by the county attorney but the reporter dismissed such talk as “only a farce.” What angered the reporter were the laws that prevented blacks from marrying whites but “they go on living in open adultery and their neighbors turn their backs and say nothing.” The reporter railed against a race that permitted a white man to live in open adultery with a black woman, next door to them and yet keep their mouths shut. “Do you suppose that a colored man could live with a white woman in the same manner in the same town? Marie Scott is not the only wench, as the Southern white gentlemen would call them, who is living with and raising children for white men,” went the account. A different version of the events was presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In this account the 17year-old Scott was lynched by a mob of white men because her brother killed one of two white men who had assaulted her. Marie was alone in the house when the men entered, but her screams brought her brother to the rescue. In the fight that ensued Peace was killed. On the next day the mob came to lynch Marie’s brother but as he had escaped from custody, lynched her instead. SOURCES : “Negro woman is lynched by mob.” Lincoln Daily Star [Nebraska], March 31, 1914, p. 1. “Thirteen lynchings noted.” Washington Post, April 11, 1914, p. 4. “Protects her honor; lynched by mob.” Chicago Defender, April 4, 1914, pp. 1, 7. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919], p. 23.

Mrs. Paralee Collins 1914 June 17 • West Plains, Howell County, Missouri • Lynched with: Isaac Collins (cousin) The second attempt of a mob of Ozark mountaineers to drive Mrs. Paralee Collins fromWest Plains, Howell County, Missouri, culminated 125

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on the night of June 17, 1914, in the “probably fatal” shooting of Isaac Collins, the woman’s cousin, the wounding of Mrs. Collins and the burning of their cabin. One month earlier a mob appeared at the Collins home near Horton, Howell County, and after whipping Mrs. Paralee Collins, burned down the home of Jane Collins, a relative with whom Mrs. Collins lived. After that incident Mrs. Collins took refuge with her cousin Isaac in his cabin in West Plains. In the attack on June 17, Mrs. Paralee Collins and Isaac were fired upon by the mob when they attempted to flee the burning cabin. According to a report, “An alleged midnight ride of the women caused the outbreak.” While this newspaper account did not report either of the injured parties as dead, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People catalog of lynching events listed both as dead from the lynching. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “Mob tries to drive out woman; wounds two.” Oakland Tribune, June 18, 1914, p. 3.

Jennie Collins (black) 1914 June • Bolivar City, Mississippi Sometime toward the end of June 1914, a man named Earl Chase, described as a prominent citizen in the area around Shaw, Mississippi, was fatally shot. The killer was identified as Jack Farmer, a black man, and a manhunt was launched. In some fashion the posse killed a black woman named Jennie Collins who was alleged to have assisted Farmer in his flight. No details of the lynching of Collins were published. Posses continued to hunt for Farmer, and on June 30 a posse member named Fred Young shot and killed James Jolly, a fellow posse member, after Young mistook Jolly for Farmer. Young reported the incident to the authorities. Meanwhile, the hunt for Farmer continued. It was believed he was hiding in the Mississippi swamps in the vicinity of Shaw. No further reports of Farmer were published. SOURCE : “Second life sacrificed in hunt for negro.” Daily Advocate [Victoria, Texas], July 2, 1914, p. 2.

Rosa Carson (black) 1914 July 12 • Elloree, South Carolina On Saturday evening, July 11, 1914, Essie Bell (white) was sent by her parents into the field to bring back the family cow, which was grazing in 126

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a pasture nearby. She was the 12-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Bell, a prominent planter of Elloree, South Carolina. Alarmed by her long absence, the parents initiated a search for their child that resulted in the finding of Essie’s lifeless body early in the morning of July 12. The body was partly hidden beneath a log and wounds on the body indicated the child had been badly beaten. Near the body was found the presumed murder weapon, a heavy piece of wood. Even before Bell’s body was found, suspicion was directed at Rosa Carson and her sister. That suspicion was pointed at the pair because of recent troubles they had with the Bell family. As the sun rose on July 12, the two black women were taken into custody by a group of men and placed in a cell in the jail at Elloree. As the child’s body had not yet been found, those men returned to other searchers to assist in the hunt. However, several miles from Elloree they came upon the main body of searchers who told the others that the body had been found. Then the other group told the searchers of the arrest and incarceration of the two women. At once the mob, said to be composed of about 50 men, made its way to the Elloree jail, battered down the door and took the prisoners out. The sister immediately admitted Rosa Carson had committed the crime. Rosa was taken to the scene of the murder where, it was reported, she confessed to the murder of Essie Bell. She was strung up to the nearest tree and riddled with bullets. There, hanging on the tree, officers found the corpse. When the Coroner’s inquest into the death of Carson was held — still on the morning of July 12, a verdict was delivered that Rosa had come to her death at the hands of an unknown mob. According to an account: “A crowd of about thirty negroes is said to have gathered about the scene of the lynching and watched silently, giving evidence of their approval. There is no race feeling and tension is absent, though a large crowd has gone to the scene.” After having admitted that Rosa had killed the child, the sister was released by the mob. When the Chicago Defender looked at the Carson case, it declared the lynching not only placed a bloody mark against the South but it upset two cherished traditions. One was that the South revered its “Black mammies”; the other was that college towns were immune from lynch law. Rosa Carson was mammy to the child whose death after an alleged whipping caused the outrage, and Orangeburg (Elloree) boasted of many institutions of higher learning. “It is the same old story of a blood-thirsty band of ‘crack127

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ers’ made bold by the fiendish hatred of the Afro-American by Cole Blease, the governor, only the so-called cause was a little unusual,” said the reporter. According to this account the “hot-tempered” child was corrected by its nurse. Later the child was taken ill and died and the nurse was thrown in jail. “The many years of care and devotion of mammy for the child and the rapidity with which some diseases carry off human beings were forgotten as the mob swung the innocent and defenseless woman’s body from a telegraph pole,” declared the journalist. “But what cared they when the governor sanctions such crimes?” A subhead of the article asserted, “One hundred and fifty South Carolina outlaws bold under the reign of the arch fiend Blease brutally murder defenseless woman.” SOURCES : “Negress lynched for killing child.” Atlanta Constitution, July 13, 1914, p. 1. “Negress is lynched in South Carolina for killing child.” Colorado Springs Gazette, July 12, 1914, p. 6. “Mob lynches woman.” Washington Post, July 13, 1914, p. 1. “Boley, Oklahoma, million dollar black city.” Chicago Defender, July 18, 1914, p. 1.

Jane Sullivan (black) 1914 November 25 • Byhalia, Mississippi • Lynched with: Fred Sullivan (husband) (black) In November 1914, the barn of J. B. Williams, located six miles from Byhalia, Mississippi, was burned to the ground. Accused of the arson were Fred Sullivan and his wife Jane Sullivan. Motivation for the arson was said to be that it was in retaliation by Sullivan over a dispute he had with Williams about a mule. Williams had forced Sullivan to return a mule that he said Sullivan had purchased from him but had not paid for. On the other hand, Sullivan claimed he had paid Williams for the animal. Reportedly, Sullivan had confessed to the arson. Deputy Sheriff Ed Williams and his posse had custody of the Sullivan couple when a mob seized them on November 25 and lynched them near the scene of the alleged arson. After being overpowered, Williams, who had tried to prevent the lynching, and his posse were forced to watch the lynching. According to members of the posse, Fred Sullivan was hanged first from the limb of a tree and a few minutes later Jane Sullivan met a similar fate. Accused by a mob of burning an old dilapidated barn down, Fred Sullivan and his wife Jane, living six miles from Byhalia, Mississippi, were hanged by the mob near the scene of the alleged arson, summarized a story 128

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in the Chicago Defender. The deputy who had them under arrest made an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the lynching “but was overpowered as usual.” As well, the four-year-old daughter of the victims watched the lynching. Observed the reporter, “And gentle reader these two souls were sent into eternity without a moment’s warning they were suspected — not convicted — of having set fire to an old barn. Whether they did or did not matters little, someone had to suffer and the nearest black face must pay the penalty, and the punishment invariably overfits the crime.” He added, “Why we are not the most bitter and vindictive race in the world is a conundrum. If we exacted a pound of flesh for a pound of flesh perhaps we would be better off.” SOURCES : “Mob hangs negro and wife for arson.” Logansport Journal-Tribune [Indiana] November 26, 1914, p. 1. “Negro and wife lynched” Daily Free Press [Carbondale, Illinois], November 27, 1914, p. 1. “Murdering for pastime.” Chicago Defender, December 5, 1914, p. 8.

Eula Charles, Ella Charles (blacks) 1915 January 14 • Monticello, Georgia • Lynched with: Dan Barber (father), Jesse Barber (brother) (blacks) The events that led to a quadruple lynching began on Wednesday, January 13, 1915. Chief of Police J. P. Williams of Monticello, Georgia, went to the home of Dan Barber, a black described as a “notorious” character. Williams had information that led him to believe that Barber was operating a “tiger”— that is, selling liquor without a license. The chief was alone and when he arrived at the home he found Dan, his wife, his son Jesse Barber, his two married daughters — Eula Charles and Ella Charles — and five other black men there carousing. Initially, the blacks pretended to submit to arrest, but a few minutes later, when they caught Williams off his guard, the five members of the Barber family assaulted him. A passer-by gave an alarm and Sheriff James Ezell of Jasper County hurried to the scene, also alone. When he arrived he found the Barber clan still assaulting Williams. Ezell rounded up the Barber family members at the point of a gun and took four of them off to jail. Mrs. Barber was shot and badly wounded during the struggle and, thus, was not taken to jail with the other four. Williams was badly clubbed and said Dan Barber had threatened to shoot him. 129

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On Thursday evening, January 14, a mob of about 100 men stormed the Jasper County jail at Monticello, overpowered Sheriff Ezell, took his keys from him, and took control of the four prisoners. Then the mob marched the four to a point about half a mile distant from the jail and lynched all four. The victims were lynched one at a time and the body of each was riddled with bullets. The five other black men taken into custody with the Barber family were also housed in the same jail when the mob arrived but the mob left them alone. Eula and Ella were hanged first, followed by Jesse and then Dan Barber last. His body was left hanging with the other three bodies piled just beneath his feet. Much indignation was aroused in the area and the citizens of Monticello and Jasper County held a mass meeting on January 19 to condemn the lynching and to promise to aid in the discovery and prosecution of the guilty parties. Presiding over the meeting was Monticello Mayor E. T. Malone. “All good citizens of the town and county who deplore this occurrence and condemn this lawlessness are requested to be present,” said the announcement of the mass meeting. Some 200 people turned out whereat a committee of five men was appointed to draft resolutions. The five selected withdrew to another room and drafted several resolutions. With regard to the background of the situation, the committee declared, “Whereas, A number of parties unknown to us gathered themselves together between the hours of 8 and 1 o’clock last Thursday night, January 14, and did illegally put to death four negroes who had on the previous night assaulted the chief of police of Monticello, J. P. Williams, and Sheriff of Jasper County, James R. Ezell, while these officers were attempting to arrest them with authorized papers.” One resolution adopted said, “That we hereby express our hearty disapprobation of such conduct by these unknown parties and condemn this act of lawlessness, feeling assured that it would have been properly disposed of in the courts of our county and state had the matter been allowed to take legal course.” A second resolution declared, “That we in mass meeting assure the executive of our state and county that we will render all the assistance in our power in bringing the guilty parties to justice by having the matter thoroughly investigated by the next grand jury.” Those resolutions, plus one that the resolutions be given to the press, were unanimously adopted at the mass meeting “as the quadruple lynching is greatly deplored by all.” 130

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Also on January 19, Georgia Governor Slayton received the report on the incident that he had requested from Ezell. Slayton promised he would soon have conferences with Solicitor General Joseph Pottle and with Judge J. B. Park. The Governor had received copies of newspapers from other areas criticizing Georgia because of the lynching and stated the probe into the matter would be pushed to the limit in an effort to bring the perpetrators to justice. Ezell concluded his report to Slayton by writing, “The good people of Jasper County and of Monticello do not approve of this mob violence. I do not. I think you would be justified in offering a reward. I have just taken the duties of the office upon myself. I was powerless, and the fury of the mob came upon me so quickly and quietly that I had no time to secure a posse or defend the jail. I deplore the lawlessness and cruelty of the mob.” On January 21, Georgia Governor John M. Slayton offered a major portion of the annual reward fund of the state in an effort to apprehend the men who had lynched the Barber family. For the first five members of the guilty mob, the state would pay $500 each. Three thousands dollars was the annual amount allowed the state in matters of criminal reward. Thus, all but $500 of the annual reward fund was allocated to the Monticello lynching. Especially outraged over the multiple lynching was the Chicago Defender who summarized the case by writing, “A man, his son and two daughters were beaten nearly to death, and then strung up to a tree at midnight, were the most peaceful citizens, even the most sensational Southern newspapers could find no fault with them, except it was alleged they illegally sold liquor. This crime stands out as one of the most horrible of the many atrocious mob murders.” Despairing that there was no law for black people, no justice and no redress for wrongs, the newspaper urged its readers, “if you must die, take at least one with you.” Explaining its position, the paper said, “Far be it from our thoughts to inoculate a spirit of rebellion into the minds of the members of the Afro-American race, but the inhuman, barbarous, ungodly treatment of that portion of the race residing in the Southland in the form of brutal murders, dignified by the term of lynching force the Chicago Defender and every other race-loving newspaper, preacher or speaker, to advise their people, if they must die, die fighting.” Noted was that it had been the custom of the Afro-American press to teach conservative means 131

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to stop “this outrageous treatment of this defenseless group of people and let the law take its course, but such counsel has been so much wasted breath.” And, “Southern State and City officials ridicule the daily toll of human lives to satisfy the blood lusts of a lot of degenerate crackers and semi-respectable poor whites, whose only excuse for lawlessness is a spirit of envy. Some time back the unspeakable crime [rape] was always given as a cause for these outbursts of brutal passion against a defenseless people, but more frequently these murders ofttimes of whole families have been for the most trivial cause.” As a subhead the Defender ran the following in block capitals: “When the mob comes and you must die take at least one with you.” SOURCES : “Sale of liquor preceded crime by Georgia mob.” Evening Gazette [Cedar Rapids, Iowa], January 16, 1915, p. 19. “Mob hangs four, one at a time.” Van Wert Bulletin [Ohio], January 16, 1915, p. 1. “Lynch 2 women, 2 men.” Washington Post, January 16, 1915, p. 1. “Monticello citizens to aid lynching probe.” Atlanta Constitution, January 20, 1915, p. 12. “Four negroes hanged by mob at Monticello.” Atlanta Constitution, January 16, 1915, p. 7. “Maximum reward offered for lynchers.” Atlanta Constitution, January 22, 1915, p. 3. “Government should stop daily lynchings.” Chicago Defender, January 23, 1915, pp. 1, 7.

Cordella Stevenson (black) 1915 December 8 • Columbus, Mississippi On Thursday, December 9, 1915, Cordella Stevenson was found early in the morning hanging to a limb of a tree without any clothing, dead. She had been hanged Wednesday night after a mob had visited her cabin at Columbus, Mississippi, taken her from her husband, and lynched her after they had “maltreated” her. The body was found about 50 yards north of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the thousands of passengers that came in and out of the city on that Thursday morning were horrified by the sight. She was hanged by a bloodthirsty mob, said the Chicago Defender, who had gone to her home, snatched her from slumber, and dragged her through the streets without meeting any resistance from other blacks or from law officials. They carried her to a far-off spot, “did their dirt and then strung her up.” The account continued, “This these southern culprits did. No law below the Mason and Dixon line that would cause them to fear. No officer in the police department that would dare to do his duty. 132

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No man in the government circles in Washington that has enough backbone to enforce the constitution of the United States. This the mob knew and they went on with their ghastly work.” Several months earlier the barn at Gabe Frank’s (white) place burned down. It was a heavy loss to him. It was said Mrs. Stevenson had a worthless son. Frank set bloodhounds on the trail but they failed in their mission. But, said the reporter, the populace had to have a goat and maybe it was that Stevenson boy. One problem with that idea was that the boy in question had not even been seen in the area for months. His parents, Arch and Cordella Stevenson, were regarded as hard-working people and had worked for the same white employer for 11 years. On the night of the fire, the police locked Cordella up, thinking she might know something about the boy and the fire. However, after five or six days, the police, seemingly convinced of the woman’s innocence, released her from custody. She returned home and nothing more was thought about the case until that fateful Wednesday night. As usual, the couple had gone to bed early that night and later heard a knock on the door. Before the knock could be answered, the mob had broken the door down and seized Cordella, putting rifles to the head of Arch and threatening to shoot him if he moved, all according to Arch. At the first opportunity he ran off in a hail of bullets all the way to town where he roused the authorities. After telling his story to the authorities, Arch Stevenson left for parts unknown and had not been seen since. The mob took the woman about 10:00 P.M. and after that no one knew exactly what happened, although the “condition of the body shows plainly that she had been mistreated.” Sheriff Bell telephoned to Justice of the Peace McKellar to hold an inquest. He was out of town and did not return until Thursday night. As a result, the naked body was left hanging in view of the “morbid” crowd that came to see it until Friday morning when it was cut down and the inquest was held. That inquest jury returned a verdict that Cordella Stevenson came to her death at the hands of persons unknown. A bitter reporter observed, “It was the same old verdict that all southern juries return in the cases of this kind.” At a time when the United States was sending missionaries out to teach the heathen, when Ford had gone to Europe with his peace party, when ministers preached on the good to humanity, “here in the South the same dastardly crimes are committed, 133

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and no one volunteers to raise his voice against such a crime committed against a member of the [black] race.” And, “Yet when Leo Frank was murdered the whole country was ‘alarmed’ that such a hideous crime could have taken place in a civilized country in this day and time.” SOURCES : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html “Woman raped and lynched by mob of Southern white men.” Chicago Defender, December 18, 1915, p. 7.

Mary Dennis, Stella Young (blacks) 1916 August 19 • Newberry, Florida • Lynched with: Bert Dennis, Andrew McHenry, James Dennis, Josh Haskins (blacks) On Friday morning, August 18, 1916, Constable S. G. Wynn and Dr. L. G. Harris went to the home of a black man named Boisey Long, near Newberry, Florida (18 miles west of Gainesville), to arrest him on a charge of stealing hogs. Wynn was about to arrest Long when the latter pulled out a revolver and shot Wynn and Harris. Constable Wynn died at around noon that day. Once that fact spread through the area, several large posses were formed and began to search for the killer. In an effort to gain information as to Long’s whereabouts, many black people were questioned and several were placed in the Newberry jail. On August 19th, very early in the morning, a mob of some 200 people assembled at the jail and worked quickly and quietly. After gaining entrance to the jail they took five black prisoners, two women (Mary Dennis and Stella Young, or Long) and three men (unidentified) about a mile out of town and hanged all of them from one oak tree. Not a single shot was fired, according to a report. The sixth victim was a black man shot to death by deputy sheriffs near Jonesville on the same day. Long remained at large. Reportedly, in another account, Long had escaped and the group had to be content with lynching his wife Stella Long and a friend of hers, Mary Dennis. First though, the two women were said to have been taken to jail where they were tortured in an effort to get information, presumably the whereabouts of Boisey. Two black men, Bert Dennis and Andrew McHenry, were arrested and also tortured. Failing to find Long, the mob shot a black man names James Dennis to death, brother of Bert. When Bert went to Newberry to get a coffin, they seized him and threw him in jail. With the mob continuing its search, it came upon a black preacher named Josh Haskins and lynched him because he happened to be a neigh134

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bor of Boisey Long. Then the mob went to the jail, seized the four prisoners and took them out and hanged them. Mary Dennis was the mother of two children and was pregnant; Stella Long had four children. Long was finally apprehended and indicted for the murder of the sheriff and for shooting the man who had sworn out the warrant for his arrest. No outcome of that case was reported. None of the members of the lynch mob was ever indicted. SOURCES : “Posses kill negroes.” San Antonio Light, August 20, 1916, p. 2. “5 negroes lynched by mob in Florida.” Salt Lake Tribune, August 20, 1916, p. 2. Frank Shay. Judge Lynch: His First Hundred Years. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1969, pp. 128–129.

Sarah Connelly (black) 1916 October 2 • Leary, Georgia Sarah Connolly (Connelly, perhaps Conley) got involved in an altercation of some sort with a white planter by the name of E. M. Melvin on Monday, October 2, 1916, near Leary, Georgia. Her son Sam Connolly became involved in the dispute and struck the farmer on the head with a cotton weigh scale, killing Melvin. Both mother and son were arrested, charged with having murdered Melvin and taken to jail. Apparently Sam was immediately taken out of Leary and moved to a jail in a different community for safe keeping. Sarah was left in the Leary jail, perhaps because it was felt the lynching of a woman was less likely than the lynching of a man. However, late at night on that same Monday, a mob broke into the “flimsy” jail in Leary, and carried Sarah Connolly outside where they riddled her body with bullets. Other accounts said that the son escaped from jail or was never taken into custody in the first place. A quite different story was presented by the Chicago Defender. In it Sam Connolly was presented as “one of the few young men of the Race who will not stand by and see white men beat and abuse women of the Race.” E. M. Melvin, described herein as “a heartless white brute,” attempted to beat the mother of young Connolly as though she were a dog. The son would not stand for this as his love for his mother was too great to see her mistreated. “He immediately decided to lay down his life and, seeing the white man beat his mother, struck the man on the head with a piece of iron.” Sam left the area immediately and did not see the man die. Later, Connolly was in a store at Pretoria, Alabama, buying some135

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thing to eat when he was recognized by a man named Joe Tolbert. Sheriff Travers was called in. When he arrived with two deputies they arrested him and lodged him in a jail that was some 200 miles from Leary, Georgia. Sam was arrested on Monday night, October 9, after his mother had been lynched. Connolly admitted to the arresting officers that Melvin was beating his mother when he, Sam, struck Melvin over the head with an iron used on cotton scales. SOURCES : “Negro woman lynched.” Mansfield News [Ohio], October 4, 1916, p. 1. “Slayer’s mother lynched.” Evening Telegram [Rocky Mountain, N. Carolina], October 9, 1916, p. 2. “Mary Conley is lynched by a Southern mob.” Wisconsin State Journal [Madison], October 5, 1916, p. 1. “Slays man who beats mother.” Chicago Defender, October 14, 1916, p. 3.

Emma Hooper (black) 1917 March 1 • Hammond, Louisiana Emma Hooper, a 45-year-old black woman who lived in a cabin a few miles from Hammond, Louisiana, was captured and lynched by a mob early on the morning of March 1, 1917. She had been arrested after she had shot at Constable Carleton when he attempted to arrest her for wounding a black boy. Hooper was taken by the mob, from a car in which she was being transported to the Hammond jail, dragged outside, and strung up to a tree. Writing in the Chicago Defender, Miss Wille Brown noted this incident was one more item that ridiculed those who claimed the South had always treated black people with care. She added that a mob of men took a “demented woman from the sheriff ’s machine” and hanged her from a tree, riddling her body with bullets. “Nowhere in this civilized globe, not even in the wilds of Africa, nor with the very heathens, can there be found men who take the law into their own hands and proceed to mete out justice without the least semblance of a trial,” she declared. According to Brown, all the press dispatches from Hammond had failed to mention that Hooper was not of sound mind, “yet here in these United States a mob of heathens, who call themselves men, took a poor woman and treated her as we have related.” The sheriff in charge of Hooper was alleged, she wrote, to be a conspirator with the members of the mob because he left her alone and unguarded, but tied up, for a short time just 136

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before the mob arrived, as he went home to “change his shirt.” Said Brown, “Fine alibi — out of sight, where he could testify to the courts that he did not see the members of the mob, who were made up of dagoes, farmers, merchants, church people and junk dealers.” Some time earlier Emma Hooper was said to have undergone an operation, and it so seriously affected her mind that she never went to see anyone and never allowed anyone to come and see her. Police officers in the area never paid her any mind as she was known to them as a “crazy woman,” reported Brown. Her neighbor’s boy had been killing her chickens for some time and to make things worse, had been throwing them back into her yard after doing so. Emma warned the boy to stop that behavior but he kept up the behavior. Finally, Hooper shot at him and wounded him in the leg. An arrest warrant was sworn out against Mrs. Hooper. When Constable Carleton went to get her, Emma told him to come in. In Brown’s view Hooper knew she had a poor chance in the courts and therefore she fired two shots at the officer. Carleton left Hooper’s cabin but returned with a mob of men “composed of the class of which I have already mentioned,” explained Brown. Seeing the mob, Hooper fired some 16 shots at the members of the party. Several of the men in the group were law officers. Officer Bud Ford managed to shoot Emma, wounding her, while Officer Gray slipped into the cabin through a window and beat Hooper “unmercifully.” All this time the mob continued to grow in size. No one tried to disperse them. Deputy Sheriff Wainwright put the overpowered and wounded woman into his car and started for the jail, followed by the mob. On the way he decided to stop at his house so he could go in “to change his shirt.” It was at that point that the mob seized the woman, dragged her to a spot about one mile from Hammond, hanged her from a tree, and riddled her body with bullets. Brown concluded that the lynching of Hooper, added to other cruelties heaped upon the race, had started a general exodus of people northward: “The South is not the best place for our people, and probably never will be.” SOURCES : the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. “Negro is lynched.” Logansport Pharos-Reporter [Indiana], March 1, 1917, p. 1. “Lynch negro woman who shot constable.” Brownsville Herald [Texas], March 1, 1917, p. 1.

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The Chronology • 1918 Wille Brown. “Body hung to a tree and riddled with bullets.” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1917, p. 1.

Mary Turner (black) 1918 May 19 • Brooks County, Georgia • Lynched with: Hayes Turner (husband, May 18), Will Head (May 17), Will Thompson (May 17), Sidney Johnson (May 22) (blacks) The murder of a white farmer named Hampton Smith and the wounding of his wife at their home near Barney, Brooks County, Georgia, on Thursday night, May 16, 1918, led to the lynching of five black people, one of them a woman. Hayes Turner and his wife Mary Turner, who were former tenants of the Smith farm, had recently quarreled with Smith over an account and that was believed to have led to the murder. The shot that killed Smith was fired through a window into the Smith home. Mrs. Smith, wounded by another shot, rushed out into the yard, where she was beaten by black people, who fled the area after robbing the Smith homestead. Feelings in the area ran high, and armed groups of white residents were quickly organized and set out to catch the culprits. Will Thompson and Will Head were caught by a mob on Friday night and were hanged. Reportedly, Head confessed his part in the crime, saying he stole Smith’s gun and gave it to Sidney Johnson. What part, if any, Thompson played in the murder of Smith was not known, media accounts acknowledged. Hayes Turner was captured and lynched by a mob on Saturday night at the Okapilco River in Brooks County after the mob had learned that the plot to attack Smith was made at his home. Sheriff Wade of Brooks County managed to arrest Mary Turner on Sunday, May 19th. He was in the process of taking her to the jail at Barney when a mob showed up and took her away from Wade. Mary Turner, who was said to have had Smith’s watch in her possession when she was captured, was hanged by the mob at Folsom’s bridge on Little River. Mobs continued to prowl the area. They were searching for Sidney Johnson who, according to Mrs. Smith, fired the shot that killed her husband. Feeling remained high in the area and all believed that Johnson would be lynched if captured. The parents of Johnson and several others of his relatives had been brought to Valdosta, Georgia, and placed in the jail for safe keeping because of the animosity prevailing at Barney against the Johnson family. A double guard was placed around the jail. 138

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When the Chicago Defender reported on the case it said the Turners had been lynched by a gang of “white heathens” and that the crime had come about because of the cruel treatment handed out by Smith and his wife to the Turners after the latter couple had been hired to work on the Smith homestead. It was alleged that Smith brutally whipped Mary Turner with a cowhide whip because of her refusal to work longer without pay. Following that attack upon his wife, Hayes went to the Smith home and demanded an explanation, whereupon Smith picked up his shotgun and fired on Turner. Slightly wounded, Turner overpowered Smith and tried to escape. Smith gave chase, accompanied by his wife. Both were armed with shotguns. Hayes ran to his home and there found Mary, Head, and Thompson sitting around talking. Hayes told them what had happened and soon after he finished his tale, a volley of shots rang out and tore through the house. Smith and his wife were, reportedly, outside the cabin and firing at it with their shotguns. All three men inside the cabin returned fire and finally managed to drive Smith and his wife back to their home. Somewhere along the way Smith was shot to death through a window. Also somewhere along the way, Sidney Johnson, it was claimed, had joined the four others in repulsing the attacks of the Smiths, and then made his escape from the area. According to this account the mob violence had created such an excitement that people were leaving the community in droves: “The general uproar caused by the lynching of Mrs. Turner was severely felt when it was noticed that women employed at various occupations in the community failed to show up for work following the lynching.” Valdosta, Georgia, Police Chief Calvin Dampier was among the crowd when Sidney Johnson was shot to death by a mob that finally cornered the man in a swamp near Valdosta where Johnson had been hiding. When the mob cornered him, he exchanged gunfire and managed to wound three of them slightly before he agreed to surrender. He agreed to do so after receiving a promise from the law officer that he would not be lynched if he gave himself up. When he did so, he was promptly shot to death in a hail of bullets, on May 22. His body was tied to an automobile and dragged to Valdosta where it was viewed as a curiosity. Pieces of his bullet-riddled coat were distributed as souvenirs among the mob members. When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People conducted its investigation, it declared that Hampton Smith was a white farmer with a reputation for ill treating his black employees. Among 139

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those whom he abused was Sidney Johnson, whose fine of $30 he had paid when Sidney was up before the court for gaming. After having been beaten and abused, Johnson shot and killed Smith as the farmer sat near a window at home. He also shot and wounded Smith’s wife. For that attack, a mob of Georgia white men engaged in a hunt for the guilty man for a week and in the process lynched the following innocent people; Will Head, Will Thompson, Hayes Turner, Mary Turner, Chime Riley, and four unidentified black men. Mary Turner was apparently lynched because she loudly proclaimed the innocence of her husband Hayes Turner. Mary was pregnant and was hung by her feet. Gasoline was thrown on her clothing and then set on fire. Her body was cut open and her fetus fell to the ground, to be crushed by the heel of one of the white men present. Then Mary Turner’s body was riddled with bullets. According to this account Sidney Johnson was finally located in a house in Valdosta, Georgia. That house was surrounded by a posse headed by the chief of police, and Johnson, who was known to be armed, fired until his ammunition ran out, wounding the chief. Thereupon the house was entered and Johnson was found dead. His body was then mutilated. After that spate of violence that lasted for a week, more than 500 black people reportedly left the vicinity of Valdosta, leaving hundreds of acres of untended land behind them. SOURCE : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919], pp. 26–27 “Two negroes in Georgia lynched by mob after a brutal murder.” Nevada State Journal [Reno], May 20, 1918, p. 6. “Four negroes are lynched by mob.” Ogden Standard [Utah], May 20, 1918, p. 10. “All four lynched.” Fitchburg Daily Sentinel [Massachusetts], May 20, 1918, p. 10. “Georgia crackers on rampage, murder four.” Chicago Defender, May 25, 1918, p. 1. “Georgia mob continues; lynches ninth victim.” Chicago Defender, June 1, 1918, p. 9.

Bessie Cabiness, Sarah Cabiness (blacks) 1918 June 1 • Dodge, Texas • Lynched with: George Cabiness (son, May 30), Pete Cabiness (son, May 31), Cute Cabiness (son), Tenola Cabiness (son), Thomas Cabiness (son) (blacks). A black family named Cabiness lived quietly and peaceably, apparently, in the community of Dodge, Texas, some 10 miles from Huntsville. At least they lived peacefully there until 1918. The family consisted of the 140

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mother, Mrs. Sarah Cabiness, her daughter Bessie Cabiness, and her five sons, George Cabiness, Pete Cabiness, Cute Cabiness, Tenola Cabiness, and Thomas Cabiness. Sometime in 1918, probably in the spring, George Cabiness refused to register for the draft for service in World War I. In due course he was arrested and taken to Houston where he was registered while in jail. George, upon his release from jail and return to Dodge, announced he would never answer a draft call, stating that he “didn’t have anything to fight for.” On Thursday afternoon, May 30, 1918, George ran into P. W. Allen, a white man and father-in-law of Sheriff T. E. King of Dodge. Allen insulted George in some unreported fashion and that caused the black man to draw a pistol and threaten to shoot the white man. Nothing more happened but a warrant was sworn out and officers were dispatched to the Cabiness cabin to arrest George. However, instead of being arrested, George Cabiness was shot dead that afternoon. Reportedly, in retaliation the Cabiness family planned to avenge the shooting death of their son and brother by murdering Sheriff King and other members of his family. By one account, on Friday, May 31, a heated argument took place between the Cabiness and Allen families that escalated into shooting and resulted in the death of Peter Cabiness. The remaining family members returned his body to the Cabiness cabin, about two miles away. Shortly after daylight on Saturday, June 1, a mob of white citizens, heavily armed, attacked the Cabiness cabin and opened fire on the place. As a result of the shooting, the cabin caught fire. As the occupants endeavored to escape the flames by fleeing from the house they were shot down and killed. One by one the remaining brothers, Cute, Tenola, and Thomas, were shot to death. Sarah began carrying the bodies of her four dead sons to the yard where she, too, was shot to death. While most accounts listed Sarah’s daughter Bessie as having been shot to death, a couple of other accounts listed her as “probably fatally wounded.” In some accounts Peter was listed as shot to death on June 1 in the cabin, with no mention made of the May 31 dispute with the Allen family. However, in such accounts no reason was given as to why a mob would have descended on the cabin on June 1. The May 31 hostilities would have provided such a reason. In some accounts the party of men that showed up at the Cabiness cabin on June 1 was composed of the sheriff, deputies and posse members, with arrest warrants, who were subsequently met by shotgun and rifle fire from the cabin. Other accounts stated it was unknown whether the party was 141

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legally constituted or whether it was simply a white mob without any legal standing. SOURCES : National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919]. the lynching calendar, www.autopsis.org/foot/lynch/html “Six negroes dead is sequel to killing.” Brownsville Herald [Texas], June 1, 1918, p. 1. “Slaying of negroes for alleged plots remains a mystery.” San Antonio Light, June 2, 1918, p. 2. “Woman and five sons killed.” Lancaster Daily Eagle [Ohio], June 3, 1918, p. 1. “Texas family shot to death.” Chicago Defender, June 8, 1918, p. 11.

Maggie House, Alma House (blacks) 1918 December 19 • Shubuta, Mississippi • Lynched with: Andrew Clark, Major Clark (blacks) Dr. E. L. Johnson (maybe Johnston), a dentist in Mobile, Alabama, was shot and killed from ambush while he was in his barn in the middle of December 1918. Soon thereafter a black man by the name of Major Clark was arrested for the crime. According to the authorities, he confessed and implicated three other black people, his brother Andrew Clark and sisters Alma and Maggie House (perhaps Howze). Major claimed he had shot Johnson at the request of one of the women, who had trouble with the dentist. On December 19 all four were incarcerated in the jail at Shubuta, Mississippi. That night a mob stormed the jail. One member of the mob called the jailer into the street. When he complied he was forced to unlock the prisoners’ cells and then was handcuffed and placed in one of the cars the mob was using to take the prisoners away. However, the jailer was put out of the car before the lynching party reached the bridge that spanned the Chickasawhay River. When the mob reached the bridge, all four victims were hanged from its girders. According to the account provided by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Andrew Clark 15, Major Clark 20, Maggie Howze 20, and Alma Howze 16, were taken from the jail and lynched because they were suspected of having murdered the dentist, Dr. E. L. Johnston. The NAACP investigation revealed that Johnston was living in “illicit relations” with Maggie Howze and Alma Howze. Major Clark was a youth who worked on Johnston’s plantation and wanted to marry Maggie. Dr. Johnston went to Clark and told him to leave the woman alone. That led to a quarrel between the pair that was made all the more 142

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bitter when it was found that Maggie was going to have a child by Johnston and that her younger sister Alma was also pregnant, also by Johnston. Shortly after that Dr. Johnston was mysteriously murdered. Two theories were advanced with respect to Johnston’s murder. One was that he was killed by Clark; the second was that he was killed by a white man who had accused him of seducing a white woman. It was generally admitted, said the NA ACP report, that “Johnston was a loose character.” Alma Howze was so near to motherhood when lynched that it was said by an eyewitness, at her burial on the second day after her lynching, that the movements of her unborn child could be detected. SOURCES : “2 men, 2 women, lynched in Alabama.” Oakland Tribune, December 21, 1918, p. 2. “Four negroes lynched.” San Antonio Light, December 21, 1918, p. 5. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro University Press, 1969 [1919], p. 27.

Unidentified Black Woman 1919 May 5 • Pickens, Mississippi • Lynched with: Unidentified Black Man A black man recently discharged from the U.S. Army, and a black woman, were lynched near Pickens, Mississippi, on Monday night, May 5, 1919, according to a report received that night by Marshal Koalofer, in Durant, Mississippi. Reportedly, the lynching followed an admission by the male victim that he hired the female victim to write for him “an improper note to a young white woman of Pickens.” SOURCE : “Negro soldier lynched.” Nevada State Journal [Reno], May 10, 1919, p. 4.

Minnie Ivory (black) 1920 November 18 • Douglas, Georgia • Lynched with: Will Ivory (husband), Will Perry (blacks) Pearly Harper, a prominent young planter in Douglas, Georgia, was shot and killed in the afternoon of November 17, 1920. It was said that Harper was entering a small store in the community when he ran into Will Ivory and a dispute ensued. Ivory is alleged to have run into the store, seized a soft drink bottle and then hurled it at Harper, who remained outside the store in the doorway. When Harper indicated he would retaliate, Will Perry, a friend of Ivory’s, called out to Minnie Ivory (Will’s wife) to 143

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bring Will’s pistol. However, instead of bringing the weapon to her husband, it was alleged that Minnie fired the gun, killing Harper. The dead man was a brother of Superior Court Clerk John Harper, and left a wife and several small children. All three of the blacks were quickly arrested and placed in the Douglas jail. Not long after that a mob gathered around the county jail and threatened to storm it. Sheriff Tanner appealed to the mob on the night of the 17th to be moderate and to let the law take its course. His plea seemed to work as the demonstrators quieted down. However, Tanner worried he might soon lose control of the situation and decided the best and safest course of action would be to take his three prisoners to the jail in Fitzgerald, Georgia. Between 2:00 A.M. and 3:00 A.M. on November 18, Tanner and his deputies bundled the prisoners into a car and started for Fitzgerald. Spies for the mob, though, saw what was underway and reported the details. Soon a fleet of cars carrying a mob estimated to total 150 men set off in pursuit of Tanner and his prisoners, overtaking them at a point about seven miles away from Douglas. With guns trained on him and his deputies, Sheriff Tanner acceded to the mob’s request and turned over his prisoners. Without further ado, the mob lined up Minnie Ivory, Will Ivory, and Will Perry and shot them dead. Later on the 18th, a coroner’s jury investigating the lynching returned a verdict that the victims met their deaths at the hands of unidentified persons. SOURCES : “Two negro men and woman are killed by mob.” Anniston Star [Alabama], November 18, 1920, p. 1. “Mob lynches three.” Daily Courier [Connellsville, Pennsylvania], November 18, 1920, p. 1.

Bertha Carrier, Betsy Gordon (blacks) 1923 January 4 –5 • Rosewood, Florida • Lynched with: Sylvester Carrier (son), Mingo Williams, James Carrier (son — January 6) (blacks) The trouble that would devastate the small Florida community of Rosewood began down the road a little in the equally small Florida community of Sumner. On Monday, January 1, 1923, an alleged assault on a young white woman took place at Sumner. Very quickly a black man named Jesse Harper was accused of the crime. Harper had been serving a prison term for carrying a concealed weapon but had recently escaped from a road gang while it was at work outside the prison. A man named Sylvester 144

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Carrier of Rosewood was overheard to have said things in praise of Harper, further inflaming the white people. When Harper could not be quickly found, a mob of white men was assembled and it set off to Rosewood to the Carrier home to see if Harper might be hiding there, or somewhere else in the community. Rosewood had only a small number of white residents and was almost exclusively a black community. When the mob arrived in Rosewood on the night of January 4, 1923, it found itself facing an armed group of black people who had barricaded themselves in several houses. An attempt by the mob to enter the Carrier house was repulsed and a pitched gun battle broke out between a white mob estimated at 100 or so members and perhaps 25 black people. Hundreds of shots were exchanged over the course of one hour with the main battle over before midnight. Thereafter, sporadic gunfire was exchanged until sunrise. Two white men lay dead on the ground, Harry Andres and C. P. Wilkerson, and remained there for hours. About three other white men were injured. Some of the earliest newspaper accounts had as many as 20 blacks killed, but the death toll of blacks, was confirmed to be two, at least initially — Sylvester Carrier, 42, and his mother Bertha Carrier. Apparently, both were shot dead in their home, which had been riddled with bullets. During that night attack and into the next day, more whites joined the mob that ringed Rosewood. Following the main battle, the mob set fire to many of the buildings in the community and shot at residents as they tried to flee their homes. A woman named Betsy Gordon, about 40, was shot to death as she tried to escape her burning home. That afternoon the body of Mingo Williams, 50, black, was found on a road about 20 miles outside of Rosewood. He had been shot through the jaw. On January 5 authorities were still searching for Jesse Harper, six people were dead, an undetermined number had been wounded, at least half a dozen black dwellings and a black church had been burned to the ground and, reportedly, all the blacks remaining alive and unhurt had left Rosewood and were hiding in the woods. James Carrier (Bertha’s son, Sylvester’s brother) was seized by several white men on the morning of January 6 and accused of having been in the Carrier home from where the shots were fired that killed the two white men. When he refused to reveal the names of the men who did the shooting, the white men led him to the black graveyard and made him stand 145

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on the newly-dug graves of his mother and brother while they riddled his body with bullets, killing him. One day later, on the afternoon of January 7, 12 houses, all that remained of the black section of Rosewood, were burned to the ground. Thus, the community of Rosewood was virtually wiped out of existence. On February 13, 1913, an investigation of the riot at Rosewood was begun by a special grand jury at Bronson, Florida; Judge Long presided over the court. Writing in the Chicago Defender when the Rosewood rioting had ended, journalist Eugene Brown took solace in the fact the black people of the area had fought back and even celebrated that action as a victory of sorts. Brown used the inflated number of 14 whites killed. It was actually two, but much of the white media had also used that inflated number, initially. Brown was the only reporter, though, who used that figure so late into the story; his report was datelined from Florida on January 12. According to Brown, “Fought to a standstill, repulsed, defeated in his own bailiwick, the Southern lyncher has fled from an open attack against Race men and women at Rosewood” where white men snuck “out in parties of death at night to waylay and slay defenseless farmers and villagers ... a band of determined Race men and women held at bay and then threw back 1,000 bloodthirsty Southerners bent on teaching them a lesson.” His estimate of the mob’s size was likely highly exaggerated. Brown argued the blacks in Rosewood had taken their stand because there was a man strong enough to rally the frightened farm hands and make them fight the white mob. And that man was Ted Cole, a former sergeant in an infantry regiment who saw action in France in World War I. Cole’s counsel to defend themselves won out over other counsel from blacks in the community with many of those elders counseling the black Rosewood citizens to be “too proud to fight” and if they did fight wondered “what good would it do?” Said Brown, “So many times has the same advice come. So many times has it been heeded. So many times have the toilers, the plodders, the oppressed, listened to such counsel and permitted their base overlords, peonage barons, cotton kings, hill billies, etc., to vent their wicked spleen, hoping that time would bring a better day.” But Cole brought them something new. He told them to fight back, to protect their women. When Brown summarized the events at Rosewood he noted the pre146

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cipitating incident at Sumner, the alleged rape of a white woman by a black man with Jesse Harper being quickly named as the perpetrator. But there was nothing to base the charge on, “save the fact that Harper was regarded as a bad character and, therefore, the easiest person to pin the accusation upon,” argued Brown. He added that Harper had been arrested and thrown on the chain gang “all upon the unverified report that he was wont to carry concealed weapons.” Reportedly, the authorities had refused to reveal the name of the white woman allegedly raped, and said Brown, “There is even now some doubt as to whether she exists.” He even raised the possibility that the white woman had been pressured into making a complaint by the Ku Klux Klan or that white men had actually attacked her, passing it off as having been perpetrated by black men, a tactic, Brown assured his readers, that had been used in the past. “Did the Klan frighten her? Was she a victim of a clandestine attack from masked mobbists? Did some southern white gentlemen, parading as ‘blackfaced morons,’ press their company upon her, precipitating the report of an attack that resulted in the Rosewood killings?” mused the journalist. Returning to the Rosewood riot, Brown remarked that on that Monday afternoon, after the alleged rape was reported, the white men did not stop to consider any of the possibilities save one, “They know just what to do. They get an insane satisfaction in wreaking their vengeance, however ungrounded, upon an unfortunate citizen not of their race.” When it came to protecting whites from what the Southern newspapers called “black brutes,” the farmer left his plow, the merchant his store, and the businessman his office “when it comes to hunting down one of the hated.” Thus, the mob got itself underway, recruited from all ranks of white citizenry. Throughout Wednesday and Thursday the menace increased as homes of the farm hands were entered and ransacked. “Women were attacked by the mobbists, the reports being that the most cruel and unusual forms of indulgence were resorted to,” reported Brown. “Husbands were struck down while the mob had its way. Wives and mothers were forced to look on as their daughters were despoiled.” Through it all the mob continued to search for Jesse Harper. They followed one clue after another. One trail led to the home of a farmer and when they did not believe his denial of having helped Harper to escape, the members of the mob killed the farmer. Sylvester Carrier said some things about the lynchers. Word was sent to him that they would get him. 147

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After marauding around the countryside the mob decided to invade the towns; Rosewood was first. Cole was in Rosewood and organized a band of about 24 black people to fight off the mob. A house was selected by Cole from which to make a stand and the group barricaded itself inside. However, many of the blacks in Rosewood declined to join the group and make a fight of it. When the white mob approached the house in question, they did not believe the black people inside would fight back. It was when the white mob carelessly neared the house that the two white men were shot to death by gunfire from inside the dwelling. Following that the white mob took cover and for hours exchanged gunfire with the occupants of the house. At the same time a portion of the mob was sent off to set fire to the rest of the houses of the town. Everything that was not owned by white people was razed to the ground by the mob, including private dwellings, church buildings, lodge halls, and so forth. All night long the mob kept up an intermittent barrage of shots directed at the barricaded house. Toward morning the mob was just about out of ammunition. Sensing that, Cole led his band of 20 (according to this account, four people inside the house had been shot to death by the mob, two men and two women) out of the house and in a charge on the whites. Reportedly, the members of the mob broke ranks and scattered. Those blacks mentioned by Eugene Brown as killed were Sylvester Carrier, his mother Bertha Carrier, Mingo Williams, and another son, James Carrier, in the graveyard incident that occurred after the rioting. The special grand jury that had been investigating the racial clash at Rosewood reported to Judge Long on February 14 that it had been unable to find sufficient evidence on which to base an indictment. Its report did, though, deplore the action of the mob. Long received the report without comment and discharged that special grand jury. SOURCES : “Fear outbreaks will spread through state.” Fresno Bee, January 5, 1923, p. 1. “Entire town of Sumner burned following fight.” Brownsville Herald [Texas], January 5, 1923, p. 1. “Five killed, village fired in race riot.” Bismarck Tribune {N. Dakota], January 5, 1923, p. 1. “Blacks being hunted down.” Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln], January 6, 1923, p. 1. “Mob slays a negro.” Independent [Helena, Montana], January 7, 1923, p. 1. “Race trouble breaks out again in Florida.” Winnipeg Free Press, January 8, 1923, p. 10.

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The Chronolog y • 1926 “Village burned by irate white death avengers.” Ada Weekly [Oklahoma], January 11, 1923, p. 6. “Investigation in Florida race riot starts long grind.” Ada Evening News [OK], February 13, 1923, p. 1. Eugene Brown. “Nineteen slain in Florida race war.” Chicago Defender, January 13, 1923, pp. 1, 8. “Bronson jurors fail to indict.” San Antonio Express, February 16, 1923, p. 14.

Bertha Lowman (black) 1926 October 8 • Aiken, South Carolina • Lynched with: Demon Lowman (brother), Clarence Lowman (cousin) (blacks) The lynching of three members of the Lowman family in Aiken, South Carolina, in October 1926 had its beginning in events that transpired on April 25, 1925. On that date Sheriff H. H. Howard, accompanied by several deputies, went to raid the home of Sam Lowman, father of Demon and Bertha Lowman and uncle of Clarence Lowman. The latter three were at home that day when Howard arrived on a raid because he had information that liquor was being sold illegally on the premises. Also home that day was Annie Lowman, wife of Sam. Sheriff Henry H. Howard of Aiken County was shot and killed in the affray that resulted from the raid. Annie Lowman was also shot to death and her daughter Bertha was seriously wounded. So serious were her injuries that one newspaper story described her as “probably fatally wounded.” Deputy Sheriff Robinson of Aiken County was injured when he was struck in the face with an axe wielded by Annie before she was shot to death by another deputy. Sam Lowman was not home at the time of the raid. A detailed account of the events appeared in the Aiken newspaper. That account began by stating, “Henry Howard, the fearless, energetic and much beloved Sheriff of Aiken County, met his death this morning at the hands of a family of bootleggers near Monetta, about a mile from the Columbia-Aiken highway. Deputy Nollie Robinson was badly beaten in the head by an infuriated woman.” And, “The family of bootleggers were named Lowman and of this family the mother, Annie, is dead, shot through the head. Bertha, a daughter, is shot through the body and will probably die, and Clarence, shot through the left shoulder, and Demon, shot through the left arm.” The number of men in the sheriff ’s party on that morning raid totaled four, the other two being Deputy Sheriff Arthur Sheppard and Deputy Sheriff Robert McElhanney. Members of the Low149

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man family at home at the time of the raid totaled seven; the other three were daughters, Birdie, Eleanor, and Rosa, all of whom escaped the scene. An eyewitness to the raid, a Mr. Jones, stated he saw the Sheriff ’s party as it approached the Lowman house with occupants of the house opening fire before the Sheriff reached the dwelling. Apparently Sheriff Howard was shot outside of the house in the yard. Robinson rushed into the front of the house and there he was in personal combat with several women and he was hit over the head by one of them wielding a pistol. It was thought Bertha was shot during that melee. Then Annie Lowman rushed Robinson with an axe. Robinson retreated as his pistol was empty. Annie turned on Sheppard and to save his life he shot her through the head and she fell down dead. In the meantime Clarence, a 16-year-old, came running in from the field and he was joined by another son called Demon. They evidently took part in the shooting but soon fled. Clarence fled from the back of the house and was pursued by Robinson and Sheppard who opened fire on him but he escaped. The officers went to their vehicle and pursued him in that. Finally, they ran him to ground, discovered he had been shot in the shoulder, lodged him in the jail at Monetta, and then moved him to the Aiken jail. Demon eluded capture for a longer period of time and rumors that he would be lynched when apprehended swept the area. Some hours later Demon went to the house of a friend and surrendered from there. Soon he, too, was in the Aiken jail. Sam Lowman, arrested at his house when he returned home, was also moved to the Aiken jail. Bertha Lowman was not mentioned but, presumably, the serious nature of her wounds meant she was under medical care. The Lowman house was a small dwelling with two rooms in the front and two rooms in the rear. Between the back rooms and the front rooms was a small alcove, with liquor reportedly being found at that spot. Some of it had been poured out but some remained, in fruit jars. It was believed that the whisky that had been thrown out had been done so at the approach of the Sheriff and his deputies. When seen at the Aiken jail on the afternoon of the raid April 25, Sam, Clarence, and Demon gave meager details of the killing of Howard, when questioned. Clarence said he knew nothing about how the Sheriff was killed while Sam said he was at a grist mill some distance from his home at the time of the shooting and knew nothing of how it happened. When advised of the death of the Sheriff, South Carolina Governor McLeod ordered the sheriffs of several adjacent counties to Aiken 150

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County to aid in the investigation. Reportedly, the Lowman family had a bad reputation. An older son, Dozier, had been tried in Batesburg some months earlier for an alleged violation of the alcohol Prohibition law and, said a reporter, “It is stated that other members of the family have been offenders against the law.” Sheriff Henry Howard was 54 years old at the time of his murder. He was survived by two brothers, one sister, his wife, and seven children. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Red Men, and the Knights of Pythias. Though he had never affiliated with any church, it was said, “He was at heart a professed Christian, with always the deepest reverence for things religious.” Howard was elected Sheriff of Aiken County for the first time in 1912 after serving as Aiken Chief of Police for eight years, to which position he was elected after serving as constable at Graniteville for eight years. Said a newsman, “He was kind hearted and always gentle, though known far and wide for his fearlessness and unbounded courage in the discharge of his duties as an officer.” Early in May 1925, the following members of the Lowman family were placed on trial for the murder of Sheriff Howard; Clarence, Demon, Bertha, Rosa, and Birdie. Clarence was charged with the actual slaying of Howard with the other members of the family charged with being accessories, on so the account went. Actually all were charged with conspiracy to murder. On that first day, as a result of agreement between the two sides, verdicts were directed in the cases of Rosa and Birdie who, it was agreed, had no part in the shooting. Judge Rice directed that they be acquitted. That trial began on a Tuesday and the jury brought in its verdict on the next day, Wednesday afternoon at 5:00 P.M., after deliberating for one hour and twenty minutes. All three who remained on trial were convicted of murder, although in the case of Bertha Lowman, the jury recommended mercy. Clarence and Demon were sentenced to die in the electric chair on June 12, 1925. Because of the mercy recommendation Bertha Lowman received a sentence of life imprisonment. Apparently, for several ballots the life of the woman hung in the balance in the jury room as the panel decided whether or not to recommend mercy. Right after the trial all three were sent to the state penitentiary. Appeals were launched and in time the Supreme Court of South Carolina granted all three a new trial. The slaying of the sheriff aroused considerable feeling throughout 151

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Aiken County. There was talk of lynching and some 100 or so men gathered about the Aiken jail where Clarence and Demon were being held. Bertha was in a Leesville hospital. Finally, the two men were moved to the state penitentiary for “safe keeping.” On April 26 the funeral of Howard was held, attended by 1,600 or more people, among then South Carolina Governor Thomas G. McLeod, who gave a brief speech in which he eulogized the slain lawman. On May 12 trial of the accused began and on May 13 it ended with the three guilty verdicts; sentences were passed on May 14. The case for a new trial was argued before the South Carolina Supreme Court in November 1925, and that court’s decision to grant a new trial was unanimous. In the summary of the case before the Supreme Court, the Lowman household was said to consist of Sam, his wife Annie, his son Demon, daughter Bertha, Rose (wife of Demon) and a young girl named Birdie. Demon was about 21 years old while his cousin Clarence was about 14. Family patriarch Sam Lowman, was not at home during the raid and was indeed miles away at a grist mill. From this account the raid unfolded as follows. When the four officers arrived at the Lowman house, Howard and Robinson went to the right of the house, Sheppard went to the left, and McElhaney went to the front door. There were some women at the back of the house. Upon seeing the officers they ran to the house and were intercepted at the back door by the sheriff, who told them to stand back. Annie and Bertha attempted to assault Robinson with an axe, when Sheppard stepped in Annie threatened to assault him with the axe and he shot and killed her. Demon entered from the front of the house (coming in from the field), got a pistol and fired on McElhaney. Later he exchanged shots with Robinson in the yard. Someone shot and killed Sheriff Howard at the rear of the house. During the melee Bertha and Demon were wounded and Clarence was afterwards also shot. One of the witnesses to the events said that all of the events in the house occurred in the space of a few seconds. Reasons for the granting of a new trial revolved around the fact the sheriff and his deputies did not make known to the Lowman family who they were. In his summation at the trial Judge Rice declared, “And I will say now, there is no dispute that the sheriff had a search warrant to search the house for contraband whiskey and that he had with him his deputies and having a search warrant, it was his duty under the law to go and search that house and it was the business of every single person in that house to 152

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submit to it and not to oppose him in his search.” Held the South Carolina Supreme Court, “That charge excluded the right of the defendants to protect themselves against search if they did not know the parties making the search were officers…. The defendants were entitled to have the jury charged that they could stand on their rights as the occupants of the premises and protect their home from invasion, using so much force as was necessary, unless they knew that these persons were officers with the right to search.” The other point that favored the Lowman family was the charge of conspiracy to commit murder, which all three had been tried under, as no one knew who fired the shot that killed Howard. To convict any other than the person firing the one shot that killed the sheriff, the court also pointed out, there had to have been shown “a conspiracy on the part of the defendants to attack the officers.” However, the Supreme Court held, “A conspiracy could not have been formed by all of the defendants to attack the officers after the officers arrived on the premises and the testimony given ... does not disclose that a conspiracy existed before the visit by the officers.” Thus, by a vote of 4–0, a new trial was ordered for all three defendants. The second trial began the week of Monday, October 4. On October 7, 1926, presiding Judge Lanham directed a verdict of “not guilty” for Demon Lowman on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Shortly before the second trial began the three prisoners were returned to the Aiken jail from the state penitentiary at Columbia, as the trial was held in Aiken. Despite being found not guilty, Demon was not immediately released from custody, as might have been expected. Rather, he was re-arrested on October 7 on a warrant charging assault and battery with intent to kill and he was being held in jail on that warrant. That court decision with respect to Demon incensed and enraged the citizens of Aiken and the surrounding area. At about 3:00 A.M. on October 8, 1926, a mob broke into the Aiken jail, overpowered jailer Rupert Taylor and Sheriff Nollie Robinson, and spirited the three prisoners away in an automobile. Their bodies were found several hours later in a thicket about a quarter of a mile from town. Each had been shot several times. Jailer Taylor said all the electric light wires to the jail were cut. When he was called to the door by the members of the mob, a demand was made for the prisoners. Some members of the mob entered the jail through a window 153

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in a part of the building used as the jailer’s residence. Sheriff Robinson said he followed the mob but was outdistanced because he was driving a small automobile while the members of the lynch mob were in faster cars. He turned back near the city limits. Estimates of the number of men in the mob varied. The cutting of the electric light wires left the jail and the whole town in darkness making it impossible, according to officers, to identify members of the mob. Members of that mob wore handkerchiefs, colored pieces of cloth, or other such items on their faces. According to a later report, the two officers both said they were seized when Taylor unlocked a steel gate from the front part of the jail building that served as his family’s residence to the cell part in the rear. Robinson, who said he entered through the unlocked front door of the house, testified he saw no one inside the building until after Taylor had unlocked the gate when several men seized him and Taylor, and threw them to the floor after a scuffle. Taylor said the members of the mob took his gun and keys, while the sheriff said he was relieved of his pistol. Both men found their weapons in the building, they said, after the mob had left with the three prisoners. In a statement made at Columbia on October 8, South Carolina Governor G. McLeod deplored the lynching and promised a thorough investigation. Coroner J. T. Carbin and a jury held an inquest over the bodies of the three victims on October 9 and delivered a verdict that the trio “came to their death at the hands of unknown parties.” Unsurprisingly, Sheriff Robinson and his deputies reported they had been unable to apprehend any members of the mob, nor did they seem to have any idea who the perpetrators were. A well-known nationally syndicated newspaper columnist of the time was Arthur Brisbane. In his column of October 17, Brisbane briefly summarized the facts of the case and then said, “Leaving aside the question of brutality, on this particular occasion, the mob lynched not only three negroes, one a woman, but also lynched a decision of its own Supreme Court, made up of white men. Not much of a tribute to that court.” In an editorial published the same day in the Kingsport Times [Tenn.] the editor remarked it was regrettable enough at any time for a mob to defy the laws and constituted authorities and take the lives of helpless prisoners without the semblance of a trial or justice, “but in the case of the lynching at Aiken still further shame was heaped on the heads of the members of the lawless mob because of the fact that one of the victims was a 154

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woman! Because of this feature, and because of the number lynched, this was one of the most disgraceful examples of mob lawlessness that has been recorded in recent years.” The regular term of General Sessions Court opened in Aiken on October 19. A grand jury, called in special session to investigate the triple lynching, reported it would continue its deliberations until the regular term of the court should open at which time the jury would prosecute the investigation further. Judge Marvin M. Mann, in his charge to that jury on the 19th, said no person’s life was safe in the community as long as the mob members responsible for lynching the three members of the Lowman family remained at large. Charging the jurors to unmask the Aiken mob and bring them before the bar of justice, Mann said, “The eyes of the civilized world are upon Aiken and her people. Innocent as well as guilty are upon trial. There should be no such word as ‘can’t’ on the subject of lynching.” A 15-year-old white girl named Lucy Mooney was brought back to South Carolina from Georgia on November 10, 1925, approximately. She was to be held under a warrant if she would not stay on her own accord until Governor McLeod investigated the lynching. Lucy could not read or write and had worked in the cotton fields since she was 10 years old. A victim of the lax Southern educational system, she could only make her mark when she signed the affidavit stating that she positively saw Sheriff Robinson, the jailer, and three other law officers, when they went to the jail the night of the lynching. And that the jailer unlocked the cell door and that Robinson dragged Bertha Lowman out. In a statement to the Chicago Defender newspaper, Lucy said she didn’t care what happened to the men she had identified and that she “seen it and I know.” The jailer unlocked the cell door and stepped aside so he could not witness what Robinson was doing. Despite such a witness, the Defender was skeptical that any justice would be done, noting the governor had just one detective working on the case and “it appears likely that no man will go to trial for the murders.” Also noted was that during “the sham investigation” by the grand jury, no one had troubled themselves to go to the jail to question any of the prisoners, or even to question the jailer or to question the sheriff. According to this newspaper the identity of the mob members was well known, the “famous seventeen” with the mob starting out from a “well known lawyer’s office on the main street.” Concluded the account, “The 155

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scene in the pine woods within sight of the road is told: A handful of men drunk with liquor watching while the executioners dragged out the three victims and shot them down as they screamed.” Bertha Lowman screamed for her life, or to be finished off, crawled about the pine woods among the lynchers with a hole from a shot gun through her back and was at last shot through the head. Delays occurred, though, and nothing much happened for the remainder of 1926. Near the end of January 1927, it was reported the investigation of the Lowman murders would be brought before the grand jury at that term of court. Attorney General John M. Daniels placed himself in personal charge of the investigation. Rumor had it that there was evidence enough to indict at least some members of the lynching party. Judge Johnson delivered a charge to the grand jury similar to that delivered by Mann, three months earlier. “The eyes of South Carolina are upon Aiken County, and I might say the eyes of America are upon you,” declared Johnson. “I have no idea as to their identify, but I will say that a little band of willful men have besmirched the good name of Aiken County, and of South Carolina.” Also, Johnson remarked specifically on the lynching of women, the third person to do so in this case. “I do say that a lynching is a deliberate, willful and cowardly murder, than which crime there can be no greater. Any lynching is a cowardly murder, but the lynching of a woman is the lowest form of murder that I have yet heard of.” Chastising the citizens of the area, Johnson first argued the populace as a whole did not approve of the lynching but he wondered why the citizens had not done their duty by demonstrably condemning the lynching through such forms as mass community meetings. “Have you condemned it by mass-meeting or otherwise, or have you heralded it to the world that you condemn it, and that you stand ready to cooperate with the officers of this County and State in an effort to bring to justice the perpetrators of that crime; or have you given tacit consent to it by your silence?” In conclusion, Johnson urged the grand jury members to take a stand. “I say now that the time for words has passed, and the time for action is at hand. Say to Aiken County, to South Carolina, and to America, now, that you are going to bring them to justice, or that you don’t propose to do it. Take you stand ultimately and definitely one way or the other.” At the same time, South Carolina Governor Richards issued a statement in which he expressed confidence in the work of the grand jury. Not156

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ing that as of that date no one had been punished in the case or even arrested, Richards stated, “I have faith and believe the members of the grand jury will measure well up to the expectations of the people of South Carolina.” And, “Now the state has strong evidence, but is powerless to actually try anyone unless the Aiken grand jury first presents for trial those who were connected with this terrible affair.” A few months after the raid, in June or July 1925, law officers raided Sam Lowman’s house again in a search for illegal liquor. Reportedly, such material was found and Sam was arrested. Quickly, Sam was tried, convicted, and sentenced to a jail term of two years. Sam Lowman was released from the South Carolina penitentiary in March 1927. By this time his home was gone, his son, daughter and his nephew lynched by the mob and his wife Annie shot to death in the first raid looking for illegal liquor back in April 1925. Feeling he could not return to Aiken County, Sam said he planned to go north to Philadelphia to live; he had children who lived in the North. Upon his release from the penitentiary, Sam was 55 years old. For many months he served his time on the Aiken chain gang. Later he was brought to the penitentiary. He was in the Aiken jail when the mob came to take his children and his nephew to their death. He heard the screams of his daughter pleading with the members of the mob to spare their lives and, helpless, he heard the mob leave with the victims. Lowman told a reporter he had never before been in trouble. For a long while he ran a farm just across the county line in Saluda County. Later, with his family he moved to Monetta and engaged in farming. Sam had two remaining children, both boys who made their homes in Philadelphia with their wives. Both were then serving with the U.S. military, one stationed in France, the other in the United States. Four months later, in July 1927, it was reported that Sam Lowman was making money lecturing in New York City and elsewhere under the sponsorship of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Apparently he was lecturing on conditions in South Carolina and especially in Aiken County to large audiences in the northeastern United States, mostly black people. Sam was quoted as saying that he did not expect to ever return to Aiken County or to South Carolina. SOURCES : “Southern mob takes prisoners from jail.” Times [Hammond, Indiana], October 8, 1926, p. 1. “Mob lynches two men and woman at Aiken, S. C.” Portsmouth Herald [New Hampshire], October 8, 1926, p. 1. “Charged with killing of Sheriff.” Lancaster Daily Eagle [Ohio], October 8, 1926, p. 1.

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The Chronology • 1930 “Slayers of Sheriff H. H. Howard shot to death by large band early Friday.” Morning News Review [Florence, South Carolina], October 9, 1926, p. 1. “Hold inquest in lynching of trio in South Carolina.” New Castle News [Pennsylvania], October 9, 1926, p. 2. Arthur Brisbane. “Today.” Ogden Standard-Examiner [Utah], October 11, 1926, p. 4. “The lynching at Aiken.” Kingsport Times [Tennessee], October 11, 1926, p. 4. “Judge scores mob action in South Carolina.” Lincoln Star [Nebraska], October 19, 1926, p. 12. “Loman lynching before grand jury.” Aiken Journal and Review [S. Carolina], January 26, 1927, p. 1. “Two dead, two hurt in shooting affray during liquor raid.” Billings Gazette [Montana], April 26, 1925, p. 6. “Sheriff Howard killed.” Journal and Review [Aiken, South Carolina], April 25, 1925, p. 1. “Two to die for murder of Sheriff Howard.” Aiken Standard [South Carolina], May 15, 1925, p. 5. “Lowmans given new trial.” Journal and Review [Aiken, South Carolina] June 2, 1926, p. 2. No title. Estherville Enterprise [Iowa], July 8, 1925, p. 1. “Lowman leaves state prison.” Aiken Journal and Review [South Carolina], March 2, 1927, p. 6. “Sam Lowman now on lecture platform.” Aiken Standard [South Carolina], July 15, 1927, p. 5. “Lucy Mooney tells story of lynching.” Chicago Defender, November 13, 1926, p. 2.

Viola Dial (black) 1930 July 6 • Emelle, Alabama • Lynched with: Esau Robinson ( July 4), John Robertson ( July 4), Winston Jones ( July 6) (blacks) It all started over the price of a second-hand automobile battery in May 1930, in Emelle, Alabama. A black man by the name of Esau Robinson (the family surname was given as Robinson and Robertson back and forth over time and across articles) purchased the battery from Clarence Boyd, a white man, but Boyd experienced difficulty collecting the $3.50 that was due him. In fact, the debt remained outstanding for months. Then Clarence happened to learn where Esau was going to be on a certain date. On Independence Day, July 4, 1930, Boyd interrupted a church picnic Robinson was attending and demanded his money. When he was unsuccessful in getting the cash, Boyd took the battery out of Robinson’s car and left with it. Later that day Robinson went out to look for Boyd. He took along with him his father Tom Robinson, two brothers, Ollis and King, and a cousin. They were armed with guns and were drinking as the day pro158

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gressed and as the search continued. Emelle was a small mining community in Sumter County in west central Alabama, near the Mississippi–Alabama line. The population was estimated at 200 to 300, mostly blacks. Finally, the Robinson party located Boyd at his place of business. Esau attacked Boyd by striking him over the head with a bottle. Clarence rushed to his truck, grabbed a pistol and started shooting, wounding Tom Robinson. An uncle of Clarence’s, Grover Boyd, heard the commotion and joined in to help his nephew. One of Esau’s brothers shot Grover dead. In the excitement all of the Robinsons escaped except Esau, who was grabbed by a group of whites and tied to a post. When the county sheriff arrived and learned that Esau had not fired the fatal shot, he formed a posse and started the search for the guilty parties. He left Esau tried to the post and instructed two white citizens to guard him. An intense manhunt was launched to find the members of the Robinson family, Tom and his sons, all of whom remained at large. A mob estimated to contain several hundred white men searched for the missing men, each of whom had a $300 reward on his head. Those official government rewards, said Alabama Governor Bibb Graves at Montgomery, “are not merely for negroes who killed white men [but] for the arrest and conviction of anyone, white or black, responsible at Emelle.” One place the mob went to was the house of John Robertson, an uncle of Esau. The members of the mob believed the Robinsons may have taken refuge in the uncle’s residence. However, when John objected to a plan to search his house, the mob opened fire on him and his house. When the volley of shots subsided John Robinson was dead. And so was a white man named Charlie Marrs, one of the leaders of the mob. Thinking that the escaped Robinsons were still inside John’s house somewhere, the sheriff instructed his men to burn down the cabin, which they did. By the time the state police arrived on the scene, some 50 members of the mob had untied Esau from the post, riddled him with bullets and then strung him up to a tree. Esau’s body hung there, swinging in the breeze from just before midnight on July 4 until noon on July 5, as a grisly warning to passing black people. When his body was finally cut down, an ear was chopped off by a white man who wanted a souvenir. White mobs continued to prowl the area and search for the Robinsons on July 5 and July 6, with two more black people being killed by the mob for little or no reason except that of being in the wrong place at the wrong 159

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time, both on July 6, in separate incidents. Winston Jones was shot to death when he failed to halt on orders of the mob, according to one account. In another news story it was reported that Jones was shot to death after he had wounded Clarence Bush, a white member of the mob, who had ordered Jones to stop and submit to a search. Viola Dial was slain when members of the mob riddled the car in which she was a passenger with bullets. She was riding with her husband, and Jesse Dial, reportedly, also failed to heed an order from the mob to halt. Later on July 6, a coroner’s jury returned a verdict that the black victims of the disorder came to their deaths at the “hands of party or parties unknown.” As of July 7th, it was reported that calm had returned to the village of Emelle and that virtually all of the several hundred white members of the mob had abandoned their search for the Robertson family. The final toll was six dead — four blacks, two whites, and an uncertain number of people wounded. Upon the order of Governor Graves, Walter K. McAdory, chief of the state law enforcement department was on his way to Emelle on July 9, to gather information on the disorders there that had led to six deaths in total. Graves indicated that he would make an investigation at Emelle to fix blame for the killings. A day or two later it was reported that seven black men, sought as participants in the disorders at Emelle, were in Kilby prison in Montgomery, Alabama. Jacob Robertson, whose twin brother Esau was lynched on July 4, was brought to the jail at Montgomery on July 8 and the other six were brought in on July 9 and 10 by officers who kept their arrival secret until about July 11. Officers who took the men into custody said they surrendered voluntarily after having hidden in a corn field near Emelle without food or water. In a different account of the fight, Esau arrived at Clarence Boyd’s store in Emelle accompanied by his father Tom, two brothers Ollis and King, and a cousin also with the surname Robinson. Motioning Clarence out of the store, Esau hit him over the head with a bottle. Boyd called to his uncle Grover for help and, as the latter approached, Tom hit him with a heavy stick. Grover ran to his car for his pistol and began firing at Tom who, though wounded, made his escape. While Boyd was still firing at Tom, either King or Ollis Robinson came up behind him, took aim, and fired. Grover Boyd fell dying, and another member of the Robinson family 160

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fired several shots into him. With the exception of Esau, all the Robinsons made their escape. A white merchant held on to Esau and tied him to a post to await the coming of the sheriff. When the sheriff arrived, he was told that Esau was not the man who had killed Grover Boyd. Leaving Esau tied to the post, he went in pursuit of the fleeing Robinsons. Some time before midnight (still on July 4) Esau was released from the post and shot to death by a mob of less than 50 people. Meanwhile the pursuing mob converged on the home of farmer preacher John Newton Robinson, brother of Tom and uncle of Esau. John would not surrender his gun nor permit his house to be searched. In the resulting quarrel he was shot to death and a white overseer, a member of the posse, was killed, probably unintentionally, by a member of the mob. The sheriff, believing the fugitive Robinsons were hiding in the house, ordered it fired. But there were no Robinsons within and the mob continued its search. On the night of July 5, Winston Jones received a fatal shot at Narkeeta, Mississippi, just across the state line, for failing to stop when ordered. Viola Dial, who was in a car with her husband and three other men, was shot when the driver refused to stop the car at the order of the mob. For weeks the search for the fugitives went on, but the mob mentality had ended and Tom and his sons Ollis and King were captured by State Enforcement Officers. They were all taken to Kilby Prison at Montgomery. Others of the Robinson family, including women and children, were confined in Kilby for safekeeping and as witnesses. Some black people, familiar with the Emelle community, declared the altercation over the battery was the immediate but not the real cause of the outbreak. According to them, the trouble grew out of the insistence of certain white men of “running with” Robinson and black women. A Sumter County grand jury that investigated the Emelle disturbance issued its report on August 20, 1930, and termed the lynching of one black man and the action of posse men who killed three other black people as “deplorable” but said sufficient evidence could not be obtained for indictments. However, that grand jury did return three murder indictments; one each against Tom “Robertson,” his son Ellis, and his son John. (At this point and onward almost all news accounts wrote not about Tom Robinson but about Tom Robertson. The names of his sons also varied.) 161

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Early in October 1930 Tom Robertson was convicted of murder for his part in the slaying of Grover Boyd. He was sentenced to be executed. Ernest Robertson, nephew of Tom, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on a charge of assault with intent to murder. He was accused of attacking Clarence Boyd, nephew of Grover Boyd, and precipitating the disorders that resulted in the death of six people. (Since Ernest was never mentioned prior to this account it was, presumably, another mix-up in names.) No media reports seemed to have appeared about Tom’s execution. SOURCES : “Race rioters declare truce.” Newark Advocate [Ohio], July 7, 1930, p. 1. “Four Alabama negroes and two whites perish.” Lincoln Star [Nebraska], July 5, 1930, pp. 1 –2. “Six are killed in race riot.” Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 5, 1930, pp. 1, 3. “One lynched; six shot in Alabama riot.” Chicago Defender, July 12, 1930, p. 4. “Investigate race riot in Alabama.” Bee [Danville, Virginia], July 9, 1930, p. 1. L. F. Palmer Jr. “America’s most shocking lynchings.” Chicago Defender, July 30, 1959, p. 11. Frank Shay. Judge Lynch: His First Hundred Years. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1969, pp. 122–124. “No indictments against lynchers.” Kingsport Times [Tennessee], August 21, 1930, p. 2. “Sumter negro is found guilty in death case.” Anniston Star [Alabama], October 9, 1930, p. 1.

Unidentified Black Woman 1935 June 22 • Elkhart, Texas • Lynched with: Unidentified Black Men (4) A brief report in the Galveston Daily News on June 22, 1935, declared that in Elkhart, Texas, four black men and one black woman were lynched by a party of unknown men at an early hour that morning for “the brutal outraging and murder of the young wife of the constable.” SOURCE : No title. Galveston Daily News, June 22, 1935.

Dorothy Malcolm, Willie Mae Dorsey (blacks) 1946 July 25 • Monroe, Georgia • Lynched with: Roger Malcolm (husband), George Dorsey (husband (blacks) George Dorsey (called George Butler in most early accounts, apparently erroneously), his wife Willie Mae (perhaps Mary) Dorsey, and Roger Malcolm and his wife Dorothy Malcolm were black farm hands near Monroe, Georgia, in July, 1946. In the middle of that month, the Dorsey couple 162

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lived and worked on the farm of Loy Harrison, a well-to-do white farmer while the Malcolm family lived and worked on the farm of Barney Hester, white. According to the sheriff, Roger stabbed Hester on July 14 when the farmer came across the couple engaged in a dispute. When Hester remonstrated with Roger for abusing his wife, Roger stabbed him. Hester recovered. Roger was arrested and lodged in jail in Walton County until July 25, at which time he was released on $600 bail. Obviously, he was no longer employed at the Hester farm and it was Harrison who showed up at the jail to take him to his farm, which was to be the new home and place of employment for the Malcolm couple. When he arrived in his car to pick up Roger, he had with him Dorothy Malcolm and George and Mary Dorsey. Just hours later, all four of the black people in the Harrison car lay dead; they never made it to the Harrison farm. Sheriff E. S. Gordon declared the next day that a band of armed white men ambushed and shot to death the four farm hands near the junction of the Walton County and Oconee County lines in northeast Georgia. The four victims were taken from Harrison at the point of shotguns and pistols. Their bodies were found near the Lime Fort bridge, completely riddled with bullets. According to the Sheriff, the mob was comprised of between 20 and 30 men and that Harrison was held at gun point while the two men were shot to death. Sheriff Gordon said it was believed the mob had not intended to kill the women, but unconfirmed reports said one of them recognized a member of the mob and called him by his name. It was then decided to also shoot the two women. As Harrison and his passengers headed for home in the car, he said, they approached the 100-foot wide river that divided Walton County from Oconee County (site of the Harrison farm). At that point a band of some 25 men armed with shotguns, pistols, and rifles stood in the road and ordered the car to halt. Harrison stopped the car at the entrance to the bridge, and the armed men ordered the two black men out of the car and proceeded down a side road. Other armed men held Harrison and the two women in the car. Then Harrison heard one of the men in the armed band remark that one of the women had recognized him, and several of the men came back and took the women from the car and down the same side road. Then Harrison heard shots. Later, in more formal testimony, Harrison told officers that an undersized youth in GI clothing held a shotgun to his head while the mob tied 163

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up the victims. At first only the men were lined up for execution but then Dorothy Malcolm cried out, “Please stop, Mr. ______.” Harrison said the “huge shaggy-haired leader” cut off utterance of the name and ordered his men to “go back and get those women.” Scene of the lynching was a remote wooded spot near the Apalachee River about 20 miles west of Athens, Georgia. It was near twilight. Those four victims were tied to trees and pleaded for mercy before being blasted to death by a mob of about 20 men who lined up like a firing squad, under command of a tall leader, and fired volley after volley into the victims. When the lynch mob had finished, Harrison was freed but warned “you better not try any funny stuff ” before the members of the mob drove off in their automobiles. Officers who returned to the scene with Harrison found the victims sagging against bloody ropes, “their bodies above the waist torn beyond recognition.” Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall offered rewards totaling more than $10,000 for the arrest and conviction of members of the lynch mob. That reward broke down to $500 paid for information leading to the arrest and conviction of each member of the mob. He also ordered his state police to stay in Walton County until the guilty parties were identified and arrested. Said Arnall, “The decent people of Georgia are humiliated about the mass murder of four Negroes in Walton County by an unknown mob of some 20 desperados…. The lawless gang must be arrested and brought to justice. Also involved in the investigation was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI, modeled after the FBI). William E. Spence of that agency, said, “It looks like it was a rehearsed affair. It looks like it might have been planned since the Negro was first confined to jail.” An announcement had come from Washington that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would investigate the case for the civil rights section of the Justice Department, but nothing had happened. A few days later it was reported that agents of the FBI and the GBI were swarming all over the county. Arnall’s term as Governor was due to expire on January 4, 1947, and he would be replaced by Eugene Talmadge (whom Arnall defeated in the previous election) who ran on a “white supremacy” platform. The only comment from Talmadge was that “such incidents are to be regretted.” Grand Dragon Samuel Green of the Ku Klux Klan said his organization “had nothing to do” with the mob action but that he expected Arnall “will try to pin it on us.” In Birmingham, Alabama, the Southern Negro Youth Congress wrote to U.S. Attorney General 164

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Tom Clark to ask that martial law be declared and a house-to-house search be conducted. The Civil Rights Congress in New York was reported to have offered a $1,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the guilty parties. Talmadge later promised that during his administration “such atrocities will be at a minimum.” As time passed pressure mounted for more federal government involvement. However, White House Press Secretary Charles G. Ross told a news conference that President Harry S. Truman had taken no direct hand in the lynching investigation. When the Chicago Defender reported on the quadruple lynching, it wrote of the “victims of Southern insanity” by remarking, “Four battered corpses, two men and two women, gashed by knives, torn with gaping bullet and shotgun wounds, limbs broken, lay in an undertaking parlor here this week, victims of a quadruple lynching, which has seared the face of the nation with horror.” The account described the brief years of the victims, “lived in the persistent indignity and persecution accorded black citizens of Dixie, ended in the final blow — brutal, pointless murder.” Roger Malcolm and his wife Dorothy were both 27; George Dorsey was a 26-year-old Army veteran, and his wife Willie Mae was 25. It was the first lynching in the South for a year and, said the Defender, “was immediately connected by progressive groups and individuals in all sections of the county with the recent virulent race-baiting campaign which won the nomination for governor of Georgia for Negro-hating Eugene Talmadge.” Rumors circulated, reported the Defender, as to the implication of J. Loy Harrison, who was driving the victims to his farm, and Sheriff E. S. Gordon of Walton in the lynching. Gordon, who was active in the investigation, was said to be a relative of Barney Hester, the white man stabbed by Malcolm in the quarrel. From people related to Mary Dorsey it was learned that she and her husband, tenants on Harrison’s farm, had produced a bumper crop on which they owed no money to Harrison. Hence, it was in Harrison’s financial interest to get rid of the Dorseys and take control of that crop for himself. When Harrison drove the two black couples to his farm, he avoided the main highway and used a little-traveled dirt road. Yet, the mob was lying in wait on the route logic dictated Harrison would not have chosen. How the mob knew Harrison would choose the alternate route was unknown. Barney Hester, 25, and Malcolm’s former employer was then fast recovering from his knife wound. Allegedly, the stabbing occurred after 165

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Hester struck Malcolm. That bond for Malcolm was signed by Harrison, a well-to-do white farmer of Oconee County, which was adjacent to Walton County where the lynching took place. According to Harrison, he was taking the two couples to work on his farm when cars blocked the wooden bridge on which he was crossing. The mob seized the hapless black victims, took them 50 yards off the road, and riddled their bodies with bullets. Malcolm and Dorsey were taken from the car first, their hands bound, and they were then marched to their death. Several minutes later, Harrison said, the unmasked mob returned, pulled the two women from the car, and led them, unbound, to the same fate. Harrison admitted the women were taken after one of them identified several members of the mob by name in pleading for their lives. Leader of the mob was described by Harrison as about 65, tall and well-dressed, who commanded, “Get the god damned women too.” After the lynching a curfew was declared on black people who were ordered off the streets and told to stay at home. Working directly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation issued only the comment that “the mystery is being unraveled.” William Spence, directing the GBI, said he had met a “stone wall of silence” from whites of both counties who were believed to know the identities of the mob members. Spence said, “We intend to see the investigation through, until the guilty persons are brought to justice.” Georgia Governor Ellis Arnall promised the GBI would remain in Walton County until the guilty had been identified and turned over to the authorities. Assistant District Attorney Jack Gautier of Macon made a preliminary investigation of the tragedy for the federal government, but said, “So far it seems to be a state case.” Gautier had been investigating to determine if federal civil rights law had been violated. Said Spence, “We need federal backing. With conditions that now exist in Georgia we can’t cope with them (lynchings). Spence pleaded for a federal anti-lynching law, declaring he would urge the Governor to “wire every congressman we have and even the president to ask for federal legislation on mob violence.” In another piece that appeared in the Chicago Defender on the same day as the above story, John LeFlore, a staff correspondent for the newspaper, declared that Georgia’s next governor, Eugene Talmadge, “today stands indicted before the civilized world as an arch-murderer. It was he who ran up and down the rural areas of this state beating the tom-toms of race-hate that aroused the savage fury of the unmasked cowardly fiends 166

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who brutally lynched four helpless black folks — including two women.” He argued it was Talmadge’s “rabble-rousing venom against Negroes” in the recent heated political campaign that transformed Georgia into “a veritable powder keg in race relations.” LeFlore argued the Ku Klux Klan’s power had been enhanced by the election of Talmadge. Said LeFlore, “We stand alone among the so-called democracies, as the one country which tolerates and condones such an organization as the Klan and the horrors of mob violence.” He believed Georgia’s current Governor Arnall, characterized herein as “liberal,” was seriously attempting to bring the perpetrators to justice. As evidence he cited the reward offered by Arnall. Only five months remained in the Arnall administration before Talmadge took control in the second week of January, 1947. When LeFlore took the bus to Monroe, 42 miles east of Atlanta, he went directly to Young’s Funeral Home, where the bodies of the four victims were being examined by the authorities. Those bodies had been on public display in that funeral parlor. “The ghastly scene of mutilated bodies made blood cold in my body,” reported LeFlore. “I was sick all over, and torn asunder mentally. How could so-called civilized human beings be guilty of such a crime?” Roger Malcolm had been shot everywhere possible, his arms broken, his face and body were cut with deep gashes, a hole larger than a 25-cent piece torn in his head by a shotgun blast, bullet holes were in his back. His wife Dorothy Malcolm suffered a similar fate. Part of her face was shot away, leaving a hole large enough for a hand to be thrust into her mouth through the opening, one of her breasts had been so badly peppered with buckshot that part of it was torn from her body, as well, her body bore cuts and bruises and both her arms had been broken. George Dorsey had served more than four years in the European and Pacific theaters of war in World War II and had only recently returned home to Georgia. He had been fighting, said LeFlore, “to protect the hides of the beasts who lynched him.” Dorsey had a part of one of his ears shot off, one of his eyes was shot out and his body was riddled with bullets and pellets from shotgun blasts. Both his arms, too, had been broken. Knife gashes were found all over his body. His wife Mae Dorsey was the only one of the four victims whose face was not mutilated. “The culprits murdered her with volleys fired at the torso. But they also broke her arms.” Monroe, Georgia, had an estimated population of 6,000, of which about 2,000 were black people. Two textile factories, several small sawmills, 167

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domestic work and seasonal farming provided the few employment opportunities available for blacks in Walton County. Only a small number were employed in the textile factories where they held only the most menial jobs. On the area farms their chief jobs were as cotton pickers. Blacks who worked as domestics received an average weekly wage of $6. Around the middle of September 1946, the Defender declared, “The ominous influence of Eugene Talmadge looms as a behind the scenes factor in the whitewash of the Monroe lynching,” as FBI and GBI efforts to solve the case became more and more ineffective as each week passed. Statements from those agencies of pending arrests, of suspects under surveillance, and so on, all came to nothing. Because of the clamor of public opinion, even embittered observers of Southern justice felt that action might be taken. But after it was discovered that bullets from the murder weapons were “stolen” from the scene of the crime, even the faint hope waned. Time was on the side of the state, observed the Defender, “The case has been shoved further and further into the back of the public mind by more terror, inflation threats, and war scares.” Later that month Spence said, “We think that we know who some of the members of the mob are, but we can’t prove it.” The people of Walton County would not talk about the lynching even though some of them knew who members of the mob were. But time passed and no progress was made in identifying the guilty parties. At the end of October 1946, U.S. Attorney General Clark said the lynching would be laid before a federal grand jury. Clark said over 2,500 witnesses had been questioned in the case by the FBI and that by putting the case to a federal grand jury, he declared, “I am hopeful it will be able to put the finger on those dastardly conspirators who committed this brutal crime. That grand jury was to convene at Monroe, Georgia, during the latter part of November 1946. By the time the grand jury convened in December, the U.S. Department of Justice had been flooded with a record 30,000 demands for action. The Monroe lynching case was presented to a federal grand jury that convened in Athens, Georgia, on Monday, December 2, 1946. U.S. District Attorney John Cowart headed government attorneys who presented evidence to the panel. Governor Arnall had recently stated that the names of from 15 to 20 members of the mob that participated in the July 25 crime were known. He predicted there would be “several convictions.” At the 168

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height of the investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice had more than 30 agents in the county. Some 2,500 people had reportedly been questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with the lynching. During the first week, a 23-man federal grand jury, including two black men, heard 30 witnesses tell what they knew of the quadruple lynching. About 50 witnesses remained to testify in the case. The white man the federal jury probe considered to be the most important witness was said to be J. Loy Harrison, the prosperous farmer and former moonshiner. Harrison stoutly maintained he could not identify any of the 20 or so unmasked members of the mob. It was especially puzzling since Dorothy Malcolm called out some of their names; Harrison had lived for a long time in the area where the lynching took place. He maintained his ignorance in spite of being on the witness stand for three hours on one day and six more hours on the next day. Also on the stand that week was Barney Hester, with whom Roger Malcolm had the altercation. Rumors had circulated that Hester had been carrying on a clandestine sexual affair with Roger’s wife and that led to Malcolm stabbing Hester. However, on the stand Hester insisted he had no such affair and that he had tried to stop a domestic quarrel between the Malcolm couple, which led to his being stabbed. Later in December when the three-week long inquiry ended more than 100 witnesses had testified and voluminous FBI documents bearing on the case had been offered. However, the jury failed to return a single indictment in the case. In Washington, the Justice Department offered no immediate comment on the jury’s failure to indict but declared that its own investigation of the case was continuing. Two brothers, one a soldier on leave, were arrested by the FBI on January 4, 1947, and charged with beating a black witness who refused to divulge to them his testimony to the grand jury investigating the lynchings. District Attorney James P. Cowart said Golden Lamar Howard, 19, the man beaten, identified the brothers Bradley Verner, 36, and Tom Verner, 26, by name as his assailants. Howard told federal officers the two men came to him on January 1 at the ice plant in Monroe where he worked, and when he would not reveal what he had said to the grand jury, they beat him with their fists and a pistol. “I couldn’t tell them nothing, because I didn’t know nothing,” said Howard. That grand jury reported on Decem169

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ber 19 that it was unable to identify any member of the mob that lynched the victims. The citizens defense committee, a black group formed after the lynching, moved Howard to Atlanta to protect him. The Verner brothers were arrested but quickly released on bonds. In the middle of January, 1947, the Chicago Defender declared the lynching case could then be cracked if federal and state law enforcement agencies put pressure on the two white brothers, James and Tom Verner, and did not handle them with “kid gloves.” After being arrested the brothers were each released on a $500 state bond pending a Walton County Grand Jury investigation of their assault on Howard. Solicitor General D. Marshall Pollack said, “These cases will be prosecuted with the utmost vigor.” The Verner brothers had accused Howard of telling the federal grand jury probing the lynching that James and Tom went to the ice house and cleaned some guns on the evening after the lynching occurred. Howard was disappointed that his white employer, Will Perry, refused to protect Howard from the brutal attack at that same ice house where Howard worked. Perry, said Howard, gave his approval to the beating James and Tom administered to the 19-year-old Howard by cautioning them to “take him out in the back, don’t beat him up in here (meaning the office).” Reportedly, the FBI had charged the brothers with intimidation of a federal witness in connection with the beating they inflicted on Howard. They were released under $10,000 bond each, to await action by the federal grand jury. At the end of February a federal grand jury indicted James and Tom Verner on the charges brought by Golden Lamar Howard. When found in the home of his grandmother showing signs of a brutal attack about the face and head, Howard testified, he had said the Verner brothers had cornered him on his ice house job, beat him with their fists and a pistol, and threatened to kill him in their attempt to get out of him what he had told investigators in his testimony at the lynching hearing the previous December. That case came to trial and ended at the start of June 1947, with the acquittal of one of the brothers and the declaration of a mistrial in the case of the other brother. Tom Verner, 26, an ex–U.S. Army paratrooper, who, with his brother James, 36, was on trial for assaulting Howard, was acquitted by the jury. In the trial Tom testified he was a witness to the attack by his brother James on Howard, and not a participant. James admitted 170

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attacking Howard but told the court the assault had nothing to do with the grand jury investigation the previous December but came about because of Howard’s attempts to run him, James, down with an automobile four times within one year. “I didn’t have anything against him except he tried to run me off the road,” James testified. After deliberating over the charge against James Verner for four hours and 48 minutes, the jury told the judge a verdict could not be reached. Judge T. Hoyt Davis ordered the jury to resume deliberations. However, 30 minutes later the jury returned to declare it was hopelessly deadlocked; Davis then declared a mistrial in the case of James Verner. During that trial James admitted on the stand that he had “beat the hell out of ” Howard. And that brought to a close the Monroe quadruple lynching case, with no one arrested and no one indicted. Three and a half years after the lynching, one of the principal figures from that incident was in the news again. In December 1949, J. Loy Harrison appeared in Federal Court in Athens, Georgia, where he was convicted of a liquor law violation. Harrison was fined $10,000 and sentenced to a two-year prison term. SOURCES : “Four negroes killed by Georgia lynchers.” Lima News [Ohio], July 26, 1946, p. 1. “Governor offers $10,000 reward.” Gallup Independent [New Mexico], July 27, 1946, p. 4. “Manhunt on for lynchers.” San Antonio Light, July 28, 1946, p. 10. “Talmadge regrets Georgia lynchings.” Charleston Gazette [West Virginia], July 30, 1946, p. 2. “Federal Grand Jury to probe negro killings.” Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln] October 29, 1946, p. 2. “Grand Jury will accept evidence in mob lynching.” Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln], December 1, 1946, p. 6. “FBI nabs 2 white brothers in negro witness beating.” Salt Lake Tribune, January 5, 1947, p. 1. “Fight until lynch evil dies.” Chicago Defender, August 3, 1946, pp. 1, 6. John LeFlore. “On-the-scene story of butchery.” Chicago Defender, August 3, 1946, pp. 2, 6. “Monroe probe lags as Talmadge rises to power.” Chicago Defender, September 14, 1946, p. 3. “What the people say.” Chicago Defender, September 28, 1946, p. 14. “Federal sleuths will bare names of Monroe lynchers.” Chicago Defender, December 7, 1946, pp. 1, 6. John LeFlore. “Jury questions 30 in Monroe Ga. Massacre.” Chicago Defender, December 14, 1946, pp. 1, 4. “Jurors fail to indict in lynch probe.” Anniston Star [Alabama], December 20, 1946, p. 6.

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The Chronology • 1946 “Brothers hold key to Monroe case, charge.” Chicago Defender, January 18, 1946, pp. 1, 4. “Special lynch grand jury hears charges.” Chicago Defender, March 1, 1947, p. 5. “Verner acquitted by federal jury.” Florence Morning News [South Carolina], June 4, 1947, p. 12. “Mistrial called in South court.” Nevada State Journal [Reno], June 4, 1947, p. 2. “Monroe lynch witness gets prison term.” Chicago Defender, December 17, 1949, p. 2.

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Bibliography “Brutally murdered while asleep.” New York Times, July 7, 1885, p. 1. “Burned alive.” Daily Gazette and Bulletin [Williamsport, Pennsylvania], December 28, 1895, p. 19. “Burned at the stake.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], February 8, 1904, p. 2. “Burned to death.” Quincy Daily Journal [Illinois], December 6, 1911, p. 1. “Cattle Kate.” Evening Herald [Syracuse, New York], February 22, 1889, p. 6. “Cattle Kate.” Boomerang [Laramie, Wyoming], August 8, 1889. “Cattle Kate Maxwell.” Salt Lake Tribune, July 24, 1889, p. 1. “Cattle Kate’s career.” Washington Post, July 26, 1889, p. 7. “The cattle-queen.” Mitchell Daily Republican [South Dakota], January 15, 1890, p. 2. “A chapter of horrors.” Aiken Journal and Review [South Carolina], October 7, 1885, p. 1. “Charge against Eastland.” Atlanta Constitution, September 11, 1904, p. 15. “Charged with killing Sheriff.” Lancaster Daily Eagle [Ohio], October 8, 1926, p. 1. “The Clay County lynching.” Daily State Journal [Lincoln, Nebraska], March 19, 1885, p. 3. Clide, Mae. “Georgia brutes again lynch U.S. citizen.” Chicago Defender, June 29, 1912, p. 1. “Condensed news.” Portsmouth Daily Times [Ohio], December 7, 1894, p. 2. “Convicted a white cap.” World [New York, New York], November 27, 1897, p. 4. “Couldn’t catch Sims.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], September 5, 1891, p. 2. “Court notes.” Buena Vista Democrat [Colorado], February 7, 1884, p. 1. “Cowards at work.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], March 19, 1895, p. 1. “Cremated them.” Newark Daily Advocate [Ohio], January 13, 1896, p. 1. “Crime a heinous one.” Constitution [Atlanta], November 9, 1906, p. 2. “Crime and casualty.” Adams County Free Press [Coming, Iowa], September 29, 1893, p. 6. “Crimes and casualties.” Logansport Weekly Journal [Indiana], May 13, 1876, p. 1. Cutler, James Elbert. Lynch Law. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969 [1905]. “Denies lynching of women.” Washington Post, January 8, 1892, p. 1. “Died by the rope.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], April 22, 1895, p. 1. “A disagreeable business.” Cheyenne Weekly Sun [Wyoming], August 1, 1889, p. 1. “Double lynching.” Evening Observer [Dunkirk, New York], October 23, 1884, p. 1. “Double lynching.” Lowell Sun [Massachusetts], May 26, 1911, p. 53. “Double murder.” Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], December 30, 1896, p. 2. “Entire town of Sumner burned following fight.” Brownsville Herald [Texas], January 5, 1923, p. 1. “Extra press report.” Galveston Daily News, July 31, 1880, p. 1. “A failure of justice.” Galveston Daily News, March 15, 1896, p. 12. “A faithless woman.” Decatur Daily Republican [Illinois], December 30, 1895, p. 10. “FBI nabs 2 white brothers in negro witness beating.” Salt Lake Tribune, January 5, 1947, p. 1. “Fear outbreaks will spread through state.” Fresno Bee, January 5, 1923, p. 1. “Federal grand jury to probe negro killings.” Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln], October 29, 1946, p. 2. “Federal sleuths will bare names of Monroe lynchers.” Chicago Defender, December 7, 1946, pp. 1, 6. “The fiendish Cuddigans.” Fort Collins Courier [Colorado], February 7, 1884, p. 4.

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Bibliography “Fight until lynch evil dies.” Chicago Defender, August 3, 1946, pp. 1, 6. “Five.” Marion Daily Star [Ohio], August 10, 1898, p. 10. “Five killed in this case.” Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette [Iowa], July 22, 1895, p. 3. “Five killed, village fired in race riot.” Bismarck Tribune [North Dakota], January 5, 1923, p. 1. “Five negroes hanged.” Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette [Iowa], April 22, 1895, p. 2. “Five negroes lynched.” Evening News [Lincoln, Nebraska], April 22, 1895, p. 2. “5 negroes lynched by mob in Florida.” Salt Lake Tribune, August 20, 1916, p. 2. “Five were lynched.” Atlanta Constitution, April 22, 1895, p. 1. “Four Alabama negroes and two whites perish.” Lincoln Star [Nebraska], July 5, 1930, pp. 1–2. “Four lynched together.” Sunday Herald [Syracuse, New York], November 5, 1893, p. 6. “Four negroes are lynched by mob.” Ogden Standard [Utah], May 20, 1918, p. 10. “Four negroes are lynched in Georgia for murder.” Oelwein Daily Register [Iowa], January 23, 1912, p. 5. “Four negroes hanged by mob at Monticello.” Atlanta Constitution, January 16, 1915, p. 7. “Four negroes killed by Georgia lynchers.” Lima News [Ohio], July 26, 1946, p. 1. “Four negroes lynched.” New York Times, May 10, 1891, p. 2. “Four negroes lynched.” San Antonio Light, December 21, 1918, p. 5. “Four negroes lynched in Chatham.” Landmark [Statesville, North Carolina], October 2, 1885, p. 2. “Four slain.” Logansport Journal [Indiana], July 3, 1895, p. 1. “Four were hung.” Racine Daily Journal [Wisconsin], November 4, 1893, p. 1. “From Cincinnati.” Janesville Gazette [Wisconsin], November 4, 1872, p. 1. “The Georgia case.” McKean County Miner [Smethport, Pennsylvania], August 12, 1880, p. 4. “Georgia crackers on rampage, murder four.” Chicago Defender, May 25, 1918, p. 1. “The Georgia fiends.” Eau Claire Weekly Free Press [Wisconsin], August 12, 1880, p. 1. “Georgia mob continues; lynches ninth victim.” Chicago Defender, June 1, 1918, p. 9. “A ghastly scene.” Marshall Statesman [Michigan], October 2, 1885, p. 1. “Going to prosecute whitecaps.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], March 25, 1897, p. 2. “Government should stop daily lynchings.” Chicago Defender, January 23, 1915, pp. 1, 7. “Governor offers $10,000 reward.” Gallup Independent [New Mexico], July 27, 1946, p. 4. “Grand jury will accept evidence in mob lynching.” Nebraska State Journal [Lincoln], December 1, 1946, p.6. “Guilty of murder.” Atlanta Constitution, March 3, 1912, p. 4. “Hanged by a mob.” Galveston Daily News, August 20, 1886, p. 2. “Hanged four negroes to a tree.” World [New York, New York], November 5, 1893, p. 8. “Have struck a clue.” Sandusky Register [Ohio], March 20, 1895, p. 1. “Hold inquest in lynching of trio in South Carolina.” New Castle News [Pennsylvania], October 9, 1926, p. 2. “Horrible crime.” Davenport Daily Leader [Iowa], December 30, 1895, p. 1. “Horrible death of a murderess.” Ogden Standard [Utah], June 16, 1904, p. 3. “Horrible lynching.” Fitchburg Sentinel [Massachusetts], December 30, 1895, p. 8. “Horrible murder and robbery.” Galveston Daily News, July 7, 1885, p. 1. “Hung to the limb of a tree.” Petersburg Index and Appeal [Virginia], May 6, 1876, p. 1.

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176

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177

Bibliography “Murderous whitecaps.” Daily Times [New Brunswick, New Jersey], November 19, 1897, p. 6. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969 [1919]. “Negress is lynched in South Carolina for killing child.” Colorado Springs Gazette, July 12, 1914, p. 6. “Negress lynched for killing child.” Atlanta Constitution, July 13, 1914, p. 1. “Negro and wife lynched.” Daily Free Press [Carbondale, Illinois], November 27, 1914, p. 1. “Negro burning was not proved.” Atlanta Constitution, September 23, 1904, p. 5. “A negro girl’s unnatural crime.” Review [Decatur, Illinois], April 7, 1891, p. 1. “Negro girls lynched.” Winnipeg Free Press [Manitoba], May 13, 1897, p. 5. “Negro is lynched.” Logansport Pharos-Reporter [Indiana], March 1, 1917, p. 1. “A negro lynched.” Winnipeg Free Press [Manitoba], September 11, 1893, p. 2. “Negro man and woman lynched.” Decatur Review [Illinois], September 30, 1891, p. 1. “Negro murderers arrested.” New York Times, July 9, 1885, p. 1. “Negro soldier lynched.” Nevada State Journal [Reno], May 10, 1919, p. 4. “Negro woman is lynched by mob.” Lincoln Daily Star [Nebraska], March 31, 1914, p. 1. “A negro woman lynched.” Washington Post, April 16, 1881, p. 1. “Negro woman lynched.” Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette [Indiana], March 17, 1901, p. 14. “Negro women lynched.” News [Frederick, Maryland], August 2, 1901, p. 1. “Negro women lynched.” Galveston Daily News, July 27, 1903, p. 1. “Negro women lynched.” Mansfield News [Ohio], October 4, 1916, p. 1. “Negroes at bay.” Sunday Herald [Syracuse, New York], February 7, 1904, p. 2. “Negroes killed.” North Adams Transcript [Massachusetts], June 9, 1903, p. 1. “Newbold’s life is threatened.” Atlanta Constitution, February 23, 1896, p. 17. “News.” Landmark [Statesville, North Carolina], September 21, 1893, p. 2. “News brevities.” Wisconsin State Journal [Madison], September 15, 1871, p. 1. “No indictments against lynchers.” Kingsport Times [Tennessee], August 21, 1930, p. 2. “No trial needed.” San Antonio Daily Light, July 9, 1895, p. 1. “Not guilty of lynching.” World [New York, New York], February 26, 1896, p. 16. “Not Kate Maxwell.” Jackson Sentinel [Maquoketa, Iowa], August 1, 1889, p. 2. “Not mistaken.” Oakland Daily Evening Tribune, December 26, 1891, p. 2. “Notable trial in South Carolina.” Daily Times [New Brunswick, New Jersey], October 28, 1896, p. 3. “Notorious white woman lynched.” Evening Times [Cumberland, Maryland], September 30, 1897, p. 1. “Nuggets of news.” News [Frederick, Maryland], August 3, 1895, p. 1. “On mere suspicion.” Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], December 6, 1895, p. 2. “On their trail.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], December 26, 1891, p. 1. “One lynched; six shot in Alabama riot.” Chicago Defender, July 12, 1930, p. 4. “The Ouray horror.” Fairplay Flume [Colorado], January 24, 1884, p. 3. “The Ouray murder.” Leadville Daily Herald [Colorado], January 22, 1884, p. 2. “Ouray tragedy.” White Pine Cone [Colorado], January 25, 1884, p. 2. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, vol. 9, pp. 137–138. Palmer, L. F. Jr. “America’s most shocking lynchings.” Chicago Defender, July 30, 1959, p. 11. “Particulars of the double lynching.” Galveston Daily News, October 23, 1884, p. 1.

178

Bibliography “Party of men visit jail.” Galveston Daily News, February 14, 1912, p. 3. “Paul Strange was killed.” Record and Chronicle [Denton, Texas], February 2, 1912, p. 1. “Posse pursues murderers.” Lincoln Evening News [Nebraska], February 5, 1904, p. 1. “Posse seeks four whites.” Coshocton Morning Tribune [Ohio], December 6, 1911, p. 4. “Posses kill negroes.” San Antonio Light, August 20, 1916, p. 2. “Protects her honor; lynched by mob.” Chicago Defender, April 4, 1914, pp. 1, 7. “Race rioters declare truce.” Newark Advocate [Ohio], July 7, 1930, p. 1. “Race trouble breaks out again in Florida.” Winnipeg Free Press, January 8, 1923, p. 10. “Race war.” Lowell Sun [Massachusetts], July 26, 1894, p. 6. “The race war is still on.” Davenport Daily Leader [Iowa], November 15, 1898, p. 1. “Reign of king mob.” Chillicothe Constitution [Missouri], March 17, 1891, p. 1. “Riddled them with bullets.” Olean Times [New York], January 23, 1912, p. 1. “Sale of liquor preceded crime by Georgia mob.” Evening Gazette [Cedar Rapids, Iowa], January 16, 1915, p. 9. “Sam Lowman now on lecture platform.” Aiken Standard [South Carolina], July 15, 1927, p. 5. “Saturday, Aug. 3.” Emmetsburg Democrat [Iowa], August 7, 1895, p. 5. “Several were killed.” Galveston Daily News, October 8, 1895, p. 4. “Sex is no bar.” Logansport Reporter [Indiana], May 13, 1897, p. 1. Shay, Frank. Judge Lynch: His First Hundred Years. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1969. “She put poison in the lemonade.” Atlanta Constitution, July 27, 1903, p. 2. “Sheriff Howard killed.” Journal and Review [Aiken, South Carolina], April 25, 1925, p. 1. “Shot down in cold blood.” Titusville Herald [Pennsylvania], December 30, 1896, p. 1. “The Sims war.” New York Times, December 29, 1891, p. 3. “Six are killed in race riot.” Las Vegas Daily Optic, July 5, 1930, pp. 1, 3. “Six negroes dead is sequel to killing.” Brownsville Herald [Texas], June 1, 1918, p. 1. “Six Simites captured.” World [New York, New York], August 31, 1891, p. 6. “Slayers of Sheriff H. H. Howard shot to death by large band early Friday.” Morning News Review [Florence, South Carolina], October 9, 1926, p. 1. “Slayer’s mother lynched.” Evening Telegram [Rocky Mountain, North Carolina], October 9, 1916, p. 2. “Slaying of negroes for alleged plots remain a mystery.” San Antonio Light, June 2, 1918, p. 2. “Slays man who beats mother.” Chicago Defender, October 14, 1916, p. 3. “Sneed jury is secured.” Galveston Daily News, March 2, 1912, p. 8. “Something that is tolerated in Texas.” Logansport Pharos [Indiana], October 14, 1895, p. 1. “Southern mob takes prisoners from jail.” Times [Hammond, Indiana], October 8, 1926, p. 1. “Special lynch grand jury hears charges.” Chicago Defender, March 1, 1947, p. 5. “State news.” Buena Vista Democrat [Colorado], February 7, 1884, p. 2. “Sumter negro is found guilty in death case.” Anniston Star [Alabama], October 9, 1930, p. 1. “The Sweetwater lynchers.” Hamilton Daily Democrat [Ohio], September 26, 1889, p. 1. “Talmadge regrets Georgia lynchings.” Charleston Gazette [West Virginia], July 30, 1946, p. 2.

179

Bibliography “Telegraphic notes.” Decatur Daily Republican [Illinois], October 22, 1889, p. 4. “Texas anarchists.” San Antonio Daily Light, July 20, 1895, p. 1. “Texas family shot to death.” Chicago Defender, June 8, 1918, p. 11. “Thirteen lynchings noted.” Washington Post, April 11, 1914, p. 4. “They were dumb.” Atlanta Constitution, February 24, 1896, p. 2. Thompson, Julius E. Lynchings in Mississippi: A History 1865 –1965. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2007. “Three colored men and woman lynched.” Gettysburg Times [Pennsylvania], January 24, 1912, p. 2. “Three dead in race riot.” Naugatuck Daily News [Connecticut], February 4, 1904, p. 1. “To investigate lynching.” Perry Daily Chief [Iowa], March 21, 1895, p. 1. “The trio lynched.” Indiana Progress [Indiana, Pennsylvania], January 23, 1889, p. 6. “A triple murder.” Landmark [Statesville, North Carolina], July 10, 1885, p. 2. “The true version.” Salt Lake Daily Tribune, July 28, 1889, p. 3. “Two dead, two hurt in shooting affray during liquor raid.” Billings Gazette [Montana], April 26, 1925, p. 6. “Two hanged on one rope.” Salt Lake Tribune, January 19, 1892, p. 1. “Two men sentenced to die on gallows.” Atlanta Constitution, March 5, 1912, p. 5. “2 men, 2 women, lynched in Alabama.” Oakland Tribune, December 21, 1918, p. 2. “Two negro men and woman are killed by mob.” Anniston Star [Alabama], November 18, 1920, p. 1. “Two negro women lynched for attacking white woman.” Post-Standard [Syracuse, New York], March 21, 1907, p. 3. “Two negroes are cremated at the stake.” Atlanta Constitution, February 8, 1904, p. 2. “Two negroes in Georgia lynched by mob after a brutal murder.” Nevada State Journal [Reno], May 20, 1918, p. 6. “Two negroes lynched near Marshall, Texas.” Evening News [Ada, Oklahoma], February 16, 1912, p. 1. “Two of own tribe.” Evening News [Ada, Oklahoma], April 6, 1910, p. 3. “Two Tennessee whitecaps hanged.” Naugatuck Daily News [Connecticut], July 6, 1899, p. 1. “Two to die for murder of Sheriff Howard.” Aiken Standard [South Carolina], May 15, 1925, p. 5. “Two white men die on gallows.” Atlanta Constitution, July 27, 1912, p. 6. “Two women lynched.” Washington Post, August 2, 1901, p. 1. “Two women lynched by Mississippi mob.” New York Times, August 2, 1901, p. 1. “Verner acquitted by federal jury.” Florence Morning News [South Carolina], June 34, 1947, p. 12. “Village burned by irate white death avengers.” Ada Weekly [Oklahoma], January 11, 1923, p. 6. “Was he insane?” Democratic Standard [Coshocton, Ohio], January 29, 1892, p. 4. “West and south.” Waterloo Courier [Iowa], January 2, 1884, p. 2. “What the people say.” Chicago Defender, September 28, 1946, p. 14. “Whitecap murderers convicted.” Syracuse Standard [New York], April 9, 1898, p. 2. “Wholesale hangings.” Janesville Daily Gazette [Wisconsin], February 21, 1889, p. 3. “Wholesale lynching.” Waterloo Daily Courier [Iowa], January 8, 1892, p. 2. “Wholesale lynching.” Constitution [Atlanta], November 5, 1893, p. 15. “The wife testifies.” Atlanta Constitution, February 22, 1896, p. 2.

180

Bibliography “Wigginton and Watts.” Bismarck Daily Tribune [North Dakota], March 13, 1891, p. 1. “Will poison no more.” San Antonio Light, March 14, 1892, p. 1. “Woman and a man lynched in Florida.” Post-Standard [Syracuse, New York], September 3, 1910, p. 1. “Woman and five sons killed.” Lancaster Daily Eagle [Ohio], June 3, 1918, p. 1. “Woman and girl.” Daily Review [Decatur, Illinois], June 14, 1902, p. 1. “Woman and son lynched.” News [Frederick, Maryland], May 26, 1911, p. 7. “A woman is lynched.” New York Times, August 20, 1886, p. 3. “Woman is lynched by mob in Georgia town.” Oelwein Daily Register [Iowa], June 26, 1912, p. 2. “A woman lynched.” Liberty Tribune [Missouri], January 25, 1884, p. 1. “A woman lynched.” Logansport Journal [Indiana], March 19, 1895, p. 6. “Woman lynched.” Emmetsburg Democrat [Iowa], March 20, 1895, p. 2. “A woman lynched in Kentucky.” Decatur Daily Republican [Illinois], October 11, 1882, p. 2. “Woman lynched in Tennessee.” Evening Democrat [Warren, Pennsylvania], March 21, 1895, p. 1. “Woman lynching stirs South.” News [Frederick, Maryland], December 30, 1902, p. 1. “Woman raped and lynched by mob of Southern white men.” Chicago Defender, December 18, 1915, p. 7. “Woman up in the west.” Fairbanks Weekly News-Miner [Alaska], January 21, 1921, p. 15. “Women in autos direct lynching of murderers.” Syracuse Herald [New York], June 25, 1912, p. 1. “Women lynched.” Fort Wayne News [Indiana], March 20, 1907, p. 7. “Women lynched.” Syracuse Daily Standard [New York], May 13, 1897, p. 5. “A young lady murdered by a slave.” McKean Miner [Smethport, Pennsylvania], November 10, 1860, p. 2.

Untitled Newspaper Articles (chronological) Washington Post, March 12, 1878, p. 2. Independent [Helena, Montana], April 3, 1878, p. 2. Fairplay Flume [Colorado], January 24, 1884, p. 1. Liberty Tribune [Missouri], January 25, 1884, p. 2. White Pine Cone {Colorado], February 1, 1884, p. 2. White Pine Cone [Colorado], May 16, 1884, p. 2. Boomerang [Laramie, Wyoming], March 14, 1889, p. 4. Pittsburgh Post, July 25, 1889, p. 4. Janesville Gazette [Wisconsin], August 8, 1891, p. 1. Fort Wayne Weekly Gazette [Indiana], February 18, 1892, p. 8. Stevens Point Daily Journal [Wisconsin], April 14, 1894, p. 4. Weimar Mercury [Texas], June 1, 1895. Daily Nevada State Journal [Reno], October 3, 1897, p. 2. Estherville Enterprise [Iowa], July 8, 1925, p. 1. Galveston Daily News, June 22, 1935.

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Index Barnes, Susan Jemima 22 Barrentine, John 59–60 Barwell, Jennie 94 Bell, Essie 126–127 Bellinger, M. 85 Blalock, J.S. 31 Blease, Cole 128 Boden, Joe 51–52 Bolivar City, Mississippi 126 bombing 81 Boomerang (Laramie) 56–57 Boston, Ann 119–123 Bowman, Hattie 114 Boyd, Clarence 158–160 Boyd, Grover 159–160 Boyd, Miss 58 Brant, Frank 84 Brenham, Texas 81 Brisbane, Arthur 154 Briscoe, Hamp 70 Briscoe, Mrs. Hamp 70 Brooks County, Georgia 138–140 Brown, Eugene 146–147 Brown, Wille 136–137 Broyles, Rufus 71 Buchanan, James 54–57 Burke County, North Carolina 93 Burns, Allen 114 Byhalia, Mississippi 128–129

Abbeville County, South Carolina 99, 104–105 Ackerman, W.B. 84 acquittals 86–87, 109 Adair County, Oklahoma 48–49 Adams County, Mississippi 96 adultery 28, 89 Aiken, South Carolina 149–158 Akridge, John 110–111 Aldrich, James 85 Aldrich, Robert 85 Allen, James 12 Allen, P.W. 141 Andres, Harry 145 Arbegast, Jim 26–27 Archer, Arthur 99 Archer, Polk 72 Archer, Will 72 Arkansas 69 Arnall, Ellis 164–166 Arnold, Phil 81 arson 88 Arthur, Mrs. Theodore 75 Atcheson, Mrs. J.F. 48 Averill, James 51–57 Bailey, John 116 Baker, David V. 5–6 Baker, Mrs. 69 Baker, Peter 69 Baker, Ray Stannard 13–14 Ballou, J. 21 Barber, Dan 129–131 Barber, Jesse 129–131 barn burnings 26–27, 31, 69, 73, 128, 133

Cabiness, Bessie 140–142 Cabiness, Cute 140–141 Cabiness, George 140–141 Cabiness, Pete 140–141 Cabiness, Sarah 140–141

183

Index Colston, Frank 80 Columbus, Mississippi 132–134 Connelly, Sam 135–136 Connelly, Sarah 135–136 conscription 141 Constitution (Atlanta) 27–28 Costigan, Edward P. 18 Cotulla, Texas 82 cremation 88–89, 108, 115 Crocker, John 79–80 Crutchfield, Ballie 101 Crutchfield, Dusty 117–118 Cuddigan, Michael 35–39 Cuddigan, Mrs. 35–39 Cummins, Miss 23

Cabiness, Tenola 140–141 Cabiness, Thomas 140–141 Cahill, R.W. 57 Caldwell, Erskine 15 Caley, Zeb 77–78 Calhoun Parish, Louisiana 70–71 Campbell, Bud 32–34 Campbell, J.B. 32–34 Campbell, Reilly 32–34 Cannon, Frank 21–22 Carbin, J.T. 154 Carbon County, Wyoming 49–58 Carr, Albert 107–108 Carrier, Bertha 144–148 Carrier, James 144–147 Carrier, Sylvester 144–148 Carroll, John 36–38 Carrollton, Alabama 72 Carrolton, Mississippi 101–103 Carson, Rosa 126–128 Carter, Louisa 71 Castel, Manse 96–99 Catlett, Robert 92 Centerville, Alabama 59 Chandler, Lizzie 92 Charles, Ella 129–132 Charles, Eula 129–132 Chase, Earl 126 Cherokee County, Alabama 40–41 Chicago Defender 122–123, 124–125, 127–128, 129, 131–133, 135–137, 139, 146–147, 155–156, 165–168 child abuse 35–39 Christian, Edward 114 civic condemnation 130–131 Clarendon, Arkansas 96–99 Clark, Andrew 142–143 Clark, Major 142–143 Clark, Tom 165 Clay County, Nebraska 41–44 Clide, Mae 122–123 Clifton, Tennessee 115–116 Cole, Ted 146–147 Colleton County, South Carolina 82–87 Collins, Isaac 125–126 Collins, Jane 126 Collins, Jennie 126 Collins, Mrs. Paralee 125–126

Dampier, Calvin 139 Daniels, John M. 156 Davis, John 60–61 Davis, Mary H. 40–41 Davis, William 60 Deane, Mary 77–78 Deason, Matthew 25 Dennis, Bert 134–135 Dennis, James 134–135 Dennis, Mary 134–135 Dever, Mary 88–90 Dever, William 88–90 Dial, Viola 158–162 Doddsville, Mississippi 107–109 Dodge, Texas 140–142 Dolan, Lizzie 106 Dorsey, George 162–171 Dorsey, J.R. 40–41 Dorsey, Willie Mae 162–171 Douglas, Georgia 143–144 Downieville, California 21–22 drowning 25, 113 Durbin, John 54–55 Durbin, Winfield T. 17 Eastland, C.C. 109 Eastland, John 107–108 editorial comment 14, 27–28, 30, 36– 38, 53–55, 73, 87, 91, 120–121, 131– 132, 154–157, 165–168; male vs. female 8–9 Elkhart, Texas 162

184

Index Gunter, Baxter, 46–47 Gunter, Jane 46 Gunter, Olive 44–46

Ellicott, A. 3–4 Ellington, Ephraim 44–46 Elliott, Roxie 59 Elloree, South Carolina 126–128 Emelle, Alabama 158–162 executions: of lynchers 92, 116; numbers 6 Ezell, James 129–130

Hadley, Norman 117–118 Hamilton, Georgia 117–118 Haming, Eugene 117–118 Hammond, Chat 80 Hammond, Louisiana 136–137 hangings 36, 58–59, 69, 71, 76, 96, 114, 115, 124; bridges 21, 61, 101, 105, 115, 138, 142; trees 23, 26, 27, 31–32, 35, 40, 42, 47–48, 52, 60, 66, 70, 72, 74, 78, 93, 94, 106, 110, 113, 117, 119, 120, 127, 128, 130, 132, 134, 136 Harper, Jesse 144–146 Harper, Pearly 143–144 Harris, Charlotte 26–28 Harris, L.G. 134 Harrison, Loy 163–171 Haskins, Josh 134–135 Hastings, John 70–71 Hathaway, Bertha 117–118 Hawkins, Ms. 25 Hawkins, Samuel 25 Hawkins, Mrs. Samuel 25 Head, Will 138–139 Helmer, W.R. 70 Henderson, North Carolina 124 Henry County, Alabama 60 Henry County, Kentucky 25 Hester, Barney 163–165 Hicks, Jet 110 Hicks, Meta 110–111 Hiers, Frank 83–86 Hill, Paul 72 Hill, W.S. 102–103 Hinton, Harry 66 Hispanics 21–22 Ho Chi Minh 15 Holbert, Luther 107–109 Holbert, Mrs. Luther 107–109 Holiday, Billie 16 Hollandale, Mississippi 60–61 Holten, Mrs. W.E. 76 Holton, Theodore 76 Hooper, Emma 136–137 House, Alma 142–143

Fair, Emma 72 Fairplay Flume (Colorado) 38 Falls, Peb 94–96 Farley, Mike 51–52 Farmer, Jack 126 Fayette County, Kentucky 25 Federal Bureau of Investigation 164–166 female behavior 32–34, 50–57, 89–90, 94–96, 126; fictional 50–58 feminist movement 28 Ferguson, William 58 fiction, as fact 49–56 Finch, Edward 44–46 Finch, Harriet 44–46 Finch, Jerry 44–46 Finch, Sallie 44–46 Fleishman, Sam 24 Ford, Bud 137 Frank, Gabe 133 Franks, Mandy 93–94 French, Ben 26 French, Mrs. Ben 26 Fulton, Missouri 22 Gavin, Sheriff 65 Georgia Bureau of Investigation 164– 166 get-out-of-town notices 42, 113 Goode, Eliza 99 Gordon, Betsy 144–148 Gordon, E.S. 163 Graceville, Florida 114 grand juries 57, 148, 155–156, 161, 168– 170 Gray, John 29 Green, Samuel 164 Greenberry, Oscar 24 Greene, Alice 77–78 Greene, Martha 77–78

185

Index Kingsport Times (Tennessee) 154–155 knifings 25

House, Maggie 142–143 Howard, Golden Lamar 169–170 Howard, H.H. 149–151 Howell County, Missouri 125–126 Hubbard, Norman 35

labor conditions, blacks, 122 Lacayo, Richard 12 Lanham, Judge 153 law officers, yielding victims 23, 27, 31, 40, 44, 60, 64–65, 70, 78, 103, 110, 112, 113, 114–115, 119, 120, 124, 127, 128, 130, 134, 135, 136–137, 138, 142, 144, 153–154 Lawson, Louisa 28 Leadville Daily Herald (Colorado) 39 Lear, C.W. 76–77 Leary, Georgia 135–136 Lebanon Junction, Kentucky 110 Lee, mother of Wesley 59–60 Lee, Wesley 59–60 LeFlore, John 166–167 Liberty Tribune (Missouri) 36–37 Liggett, Marshal 69 Lincoln County, Tennessee 76 Lincoln County, West Virginia 75 Litwack, Leon F. 12–13 Loessin, Sheriff 79 Loney, H. 115 Long, Boisey 134–135 Long, Huey 15 Longino, A.H. 102–103 Lonoke County, Arkansas 112–113 Lowe, Eliza 60 Lowe, Willis 60 Lowman, Annie 149–151 Lowman, Bertha 149–158 Lowman, Clarence 149–158 Lowman, Demon 149–158 Lowman, Sam 149–158 Lowndes County, Mississippi 59–60 Lynch, Charles 3 Lynch, William 4 Lynchburg, Tennessee 72–74 lynching: definitions 3–4, 10–11; male vs. female 8–10, 27–28, 36–38, 68; numbers of 6–8; statistics 18–20 Lynch’s Creek, South Carolina 3

illegitimacy 59 insanity 120–121, 137 Irwin, John 110 Ivory, Minnie 143–144 Ivory, Will 143–144 Jackson, Ben 71 Jackson, Mahaley 71 Jackson, Mary 118–119 Jackson, Tennessee 47–48 Jackson County, Florida 24 jails, taken from 40, 44, 72, 96, 103, 110, 113, 114–115, 117, 119, 120, 124, 127, 130, 134, 135, 142, 153–154 Jay, William K. 104 Jeff, Alabama 93–94 Jefferson Parish, Louisiana 90–91 Jenkins, Crockett 33–34 Jenney, Frank 84 Jim Crow 6 Johnson, E.L. 142–143 Johnson, Mose 74 Johnson, Sidney 138–140 Jolly, James 126 Jones, C.C. 41 Jones, Jacob 26 Jones, Thomas 41–43 Jones, Thomas G. 64 Jones, Winston 158–160 Jonesboro, Georgia 29–30 Jordan, Mrs. R.E. 119–120 Juanita 21–22 justice, delivery of 4–5 Kearse, Hannah 82–87 Kearse, Isham 82–87 Kearse, Rosa 83–86 Kearse, Wyman 84 Kelly, Joshua 93 Keo, Arkansas 70 Keya Paha County, Nebraska 76 King, T.E. 141

Malcolm, Dorothy 162–171 Malcolm, Roger 162–171

186

Index Mosely, Joseph 62 Motlow, Henry 73 Motlow, Sam 72–73 Mount Sterling, Kentucky 58–59 Murphy, Tom 77 Murphy, Watts 77–78 mutilation of 109

Malone, E.T. 130 Mann, Marvin M. 155 Marche, Arkansas 74 Marion County, Kentucky 88–90 Marshall, Texas 118–119 Mart, Texas 81 Martin, Mrs. 69 Martin’s Depot, South Carolina 31– 32 Mason, James 81–82 Mason, Mrs. James 81–82 Mason, Tom 50 Matthews, Albert 3 Matthews, Mrs. Frank 107 Matthews, Mary Rose 35–39 Matthews, Porter 107 Maxwell, Kate 49–58 McAdory, Walter K. 160 McClellan, Colonel 24 McCray, Belford 101–103 McCray, Betsie McCray, Ida 101–103 McElhanney, Robert 149–151 McElroy, James 30 McHenry, Andrew 134–135 McKamie, Arkansas 112 McKenzie, Belle 63 McKinley, William 11–12 McLeod, G. 154 McMillan, John 63 McSweeney, Governor 104–105 Meeropol, Abel 16 Melvin, E.M. 135–136 Metts, Judy 31–32 Mitchell, Laura 112–113 Mitchell, Wiley 112–113 Mitchell County, Georgia 110–111 Mobile, Alabama 61–68 Monroe, Georgia 162–171 Monroe, Louisiana 113 Monticello, Georgia 129–132 Mooney, Lucy 155 Moore, John 117 Morris, Patrick 90–91 Morris, Mrs. Patrick 90–91 Morris, Rachel 98 Morris County, Texas 81–82 Moseley, Sheriff 61–62

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 7, 120, 125, 139–140, 142–143 Nelson, Mary 114–115 Newberry, Florida 134–135 Newbold, W.H. 86 Nickles, Mrs. Matt 24 Norment, Zip 70–71 Northport, Alabama 23 Okemah, Oklahoma 114–115 Oklahoma Territory 103 Orr, John T. 96–98 Orr, Mabel 97 Ouray, Colorado 35–39 Patisall, John 44–47 Payne, Lawrence 115 Peace, Lemuel 124–125 Pearson, Mary 96 Perry, Joe 124 Perry, Mrs. Joe 124 Perry, Will 143–144, 170 Pettigrew, Ben 115–116 Pettigrew, Fred 115–116 Pettigrew, Pearl 115–116 Phillips, Abe 81 Phillips, Mrs. Abe 81 Phillips, Ed 81 Phillips, Hannah 81 Phillips, Willlie 81 Pickens, Mississippi 143 Pinehurst, Georgia 119–123 Pittsboro, North Carolina 44–47 Pittsylvania County, Virginia 4 Police Gazette 56 Porter, Laura 113 postcards, of lynchings 12–13 Pride, Frank 112–113 Puckett, John 48–49

187

Index shootings 30, 60, 69, 70, 72, 75, 79, 81–82, 91, 99, 110, 111, 112, 113, 135, 141, 144, 153, 160, 164; of corpses 40, 48, 105, 106, 117, 120, 127, 130, 137 Shreveport, Louisiana 106–107 Shubuta, Mississippi 142–143 Simes, Mrs. John 25 Simpson County, Kentucky 112 Simpson County, Mississippi 75 Sims, Beatrice 61–68 Sims, Bob 61–68 Sims, John 61, 66 Sims, Laura 61–68 Sims, Mosely 66 Sims, Neal 66–67 Sipe, Henry E. 26–27 slavery 5–6, 22–23 slaves, execution of female 5–6 Slayton, John 117, 131 Smith, Hampton 138–139 Smith, Mollie 80, 93–94 Smith County, Mississippi 105–106 Smith County, Tennessee 101 Sneed, Tennie 118–119 Southern Negro Youth Congress 164– 165 Spence, William 166 Stanley, Frank 85 Steer, Jennie 106–107 Stevens, W.F. 102 Stevenson, Arch 133–134 Stevenson, Cordella 132–134 Stevenson, Lou 60–61 Strange, Paul 118–119 Suarro, Florentina 82 Sullivan, Fred 128–129 Sullivan, Jane 128–129 Sullivan, Mary 32–35 Sullivan, Tom 32–34 Sumner County, Tennessee 69 Sunn, Tom 54–55 Sweetwater, Wyoming 49–58 Swink, N.A. 82

Puckett, Mrs. John 48–49 Pulaski, Kentucky 23 Quincy, Mississippi 71 rape 76, 115, 132 Rapper, Arthur 6–7 Rattler, John 77 Rayville, Louisiana 70 Record, Dennis 96–99 Reed, Harrison 24 Reed, Mrs. Henry 24 religion 62–66 rewards 24–25, 31, 92, 108–109, 111, 131, 164 Rhodes, John 80 Rhoten, Ella 112 Rice, Judge 152 Richards, Governor 156–157 riots 24, 99, 145–148, 159–162 Roberts, Edwin 41–42 Robertson, John 158–161 Robeson, Paul 16 Robinson, Esau 158–160 Robinson, Nollie 149–151 Robinson, Tom 158–160 Rockingham County, Virginia 26–28, 94–96 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 18 Roosevelt, Theodore 17–18 Rosenblatt, Roger 16 Rothwell, E.J. 54–55 Rough on Rates 70, 71, 93 rustling 50–55 Sanders, George 118–119 Saul, H.T. 82 Saunders, Will 96–99 Savage, Tom 61 Savage, Tyee 61 Savage, William 62 Scott, Marie 124–125 Segovia, Josefa 21–22 servants 122–123 Sevier County, Tennessee 91–92 Shady Grove, Kentucky 32–35 Sheldon, George 116 Sheppard, Arthur 149–151

tabloid press 57–58 Talley, Harriet 76 Talliferro, John 101–102 Talmadge, Eugene 164–166

188

Index Watterson, Henry 121–122 Watts, B.C. 58 Weaver, Lorilla 96–99 Wells, Ida 11–12 West, Mary 88–90 West, T.J. 89–90 Whaley, William 91–92 Whaley, Mrs. William 91–92 Wharton County, Texas 79 whipping, to death 83 White, George 17 White, Grant 60–61 White, Sonny 16 whitecaps 81–82, 92 Wideman, Mary 104–105 Wideman, Oliver 104–105 Wiggington, John 58 Wiggington, Mrs. 58–59 Wilkerson, C.P. 145 Wilkins, Roy 15 Wilkinson County, Georgia 25 Williams, Ella 60 Williams, J.B. 128 Williams, J.P. 129–130 Williams, Mingo 144–146 Williams, William 60 Willing, Henry 23 Winters, John 108 Wise, Jeff 73 Wood, Ed 72 Woodruff, Thomas 71 Woods, Eliza 47–48 Wynn, Pleas 92 Wynn, S.G. 134

Taylor, Eliza 41–44 Tedmon, B.S. 38–39 Teney 22–23 Thompson, Bob 29–30 Thompson, Joe 29–30 Thompson, Julius E. 7–8 Thompson, Mary 110 Thompson, Millie 29–31 Thompson, Will 138–139 Tillman, Benjamin 18 Tiptonville, Tennessee 48 Topton, Catlett 92 torture 109, 134, 167 trials 85–86, 109; mock 22 Trigg County, Kentucky 80 Turner, Hayes 138–140 Turner, Mary 138–140 Tuskegee Institute 6 Tyson, Lee 44–46 United States Department of Justice 168 Verner, Bradley 169–171 Verner, Tom 169–171 Wade, Jane 40–41 Wade, Robert 92 Waggoner, Mary 72–74 Waggoner, Ned 72–73 Waggoner, Will 72 Wagner, Robert F. 18 Wagoner County, Oklahoma 124–125 Wallace, David 112 Wallace, Mrs. 112 Walters, Monroe 59–60 Warsaw, Kentucky 26 Washington, Booker T. 124 Washington Post 27, 53–54 Watson, Ella 49–58

Young, Fred 126 Young, Stella 134–135 Young, Wyatt 24

189