One of the lynchings reported in my previous post was published as a short notice in the Owen County Journal on September 19, 1878 that read, “A mob of about 7,000 persons took a negro named William Taylor from the Sheriff of Sandusky, Ohio, the other night, and hung him. The negro had confessed to killing a servant girl.”
The New York Times carried a fuller report of what happened in Sandusky, Ohio published September 8, 1878 under the headline A CITY UNDER MOB RULE and bylined from the day before. It reads:
“Probably no city in the United States is so firmly under the sway of mob rule to-day as this. Last Monday night a negro named William Taylor outraged and brutally murdered a girl named Alice O’Donnell. On Wednesday he confessed the crime, and was lynched by a mob. He was dragged more than a mile with his arms tied and a rope around his neck, the crowd all the while kicking and beating and at one time jumping upon him and stopping the procession. From that time to the present moment the mob has been having things pretty much their own way. The Bar held a meeting Thursday night and adopted resolutions recommending the arrest and punishment of the ringleaders of the riot. Last night a meeting was called by prominent citizens to take action in the matter, but the streets were filled with rioters, so that it was decided to postpone the meeting until to-day. The meeting to-day was attended almost entirely by rioters. and when an attempt was made to elect a respectable man Chairman, he was voted down. After two or three trials it was given up. Resolutions condemning the action of the mob were voted down by howls, and some of the rioters stepped forward and made incendiary speeches, which were received with the upmost satisfaction by their followers. The town is governed by Democratic officials, mostly Irish Catholics, and they seem to be in sympathy, many of them, with the rioters. The Coroner’s inquest was suspended to-day, as those knowing most of the affair fear to testify. They are colored people and have received threats of violence if they say anything.”
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Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
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