William Thacker was a white lynching victim, which accounts for the detailed documentary evidence of his life and death. Thacker was born on May 5th, 1859 in Lawrence, Kentucky. He was raised by Nathaniel and Lucrecia Thacker and was the eldest of 4 children. In 1881 Thacker married Molly Mary Prater. The couple had five […]
Walter Merrick was one of approximately twenty white men lynched in Kentucky between 1880 and 1950. Merrick’s race and the unusual circumstances of the lynching accounts for the abundance of official evidence detailing Merrick’s life and homicide. Merrick was born in March 1891 in Caldwell County, Kentucky. His parents, James and Mary, raised Walter and […]
Robert H. Coffey was born in 1846 in Christian County, KY to Asa and Sidney Coffey. He lived in the 1st District of the county until the age of 14 when his parents moved him and his 7 siblings to the Second Township in Washington, IL. There they lived for a time until Robert moved […]
