Mitchell, The Courier Journal, The Bourbon News, June 16, 1882
MT. STERLING Mrs. Thomas, a farmer's wife, outraged by a negro scoundrel, who is arrested. [Special to the courier-journal.] Mt. Sterling, June 14,- To-day about noon as the wife of Robert Thomas, a tobacco man, who lives on Smith Judis' farm, in the country, was crossing a field to visit a neighbor, she met Jim Mitchell, a negro do thiss city, whi secured her, smothering her cries, and outraged her. She succeeded in getting home and related her sad story yo Mr., Stanton, who came to the city and informed Deputy Sheriff Chenault of the affair. He'd immediately went in pursuit of the black fiend, captured him and he is now in jail here. The husband of the outraged woman, when he heard of the rape, procured a shotgun and, but for the interference of the officers, would have killed the deapoller of his home. Mr. Thomas is a poor man, but respectable, and the excitement over the outrage is intense. MT. STERLING, June 14.- A burly black brute named Mitchell, weighing 200 pounds, waylaid a reputable woman, the wife of Robert Johnson, a farmer living about two miles in the country, and committed a horrible rape upon her. She walked a mile and gave the information, and the negro was arrested and I'm jail at 3 o'clock, two hours after the prefpormance of the deed. There will likely be a hasty court held here by Judge Lynch to-night.
Jim Mitchell, a negro, was taken from the Sheriff near Mt.Sterling, Ky., while on his way to jail, and hanged. He had outraged a Mrs. Thomas (white), the day before. The mob consisted of about 500 men,
MATTERS IN KENTUCKY MT. STERLING A black ravisher receives proper attention at the hands of judge lynch. [special to the courier-journal] Mt.Sterling, June 15.- The negro, Jim Mitchell, who committed the outrage upon the wife of Robert Thomas yesterday afternoon, was taken from the jail during the night by five men, armed with revolvers who compelled the jailer to surrender the prisoner. He acknowledged his guilt, and was fully identified by his victim. His captors took him to a railroad trestle, about half a mile from town, strung him iup for safe keeping and left him. The lifeless body was cut down by the Coroner this morning and planted. The general impression is that Judge Lynch did a very good job, considering the brief time the court had in which to make up its mind.
Morton, The Evening Bulletin, Mon, October 15, 1894
Charge, Murder of one white man and one white sheriff
A coldblooded Muder Occurs at Lexington LOUISVILLE, Oct. 15. - A special to the Commercial from Lexington, Ky., says: Another lynching was added to the unusually large fall series of Blue Grass lynching bees Saturday. Saturday at the close of the Beattyville fair, Oscar Morton, a prominent citizen of Stanton, in Powell county, went on the warpath. Only two weeks ago Morton killed his man at Stanton and was out on $5,000 bond to appear next week at the Powell circuit court. When Morton arrived at the fair he procceded to get drunk and then went to hunt for Sheriff William Simms, who was his deadly enemy, a feud of long standing existing between the two men. Simms and Morton met near the entrance to the fair grounds, and after a few words both of them drew guns, and a quick exchange of shots followed, Morton using two guns. His first shot broke the sheriff's right arm at the elbow, and John Hogg, a friend of Simms, whipped out his gun and joined in the battle. When the smoke had cleared away it was found that Sheriff Simms was dead, being shot through his breast, one in his abdomen and another through his arm. Morton was shot through the neck, while Hogg was unhurt. Before a crowd could collect, Morton was hustled to the county jail and placed under guard. The people became infiuriated and a big meeting was at once held on the public square. Coloneal John Drummond mounted a barrel and made a speech in which he said that the murderer must be hanged, but that the work must be done quietly and with perfect order; Morton had killed two men in less than two weeks time, and he must die by the rope. A mob was quickly formed and marched to the jail. The jailer was overpowered and the keys to Morton's cell obtained. He was found lying in his shirt sleeves on the floor of his cell and after a bitter struggle was seized and dragged out. He then became very imprudent and told the mob he did not care what they did with him provided they did their work quick. After a short parley he was taken to a little bridge some distance from town and the rope was placed around his neck. The leaders drew their guns and told him to jump or else he would be riddles with bullets. Turning around the doomed man cursed his captors, and, uttering wild imprecations, leaped into space. The jump broke his neck, and after dangling in the air for some minutes he became still and a volley of shots were fired into him. The mob then dispersed, and the body was left dangling from the bridge. None of the mob made any attempt to conceal their identities, and the hanging was conducted with as much formality as if it had been a legal affair. The dead sheriff was only recently married and leaves a young wife. The murderer was a wealthy man, who lived in Stanton. He was killed three men. Coming to the fair he attempted to kill the fireman af the train because he would not increased the speed the locomotive was running. This is the eighth lynching in central Kentucky in the past three months and the people have determined to put down murder if they have to take the law in their own hands every time a man is killed. Morton's relatives are incensed over the lynching and it may be that some old feuds will be reopened.
Newspapers.com
Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky, Oscar Morton
Charge, Attempted Rape and Murder of a White Woman
Cario, Ill, May 22.- "On Sunday night a party of disguised men went to the jail at Blandville Ky., and with drawn pistols demanded and received the keys. They then seized the negro, Levi Pile, who attempted to outrage and murder Mrs. C.R. Pile last week, tied a rope around his neck, tied him to a mule, and dragged him away to the woods. Nothing further is known except that his dead body was found hanging to a tree with several bullet-holes in it, and the clothing burned off. At last accounts the body was still hanging."
Casey, The Ohio County News, October 17, 1877
Charge, Assaulting a Married White Woman
Ky, Oct. 19,- "Dick Casey, a negro charged with committing rape in a white girl, was taken from the jail at Hardinsurg a few nights ago by a mob and hung. There are times when mob law might be approved, but when the prisoner is in jail with a prospect of punishment to the full extent of the law there is not much sense or reason to it."
Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky, Dick Casey
Lynch Law in Kentucky. Full Particulars of the Lynching of Parker Mayo. Terrible Punishment for a Terrible Crime
Cin, Apr. 2.-“ From the Cincinnati Enquirer, Our dispatches yesterday announced the lynching of a colored man Parker Mayo, near Walton, Ky., for the rape of a white child near that place. With a view to obtaining full particulars of the affair and of the crime for which he suffered, an Enquirer reporter took passage on the 3 o'clock Short Line Railroad train yesterday afternoon, and was landed in Walton an hour later. Diligent inquiry in the proper quarters revealed the following facts: Parker Mayo was a -colored mulatto, who was born a slave on the plantation of Mr. Diedrick, near James River, Va. For the past year and a half he has been working off and on on the construction train of the Louisville Short Line Railroad, and living off it when out of work as a sort of hangeron. Last Tuesday, about noon, he presented himself at the cabin or shanty of a railroad laborer named James Murray, which 18 situated just north of the crossing of the Cincinnati Southern and Louisville Short Line Railroads, about a mile and three- quarters from Walton, and close to the place where Allen and Goss fought last September. Murray was absent at the time visiting his wife, who, with her youngest child, is an inmate of St. Elizabeth Hospital, in Covington, undergoing treatment for sore eyes. In the cabin was Murray daughter, Molly, a little girl of nine years, and her two little brothers, one six and half and the other three years old. As soon 38 Mayo entered the shanty he took the little girl by the band and pulled her over to the bed, upon which he threw her, and then putting his hand over her mouth to prevent her outcries attracting attention, he forced her to submit to his loathsome embraces. The human brute compelled his little victim to remain in bed with him all the afternoon, as she, in her innocence told him where her parents were, and be had no fear of interruption. Towards evening he left the cabin, but did not stay away more than an hour or so when he returned, and this time he endeavored to entice the little girl to go down to the woods with him. She refused to accompany him, whereupon he offered her several dollars in money if she would comply with his wishes. Molly still resisted his request, and then he threatened to shoot her if she did not do as he wanted. The child cried out in alarm, and the brute, becoming alarmed, fled and did not return. It is thought that he intended to coax the little girl to the woods, so that he could murder her and so prevent her from telling the story of his horrible crime. The little boys he evidently did not think old enough to bear evidence against him, Wednesday he went to the house of a man named Shefly, who lives on the farm of Mr. George T. Gaines, on the Covington and Lexington pike. Mr. Shefly was away from the house at the time at work, and Mayo asked Mrs. Shefly what she would charge him to make him some shirts. She informed him that she sometimes took in sewing, but that just then she had too much work of her own to attend to, and that she could not sew for anybody outside of her own family. Just then two men came down the road, and the negro seeing them, left Mrs. Shefly and started off. As soon as the men were well out of sight he returned to her house, and said that he would like to make a trade with her for two dollars. She replied that she had nothing to trade with him, and then he became more outspoken in his advances. His conduct so incensed Mrs. Shefly that she outered him away from her house. Mayo responded that she 'needn't talk that way to him as she couldn't frighten him.' He also told her that he could throw her down and do what he pleased with her, and that she could not help herself, as he was armed. In proof of his last assertion he produced a revolver. The frantic woman, almost frightened to death, caught her infant in her arms and fled screaming in the direction where her husband was working. Intelligence of the negro's heinous crime upon the little girl Murray, and of his attempt upon the person of Mrs. Shelly, spread rapidly, and scouting parties were organized to hunt him down. Wednesday night one of these parties, consisting of two men, one of them Mr. Shefly, arrived in Florence in search of Mayo, and not being able to obtain lodging in its hotel, went to a haystack in the vicinity to pass away the night. In raking down some hay to make a bed they uncovered Mayo, who was sleeping there, and they returned to Florence, where they procured Constable Theodore Chambers, who went to the baystack and arrested the negro. Thursday morning he was brought to Walton, and that afternoon he had a preliminary examination before 'Squires child, Reuben Conner. Both the child Molly, Murray and Mrs. Shefly appeared against after recognizing him as the man who had assaulted them, detailed the manner of the assault as above detailed. Mrs. O'Gorman, of Allen-Goss prize fight fame, made an examination of the littie girl, and said she was not much injured about the person, but that the body and breasts were much bruised and swollen. O'Gorman was not sure whether or not Mayo had accomplished fendish purpose upon the child. At the conclusion of the examination Mayo was held over in the sum of $500 to appear at the next term of the Boone County Criminal Court, to answer to the charge on rape Upon the person of the child Murray, and the sum of $100 to answer a charge of assault with intent to commit rape upon Mrs. Shefly. The bail was placed at these merely nominal figures because the 'Squires were convinced that it was knew impossible for all him to give $50 bail, and they knew for all practical purposes that a $500 bail would hold him as firm as would $5,000. After the examination 'Squire Conner succeeded in getting a quasi admission of guilt out of Mayo, by asking him if he was not sorry about what he'd done. He replied that he was. "I reckon you wouldn't do it again if you had to do it again, would you?" queried the 'Squire. "No indeed, I would not", responded the villain. A mittimus for Mayo's detention in the Boone County Jail was them made out and given to Constable Theodore Chambers and his assistant, Wm. Kenyon. Public feeling was very strong against the negro and he saw and felt that he was doomed to die before morning. Indeed, it is asserted that he was told so before leaving the 'Squire's office. Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening the officers placed Mayo in a light,open -topped spring-wagon and started with him for Burlington, the county seat of Boone. They had just got to the point about the outskirts of Walton when they noticed they were being followed by two men on horseback, and this fact made the negro very nervous. When they reached a piece woods just in the vicinity of Murray's cabin, the mare they were driving shied, and the next moment twenty-five or thirty men jumped up from the fence corner and ordered the men to halt. Chambers said. "Bill give me a pistol; gentlemen, this is an outrage." "God damn you, I'll give you a pistol" replied one of the crowd at the same running the muzzle of his six shooter against Chambers' nose. The latter just then lost all interest in his own premises and concentrated his mind upon appeals to the man who had the "drop" on him not to shoot. Kenyon sprang to his mare's head to keep her from running away, but a gentleman stepped in front of him, and, presenting his pistol, said:"Now you stand back I'll take care of this animal myself," By this time the crowd had seized Mayo, and as they took him over the fence into the field, Chambers and Kenyon sprang into the vehicle and drove rapidly away. When they got about fifty yards away they fired off two shots at the mob, and the latter returned the compliment with interest. They concluded that the climate was not overly healthy just then, so they left it on the double-quick. About midnight a representative of the Enquirer left Walton, and by 1 o'clock the body of the negro was discovered hanging to the limb of a tree just west of the road,and the fact was at once telegraphed to this paper. Yesterday morning Mayo's body was cut down the absence of the and 'Squire Norman, in the absence of the Coroner, held an inquest on it. The jury was composed of the following gentlemen: Gilbert Booth, Elijah Green, Joseph Beiler, Andrew Casey, Thomas Coyle and A. S. Arnold. After hearing the testimony in the case, which was very meagre, they returned a verdict finding that deceased "Came to his death by hanging by persons unknown to the jury." The body, which looked around extremely natural and unmarked, except where the throat where the rope had cut a grove in it, was then placed in a plain wooden coffin and buried within one hundred yards of the tree upon which it was found."
Documenting Racial Violence in Kentucky, Parker Mayo
Colson & Smith, St. Louis Globe Democrat, July 3, 1895
Charge, murder of two White men, farmers
St. Louis Globe-Democrat, [St. Louis, Mo.]
Colson & Smith, Louisville Courier Journal, July 2, 1895
The Courier-Journal [Louisville, Kentucky]
Colson & Smith, Wilmington Morning News, July 3, 1895
FOUR PEOPLE SLAIN Result of a Row Caused by a Kentucky Desperado. HIMSELF WAS ONE OF THOSE KILLED Abithah Colston Shot Down One Man and Then Another Who Was Bringing the First a Drink of Water—Lynchers Then Killed the Murderer and a Woman. LOUISVILLE, Ky., July 2.—Four lives is what a row cost in Trigg county on last Saturday evening, near a place called Higgins Landing. The fatalities were caused by Abithah Colston, an ex-convict and desperado, who was himself one of the victims. He had recently been released from the penitentiary, where he had served seven years for killing a farmer, John Crump, on the edge of the Tennessee and Kentucky line. Colston was a quarrelsome man, and soon after his return was involved in rows with the neighbors. On Saturday afternoon he appeared at Higgins Landing armed with a double-barrelled shotgun. John Rhodes, who had before incurred the ill will of Colston, came up in time to be used as a mark for the ex-convict’s abuse. They quarrelled [sic] and then began fighting. Rhodes was getting the better of the rough-and-tumble match, and Colston finally broke away, snatched up the gun, and shot his antagonist down. The wound was fatal, and Rhodes fell to the ground. Colston went to a saloon near by, but returned in a few minutes, and was greatly enraged to find Chat Hammond bringing a drink to his victim, who was still alive and begging for water. Hammond was a friend of Rhodes, and angrily threatened the ex-convict with arrest and hanging. Colston did not reply, but finally raised his gun and fired at a short range. Hammond was killed instantly. A dozen men had come up, but had not foreseen the second tragedy. They were unarmed, and Colston threatened to kill the first man who should molest him, and backed off slowly till he got to a safe place, and then broke into a run and escaped. He went only a short distance away to the house of Molly Smith, a woman of ill-repute. She persuaded him to go with her, and the two went to the house of a farmer to ask him to hide the murderer. The farmer refused, and drove them away with his gun. They returned to the woman’s house, a log cabin on the bank of a creek. That night the county was aroused and a lynching party was organized. They demanded Colston’s surrender, but he would not give himself up and opened fire. None of the lynchers were hurt, but both Colston and the woman were shot down and killed. Their bodies were found the next morning. Both had been riddled with buckshot. Rhodes died late that night. News of the tragedy did not reach Hopkinsville, the nearest town, until yesterday.
Colson & Smith, Maysville Public Ledger, July 6, 1895
GAVE THEMSELVES UP. The Slayers of Colston Claim to Have Acted in Self-Defense. Hopkinsville, Ky., July 6.—The latest information received from the scene of the Trigg county tragedy, which resulted in the death of four persons, was to the effect that the persons who killed Beth Colston and Maude Smith had gone into Cadiz, the county seat, Thursday, and had given themselves up to the officers of the law and been taken to jail to await their examining trials, which are set for Monday. Their plea will be that the killings were done in self-defense, as they were trying to arrest Colston for the murder of Hammond and the fatal wounding of John Rhodes. Two of Rhodes’ brothers, whom Colston had threatened to kill, led the party. So intense is the feeling of the public towards the Colston faction that the slayers of their leader and the woman will be acquitted without even the formalities of an examining trial. There are fears of serious troubles when their cases are called.
Colson & Smith, Owensboro Twice-A-Week Messenger, July 3, 1895
FOUR OF THEM DEAD. A Bad Man in Trigg County Goes Killing and Then Gets Killed Along with a Notorious Woman Who accompanied Him in His Devilment. A Ghastly Story from Western Kentucky That Reads Somewhat Like a Tale of the Mountains. OTHER STATE NEWS OF INTEREST. Hopkinsville, Ky., July 1.—News has just reached here of a terrible tragedy in Trigg county, late Saturday evening. Frank Colston, a desperado, residing in that county, had a difficulty with and shot and severely wounded John Rhodes a farmer of this neighborhood. Another farmer named Hammond, who was present, and who was a friend of Rhodes, attempted to assist Rhodes. Colston then shot and instantly killed Hammond before he could render any assistance to his wounded friend. For some reason Colston, after wounding Rhodes, did not shoot him again, probably thinking him already dead. Colston did not attempt to escape, nor did any one attempt to arrest him, but he went on where he was going when the difficulty was begun. A few hours later Colston, in company with a prostitute, went to the house of another farmer. The farmer ordered the desperado and the woman to leave his place. They refused to do so and attacked the farmer, who, securing a weapon, succeeded in killing both Colston and the woman. Later information gives the following version of the story: Colston had just been released from the penitentiary for horse stealing and at once went gunning for the witnesses against him. He shot and killed John Rhodes and Chat Hammond. He then went to the house of his mistress, Mollie Smith, and next morning Colston and the Smith woman were found in the road, riddled with bullets, presumably by friends of the dead men. All were tough characters.
The Twice-A-Week Messenger [Owensboro, Ky.]