Fields and Garnett, The Lexington Herald, October 3, 1901

Two Negro Boys Were Lynched at Shelbyville

Found Hanging to Bridge at Daylight; Had Murdered Printer

Shelbyville, Ky., Oct. 2– “We, the jury, find that Jimbo Fields and Clarence Garnett came to their death upon the C & O railroad trestle by hanging, by parties unknown to the jury.”

The foregoing was the Coroner’s verdict which was quickly reached by six citizens at the C & O bridge over Clear creek, just north of town, and about 500 yards from the county jail at an early hour this morning.

Fields was the little black fifteen-year-old negro boy, and Garnett was his tall, gangling nineteen-year-old accessory, who about two weeks ago stoned to death William Hart, the journeyman printer.

So little was a lynching expected in this case, even after the demonstration made a week or more ago, that guards were no longer kept at the jail. Jailer Perkins, two assistants and his family were the sole occupants of the dwelling adjourning the jail, while the one or two policemen on night duty were at a distance.

The mob, about one hundred strong, arrived a little after midnight. They secured the key to one of the outer doors and reached the corridors of the jail. With sledges they broke the combinations and locks of the two doors then between them and the cage that held their victims. They were until nearly 2 o’clock effecting their way through these big iron doors, but did so so quietly that few except the cringing, trembling boys inside knew of their presence at the jail.

It seems to have been the purpose of the mob to hang the little fellow Fields and let his accessory, Garnett, remain in jail, as they used but one big rope with a hangman’s knot, and as Fields was dressed while Garnett was in his night clothes, in which he had retired to bed, thinking he was to be spared.

The bodies were seen until 8 o’clock this morning by many people, including hundreds of school children and many of the delegates to the Kentucky Conference of the M.E. Church, South, now in session here.

The killing of Hart occurred occurred on the night of Saturday September 21. Hart came to Shelbyville from Lebanon, O., and at the time of his death was employed as a printer in the office of the Shelby Sentinel. His body was found at 7 o’clock at night in a path leading from the house of Annie Fields mother of Jimbo Fields in “Bucktown” a negro settlement in Shelbyville.

At the Coroner’s inquest it developed that Hart had gone to the house of the negro woman for some purpose that has not been positively explained. Young Fields afterward entered and had some trouble with Hart. Fields went to the neighboring house of Clarence Garnett, a boy friend, and got him to go back to the Fields house to assault Hart. The boys were armed with stones with which Hart was pelted until he fell dead, his skull being fractured.

Hart either fell dead outside or else was killed inside and dragged out the latter being the most generally accepted theory. Fields and Garnett were arrested on the night of the killing. On Monday night a mob appeared at the jail but failed to get in.