Stone, Louisville Courier Journal, November 26, 1896

James Stone, the young colored man who is charged with the criminal assault upon Mrs. J. M. R. Green, a young married woman of Mayfield KY., at about 10 o’clock Monday night, was landed in the jail in this city at 11:30 o’clock last night, after having passed through all the excitement incident to an attempt of a mob to take him from the officers who had him in charge at Paducah. 

Stone certainly had a narrow escape from death at the hands of the mob. He stoutly proclaimed his innocence. When asked for his story last night he was perfectly willing to talk. Stone is twenty-one years of age and has a good countenance. He declares that he is innocent of the charge preferred against him, and he says that he can prove that he started from a certain house for his home two hours before the crime is said to have been committed, and that he went directly to the place where he works. 

He says the only difficulty in his way is the fact that the family where he is employed were asleep when he reached the house, and although he lighted [sic] his lamp and kept it burning some time before he retired they say that they did not see it. He possesses good common sense, and tells a straight story without variation even under close questioning. He said: 

“I had been working for Mr. James Richard, whose place is about four miles from Mayfield, and on Monday morning Mr. Richard told me that I could go to the place of Mr. Jake Lewis, near Mayfield, for that day, provided I returned that night. I went as he told me and Mr. and Mrs. Lewis gave me some work to do, stripping tobacco, and I worked there all day. I left there about 6 o’clock and went to the house of one of his strippers, a short distance away. I stayed at this place until about 8 o’clock and then I started for home--I mean Mr. Richard’s place. As soon as I reached home I lit my lamp and got ready for bed. I do not know exactly what time it was when I got in bed, but I suppose all the family were alieep [sic]. They said so afterward. 

“I went to work stripping tobacco for Mr. Richard as I had been in the habit of doing Tuesday morning. I had not been at work long before Sheriff Cook and another gentleman, whom I did not know, came out where I was working and put me under arrest. They told me what I was arrested for, but I knew nothing about the crime they were talking of [sic]. I was taken to the home of Mrs. Green. There were several men there, and they asked Mrs. Green if I was the man who assaulted her.”

“Did you know Mrs. Green?” was asked here. 

“No,” replied the prisoner, “I had heard of her, but I had never been to her house. When the men asked her if I was the man she told them no; she said I was too tall and that the man who assaulted her was yellow. One of the men asked her how she could tell all this in the dark. She replied that she could tell by the firelight. But the men were not satisfied with that. I was taken to the jail and on the way the mob which had formed almost got me. I was pretty scared for a while.” 

“They tried their best to get to me, but the men who were guarding me kept them off by keeping their pistols drawn all the time. They ordered the crowd to stand back or they said they would shoot. I was put in jail, and was kept there until 3 o’clock when I was taken out and hurried to Paducah. Mayfield was alive with people, and we had a hard time getting away. When we got to Paducah I found that I was followed by a Mayfield mob and there were also a lot of countrymen in the mob which formed who did not know what they were there for. 

“Well, I was put in jail after a hard struggle, but was only kept in the Paducah jail a short while, when I was taken out and driven in a carriage to a house a short distance from town. I was taken back to the jail yesterday morning and kept there until we started for Louisville. At the depot there was a good crowd, but I only saw a few Mayfield fellows. They spoke to me and that was all. 

“Now, I am just as innocent of this thing as anybody you ever saw,” said Stone, turning suddenly, “and I am talking plain to you. I did not do it, and the woman says I did not do it.”

Sheriff W. R. Holland, of McCracken county, and Jailer Miller, of Paducah, who brought the negro who is accused of having committed the outrage, to Louisville last night, had an exciting time of it yesterday and Tuesday night. 

“When we heard that the mob was coming,” said Sheriff Holland at the Willard Hotel, “we hustled the prisoner out of the Paducah jail and took him to a private house. Then I went out and circulated among the mob, who were cursing their ill-luck in being unable to find the “black scoundrel,” as they called the negro. 

“‘If we could just find that Sheriff,’ said one member of the mob, ‘we would make him talk.’”

Sheriff Holland says he was standing not ten feet from the man who spoke and could not help smiling. 

“This evening,” said he, “we took the prisoner to the train and got away without trouble because the mob was not on hand in force to make an attempt to secure their man. I think that if the Mayfield mob had been courageous they would have secured the negro before he was taken to Paducah.” 

That they did not get him is to the credit of Sheriff Cook of Graves county. He stood in the door of the car in which the negro was concealed and coolly said that the first man who attempted to enter would be killed. No one tried, and so the train pulled out with the much-wanted prisoner. I think the evidence against him is entirely circumstantial, although he can not prove where he was when the crime was committed. 

The Sheriff and Jailer will return to Paducah to-night. The next court there when the negro can be tried is in February.