Skaggs, Lexington Herald-Leader (Kentucky Leader), April 17, 1891

FILLED WITH BULLETS.

FATE OF A NEGRO BOY WHO CUT A WHITE ONE
A Mob's Vengeance About Two Miles from Bowling Green, Kentucky-The Victim of the Cutting Will Also Pass in His Checks

Special to THE LEADER

Bowling, Green, KY., April 17.—William Skaggs, a colored boy 18 years old, met death early yesterday morning, a victim to mob violence. It occurred in the country about two miles from this city. He was a pure African, and the son of John Skaggs, who lived near the scene of the shooting.

Skaggs on Tuesday went up into Allen county on a visit, and while there became engaged in a personality difficulty with a young white man named William Kirby. It resulted in Kirby being badly cut with a knife in the hands of Skaggs, and he is now lying at the point of death.

Skaggs came to his home in this county, and fearing a visitation from a mob went to the house of Boyd Johnson to spend the night. Before day seven masked men appeared at the house of Skeggs’ father and inquired for the boy. Failing to find him there they went to Johnson’s, and, after they had surrounded the house, Skaggs, who had been awakened and was on the alert, rushed out the back door and attempted to escape, but was met by a volley of bullets from the maskers and fell dead to the ground.