Lynchings & Hangings of America

“Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.”

– H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

The practice of execution by hanging, a grim spectacle deeply woven into the fabric of American history, served for centuries as the most prevalent method of meting out both legal and extralegal death sentences. This method, inherited from English ancestors, has roots stretching back 2,500 years to ancient Persia, now Iran. Its adoption by numerous nations stemmed from its perceived effectiveness as a deterrent, achieved through a straightforward and visually potent process. Public spectacle played a significant role in the rationale, with onlookers gathering at gallows or beneath trees to witness the punishment. Legal hangings, a common practice among early American colonists, found acceptance as a suitable penalty for grave offenses such as theft, rape, and murder. However, the reach of the noose extended to behaviors now considered outside the realm of criminality, encompassing witchcraft, sodomy, and the concealment of childbirth.

For generations, the responsibility of carrying out hangings rested primarily with the sheriff or the designated legal authority within the town or county where the death sentence had been decreed. Often, the condemned endured agonizing deaths, as executioners frequently lacked the precision necessary to calculate the appropriate "drop" required to ensure a swift severing of the neck. Consequently, death often arrived through slow strangulation. The introduction of gallows equipped with trap doors did not become widespread until the 1870s. Prior to this innovation, hangings were commonly performed from tree branches, the backs of carts, or even horses.

The introduction of lynchings & hangings of America began concurrently with the formation of settlements in the "New World." One of the earliest recorded instances involves John Billington, a member of the original group of pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Billington was reportedly prone to using profane language. During the transatlantic voyage, Captain Miles Standish subjected Billington to a humiliating restraint, tying his feet and neck together as a demonstration of a man consumed by sin and possessed by a "Devil’s tongue." This incident, however, was not the cause of his eventual demise. Ten years later, Billington became the prime suspect in the murder of fellow settler John Newcomen. Subsequently, an irate mob of pilgrims summarily hanged him in 1630.

Jane Champion holds the somber distinction of being the first recorded female hanged in America, executed in Virginia in 1632 for an unspecified transgression. Throughout the early years of the pilgrim settlements, male hangings frequently stemmed from sexual offenses such as sodomy or bestiality, while women were often hanged for concealing childbirth. A significant shift occurred in 1647 as accusations of witchcraft began to proliferate, leading to numerous executions.

Thomas Hellier, a 14-year-old white boy, became ensnared in suspicion following a series of thefts, his "flapping of his hands and arms" and "peculiar manner" contributing to the accusations. He was sentenced to a life of servitude on a Virginia plantation. Unwilling to accept his status, Hellier was later sold to Cutbeard Williamson, a stern taskmaster. After Williamson, Williamson’s wife, and a maid were found murdered in their sleep with an axe, Hellier was presumed to be the perpetrator and was hanged by a mob on August 5, 1678. His body was secured with chains to a towering tree overlooking the James River, where it remained for years, a macabre monument until it decomposed.

The infamous witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts, which peaked in 1692, culminated in the hangings of numerous men and women. Among the tragic cases was that of four-year-old Dorcas Good, convicted of witchcraft and imprisoned in 1692. Dorcas was the daughter of Sarah Good, one of the first three individuals accused of witchcraft. Little Dorcas was incarcerated with her mother and confessed to practicing witchcraft, a confession likely coerced by her mother to save her life. Sarah Good was hanged on July 19, 1692, while her young daughter remained imprisoned for several months longer. Upon her release, she had lost her sanity, prompting her father to petition the authorities for assistance in caring for her.

During the American Revolution, the term "lynch law" emerged, attributed to Colonel Charles Lynch, a Virginia planter, and his associates. These individuals began formulating their own vigilante rules to confront British Tories, loyalists to England, and other perceived criminal elements. This form of impromptu justice was also frequently wielded by white individuals against their African American slaves. Those who dared to protest such actions often risked becoming victims of lynchings & hangings of America themselves. Elijah Lovejoy, editor of the Alton [Illinois] Observer, met this fate when he was shot by a white mob after publishing articles denouncing lynching and advocating for the abolition of slavery.

Post-Revolution, white men were most commonly hanged for war-related offenses, including spying, espionage, treason, or desertion. Black individuals, however, were often summarily hanged at the whim of their owners, typically on the pretext of "revolt," though any perceived transgression could be labeled as such. White individuals who sympathized with the slaves were also frequent targets of lynchings & hangings of America.

The absence of formal criminal justice systems during this period gave rise to vigilantism. Vigilance committees, comprised of varying numbers of individuals, emerged to blacklist, harass, banish, "tar and feather," flog, mutilate, torture, or kill individuals deemed to pose a threat to their communities or families. By the late 1700s, these committees became known as lynch mobs, primarily because the punishment dispensed was a summary execution by hanging.

During the early 19th century, opponents of slavery, cattle rustlers, horse thieves, gamblers, and other "desperadoes" in the South and the Old West were the most common targets of these actions, aside from African Americans. Meanwhile, slaves continued to be killed through hangings, burnings, and whippings with regularity.

Montana holds the grim distinction of hosting the bloodiest vigilante movement, which spanned from 1863 to 1865. Hundreds of suspected horse thieves were rounded up and killed in mass mob actions. Texas, Montana, California, and the Deep South, particularly New Orleans, Louisiana, were notorious centers of vigilante activity in American history.

The acceptance of "lynching" became widespread as the nation expanded westward, where the harsh frontier conditions encouraged swift punishment for both real and perceived criminal behavior. Vigilance committees, ranging in size from dozens to hundreds of men, formed quickly and summarily decided to execute individuals to suppress crime. Even in areas where official law enforcement existed, prisoners were sometimes forcibly removed from jail by lynch mobs and executed.

One of the first recorded hangings of a woman in the West occurred in 1849 during the California Gold Rush. The mining boomtowns were rife with gambling, drinking, violence, and vigilante justice. "Pretty Juanita" was convicted of murder after stabbing a man who had attempted to rape her. She laughed and saluted as the rope tightened around her neck, marking her as the first person hanged in the California mining camps.

On June 2, 1850, five Cayuse Indians were hanged in Oregon City, Washington, for their involvement in the Whitman Massacre. All five had surrendered to spare their people from further persecution. One of the condemned, Tiloukait, stated before the execution: "Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people? So we die to save our people."

In June 1851, an Australian with a dubious reputation became the first victim of San Francisco’s vigilance committee. Caught stealing a safe, Jenkins, along with three other Australians from Sydney, were subjected to a mock trial before being marched to San Francisco’s Custom House. There, nooses were placed around their necks, and they were hanged on the spot. A second San Francisco "vigilance" committee formed in 1856 and lynched two men, James P. Casey and Charles Cora. Casey had shot and killed a newspaper editor named James King, who had been outspoken in his criticism of evildoers. Charles Cora, an Italian gambler, had shot and killed a U.S. marshal named Richardson in November 1855.

Approximately 6,000 people participated in or witnessed the lynching of Casey and Cora. The two men were seized and hanged from projecting beams rigged on the roof of a building on Sacramento Street. Before the crowd dispersed, two more unidentified men were hanged from the beams for unknown reasons.

Other non-vigilante lynchings occurred with regularity, including the hanging of two slaves on July 11, 1856, in South Carolina for aiding a runaway slave, and the hanging of four black male slaves on December 5 of the same year, allegedly for "revolting" against the state of Tennessee. Although lynchings were disproportionately directed toward black individuals, two white criminals were lynched in Iowa in 1857, one for murder and the other for counterfeiting and theft.

April 9, 1859, marked Colorado’s first execution in Denver. John Stoefel was hanged for shooting his brother-in-law. Both men were gold prospectors, and Stoefel desired his brother-in-law’s gold dust. Because the nearest official court was in Leavenworth, Kansas, a "people’s court" was assembled, where Stoefel was convicted and hanged within 48 hours of the murder. Though Denver consisted of only 150 buildings at the time, approximately 1,000 spectators attended the Stoefel hanging.

Meanwhile, tensions had been escalating along the Kansas/Missouri border over the issue of slavery for several years. The fanatical activist John Brown had participated in what became known as "Bleeding Kansas." Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, in Charles Town, West Virginia. Two weeks later, on December 16, Shields Green and John Anthony Copeland, two of five African-American conspirators, were hanged for participating in John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. Copeland was led to the gallows shouting, "I am dying for freedom. I could not die for a better cause. I had rather die than be a slave."

In the Antebellum days of Texas between 1846 and 1861, vigilantes instigated most lynchings & hangings of America. These vigilantes often imitated legal court procedures, trying the offender before a vigilante judge and jury. Though convictions most often resulted in whipping, 140 offenders were lynched during this time. Vigilante groups increased in frequency with the approach of the Civil War, when mobs frequently sought out suspected slave rebels and white abolitionists.

The tension culminated on September 13, 1860, when abolitionist Methodist minister Anthony Bewley was lynched in Fort Worth, Texas. Rumors of a slave insurrection led to the lynching of an estimated 30 to 50 slaves and possibly more than 20 whites over the next two years. The entire affair culminated in the greatest mass lynching in the state’s history, known as "The Great Hanging at Gainesville." During 13 days in October 1862, vigilantes hanged 41 suspected Unionists.

During the same year, the Sioux Uprising in Minnesota resulted in more than 500 dead white settlers. President Abraham Lincoln reduced the number of Santee Sioux sentenced to die to 38. On December 16, 1862, these 38 condemned Indian prisoners were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota, in what is known as the largest mass hanging in United States history.

The Civil War also saw Confederate soldiers hang a Fort Smith, Arkansas attorney, Martin Hart, who had previously served in the Texas legislature and spoken out against secession, but later spied against the Confederacy.

In New York City, massive anti-draft protests began on July 13, 1863, resulting in the nation’s bloodiest riot in history. Protesters attacked the police and lynched large numbers of blacks, whom they blamed for the government’s position. When troops finally restored order, 1,200 were dead.

Meanwhile, American history’s deadliest vigilante justice campaign erupted in the Rocky Mountains. The Montana Vigilantes fought violent crime in a remote corner beyond the reach of the government. Sweeping through the gold-mining towns of southwest Montana, the armed horsemen hanged 21 troublemakers in the first two months of 1864 alone.

Evidence suggests that many of the early stories on which the outlaw tales were based were fabricated to cover up the real lawlessness in the Montana Territory – the vigilantes themselves.

Random lynchings continued in Montana Territory throughout the 1860s, even though territorial courts were in place. However, by the decade’s end, Montana was again stirring with new settlements as railroad construction pushed westward, and the vigilantes again became active by threatening "undesirables" to leave the territory.

On the Civil War battlegrounds, soldiers were being hanged for crimes such as guerrilla activity, espionage, and treason, but most often for desertion.

Legal hangings were performed regularly, the most public of which was the execution of the conspirators found guilty of killing Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Mary Surratt was the first woman ever legally executed by the federal government of the United States. These public spectacles of death for legal hangings and lynchings often took on a festival-type atmosphere. It wasn’t until many decades later that public executions in the U.S. ceased in 1936.

From the ashes of the Civil War, a violent stage was set for outlaws, vigilante justice, and mob violence that killed thousands of black men, women, and children. The lynching of African Americans grew to epidemic proportions.

Youth was no bar to execution, as on February 7, 1868, a 13-year-old African-American girl named Susan was hanged in Henry County, Kentucky, for murder. Newspapers helped to make these hangings more public.

Lynching in the Wild West also increased after the Civil War, experiencing its most brazen period of extralegal hangings. Waves of indiscriminate terror were waged against Mexicans, Chinese immigrants, and Native Americans.

Wyatt Outlaw, a town commissioner in Graham, North Carolina, was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan on February 26, 1870. Later the same year, gunfighter Clay Allison led a lynch mob to Elizabethtown, New Mexico, where they hanged Charles Kennedy and mutilated his body. During this time, former slaves and free black men continued to be executed.

In 1873, Klansmen laid siege to Colfax, Louisiana, slaughtering 50 blacks and two whites after they surrendered under a white flag. One of the most famous hangings was that of Jack "Broken Nose" McCall in Deadwood, South Dakota, on March 1, 1877, for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok.

On June 21, 1877, Pennsylvania hanged eleven "Molly Maguire" coal miners for murder and conspiracy, their real crime being attempting to organize mine workers.

The "ethnic cleansing" of Chinese from the American West was another dark chapter in the nation’s history. Many of the estimated 200 American lynchings & hangings of America victimizing people of Asian descent occurred during this time.

It is difficult to identify the youngest person legally executed in American history, but records indicate that a ten-year-old Cherokee Indian boy was hanged for murder in 1885.

President Benjamin Harrison was the first resident to request a federal law against lynching after an incident in New Orleans and the recurring violence against African Americans became an international human rights embarrassment.

Tombstone, Arizona, saw only one lynching during its history, and miners conducted that from nearby Bisbee, Arizona. Ida Wells, an editor for a small newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee, investigated the many lynchings in 1884 and discovered that white mobs had hung 728 black men and women in just a short period.

There were occasions when people were lynched for political reasons or greed. For example, on July 20, 1889, James Averell and Kate Watson, aka "Cattle Kate," were lynched on the orders of Albert J. Bothwell, a powerful cattleman in Wyoming.

By the 1890s, lynchers had become particularly sadistic when blacks were the prime targets. Burning, torture, and dismemberment were increasingly used to prolong the suffering. Often, these racially motivated lynchings were not spontaneous mob reactions but were carried out with the assistance of law enforcement.

On March 9, 1892, a cold-blooded lynching occurred in Memphis, Tennessee, when three young men of color were murdered after defending their business from attack. 1892 ended up being the worst year for lynchings in America, with 69 whites hanged and 161 blacks killed at the hands of lynch mobs.

By the turn of the century, the Old West had instituted official legal entities throughout the states, and most vigilante groups had disappeared. The international response condemning the U.S. for lynching foreign citizens resulted in the State Department having to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to foreign governments.

In 1901, George Henry White, the last former slave to serve in Congress, proposed a bill to make anyone involved in lynching a federal crime. However, the bill was defeated.

On August 3, 1906, five black men were lynched in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1908, eight black men were lynched near Hemphill, Texas.

Another vigilante mob killed Jim Miller, a notorious killer also known as "Deacon Jim," in 1909.

In the American Southwest, people of Mexican descent were also prey to "mob" violence. In late April 1911, Laura Nelson and her son were lynched in Oklahoma.

Amazingly, even the black folks got wrapped up in the lynching craze when they lynched three of their own people on September 12, 1911, in Wickliffe, Kentucky.

On August 17, 1915, a Jewish-American factory manager, Leo Frank, was hanged from a tree in Marietta, Georgia, by a mob of 25 men, leading to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. The tragedies continued with the lynching of Jesse Washington, a 17-year-old black youth, in Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916.

The lynching mania continued, resulting in one of the most bizarre hangings in history – that of an elephant on September 13, 1916, in Erwin, Tennessee. Though not as often hanged as black men, women were also the targets of vicious lynchings, such as Mary Turner in Valdosta, Georgia, in May 1918.

President Woodrow Wilson issued a national appeal to stop lynching on July 26, 1918. However, the year it ended in 1918, it started up again. The "Red Summer" of 1919 saw twenty-six race riots and over 100 black people killed.

On June 1, 1921, one of the worst race riots in history occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with "Black Wall Street" bombed from the air and burned to the ground.

Souvenir photos and postcards of lynching became a lost genre of American photography when the Postmaster General finally banned such postcards from going through the mail in the mid-1920s.

In 1925, Price, Utah, saw the last lynching of a black man in the American West. The drama of these horrible spectacles seemed to increase over time. On the night of August 7, 1930, three young African Americans faced a lynch mob in Marion, Indiana.

Even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, lynchings persisted in the Deep South, the most significant of which was the illegal execution of 19-year-old Michael Donald. This incident resulted in a civil suit against the United Klans of America and the execution of Henry Hayes, the first time a white man had been executed for a crime against an African American since 1913.

The most recent hanging in the United States occurred on January 25, 1996, when Delaware hanged Billy Bailey. Hanging remains legal only in Washington State.

Lynchings & hangings of America remain a dark stain on the nation’s history, a testament to the enduring legacy of racism and violence.