Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1871-05-19
Official Report OF Ku.Klux Outrages.

THE following letter from General
Howard to SECRETARY Belknap may have
fastened the publication of the Presi-
dents proclamation:
WASHINGTON, May l. 1871.
Hon. W. W. Belknap: y
SIR: have the honor to forward recent
official information, that 1 deem trust
worthy, concerning outrages committed
on freedmen and others in Mississippi.
The school six miles west of Okolona
was closed by order of the Ku Klux out
laws. The information was sent us on
April 5. All schools in Monroe County,
over sixty in number, have also been or
dered closed by the same authority. No
tices have also been served upon Northern
men to leave the State. The school house
at Meridian has been burned 1t was
built by the Bureau, and sold at auction
last year.
Mrs. Finley, mother of Warren Tyler,
who was shot at the Meridian massacre,
gives few items. Her son, all agree, was
young man of unblemished character.
His only sin was remarkable intelligence
and some education He was teaching the
school. He did not fire a shot. He was
sent for to come to the Court House as a
witness, and left his school to come. 1t
seemed all preconcerted and intended.
His mother knows who shot him first in
the back. AS he let himself down from the
balcony in trying to escape after the firing
began, he fell but rose and ran and was
shot again. After he was carried into the
house the ruffians fired some thirty shots
at the wounded man then he was taken
home to his mother that she might dress
him for the grave. He was still warm
Aaron Moore, a member of the Legisla-
ture, being covered with blood, escaped at
the Meridian massacre by feigning death,
as he lay beside Judge Bramlette, who had
been shot in the first firing by bullet in
tended for Moore. His house, two-story,
and fine looking, was burned down, the
chimney still standing, not far from the
| burned school-housc. 1t Is dangerous for
Moore to return. Many colored people
have already moved away. Other good,
! industrious freedmen are about to leave.
| They say that the old Shareholders cannot
bear that they "shOuld be getting up and
doing WE'LL" Their intelligence and pros
perity exile them. On April 10th eight
United States soldiers, all Southern men,
| deserted at Meridian.
! Mayor StuTgis was forced to leave Me-
ridian because he insisted on justice to all.
He was not a bad man, as represented by
the press.
The father of Wesley Lee, an intelligent
teacher at Meridian, was an unoffending
old man. He was pursued, twice shot, and
finally most savagely murdered not far
from Meridian.
! On April 81, teacher was warned of
by Ky-Klux outlaws from the colored
| school in charge of a missionary. NeaI
Rouse's Mills, Monroe County, also, mis-
sionary was ordered not to come there on
Sunday. They threatened in another
place to give him three hundred lashes,
and forced him to close his school. Mon,
roe, Lowndes and Noxubee counties are
the worst in the State.
On April 81, news was received from
Aberdeen, Miss, that several more teachers
were driven of, that all the schools, thirty
in number, were closed east of Tombig.
bee River, both white and colored. The
Ku-KluX informed the last teacher dis.
placed that in two weeks there would not
be free school in the county.
About o'clock on Saturday morning
April 23, the Ku-Klux shot and killed q
cOlored man named Durham, six miles
east of Okolona.
April "a, news was received from Oko,
Iona that the Ku-Klux had broken out
with increased fury in the eastern part OF
Monroe County. They took Tom Horn
broker (or Hornburger), freedman, on
the Saturday night previous, from his
house, and literally shot him to pieces. The
same night they buried school-house
where colored girl was teaching. Another
freedman was reported killed, name moi
given.
On April 25, the Postmaster at Aber.
deem was warned to change politics. He
is Southern man and Republican
They threatened to outrage every Repub,
lican.
On March 20, colored man named Al,
exander Page, living near Athens, Miss,
was taken out of his house, hanged, and
buried with rope around his neck. Levi
Sykes, freedman, well of, and President
of the Republican Club near Prairie Sta.
ton, on the Mobile e. Ohio Railroad, was
! whipped on the same day.