Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-08-03
A Corrected Version Of the
Double Lynching at
SWeetWater.
Five Men Are Held RESPONSE
BILE for It by the Cor
Oner.
Two Of Them admit That They Par
ticlpated in the Affair The
Victims VIII Steal No
More Cattle.
The Double Lynchtng.

DOUGLAS, Wvo., July 25.-The dime
novel literature telegraphed from Cney-
enne Monday night regarding the lynch
ing of James Averell and Ella Watson
Saturday last was not correct in some
particulars. Averell ana the woman
were in a wagon en- route for Casper.
The lynchers surprised and captured
them and when in the act Of hanging
them a cowboy named Buchanan, who
was a friend Of Averell. and who had
witnessed the capture OF the victims, be-
gan firing On the l%ynchers. They returned
the fire and pursued Buchanan, who es-
capped and rode into Casper, fifty miles
away, and told his story. Warrants were
sworn out for the supposed lynchers,
and a deputy sheriff left with a posse
Of seven men for the scene or the trag-
edy Monday morning. Two of the men
returned last night. They report that the
sheriff snd posse reached the scene Of
the Iynching at an early hour yesterday
morning. The tale told by Buchanan
was true. Hanging from the limb of a
stunted pine growing on the summit OF "a
cliff fronting the Sweetwater river were
the bodies Of James Averell and Ella
Watson. Side by side they swung, their
arms touching each other, their tongues
prOtruding and their faces swollen and
discolored almost beyond recognition by
the exposure OF almost forty. eight hours.
1t was a CHASTITY picture. Common COW
boy lariats hal been used and both had
died by strangulation, neither having
fallen over two feet. Judging from signs
too plain to be mistaken a desperate strug-
gle had taken place on the cliff, and both
man and woman had fought for their
lives to the last.
The bodies were cut down and taken
to the ranch of Ed Healy, where Acting
Coroner Emery impaneled a Jury and
held an inquest, resulting in a verdict to
the effect that the deceased met their
death at the hands Of John Durbin, Tom
Sum, j. X Boutwell,, Sam Johnson and
a man named Mclean.
The bodies were placed in one box and
buried at the ranch. Sheriff Watson
and party then proceeded to the ranch Of
Tom Sum, who admitted that he was
one of the lynchers and readily gave the
m Of the others. He stated further
that n of the shots fired by Buchanan
at the l~ynchers, when they were
in the act of stringing Averell
up, struck John Durbin in the
hip, inficting q very serious If not fatal
wound. The wounded man had been
taken TO Sand creek, and Sum did not
know whether he lived or not. Taking
Sum into custody the party tier pro-
ceeded to the ranch of j. II. Boutwell,.
who also readily admitted that he had as.
sisted at the hanging. He told Buchanan
and Healey that both would go over the
range the same way if they didn't leave
the country, and on being told that he
would be taken to Rawlins, advised the
sheriff to take a good look at every tree !
he came to on his way back to CASPER, |
for he would be likely to find six or eight
more cattle rustlers hanging by the neck
when he returned from taking them 10
Jail.
The two men who furnished these facts
of the party here returned 10 Caspar.
Watson probably had no trouble in ar
resting the balance of the lynchers, and
should have rescked Rawlins with them
some time today.
All the men who participated in the |
lynching are among the most prominent
stock men in the Sweetwater valley. Dur /
BIN lives in Cheyenne, and is one of the
pillars OF the Methodist church there.
Boutwell, is the son of a wealthy New
York business man, and Tom Sum is an
old pioneer scout and guide, who is
known all over the west.