The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1897-05-06
A &XIUP[E LYNCH|Ng
SIX BURLY NEGOEs STRUNG UP TO
ONE UNAssUMING SCRUB
OAK TREE.
FOR OUTRAGE AND MURDER
DIABOLICAL CRIMES COMMITTED
NEAR THE VILLAGE OF
sUNNYsIDE, TEX.
TWO YOUNG NEGRO GIRLS VICTIMS
OF Fiendish Lust-They Were Then
Murdered, Together With the
Aged Father of One, and Their
Home Burned to Con-
ceaI the Black
Crime.
TWO YOUNG NEGRO GIRLS VICTIMS

Hampstead. Tex, April 30.-(Special
Yesterday morning, near Sunnyside
the home of Henry Daniels, highly re-
spected negro farmer, 60 years old, who
lived about fifteen miles south of here
was found in smouldering ruins.
The discovery was made by c. w
Chinn, a merchant at Sunnyside, early
in the morning, and he and James Xii,
gore, a farmer, went to investigate.
They found in the burnt building the
bodies of Daniels and his daughter,
Mary, a 17-year-old girl, who had lived
with him. Chinn and Kilgore at once
notified Justice S. A. Spinks and Con-
stable Josh Young, who repaired imme-
diately to the spot to hold an inquest.
Foul play was evident. The blood
hounds belonging to the Steele brothers,
who work convicts on their farms, were
sent for and put on the trail. The dogs
went to the house of family named
Thomas, who lived in the same neighbor-
hood. The officers arrested the four
Thomas boys and carried them to the
scene of the burning, and they partly
confessed knowledge of the crime and
implicated three other negroes, named
Fayette Rhoan, Will Gates and Will
Williams, who were also arrested.
Later the body of a little girl, aged
about s or years, granddaughter of
Daniels and niece of Mary, was found
in well. Bill Gates volunteered to get
the body out of the well. He went down,
tied rope around her body and others
drew it out. Then the horrible discov-
cry was made that the child had not only
been killed, but outraged. The inquest
proceeded and the prisoners were piled
with questions until the story of the
crime was learned, substantially, that
the boys went to Daniels house shortly
before midnight Wednesday. Selling
Mary Daniels, they dragged her out of
bed and carried her to the field near by,
where they ravished her. The old man
attempted to save his daughter, and they
Drained him with a club, After accom-
plishing their designs on the girl, they
killed her with the same club and brought
her body back from the field and threw
it and that of the father into the house
and set the building on fire.
The little girl, who up to this time had
been hiding under the bed, ran out of the
house and was caught by the fends and
ravished murdered and thrown into the
well.
Upon this testimony, Justice Sphinx held
the seven accused men, and appointed
Max Schafner, N. A. Quincy, Jim Kilgore
and Hez Arvey, ST., to guard them. The
guards carried the prisoners to n small
frame building recently erected for So.
loon on Dick Cuney's place, and all was
quiet. for several hours, the guards say
when at about II o'clock last night al
the doors and windows of the building
there suddenly appeared about forty OF
fifty men, wearing masks and armed with
guns and pistols. The mob ordered
Hands up" and the command was in.
stantly obeyed. The prisoners were
seized by the masked men and carried
away in the darkness.
Early this morning six bodies were
found hanging to lone scrub post oak
on the prairie about one and one hall
miles west of Sunnyside and one and q
half miles west of the Hampstead and
Patterson road, thirteen miles south OF
here. The bodies were those of Fayette
Rhoan, 81 years old; Will Gates, So
Louis Thomas, 20; Aaron Thomas, 10
Jim Thomas, Is, and Ben Thomas, 16 Oh
II years old. All of the bodies were rid
died with bullets and the clothing of vii
Gates and Louis Thomas was burned of
from the waist down, the flesh being al
most cooked, indicating that torture hat
been resorted to to extort full confes
sion, though the clothing may possibl,
have caught from the shots of the crowt
at close range.
The bodies were cut down by order O.
the justice of the peace, who held an in
quest. Nothing developed at the inques