Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1901-01-24
MOB BURNS a NEGRO,
LEAvENWORTH. KAN, WITNESS.
ES A HORRIBLE AFFAIR.
Doomed Man Fastened to Stake and
oil-saturated Fuel Piled Abont Him
Wretch Had Attacked Miss Eva
Roth-Suspected of Another Crime.

O1I-Saturated Fuel Piled Abont Him
Wretch Had Attacked Miss Eva
Roth-Suspected OF Another Crime.
Five thousand Infatuated men storm
ed the county Jail in Leavenworth, Kan,
tuesday afternoon, took from 1t Fred
Alexander, negro, and burned him at
the stake. Alexander was under arrest
for an attempted assault on Miss Eva
Roth and was suspected Of having as
saulted and murdered Miss Pearl FERRIES
last November.
The negro was taken from his cell at
the State penitentiary at o'clock in
the afternoon and loaded into hack and
taken to Leavenworth. Fifty deputy
marshals surrounded him and Deputy
Sheriffs Stancemyers and Tom Brown
sat in the hack on either side of him.
There We're fifty buggies and wagons in
the procession which followed the hack
In, and it was a funeral march indeed for
Fred Alexander. The trip to town was
made quietly and there was no attempt to
create disturbance on the road.
Entrance to the jail was effected by
steel rails and iron bars, with which the
mob battered in the Goors and wrenched
the cell doors and gratings from theil
fastenings. Sheriff Everhardy was call
ed upon to surrender the negro, but re
fused. The mob was prepared for this
action on his part, and in a minute the
steel rails, propelled as battering rams
by the united strength Of hundreds Of
determined and bloodthirsty men, begar
a resistless attack on the Jail doors. One
after another the barriers gave way tt
the onslaught and in less than ffteer
minutes the trembling negro was in the
clutches of his captors
The punishment melted out to Alexan-
der was Identical with that administered
by Colorado mob last November to an
other negro, Preston Porter. The details
of Porter's execution were fresh in the
minds Of Leavenworth's people, and as
Alexander was accused Of precisely a
similar crime his punishment was made a
replica Of the Colorado affair.
He was taken to the scene Of his alleg-
ed victims death, fastened by chains to
an iron stake driven in the ground, fuel
was then piled around him and saturated
with oil and the father of his alleged vic
tim given the privilege of putting the
torch to his funeral pyre. Alexander
made no resistance after once dragged to
the stake and only kept saying: "You are
killing the wrong man."
While preparations were being made
for the execution there stood on a box
across the street woman of 20. She
had stood at the door Of the penitentiary
and had said, ''That is the man." as she
saw Warden Tomlinson produce q lexan-
der. THAT is the man." she said, "who
assaulted me-" The crowd had heard her
evidence. That evidence was the negroes
sentence and the mob was carrying it out.
By o'clock the stake was declared
ready. 1t was the work of but few
moments for half a dozen men to haul
Alexander from the wagon UP the four
foot bank of cordwood, and to fasten a
chain about his chest and another about
his feet to the lail. Then came the coal
oil. 1t was poured on his head and
splashed upon the cordwood.
"More! Good! Light it!' were the
cries.
Confess, for last time" said rugged
old Mr.. Forbes, determined to finish the
tragedy he had set out to witness, but
anxious to have conviction that he was
about to- help kill the man who had killed
his daughter.
81 amt got thing to confess"
''Then you are off for hell, was his
answer.
"Wait Let me see my mother. Let
me shake hands with my friends. I see
lots of them here" But the oil was all
poured and the match was ignited. In
moment there was a flicker, a flame. the
head of the negro waved from side to
side as the flames jumped to meet it.
fendish roar burst from the multitude.
Alexander's mother was the only one
noticed crying. She was taken away by
her negro friends before the match was
applied.
In less than five minutes he was hang
Ing limp and lifeess by the chains that
bound him. AS soon as the crowd saw
that life was extinct, it began slowly to
dispense.
When, two hours later, the fire had died
down sufficiently to allow the crowd to
approach what remained of Alexander,
there was wild scramble to obtain
relics, bits Of charred flesh, pieces of
chain, scraps Of wood-eyerything that
could possibly serve as souvenir, was
.o;,aJ ~, with morbid on 0nrnaSS