Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-10-03
WAS NEAR DEATH.
An Oxford, Ohio, Man Strung
Up Three Times.
Drunken CarousaI at Annual Fair
Assumes Tragic Form.
Five Mon Seriously Injured-One Mar
rowIy Escapes Death.

Oxford O., Oct. 2.-Five men were
seriously injured and one narrowly es
capped lynching several times as the re
cult Of Thursday nights riot at this
place. Those injured are:
John Woodruff, marshall of Oxford
believed to he fatally shot; Jacob Man
rod, deputy marshal, shot in the back
and in the shoulder, condition serious
Ernest Jottin, a country school teacher
of Monroe, Ohio, believed to be fata"y
shot in the abdomen; Louis Splvey .,
Wagonville, KY, shot in the bach anu
breast serious: Joseph Spivey wagon
Vile, KY. skull fractured by s'one'
The Spiyey brothers were visiting
Edward Richardson of Billingsville,
Ind iust across the State line from
Oxford The three came here to attend
the annual street fair and farmers ex-
nos,tion. The town was filled with
.,raneers when three men began ca
rousfng in a saloon. They pulled their
I revolvers on the bartender who elected
them and then they proceeded to raise
more trouble'in other saloons. When
Marshal woodruff undertook to arrest
them he was mortally shot. A fusilade
Of bullets in the crowded streets follow
ed the shooting of the marshal. Deputy
Marshal Manrod was shot twice when
he took the place of his chief. During
this fusilade in the street, Ernest Jottin
while returning from his school to his
boarding house was struck in the abdo-
men by stray bullet and he is now in
a critical condition.
After the shooting the three men ran
in different directions with crowds after
each one and each was hit in the head
with stones thrown by those pursuing
them. Louis Spivey was shot by a cit
izen. The three men We're finally lodged
in Jail. Richardson was later released.
Soon afterwards crowds concentrated
about the Jail and battering down the
door took Joseph Spivey out to lynch
him. He was hauled from place to
place with q rope about his neck and
was swung up three different times. yet
escaped with his life. In their haste
the mob did not pinion his arms or his
legs and he managed to use them so as
to prevent strangulation the first time
he was hanged. At another time he
was let down so that he might write q
farewell letter to his wife and children
and at another time some one cut the
rope. Finally the officers rescued the
man and rushed him off to the city
prison where the mob was held at bay.
Speeches were made by eX-MayOr
Flanagan. Rev. DR.. Thomas ]. Potter
and the brother of Marshal Woodruff
Meantime the officers spirited the
Spivey brothers away to the Butler
county Jail at Hamilton, Ohio. q dis
lance of Is miles. The mob later dis
persed.
A striking feature of the attempted
lynching, Thursday night, was the part
taken by negroes who protested every
time the rope was slackened and JOS
Spivey was let down to say his pra ayers,
write his wife and children or for any
other purpose, some Of the negroes
raising a disturbance, prOclaiming that
II the man had been Il negro he would
surely have been lynched. The mol
was without a leader ut amy Iim" bUt
still it probably would not have been
foiled but for the appeals of Woodruff >
brother, to let the law take its course.