Los Angeles herald., 1906-08-07
MOB LYNCHES
THREE NEGROES
MURDER SUSPECTS ARE TAKEN
FROM JAIL
Three Thousand Men ForclbIy Enter
Cells at aaIisbury, North Caro-
lima, and Put Prisoners
to Death
Rv Associated Press.

BY Associated Press.
CHARLOTTE. N. c., Aug. GA mob
Of 5000 men shortly before II o'clock
tonight forcibly entered the Rowan
county Jail at Salisbury, removed there
from three of the five negroes charged
with the murder of the Lyerly family
at Barber Junction, July 13, and
lynched them.
Nease and John Gillespie and Jack
Dillingham;, supposed to be the prin-
cipals in that crime, were the victims
of mob vengeance.
The remaining negroes, Henry Lee,
George Erwin and Bella Dillingham;,
were not molested, and later tonight
officers hurried them off to Greensboro.
The mob began to gather at sun
down. Mayor Boyden promptly or
dered the saloons closed, and with
other prominent citizens, United States
Senator Oyerman and Judge Long,
who was to try the negroes, and
Solicitor Hammer, gathered on the jail
steps and addressed the crowd which
at that time numbered 2000
There were howls and catcalls from
the mob. but for the time there was
no move, the mob lacking a leader.
While citizens were appealing to the
mob two men slipped through the
crowd and attempted to break the Jail
doors with hammers. They were dis
covered and arrested. About O'Clock
Mayor Boyden called upon the local
military company for aid
They assembled quickly but were
supplied only with blank cartridges,
having no orders to shoot to kill.
Fireman McLendon of Charlotte, a
Southern Railway employe, was shot
and fatally wounded by a member of
the mob. Will Troutman, a negro
drayman, was also shot and seriously
wounded.
Both of the shootings are claimed to
have been accidental.
At 10 o'clock the mob was augmented
by fully 500 men, who came, 1t is said,
from Whitney. 1t was but a few min
utes after their arrival when a crowd
of fifty, forming a sort of flying wedge,
made a rush for the Jail doors. over
powered the officers and affected an en-
trance.
The great crowd stood behind the
leaders and in a few moments more
emerged from the door with their vic
Tins. A halt was made at the Hender-
son ball grounds at the edge of town.
There the negroes were given time to
confess the crime.
They refused either to deny or con-
fess and were so thoroughly frightened
as almost to have lost their power of
speech. John Gillespie wept piteously
and begged for his life. Finally at
midnight the three were strung up to
the limbs of one tree and with howls
and curses the crowd riddled the dang
ling bodies with bullets. The mob then
dispersed.
Prisoners Life Spared
George Erwin was taken from the jail
with his associates and closely ques-
toned. Then the mob led him back to
his cell.
Ed Barber a relative of the muir
dered man, followed the mob with the
prisoners to the scene of the lynching
and pleaded with them to return the
negroes to the Jail and let the law
take its course, but the mob paid no
attention to him.
The crime for which the three men
were lynched was committed on the
night of July 13 near Barber's juno
tion, about forty miles from Green's
boro A. c. Lyerly, well-known
farmer, his wife and his two children
were killed while aslee~' third child
was fatally wounded and the house set
on fire.
The next night Chief Julian arrested
ing the two Gillespies, Dillingham; and
trial of these six, including the three
lynched tonight, began today at a spe-
cial term of court at Salisbury.
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