Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-07-23
WILD RIDE IN AUTO
kept NEGRO SAFE
Mrs. Exile Brown, Victim of Grim
inal Assault, Identifies Negro,
Who Is Rushed to the Tower to
Escape Mob in Cobb County.

Sheriff w. NJ. Mckinney, of Cobb
county, and three deputies held off a
large crowd of determined men early
Wednesday afternoon, and brought to
the Fulton county tower willard Webb,
a negro. whom Mrs. Exy Brown. Of
Winnings station, positively Identified as
the man who criminally assaulted her.
The sheriff brought the negro in in an
automobile, and lodged him in the tower
for safe-keeping.
BY holding of the crowd with revolv-
ers, and outwitting them, we managed
to get the negro through safely" said
the sheriff at the tower Wednesday aft
ernoon. II guess though that there are
fully 1000 men between here and Vim
ings waiting for us. They are armed,
too. and mean business"
1t appears that the sheriff and his
posse tracked the negro to Marietta
Tuesday afternoon. There they lost
clothes. The sheriff, however, found a
pair of overalls that he had worn when
he assaulted Mrs. Brown.
The sheriff and his posse found the
negro in Marietta early Wednesday aft
ernoon. They took him back to the
Brown home and before Mrs. Brown.
HE is the man. she erred, wfthouI
hesitation. Fully twenty other negroes,
who had been taken before her, she had
failed to identify. She had no doubt
about this one.
CROWD DEMANDS MAN.
The news quickly spread, and fully
five hundred armed men gathered
around the house.
Lynch him. they cried. Give him
up!"
The sheriff and his posse, however,
were not awed. They put their man in
the automobile and drove 1t through the
crowd, almost running down some or
the armed men, They had their re-
volvers in their hands also, and told
the crowd 1t must not interfere.
At Winnings the sheriff changed his
course to avoid waiting delegations.
He shifted into PAGES ferry road and
came on through to Peachtree road and
thence into the city.
The news spread rapidly, and soon
people from that entire section assem-
bled. with arms, on the road, hoping TO
get the prisoner. He was brought In
safely. however, and lodged in the tower.
Webb meets Mrs. Browns description
perfectly. He is about six feet tall'
weighs nearly 200 pounds, and is very
black. He denies that he Is the guilty
man. but the sheriff says that his man
his guilt.
STORY OF THE CRIME.
Shortly after ! O'Clock Tuesday morning
the assault was perpetrated. The first
that was known of 1t was when John
Humphrey, a fifteen-year-old youth, ran
breathIesslv into the store of NJ. ]. Rob-
inson at Winnings with the bloodstirring
t;dinRs on his lips. Within a quarter
of an hour Sheriff w. NJ Mckinney. OF
Cobb county, had been notified at MARI
eta
Within five minutes more the word had
begun to spread over the whole country
side. on every road messengers sped forth
CARRYING it, Men deserted their helos.
dragged their plows to the barn, ano
threw themselves across the backs OF
their mules and headed for Winnings
Within half an hour every one knew H.
every road had it's sentinel, every mile
of railroad track its guard, and every
woodpath its man and gun.
At about the same moment arrived the
sheriff and several of his deputies from
Marietta, in automobiles Immediately
they took control of the situation. Fol-
lowing them came others from Mariet-
ia and from intervening communities and
farms.
An automobile sped through the country
to Buckhead, to get the four dogs or
Tom Donaldson and sped back again
within half an hour. The dogs of Cobb
and Fulton counties caught the trail al
once and were off with five hundred men
behind them and for a tipe trail ran well.
But the baying hounds met puzzle and
lost their way. and during the rest OF
the morning the woods beaters threshed
the brush in vain. Only once did they
run across the trail again, when they
found the tracks of the fleeing negro on
the banks of a gulley. Near that point
the trail was lost again, and at dark
Tuesday afternoon it had not been found
again though the searching parties were
scattered over fifty square miles of ter
ritory.
The details of the awful crime that has
stirred every adult man in Cobb county
to the path of destruction had best not
be told too fully.
VICTIM is AN INVALID.
Mrs. Exa Brown, young matron p
years of age, but seemingly almost girl.
was the victim. She is one of the
daughters of Mrs. E. J. Humphrey. Dur
ing two years past she has been in Ill
health, and since Christmas she had been
almost constantly under the care of ply
sicians.