December 14, 1889: Two Highwaymen

After finding two cases of lynchings and researching them only to find out the first lynching was thwarted and the second lynching had neither mob nor body, I finally found a case that appears to have occurred. We learn about it through the pages of the Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles, California) dated December 15, 1889:

Texas Farmers Robbed.

St. Louis, December 14.—Half a dozen farmers who were returning to their homes from Dallas, Tex., yesterday after selling their cotton, were robbed by highwaymen on the road near White Rock. Bloodhounds were put on their tracks, and a report has reached Dallas that two of the robbers were captured and hanged by the enraged farmers.

The first lynching I researched was to have happened in Waycross, Georgia in 1891. Welcome Golden and Robert Knight were held in jail for being leaders in the Varno riot and a mob tried to lynch them. The mob fired into the cells, most of the papers I read wrote that the mob achieved its goal. Unfortunately in February of 1892, the guard was sent to protect three men, two of them happened to be Golden and Knight. After reading that, I browsed through the Atlanta Constitution and found the article about the December 14th lynching attempt. It appears the lynchers missed their mark when they fired into the cells and only hit the bedding and not the prisoners.

The second lynching was about a man named Henry Daniels who murdered Tom Adair in Austell, Georgia on December 14, 1891. I did find it interesting that both of the supposed lynching occurred in Georgia on the same day.  Daniels was bound and placed in a wagon with the sheriff and two other men. About a half hour afterwards, Daniels jumped from the wagon and made his escape. Apparently, he was never heard from again and people assumed he was lynched. 

Thank you for joining me and as always, I hope I leave you with something to ponder.