September 1, 1894: Daniel Hawkins, Robert Haynes, Warner Williams, Ed Hall, John Hayes and Graham White; September, 1894: In-Ki-Wish

Today we learn about 2 different lynchings. The first is a mass lynching of six men and we find it in the pages of The Kansas City Gazette (Kansas City, Kansas) dated September 2, 1894:

A Deputy in Charge of Six Negroes Accused of Incendiarism Is Halted by a Mob and the Prisoners are Shot

SIX NEGRO FIREBUGS SHOT.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., Sept. 2.—For over a year the people in the northern part of the county about Millington have been kept in a continual state of excitement by incendiarism. Barns and dwellings have been burned and recently the buildings on the Millington fair grounds were destroyed. Suspicion finally pointed to Daniel Hawkins, Robert Haynes, Warner Williams, Ed Hall, John Hayes and Graham White, negroes, and yesterday they were arrested near Kerryville, in the western part of the county, by Deputy Sheriff Richardson.

The deputy started with his prisoners, all chained together, in a wagon for Millington. When they reached Big Creek, 2 miles west of Millington, somebody in the woods by the roadside called out:  "Don't try to cross there! The bridge is down—come this way." Richardson got down and taking the horses by the head, led them into a path that opened in the direction from whence the warning had come. It was dark in the woods, but suddenly Richardson saw two guns aimed at him and a stern voice said:  "Throw up your hands!"

"What does that mean?" demanded the officer.

"None of your business," was the reply, "throw 'em up."

The officer obeyed, and when the negro prisoners, divining the purpose of the unseen mob, attempted to leap from the wagon, a volley rang out from forty or fifty guns and they fell back, wounded and dying. A dozen of the mob leaped into the wagon, and threw them out. Volley after volley was poured into the struggling mass, and in a few minutes all was still. Hawkin's [sic] head was almost shot from his shoulders, and some of the others were terribly mangled.

The mob, after making sure all six were dead, mounted and rode away. Atchison, who was with the deputy, then mounted one of the mules and hastened to Justice Hill's house, some distance away and notified him.

The lynchers were not masked, but the officers recognized none of them.

An inquest was held on the bodies this morning and the jury, which included two negroes, found that the prisoners had come to their death in the manner stated "at the hands of persons unknown."

Hawkins was first arrested a year ago with several others, charged with the burning of barns and houses in the Kerrville neighborhood. They were brought to trial, and two of them were sentenced to terms in the penitentiary after they had made full confessions, implicating Hawkins as the leader of the band of firebugs. Hawkins got a new trial, however, and after spending some months in jail, was released a few weeks ago. Since that the burnings had re-commenced, and the Millington neighborhood as well as Kerrville suffered.

Our second lynching is unusual in the fact that the lynchers were a gang. We learn about the lynching through the pages of The Sunday Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) dated September 17, 1894:

THE DOOLINS' REVENGE.

Strung an Old Indian Up by the Heels and Shot Him to Death.

WICHITA, Kan., Sept. 17.—At Cob Creek, near Minco, I. T., and old Cado Indian, In-Ki-Wish, was found strung up to a tree by the heels and shot through the head. On his breast was pinned a paper warning the Indian police to keep their hands off a band of outlaws known as the Doolin gang.

It seems that the old man's son, who is an Indian police scout, got on the track of this gang recently and with a posse routed them from their rendezvous. In revenge the outlaws murdered the old man.

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