Two Negros Taken From Wetumpka Jail and Lynched
- Title
- Two Negros Taken From Wetumpka Jail and Lynched
- Source Type
- Newspapers
- Author
- N/A
- Publisher
- Evergreen Courant
- Publication Place
- Evergreen, AL
- Publication Date
- January 6, 1915
- Transcript
- Two Negroes Taken From Wetumpka Jail and Lynched - Wetumpka, Ala., Jan. 4-A mob at 2:10 o'clock this morning, forced the doors of the Elmore county jail here, took two negroes, Will and Ed Smith, charged with the murder of R. A. Stillwell, to a lonely place on the road near Elmore, Alabama, and lynched them. The mob gathered quietly and had little difficulty in surprising the county jailer. The mob was orderly and immediately on entering the jail, went to the cell occupied by the two negroes, took them out and placed them in a wagon and drove down the Elmore road. Nothing further was heard of the mob until daylight this morning when the bodies of the two negroes were found. Immediately after the mob had entered the jail, the governor's office at Montgomery was called and Governor O'Neal at once ordered General Joseph Scully to hurry to Wetumpka with a company of the national guard from Montgomery. The company reached here at daylight, but it was too late to save the negroes. The mob had dispersed by that time and all that was left for the militia to do was to patrol the streets and take charge of the bodies of the men. Three men, Tom Wade, his son and Tom Penton, are held in the Elmore County jail at Wetumpka, being suspected of complicity in the lynching of the two negroes.