Burned at the Stake

Title

Burned at the Stake

Source Type

Newspapers

Publisher

The Times - Picayune

Publication Place

New Orleans, LA

Publication Date

10/03/1900

Transcript

BURNED AT THE STAKE. An Alabama Mob Avenges a Fiendish Crime With Fire, Winfield Townsend, a Negro, Who Attempted a Criminal Assault On a White Woman, Run Down With Bloodhounds The Brute Carried Before His Vic. tim and Positively Identified, And Then He Was Chained to a Stake and Burned Full Confession Made, Implicating Seven Negroes in a Conspiracy To Oriminally Assault White Women Some of the Parties Arrested and More Trouble May Follow. Townsend, allas Floyd, a negro, Wetumpka, Ala., Oct. 2 -Windeld burned town attempted in Electic, morning for small was an at the stake at a this county, this criminal assault on Lon- send, nie Yesterday Harrington, woman. negro Mrs. a white afternoon the Town. who is a nephew of the Floyd who was hanged from the Wetumpka jall week before last for attempted assault, attempted to outrage Mrs. Harrington, home the wife is Harrington, miles east whose of of Lonnie situated about one Eclectic. Mr. Harrington was engaged at a gin in Eclectic. The negro went to the house and told Mrs. Harrington that her husband had sent him to get 20 cents from her. She told him that she had no change. Then the negro left, but re turned in about ten minutes, according to her story, and told her his purpose and grabbed her by the throat at the some She gave one acream. which was heard time throwing her violently to the floor. by Bob Nichols, who was passing along the house just in time to save Mrs. Har the road at the moment. He rashed to rington from the assault. The negro saw him coming. and rushed out of the house and away. Mr. Nichols found Mrs. Harrington unconscious, with the blood streaming out of her mouth and nose from the clutch of the negro, and in. his attention toward restoring Mrs. Har save stead of pursuing the negro at once, rington to consciousness. As soon as she recovered, he gave the alarm. The news Eclectic were closed: the ginneries and spread rapidly. All the dozen stores at saw mills stopped; the people left their wagons in the road, their plows in the fields, and gathered for pursuit of the negro. The crowd divided. some scour ing the woods near the scene of the crime, and others went to the penitentiary for the bloodboands. The dogs were taken at once to where the negro dis- appeared, ensued. and then a most exciting chase stopped at a tree in front of Odion's At 12:30 o'clock this morning the dogs store, on the northern outskirts of this city, and the crowd, coming up, discover ered the negro sitting on a limb. was brought down at once and carried He to the scene of this crime. There he identified him as the guilty man. The confronted by his victim, who positively was preparations for death were quickly of a big oak, and a hundred men made. A rope was flung over the limb ready eternity. and anxious to snatch the brate stood into should die, and by an almost unanimous Then a vote was taken as to how he decided to burn him. The stake was was vote of the hundreds - the ground it prepared, and the negro was bound to It him. with chains. Pine knots were piled about band and the flames, started by the has leaped of to the the feast negro's of feeh victim. and blood, quickly with wild cries upon God for and help. the brute paid the penalty mercy of and his cries. crime. The crowd looked on deaf to his confessed to the crime, and said that The burned negro, before being bound, was also implicated with Alex Floyd, he in attempted assault on Miss Kate Pearson as was hanged a couple of weeks ago for who that he and Floyd had said the attempt at that time. He crimes being planned them. for hanged put a stop to of Mke character. but that Floyd's other AN INFAMOUS CONSPIRACY. Townsend Made a Confession, I Difeating Seven Others. Montgomery, Ala.. Oct. -The Townsend, morning. burned in Elmore county negro this made a confession seven this other negroes in his crime. implicating As there within the month It is now assaulted is the second white woman is of a conspiracy among the negroes. by the people of that section that believed there fession the negroes Implicated in the con. One Wetumpka charged with burglary, jail at of Townsend was in negro, Virgil Miller, was brought here as threats of lynching were made and the to-night and placed in the Montgomery prison. The deputy sheriff had country, and had he been thirty minutes `drive of fourteen miles through a wild the later in reaching here crowd of cepted him. After reaching here who came by train would have Inter men erime were arrested by the deputy They other negroes who are implicated in two the brothers of the negro Zeb Floyd, Floyd, who are Frank Floyd and Jake was lynched near Wetumpka on Sept a. rington, who was assaulted yesterday, A singular coincidence is that Mrs. Har- is kinswoman of Miss Pearson, who Floyd was lynched. It 1s believed the was assaulted on Sept. 3, for which Zeb are trouble bers conspiracy of white is directed family. Montgomery, against Three the and mem. a now in jall in may arise.

Sources for

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