The day justice died in Hancock County Mob lynched black man in 1897 17 September 2000 Messenger-Inquirer The loop of a farmer's plowline was tightened around Raymond Bushrod's neck, and the slack end of the rope was thrown over a branch of a poplar tree 15 feet above the courthouse yard in Hawesville. The line drew taut and the 20-year-old Bushrod was pulled slowly upward. The mob that had gathered below cheered, and a hundred women who stood on Lover's Leap and the other hills surrounding the courthouse waved white handkerchiefs in wild glee. Within minutes, the only known lynching in Hancock County history was over, and an angry mob's lust for vigilante justice was gratified. Hawesville had endured many incidents of violence since becoming a town in the 1830s. A street gunfight that was reported nationally in Harper's Weekly in 1859. Shelling by a Union gunboat and field artillery during the Civil War. But none of those events compared to that illegal hanging on the sunny Sunday afternoon of Sept. 26, 1897. It was committed outside the door of the county's seat of justice and within a stone's throw of four houses of worship. It came at the end of a turbulent summer when lynchings of negroes were rampant across the South and some states of the Midwest. And it occurred after inflammatory stories about those illegal hangings in local newspapers had produced an incendiary climate that may have unwittingly incited citizens to take the law into their own hands. As the 103rd anniversary of the lynching approaches, a retelling of the deeds of that Sunday provides a revealing critique of a dismal decade in American history when the first segregation laws took root in the South and white supremacy was solidly entrenched. It shows that the mob's action was more than an angry retaliation to a violent crime. Moreover, it underscores how in their reporting of the story the Hawesville and Owensboro newspapers of the 1890s accurately reflected Southern society's resolve that, according to the common rallying cry of that day, "white women must be protected from black rapists." The events ending with Bushrod's death started about 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 25, near Petrie on the Texas Railroad three miles west of Hawesville. Fifteen-year-old Maggie Roberts, daughter of farmer Ben Roberts, had been at the store at Petrie and was walking down the railroad toward home when she was hit on the back of the head with a rail coupling pin, knocked down and -- according to news reports -- sexually assaulted. Maggie screamed, but her attacker fled by the time three neighbors -- Fred Petrie, John Beauchamp and Ed Muffett -- came to her rescue. After the assault was reported, a communitywide manhunt ensued and Bushrod was captured about three hours after the alleged attack. He was found under the platform of the Falcon Station, a railroad stop at the mining community four miles west of Petrie. Bushrod, who came from Rockport, Ind., had been released from the Hancock County jail three weeks earlier after serving 130 days for stealing a watch. He was reported drunk in Hawesville on Saturday and ordered out of town by the marshal. He was last seen walking down the railroad. After being captured, Bushrod was taken to the Roberts' home where, it was reported, Maggie identified him as the man who attacked her. "It was with much effort that Mr. Roberts was prevented from shooting him (Bushrod)," Editor Clarence Sterett wrote later in the Hancock Clarion. "A colored neighbor wanted (Bushrod) hung in front of his house." At nightfall, Bushrod was taken by wagon to the jail in Hawesville. All along the way from Falcon to Hawesville, Bushrod's captors passed angry crowds of men on the road, and Bushrod lay flat in the bed of the wagon, unnoticed in the darkness. Few people knew until Sunday morning that Bushrod had been captured, but then the news spread quickly. There was a lot of talk about a hanging. So much, in fact, that lawmen thought of moving Bushrod to Louisville or Owensboro. By early afternoon, the streets of Hawesville filled with people. Rumors flowed that there would be an attempt to put Bushrod on an eastbound train, and that a militia company from Owensboro would come Sunday night to protect him. The mob soon prevented that from happening by blocking all avenues of escape from town. As the 4:55 eastbound train pulled into Hawesville, the lawmen tried to divert the mob's attention and rush Bushrod out of town on horseback. The attempt failed. At 5:05, thinking the militia might be coming, the mob finally rushed the jail. They streamed to the basement cell where Bushrod was held and overpowered Sheriff John Fuqua and Jailer William Brown. Half pulling and carrying Bushrod, the mob brought him across the street toward the courthouse. A woman brandishing a riding whip urged them on, newspapers reported. Several times men in the crowd hit Bushrod with their fists, and one struck him with a brick. Shaking and trembling, Bushrod confessed to the crime while members of the mob looked for a rope, according to witnesses. "I am guilty, I am sorry, I hope I will die easy," he reportedly said. Bushrod knelt to pray and then passed out and lay helpless on the sidewalk while his legs and hands were pinned, Sterett wrote. The mob, estimated to be as many as 500 people, moved quickly after finding the rope and hanged Bushrod in the tree on the west side of the present courthouse midway between the gate and corner. A slight drawing up of the legs was the only evidence of pain. "It was an awful sight. Sickening and pitiful," wrote a reporter from the Owensboro Daily Inquirer, who had rushed to Hawesville by train and witnessed the lynching. Sterett added: "When the body was still, the leader of the mob (a man named Schaeffer from Cannelton) stepped aside and doffed his hat, saying: 'This is the protection we offer our wives and daughters.' " With those words the mob slowly dispersed and Bushrod's body hanged there for 40 minutes before Coroner A.G. Mitchell had it cut down. A jury of six men gathered. After hearing some testimony they arrived at a verdict that Bushrod came to his fate at the hands of "unknown parties." One juryman, George W. Newman, refused to sign the verdict, saying insufficient effort had been made to identify members of the mob. Kentucky Gov. William Bradley was notified, and he offered a $500 reward for the arrest and conviction of each or any member of the Hawesville mob. But no one stepped forward to collect the money. Bushrod's body was taken to an undertaker in Hawesville, and when the dead man's family did not claim him, the remains were shipped by train to the Louisville Medical Society. News of the lynching spread quickly. The Owensboro Daily Messenger printed an extra edition about the hanging that was on the street by daylight on Monday, and several hundred issues were distributed in Hancock County. The hanging was the talk of the town as a large crowd gathered in Hawesville on Monday. The reporter from the Daily Inquirer said he couldn't find a single person who disapproved of the mob's action. "Some of the farmers say their wives insisted on their coming to town yesterday," he wrote. "And it is a fact that the women were as much worked up and as vehement in their cries for vengeance as the men. "Everyone seems to be in sympathy with the action of the mob, and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to convict anyone for taking part in it." The Owensboro Daily Messenger's lead news story on Monday expressed public opinion in even more vicious terms: "The brutal outrage upon the person of little Maggie Roberts has been avenged and another black fiend, confessedly guilty, has learned that the penalty for rape is rope. There is no use to moralize over it -- no use to call down maledictions upon the state or the officers. Right or wrong, as long as black brutes outrage white women, just that long will citizens swing the brutes to a convenient limb." In the following week, some white residents did step forward to condemn the lynching, but it was all too late. In years to come, as new generations were born, memories of the terrible lynching on that Sunday afternoon were erased by time. Few people in the 20th century knew about the event until an account of the lynching was reprinted in a county sesquicentennial edition of the Hancock Clarion in 1979. Only a few years before that, the hanging tree died and was chopped down with little mention of the lawless deed that had taken place there. The symbol of what was the darkest day in Hancock County history finally disappeared forever. Glenn Hodges, (270) 691-7297 gHodges@messenger-inquirer.com Back to Top Send a letter to the editor Send your comments or suggestions about local news coverage to news@messenger-inquirer.com Home | U.S. & World | Kentucky | Indiana | Sports | Opinion | Columnists | Community | Perspective | Politics | Business | Agriculture | Education | Religion & Values | Your Health | Good Times | Lifestyle | Home & Garden | Food | Special Archives | Weather | The AP Wire Classified Ads | Voice Personals | Advertising About the M-I | Subscribe | Search | Help | Feedback | SiteMap ©2000 Messenger-Inquirer