Chapter III

ELIJAH STRICKLAND, A COLORED PREACHER, LYNCHED.

Sunday night, April 23d, a mob seized a well-known colored preacher, Elijah Strickland, and, after savage torture, slowly strangled him to death. The following account of the lynching is taken from the Atlanta Constitution:

Palmetto, Ga., April 24.--(Special.)--The body of Lige Strickland,
the negro who was implicated in the Cranford murder by Sam Hose,
was found this morning swinging to the limb of a persimmon tree
within a mile and a quarter of this place, as told in the
Constitution extra yesterday. Before death was allowed to end the
sufferings of the Negro, his ears were cut off and the small finger
of his left hand was severed at the second joint. One of these
trophies was in Palmetto to-day.

On the chest of the Negro was a scrap of blood-stained paper,
attached with an ordinary pin. On one side this paper contained the
following:

“N. Y. Journal. We must protect our Ladies. 23--99.”

The other side of the paper contained a warning to the Negroes of
the neighborhood. It read as follows:

“Beware all darkies. You will be treated the same way.”

Before being finally lynched, Lige Strickland was given a chance to
confess to the misdeeds of which the mob supposed him to be guilty,
but he protested his innocence until the end.

Three times the noose was placed around his neck and the Negro was
drawn up off the ground; three times he was let down with warnings
that death was in store for him should he fail to confess his
complicity in the Cranford murder, and three times Strickland
proclaimed his innocence, until, weary of useless torturing, the
mob pulled on the rope and tied the end around the slender trunk of
the persimmon tree.

Not a shot was fired by the mob. Strickland was strangled to death.
He was lynched about 2:30 a. m.

The lynching of Lige Strickland was not accomplished without a
desperate effort on the part of his employer to save his life. The
man who pleaded for the Negro is Major W. W. Thomas, an ex-State
Senator, and one of the most distinguished citizens of Coweta
County.

Sunday night, about 8:30 o’clock, about fifteen men went to the
plantation of Major Thomas and took Lige Strickland from the little
cabin in the woods that he called home, leaving his wife and five
children to wail and weep over the fate they knew was in store for
the Negro. Their cries aroused Major Thomas, and that sturdy old
gentleman of the antebellum type followed the lynchers in his
buggy, accompanied by his son, W. M. Thomas, determined to save, if
possible, the life of his plantation darky.

He overtook the lynchers with their victim at Palmetto, and then
ensued the weirdest and most dramatic scene this section has ever
known, with only the moonlight to show the faces of the grim,
determined men.

It had for its actors the Negro, apparently unconcerned even with
the noose around his neck; the old white-haired gentlemen, pleading
for the life of his servant, and attempting to prove the innocence
of the Negro to men who would not be convinced.

Lige Strickland was halted directly opposite the telegraph office.
The noose was adjusted around his neck and the end of the rope was
thrown over a tree. Strickland was told he had a chance before
dying to confess his complicity in the crime. He replied:

“I have told you all I know, gentlemen. You can kill me if you
wish, but I know nothing more to tell.”

The Negro’s life might have been ended then but for the arrival of
Major Thomas, who leaped from his buggy and asked for a hearing. He
asked the crowd to give the Negro a chance for his life here on the
streets of Palmetto, and Major Thomas said he would speak in his
defense. A short conference resulted in acquiescence to this, and
Major Thomas spoke in substance as follows:

“Gentlemen, this Negro is innocent. Hose said Lige had promised to
give him $20 to kill Cranford, and I believe Lige has not had $20
since he has been on my place. This is a law-abiding Negro you are
about to hang. He has never done any of you any harm, and now I
want you to promise me that you will turn him over either to the
bailiff of this town or to some one who is entitled to receipt for
him, in order that he may be given a hearing on his case. I do not
ask that you liberate him. Hold him and if the courts adjudge him
guilty, hang him.”

There were some, however, who agreed with Major Thomas, and after a
discussion a vote was taken, which was supposed to mean life or
death to Lige Strickland. The vote to let him live was unanimous.

Major Thomas then retired some distance and the mob was preparing
to send Strickland in a wagon to Newnan when a member of the mob
said:

“We have got him here, let’s keep him.”

This again aroused the mob and a messenger was sent to advise Major
Thomas to leave Palmetto for his own good, but the old gentleman
was not frightened so easily. He drew himself up and said with all
the emphasis he could summon:

“I have never before been ordered to leave a town and I am not
going to leave this one.” And then the Major, uplifting his hand to
give his words force, said to the messenger:

“Tell them that the muscles in my legs are not trained to running;
tell them that I have stood the fire and heard the whistle of the
minies from a thousand rifles and I am not frightened by this
crowd.”

Major Thomas was not molested.

Then, with the understanding that Lige Strickland was to be
delivered to the jailer at Fairburn, Major Thomas saw the Negro he
had pleaded for led off to his death. This occurred at about 1
o’clock this morning.

Strickland was then taken in the rear of the home of Dr. W. S.
Zellars, to the persimmon tree upon which his lifeless body was
left hanging.