The Winston-Salem Riot of 1895: Part 3—Preventing a Lynching

Union Republican, 15 Aug 1895, 3. Later, the paper would concede the good intentions of those who guarded the jail.  

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Previous posts:
Part 1
Part 2

After the testimony was completed on Saturday, August 10, the trial was recessed until Monday. Sunday the 11th was unusually quiet, at least in Salem. Several chapels were undergoing repairs, so no church bells sounded for services that day. (1) But about 9:30 pm, incited by rumors of an imminent attempt to lynch Tuttle, men began gathering near the jail to protect Tuttle. No lynching occurred, but the confrontation between 300 or so armed protectors of Tuttle and local authorities led to a brief street fight. The purpose of this section is to explain the circumstances and events of the riot.
 
In early August 1895, once Tuttle was back in Forsyth County jail for his trial, there were renewed fears for his safety. Winston-Salem’s only known lynching had occurred in 1884 when a white man was taken from jail, tried in a kangaroo court, and hanged for the murder of a white woman. (2) Two years later, the nation reached a terrible turning point: for the first time, “the number of African Americans lynched [in the United States] exceeded that of whites,” possibly because of the large numbers of African Americans migrating to southern cities for work in the newly opened factories. (3) By 1895, the national and state atmosphere was heavy with news and rumors of lynchings, racial and otherwise. That was the year Ida B. Wells first published her famous report, The Red Record. (4) I have not found any reference to her work in the local press, but what one can find in the first seven months of 1895 are frequent stories about lynchings and feared lynchings. From these stories—dealing with white-on-white lynchings, white-on-black lynchings, and one threatened black-on-black lynching—one would not guess that two-thirds of the victims were African American. (5)
 
On the night of Sunday, August 11, rumors of an impending lynching flew through the town, among whites and African Americans. Men and horses from the countryside were rumored to be gathering in the woods in the West End in preparation for an assault on the jail. (6) John Lewis Beard, a justice of the peace, shared the rumor with his wife, Ida. As we will see, one of Arthur Tuttle’s brothers, alarmed by the rumors, asked the congregation of a church (probably the A.M.E. Church) to come to his brother’s aid, and Beard may have conveyed the same message by letter to a minister (VI, 102). (7)
 
Below I discuss some of the patterns evident in other cases of lynching that were at play in Winston-Salem as the citizens of the town reacted to the rumors.
 
Risk of lynching increased when punishment seen as unduly delayed or unlikely. The general opinion of the time in the white community was that failure to administer timely justice was one of the reasons for the prevalence of lynching. Early in the year, in its summary of the Chicago Tribune’s annual report on crime, the Union Republican reported that “the number of [judicial] executions in the year looks ludicrously small in comparison with the number of murders,” a complaint that was widely shared. (8)
 
The fear of lynching in the Tuttle case, and perhaps the risk, were increased by a recent change in North Carolina law. Until 1894, the most severe punishment for second degree murder had been death, but in that year the law was changed to provide for a maximum penalty of thirty years at hard labor. (9) The prosecution pursued conviction of Tuttle for capital murder, but it was in the jury’s power to decide the nature of the crime committed, if any. (10) The fear was that the mob would act on its own to ensure that capital punishment was exacted.
 
Prisoners moved for their protection. Though North Carolina was hardly free from lynching—the North Carolina attorney-general reported eight cases in 1894 (11)—they were somewhat less frequent than in other southern states. (12) It seems to have been the practice in the state to move to a more distant jail any prisoner thought to be in danger of lynching. In 1895, before the Tuttle trial, local papers reported on two prisoners, both white, who had been transferred to prisons outside their home counties—a well-connected prisoner in Lexington, and a young man from Ashe County, both charged with murder. The latter was in the Forsyth County jail at the time of Tuttle’s arrest. (13)
 
On Monday, May 20, Tuttle was moved by train to the jail in Greensboro. Authorities attempted to transfer him in secret, but word got out and a large crowd gathered at the depot. The crowd included “a brother and sister of Arthur Tuttle … but [they] were not permitted to speak to him. The sister appeared to be much affected. She said that the trouble would kill her mother.” (14) Tuttle traveled in a second-class car, apparently alone except for an armed guard at each end of the car. However, because Greensboro was so easily accessible from Winston-Salem by train, Tuttle was soon moved to Charlotte, where he remained until shortly before the trial. (15)
 
African Americans posted as guards to prevent lynching. In Ida’s memoir, she writes that her husband, John Lewis Beard, wrote a letter to an African American minister suggesting that African Americans guard the jail to prevent a lynching (VI, 102). Beard may well have done this, and his letter may have provided important information—a confirmation from the white community that a lynching was feared to be imminent. But the tactic itself—posting sentinels near or around jails to prevent a lynching—was well-known in the African American community. (16)
 
One example occurred in Durham, North Carolina, in February of the same year. Fearing that an African American arrested for aggressively insulting white women in the street would be lynched, a crowd assembled in and around the jail. (17) More to the point, even before the confrontation at the Forsyth county jail in August, this tactic had already been used twice in the Tuttle case: soon after Arthur’s arrest, a large crowd gathered behind the Forsyth County jail to discourage lynching (18); shortly thereafter, when Arthur had been transferred to Greensboro, R. B. Garrett stated in a letter to the Richmond Planet that a large crowd of armed men kept watch over the Guilford County jail for two nights. (19)
 
Although Beard may have sent a letter to a minister, the court was told that the plea to the congregation to protect Arthur came from Robert Tuttle, brother of Arthur and Walter: “During the examination Monday morning the fact was brought out that on the night of the trouble, Bob Tuttle, a brother of Arthur Tuttle (who was then on trial for the murder of Officer Vickers) went to the M. E. colored church and just after service arose near the pulpit and stated that he learned that people from the country were coming that night to lynch his brother and called upon those present for assistance.” (20)
 
The need for African Americans to take up arms to protect themselves: the lack of trust. We almost inevitably see the African Americans in this period as helplessly caught up in the processes leading to the imposition of the Jim Crow regime. But things looked different then. There were, of course, ominous clues as to what might be coming. In 1890 Mississippi was the first southern state to disenfranchise African American voters. This same course was adopted by South Carolina in 1895, the year of the riot in Winston-Salem, and by North Carolina in 1900. (21) Few if any whites supported social equality with blacks, making any alliance between the races unstable and unequal. But not all the clues in 1890 were so threatening: Winston frequently elected African American members to the town council; just four years before, a biracial coalition led by Republicans had taken control of the lower house of the state legislature and would enjoy sometimes remarkable success in the state through 1898. (22) Nevertheless, the lack of trust between the races helped create the confrontation over Arthur Tuttle.
 
The influential editor of the Richmond Planet, John Mitchell, Jr., advocated that African Americans arm themselves for protection. (23) An editorial comment he published around the time of Arthur Tuttle’s confrontation with the police is characteristic: “It should be as much a duty to have a repeating rifle and a revolver as it is to carry an insurance policy. When lawless parties come, have the nerve to pull the trigger, and take the consequences. Let us die game, and as we step into the chilly waters of death, have at least one of our murderers to accompany us. This is the only way out.” (24)
 
In his letter to the Planet, R. B. Garrett acknowledged Mitchell’s role in inspiring the efforts to set armed sentinels to watch over the jail in Greensboro: “You can see then that the readers of the Planet are adhering to your cry for Winchesters for protection.” (25) Garett’s letter was known in Winston-Salem. The Planet was a very influential and widely read paper, one of the men arrested for riot, Samuel Tolliver, later became the local agent for the Planet. (26) The letter evoked a response from Simon G. Atkins, a leading African American citizen of Winston. Atkins agreed that “there may be no objections to a man having a Winchester or a revolver in his house, for self-defense in an emergency,” but he argued that the state of North Carolina “is competent to guarantee to every honest man of every race within its borders ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ and to every man charged with crime a fair trial.” (27) Atkins put a lot of hope in an 1893 state law, sponsored by a Winston-Salem citizen, lawyer C. B. Watson, intended to prevent the lynching of prisoners in custody. The law proved inadequate for the task, though that was not immediately evident. (28)
 
Though there may have been no serious attempt to organize a mob to lynch Tuttle, the events of the next few years, in Wilmington and elsewhere, showed how mistaken Atkins was. The African American community in Winston-Salem obviously did not trust the white authorities on this occasion, and, according to Fambrough Brownlee, this came as a surprise to those authorities. (29) There was an ongoing, if often fractious, alliance between white and African American Republicans. From 1880 to around 1898, there was at least one African American alderman on the Winston town council, and members of both races served on temperance committees and in support of other civic and religious activities. But it was not enough. Nor did the white authorities trust the African American community, else they would not have mistaken the motives of the men who surrounded the jail.
 
We can see mistrust at work in the reaction of some in the African American community throughout these events. As noted above, moving prisoners to a safer jail was a standard North Carolina tactic, but R. B. Garrett detected sinister motives in the case of Arthur Tuttle. In a letter to the Richmond Planet dated May 25, Garrett wrote that Tuttle had been moved to Greensboro to escape the protection of the African American community in his hometown. He wrote that, to prevent a lynching, armed African American men kept watch on the Guilford County jail for two nights, after which Tuttle was moved farther away, to Charlotte; he claimed that 380 men were posted as sentinels on the second night. Garret praised the authorities in Guilford County for their vigilance, and he acknowledged that no lynch mob appeared in Greensboro, but he accused Forsyth County authorities of false arrest and of conspiring with the mob to lynch Tuttle; the latter charge was forcefully rebutted in the press by Simon G. Atkins. (30)
 
The mistrust again became evident in the negotiations between authorities and the sentinels around the jail during the tense night of Sunday, August 11. (31) According to newspaper accounts, the crowd of armed men who took on the task of guarding Tuttle began gathering near the jail around 9:30. (32) Around 10:30, Sheriff McArthur, Mayor Gray, and two prominent lawyers—C. B. Watson, author of the state’s anti-lynching law, and his partner, J. C. Buxton, one of the attorneys prosecuting Tuttle—tried to allay the fears of the crowd. (33) Around 1 a.m., Judge Brown of the Superior Court circuit, who was presiding at Tuttle’s trial, also appeared. At the trial of the rioters, Mayor Gray described some of his interactions with the crowd. He discovered that the men “feared that Tuttle would be lynched by people from the country and that they had been informed that a lot of horses were tied in the pine woods in the West End. Whereupon, the Mayor sent the Chief-of-Police with one of the negroes to the West End in order that they might be satisfied that the report was untrue. Even after this, the mob persistently refused to disperse.” (34)
 
The mayor’s efforts may have been hampered by the unusual number of white people in the streets. There were several reports that Friends returning by train from the annual meeting in High Point and walking home from the Depot were mistaken for the gathering of the lynch mob. (35)The tensions of the night must also have been exacerbated by an unknown number of armed white men who came on the scene without being deputized; their presence in the street was likely taken as evidence of an imminent lynching, and the suspicion may very well have been correct. (36)
 
According to his statement to the grand jury, Judge Brown of the Superior Court walked alone into the crowd of African Americans guarding the jail. A native and citizen of Washington, North Carolina, he did not know anyone he saw. Here is what he told the grand jury that convened on the following day (which was also the last day of Tuttle’s trial):
 
“In the hope of preventing any disturbance, the Court personally, unattended, went among the crowd to ascertain its purpose. The Court found that they were all practically armed and with their weapons in open display. The Court was informed by some of them, whose names the Court was unable to get and doesn’t know, that they anticipated that there would be some injury done to a prisoner who is now on trial. The Court assured the crowd, there assembled, that it would be almost impossible for any injury to be done to his prisoner, that the Court being in session, his trial being proceeded with, was a practical guarantee of his safety. And in order to quell the disturbance the Court directed the sheriff to put a guard around the jail in order to allay the fears of the people who had assembled there. Then they promised to go home peaceably.” (37)
 
The Forsyth Rifles and sheriff’s posse had assembled nearby, on Fifth Street near Main. When the crowd did not quickly disperse, the Forsyth Rifles were summoned and formed a firing line. Someone fired a shot—several newspapers reported that the “mob” fired first—and the Riflemen opened fire, with orders to kill. (38) Though the newspaper does not say so, the crowd included both armed whites and armed African Americans. (39)
 
The testimony of Mayor Gray and the statement of Judge Brown to the grand jury suggest they considered themselves to be acting in good faith to prevent violence. But the crowd did not trust them. The Richmond Planet assessed the situation in a brief article:
 
“The sight of the Mayor of Winston urging these people [gathered to protect Tuttle] to go away was indeed a surprising thing. They were there to maintain the majesty of the law and not to violate it. The officers finally consented to place a guard around the jail to defend the prisoner.
     The colored people not trusting these continued to linger in the neighborhood of the jail and the Forsyth Riflemen were called out.
     We must defend prisoners, black or white[,] who are threatened with lynching. The evil must be eradicated. It must go!” (40)
 
A handful of Riflemen were wounded, none seriously; the number of dead and wounded in the crowd was never ascertained—the African American community was thought to have acted in concert to hide the information from the authorities, another sign of the lack of trust. The Union Republican stated, “The reported wounding and death in the ranks of the recent rioters, in this city, is without foundation, so far as we can learn. That some may have been wounded is possible but to find it out would puzzle one of the best representatives of the Scotland Yard detective force.” (41) The Goldsboro Daily Argus was one of the papers that reported deaths; it wrote that three of the rioters “were secretly buried by their friends north of Winston” at night. The community, it wrote, “will reveal nothing regarding the number injured during the trouble.” (42) We do know the name of one wounded man. At the time of their trials for riot, several of the prisoners reported that Frank Robinson had been wounded in the riot and still carried “a buck-shot or pistol ball in his back.” (43)
 
The Aftermath
On the day after the riot, shortly after midnight, a Gatling gun arrived in Winston-Salem from Charlotte. It had taken the day for the necessary permissions to be received and for the gun to be shipped by train. Although Ida wrote in her memoir that it was the arrival of this gun that assured the peace—a sentiment likely shared by many of her white neighbors—it seems to have been unnecessary (VI, 101). But the town was on edge. In addition to the Riflemen, one hundred “special policemen” were on duty. Rumors had it that African Americans were gathering at “the big trestle one mile below Salem” to stop the arrival of the Gatling gun, but nothing came of it. After its arrival, the Forsyth Riflemen were called out in the early hours at the report of a gunshot, but it was only Eugene Albea shooting at noisy cats that were disturbing his sleep. (44)
 
The grand jury had met in the morning and begun to issue indictments. Ultimately, it appears that forty-eight citizens of the town, almost certainly all African American, were arrested for participation in the riot. Solicitor Mott was reported to have considered indicting white men who came armed to the scene of the incident without being deputized, but apparently nothing came of it. (45)
 
Fifteen of those arrested were found not guilty; six were discharged without penalty or had their sentences suspended (in two cases for age and infirmity, in one case apparently for assisting the prosecution); and six received monetary penalties (costs and, in a few cases, fines). The most severe punishment was twelve months of hard labor on the county roads, a sentence handed out to three men, including Frank Robinson, the man reported to have been shot in the back. One man was sentenced to six months, eleven to four months, and three received to three months. For three cases, I cannot find the disposition; interestingly, this includes the case of Will Tuttle, a brother of Walter, Robert, and Arthur, who fled town after the riot and was not arrested until November. (46) In a separate study, I hope to provide a group portrait of these men involved in the effort to protect Tuttle.
 
It is hard to discern the effects of the riot on the town. It was reported that many men left town immediately after the riot, leaving the tobacco factories short-handed. (47) This seems to have been a transitory effect. Other effects can be discerned from examples. Micajah (Cager) Watt, almost 50 years of age, was one of the oldest men arrested in the aftermath of the riot; born around 1847/1849, he was old enough to have vivid memories of slavery times. (48) He was considered by the court of having been a ringleader in the riot and was accordingly punished with six months on the county road, the second most severe sentence handed out. (49) In addition, the newspapers suggested that he was whipped in the road camp with the knowledge of, if not at the order of, the camp superintendent. (50) When he was released, he seems to have again taken up his profession as a cook and restaurant owner in town, but not long after, around the turn of the century, he and his family moved to Harlem. (51) In contrast, Frank Carter was “fined fifty dollars and his proportion of the costs; the Judge stated that, in deference to the “unusually good character” given to Carter, presumably by influential white citizens, he imposed “a fine instead of consigning him to the county road.” (52) A few months later, Carter—or another African American with the same name—was elected to the town council. (53) Unlike Watt, he seems to have recovered his position in town following the riot. In formal and informal ways, the white community used forgiveness and intimidation to maintain control.
 
The Later Life of Arthur and Robert Tuttle
As we have seen, Arthur Tuttle was sentenced to 25 years at hard labor, with the judge’s promise of release after 17 or 18 years—that is, no earlier than 1912 or 1913—if he conducted himself well in prison. A petition for his pardon was circulated in 1898—a short article in The Union Republican mentioned it only to dismiss its wisdom—while Daniel Russell was governor. (54) Russell, a Republican, was famous at the time for his generosity with pardons. Some thought he abused his power (55); a paper in Wilmington called his practice “the Russell radical pardon-mill.” (56) Fam Brownlee has reported that Arthur was in Winston-Salem in 1908, but I have not found evidence in the newspapers available on newspapers.com. (57) By the 1910 census, however, Arthur was living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with wife Cora; the census records indicate that he married Cora in 1903, so it is possible that he actually was pardoned by Russell before the end of the governor’s term in 1901, though I have found no newspaper stories of such a pardon. (58) In any case, Arthur Tuttle was in Philadelphia by 1910, and within ten years two of his brothers, Robert and Allie, were also living there. (59)
 
The evidence that the Arthur Tuttle in Philadelphia is the same man as the native of Forsyth County is necessarily circumstantial but, I think, persuasive. In Winston-Salem, Arthur, like his oldest brother Walter and most young African American men, probably worked in a tobacco factory. Philadelphia had a large population of African Americans and a robust tobacco industry, so it would be a logical destination for a black tobacco worker leaving the South. (60) In the 1910 census, Arthur Tuttle was working in Philadelphia as stripper in a cigar factory. His birthplace is given as North Carolina, and his age, 36, is consistent with the age of our Arthur as reported on the 1880 census. The 1910 census shows him as married to Cora (also from North Carolina), with a marriage year of 1903, suggesting (as I noted) an early release from prison. (61)
 
In 1918, we find Arthur Tuttle listed as brother on the draft registration card of Allie Tuttle, while “Ollie” Tuttle is listed as the nearest relative on the draft registration of Arthur Charles Tuttle, “cigar maker.” (62) Charles may have been given him at birth or—as later records, cited below, suggest—he may have borrowed it from his father as an alias. Allie’s death certificate, from May 1930, shows that he was born around 1882 and was not married; the informant is Charles Tuttle. (63) Later documents make clear that this is actually the man we know as Arthur: in 1941, Arthur claimed Social Security benefits under the name of Charles Arthur Tuttle, (64) and on his death certificate, in 1946, his name is listed as “Arthur Tuttle—alias Charles Arthur Tuttle.” (65) He apparently lived in Philadelphia under a slightly disguised name, perhaps to put his past as a convicted murderer behind him.
 
When Arthur died, in 1946, he was living with his brother Robert; Cora had died 21 years earlier, in 1925. (66) In 1914, Robert had married in Winston-Salem, but he and his wife, Alice Jackson, were in Philadelphia by the time of the 1920 census. (67) At that time he was employed as a foreman in a tobacco factory. (68) He died in 1964, at the age of 89. (69)
 
From the little I can gather from the sketchy glimpses into his life, Robert seems to have been an admirable figure, especially regarding the care he took of his younger brother, Arthur. It was probably Robert who, with an unnamed sister, went to the depot to see Arthur sent to the jail in Greensboro by train after his arrest. After Arthur’s return to Forsyth County to stand trial for the killing of policeman Vickers, Robert asked the congregation to guard the jail to protect his brother from the feared lynch mob. There was no lynching, but there was a street battle with wounds and probably deaths. Throughout, his intent seems to have been honorable. Finally, he and his wife took his brother into their home sometime after the death of Arthur’s wife.
 
Notes
(1) [no title], Wachovia Moravian, Sep 1895, n.p.
(2) “Swinging into eternity…part 3,” Forsyth County Public Library: North Carolina Collection.
(3) Paula J. Giddings. Ida: A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (p. 2). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. However, the tobacco factories in Winston-Salem were still seasonal employers—the hydroelectric power plant on the Yadkin did not open till 1898—and I have the impression that many workers returned to their nearby rural communities in the off-season or when out of work. For example, in an 1890 trial involving electoral fraud in the sheriff’s election, many voters were questioned on residency and payment of taxes, and the answers showed that many of the witnesses frequently moved in and out of town based on employment opportunities, including seasonal work (“Boyer Against Teague: Further Developments of the Sheriffalty Contest,” Western Sentinel, 23 Jan 1890, 1). Three future participants in the events of August 1895—Sam Tolliver (June 1846 - 15 August 1903; LDPW-D3V), Peter Owens, and John Johnson—were questioned, but these three men appear to have been permanent residents.
Interestingly, the mayor of Winston testified that the African American community feared “that Tuttle would be lynched by people from the country” who on the night of the riot were rumored to be gathering “in the pine woods in the West End” in preparation for the lynching (“Trial of the Rioters,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 1). The tobacco workers and tradesmen and small businessmen—all the known participants in protecting Tuttle were men—perhaps feared the communities they had escaped more than the town environment in which they lived. But it was also in the mayor’s interest to place the blame on outsiders.
(4) I have consulted Ida B. Wells, The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Record, by Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1895; ebook #14977 released 8 Feb 2005).
(5) This becomes quite clear, however, as one reads the editorials and examines news stories over a longer period.
While no North Carolina newspaper archived in newspapers.com mentioned The Red Record, the Union Republican published an analysis of one of Wells’ main sources, the Chicago Tribune’s annual report on crimes in the US ("Shady Side of 1894. The Devil Finds Some; Work for; Idle Hands to Do," 17 January 1895, 1). The article stressed the impact of the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depression on the rise in crime—reported murders increased “almost exactly 50 per cent.... The number of legal executions in the year looks ludicrously small in comparison with the number of murders.... It is not encouraging to know that the lynchings exceeded the legal executions by nearly 50 per cent....”
The paper conceded that “the colored race furnished the lynchers with more than two-thirds of their victims,” and that the South lynched seven times more victims than the North. Significantly, the article agreed with one of Wells’ main contentions: “Only about one-fifth of the lynchings of colored men was due to the offense [i.e., rape and sexual assault] which has been held up as an excuse for taking summary vengeance on the perpetrator.”
(6) “Trial of the Rioters,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 1.
(7) “Horrible Affair! How Policeman Vickers Lost His Life,” Western Sentinel, 23 May 1895, 1.
(8) “Shady Side of 1894,” 17 January 1895, 1. In July the Western Sentinel published an article from the Frederick (MD) News arguing that lynchings would be discouraged by “prompt execution of the law” (“How to Stop Lynchings,” 25 July 1895, 2). An open defender of lynching, the American Law Review of Boston and St Louis, made similar arguments that were reprinted in the Progressive Farmer, a paper with its roots in Winston-Salem (“The True Remedy for Lynch Law,” 8 January 1895, 1). This article further defended lynch mobs as men who “as a rule … wish ardently to enforce justice,” an assertion that cannot bear the weight of the bloody and vicious examples provided in Wells’ Red Record.
(9) Fam Brownlee, “Murder, Rumors of Murder and Even More Rumors…”
(10) “Superior Court. Two Murder Cases the Center of Interest,” Union Republican, 15 August 1895, 3.
(11) “Crimes and Punishments in N. C.,” Western Sentinel, 3 January 1895, 1.
(12) In the period 1865-1941, North Carolina ranked “ninth highest [among the states] in terms of the number of lynching victims.” Vann R. Newkirk, Lynching in North Carolina: A History, 1865-1941 (McFarland, 2009), 3.
(13) “Tragedy at Lexington,” Western Sentinel, 28 February 1895, 3; “Around the Twin-City,” Western Sentinel, 23 May 1895, 3. In 1894, the failure to move a white prisoner from the Ashe County jail resulted in an attack on the jail by fifteen armed men and the lynching of the prisoner. The sheriff was criticized for inaction. One of the lynch mob was wounded and captured and agreed to testify against the rest of the mob. He was then threatened with lynching both by the family of his victim and by his co-conspirators. This time the sheriff acted: he moved the lyncher-turned-witness to the Forsyth County jail. The venue of the trial of the lynch mob was also moved to another county. See “One of the Lynchers: Brought to Winston for Safe Keeping,” Western Sentinel, 8 March 1894, 1; “Lynching Case Postponed,” Western Sentinel, 4 April 1895, 1.
(14) The sister could have been Ida (1863 – deceased; G7X2-P65), around 32 years of age in 1895, or Eliza (1877 – Deceased; G7X2-N6C), approximately 18. The mother was Margaret, in her mid-fifties. The brother was likely Robert. Source of names and approximate ages is the 1880 census, downloaded from Ancestry.com. Year: 1880; Census Place: Middle Fork, Forsyth, North Carolina; Roll: 963; Page: 358D; Enumeration District: 079.
(15) “Reidsville News,” Reidsville (NC) Review, 24 May 1895, 3; “Over the State,” Evening Visitor (Raleigh, NC), 23 May 1895, 4.
(16) It is one of the techniques mentioned by “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,” 3rd edition.
(17) “Expected a Lynching: A Body of Durham Negroes Made Themselves Conspicuous,” Western Sentinel, 14 February 1895, 1.
(18) “Sent to Guilford Jail: Arthur Tuttle, Who Murdered Policeman Vickers,” Western Sentinel, 23 May 1895, 1.
(19) R. B. Garrett, "Meant Business: Colored Men Rally in North Carolina - Tuttle Defended - Manhood Rights Maintained," letter to editor dated 25 May 1895, Richmond Planet, 1 June 1895.
(20) “Special Term of Court for the Trial of Those Engaged in the Riot,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 3.
(21) Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore. “‘Somewhere’ in the Nadir of African American History, 1890-1920.” Freedom’s Story, TeacherServe©. National Humanities Center.
(22) Deborah Becket, Radical Reform: Interracial Politics in Post-Emancipation North Carolina (The American South Series) (ebook), xx.
(23) John Mitchell, Jr (11 July 1963 – 3 December 1929; GQB7-DVP). A brief biography is “John Mitchell Jr. (1863–1929),” Encyclopedia Virginia.
(24) “Skinned Alive,” Richmond Planet, 25 May 1895, 2.
(25) “Meant Business,” Richmond Planet, 1 June 1895, 1.
(26) Richmond Planet, 21 Aug 1897, 4.
(27) Simon G. Atkins, “Falsehoods Denounced,” Western Sentinel, 13 June 1895, 1.
(28) I have not found much about the law in the state press, but one thumbnail article does mention its purpose: “The Sentinel's Kodak,” Western Sentinel, 16 Feb 1893, 3. Its inadequacies are discussed in Vann R. Newkirk, Lynching in North Carolina: A History, 1865-1941 (McFarland, 2009), 4, 20.
Atkins (11 June 1863 - 28 June 1934; GQPV-298) was the principal of the Depot Street school for African American children and later founded and led the Slater Industrial Academy, an institution that evolved into Winston-Salem State University. He was an ally and admirer of Booker T. Washington. See L.G. Davis, W.J. Rice, J.H. McLaughlin, African Americans in Winston-Salem / Forsyth County (The Society for the Study of Afro-American History, 1999), 50-52, for a brief biography.
(29) Conversation between the writer and Fam Brownlee.
(30) “Meant Business. Colored Men Rally in North Carolina. Tuttle Defended—Manhood Rights Maintained,” Richmond (VA) Planet, 1 June 1895, 1; Simon Green Atkins, “Falsehoods Denounced,” Western Sentinel, 13 June 1895, 1.
(31) The following account is drawn primarily from these sources: “Sunday Night's Riot,” Western Sentinel, 15 August 1895, 3; “An Unfortunate Affair,” Union Republican, 15 August 1895, 3; Fambrough Brownlee, “Murder, Rumors of Murder and Even More Rumors…”; “Well-Timed Remarks,” Western Sentinel, 15 August 1895, 3; “Trial of the Rioters,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 1.
(32) It is not clear where the crowd first gathered. Sometime after 1 a.m., when the Forsyth Rifles clashed with the crowd, the crowd was “on Fifth and Church streets, around Masten’s corner” (“Sunday Night's Riot,” Western Sentinel, 15 August 1895, 3). At least three of the men arrested for riot lived on or near this corner: Sam Toliver’s grocery store and home were at 447 Church St, on the corner; Peter Owens was co-owner of a snack bar next door, though he lived around the corner, on E. 5th, near another participant, Walter Searcy. Turner’s Winston and Salem City Directory for the Years 1894-1895 (New York). DigitalNC.org, 130, 134, 138.
(33) Robert Milton McArthur (4 September 1853 – 11 October 1903; KH89-F59) was an avid Democrat who once, while serving as sheriff, got into a fistfight with the Republican editor of the Union Republican (“The Sheriff Whips an Editor,” Western Sentinel, 8 June 1893, 4). Before becoming sheriff, he ran “livery, sale and exchange stables” located on Church St. between 2nd and 3rd (“R.M. McArthur” [ad], Twin-City Daily Sentinel, 11 April 1893, 4).
Eugene Early Gray, Sr (13 September 1855 - 22 November 1940; LVZJ-DD8) was a lawyer, the owner of an insurance agency, and a banker (“The Sentinel's Kodak,” Western Sentinel, 2 February 1893, 3; “Our Banks and Bankers,” Western Sentinel, 26 July 1900, 6). He was well connected—the son of Robert Gray, an early settler of Winston (“Death of Robert Gray Esq.,” Winston Sentinel, 20 January 1881, 3) and the brother of Dr. Robah Gray, who tended Ida and her children, and of James A. Gray, Sr., later President of Wachovia National Bank and father of Bowman Gray, Sr. (“Eugene Early Gray Sr.,” Findagrave.com.
(34) “Trial of the Rioters,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 1.
(35) “Sunday Night’s Riot. A Large Mob of Negroes at the Jail,” Western Sentinel, 15 August 1895, 3; “An Unfortunate Affair. A Threatening Mob Assembles at the Jail,” Union Republican, 15 August 1895, 3.
A correspondent from a Raleigh paper heard this explanation from fellow passengers on the train (“From Church to Jail,” News and Observer, 13 August 1895, 1).
(36) “Solicitor Mott Criticized,” Western Sentinel, 29 August 1895, 1.
(37) “An Unfortunate Affair. A Threatening Mob Assembles at the Jail,” Union Republican, 15 August 1895, 3.
(38) “An Unfortunate Affair.” As noted above, the crowd on the street included both white and black men, but the papers tended to ignore the presence of armed white men on the scene.
(39) “Solicitor Mott Criticized,” Western Sentinel, 29 August 1895, 1.
(40) [no headline], The Richmond Planet, 17 August 1895, 2.
(41) “Local News,” Union Republican, 29 August 1895, 3.
(42) “Winston’s Riot,” Goldsboro (NC) Argus, 15 August 1895, 1. I have seen no other report of deaths or burials, but they may well have occurred.
(43) “‘Has a Ball in His Back,’” Western Sentinel, 29 August 1895, 1. I have not been able to further identify him. In 1894, a man of that name was listed in the Winston city directory as a laborer living on Maple, with no street address. Ben F. Robinson (one can reasonably guess that F. stood for Franklin) was a tobacco roller who lived at 713 Chestnut.
C. H. Addison, agent of the Stand Music Company at the corner of Main and 3rd, reported that an unnamed African American in his employ was probably wounded in the riot. Addison was away when it occurred. On his return, he found that his Derby hat and gold-headed cane were smeared with blood and that one of his employees was not to be found. He assumed that the employee had taken the hat and cane to church, participated in the riot where he was wounded, then returned the hat and cane before fleeing the town (“A Bloody Hat,” Western Sentinel, 5 September 1895, 1).
(44) “Shooting at Cats,” Western Sentinel, 15 August 1895, 3. Eugene Pierce Albea (9 September 1855 – 31 July 1914; KHTC-F4V) was a gregarious traveling salesman and a prominent member of the International Order of the Odd Fellows (“Mr. E.P. Albea Says Taft Gets Frost in the West,” Winston-Salem Journal, 9 October 1909, 5).
(45) “Solicitor Mott Criticized,” Western Sentinel, 29 August 1895, 1.
(46) The arrests, trials, and sentencing of the rioters were covered in several articles, notably “Special Term of Court for the Trial of Those Engaged in the Riot,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 3.
For the arrest of William Tuttle (August 1868 - Deceased; G7X2-5FM), see “Local News,” Union Republican, 28 Nov 1895, 3.
(47) “The Rioters in Jail - Fifty Negroes Under Arrest for Sunday Nights’ Trouble,” News and Observer, 16 August 1895, 1; Eddie Hoffman, “Hidden History II: The 1895 Riot.”
(48) “United States Census, 1870”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW81-LKH: 18 March 2020), Cager Watt in entry for Garland Watt, 1870.
(49) Micajah Watt (1847/1849 - 5 May 1905; GS65-YPD), usually called Cager, was also known as Kajah, Cajer, Mc Cager, and possibly Kaziah. For his supposed role as a ringleader, see “Forsyth Court. Tuttle Gets 25 Years and Cunningham 15 Years,” Union Republican, 22 August 1895, 3, and “Special Term of Court,” Western Sentinel, 22 August 1895, 3.
Three men received a longer sentence than Watt—one year at hard labor on the county roads. It is possible that Watts’ sentence was shorter because of his age. For two of the men, Charles Hauser and Frank Robinson, I have no found no evidence for their age; the third man, Pleas Webster, was somewhere between 27 and 31 years of age (Year: 1880; Census Place: Winston, Forsyth, North Carolina; Roll: 963; Page: 431D; Enumeration District: 085. Source Information: Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010).
(50) My interpretation of what happened to Watt is based on reading between the lines of a short article, “County Convict Camp. Micajah Watts Was Not Whipped,” published on the first page of the Western Sentinel (12 September 1895). Unlike the headline, the story does not say that Watt was not whipped, but that he was not whipped by camp Superintendent Shutt—a nondenial denial, in recent political vernacular; the article perhaps signals its verbal legerdemain by noting that the superintendent—the sole source for the article—is “clever.” The article also suggests that Shutts treated Watts vindictively by not allowing him to act as the camp cook.
Finally, the fact that the paper felt it necessary to refute the rumors about Watt’s treatment on page one suggests that he was an important leader of the community and his humiliation an object lesson in racial relations.
(51) The 1899 Winston-Salem city directory shows Cager Watt running restaurant at 807 Depot. In 1900, he owned 809 Depot St (“Tax Sale,” Union Republican, 14 June 1900, 10). But in the 1900 census, he and wife Caroline were lodging, with two children (Weldon and Elveta) and nine other people, at West 154 St in Manhattan, where he was working as a cook ("United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSKW-LWZ: accessed 1 December 2020), Cager Watt in household of James Stewart, Borough of Manhattan, Election District 13 New York City Ward 23, New York County, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 616, sheet 3B, family 74, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,108.).
West 154th was within the area much later described, by the New York Times, as Greater Harlem (Wikipedia. s.v. “Harlem”; it was not far from St Luke's AME Church on West 153rd opened in the years after the Civil War (Jonathan Gill, Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History, loc 2836). In 1900, there already were, or shortly would be, “all-black buildings on West 125th Street, while West 130th Street was known as ‘Nigger Row’” (Gill, loc 2766). “By the turn of the century tens of thousands of Negroes made their homes uptown” (loc 2778). Watt moved to Harlem about the same time as the 1900 race riots in midtown. Sparked by an incident in the Tenderloin, roving crowds of men (some Irish, some policemen in uniform) roamed midtown attacking anyone who was black—a total of 70 people, including Paul Laurence Dunbar. These attacks spurred many to move uptown (Gill, loc 2731-2742).
(52) “The Rioters Sentenced,” Western Sentinel, 29 August 1895, 1.
(53) “Newly Elected City Aldermen in Session,” Union Republican, 14 May 1896, 3.
(54) “Local News,” Union Republican, 11 August 1898, 8.
(55) See, for example, “Abuse of Pardon,” North Carolinian (Raleigh, NC), 20 December 1900, 4, an editorial that originated with the Washington Messenger but was reprinted by several papers. The next Republican governor did not take office until 1973.
(56) “The Forty Four,” Semi-Weekly Messenger (Wilmington, NC), 19 November 1897, 2.
(57) “Murder, Rumors of Murder and Even More Rumors…”
(58) Year: 1910; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 14, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T624_1390; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 0193; FHL microfilm: 1375403. Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.
(59) Allie (24 December 1882 – 5 May 1930; GWT9-GHD) was the youngest documented child in the family.
(60) According to W. E. B. Du Bois's 1899 study, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study (Schocken Books, 1967), Philadelphia had the fourth highest population of African Americans in the US, after Washington, New Orleans, and Baltimore (53). He noted that cigar makers belonged to the skilled trades (ftnt, 100-101), and that the Cigar-makers’ Union was “a regular trades union with both white and Negro members. It is the only union in Philadelphia where Negroes are largely represented” (227).
(61) In the 1895 Winston-Salem city directory, a Cora Hanes worked as a washer and lived at 708 E. 9th St in Winston. Turner’s Winston and Salem City Directory for the Years 1894-1895 (New York). DigitalNC.org, 118.
(62) Registration State: Pennsylvania; Registration County: Philadelphia. Source Information: Ancestry.com. U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.
(63) Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, PA; Pennsylvania (State). Death Certificates, 1906-1968; Certificate Number Range: 045501-048500. Source Information: Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1967 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
(64) Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.
(65) Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, PA; Pennsylvania (State). Death Certificates, 1906-1968; Certificate Number Range: 045501-048500.
(66) Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, PA; Pennsylvania (State). Death Certificates, 1906-1968; Certificate Number Range: 048001-051000. Source Information: Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1967 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
(67) “North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QP9T-B8JJ: 28 November 2018), Robt Tuttle and Alice Jackson, 21 May 1914; citing Forsyth, North Carolina, United States, North Carolina State Archives Division of Archives and History; FHL microfilm.
(68) Year: 1920; Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 34, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1630; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 1184. Source Information: Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.
(69) Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, PA; Pennsylvania (State). Death Certificates, 1906-1968; Box Number: 2401; Certificate Number Range: 079901-082750. Source Information: Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, U.S., Death Certificates, 1906-1967 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
 
Posted 23 November 2024. Please send questions and comments to [email protected]