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Idaho Daily Statesman 1894-10-16 An Indiana Tragedy
Rockport, Oct 15. - In this city this morning Robert Burr shot and instantly killed Arthur Williamson. Burr saluted Williamson on the street, saying that he wanted to speak to him. While conversing, Burr drew a revolver and shot Williamson in the head, the wound causing instant death. Williamson claimed that burr had visited his home during his absence. There is great excitement about the jail where Burr is confined and threats of violence are heard.

Butte Weekly Miner  1900-12-20
Two Negroes Lynched by a Howling Mob at Rockport, Indiana
Barber on his way home was attached and beaten to death, young man who witnessed the deed became raving maniac
Victim's wife likely to die from the shock
    Rockport, Ind. Dec 16 - Two negros, Jim Henderson and Bud Rowlands, who waylaid. murdered and robbed Hollie Simons. a white barber, early this morning, were lynched today in the jail yard by a mob of 1,500 persons. The negros were arrested soon after the murder occurred, and although Rowland's clothing had blood stains on it, they claimed they were innocent.
    In the meantime Sheriff Clemens of Union county, Kentucky, arrived with a trained bloodhound. When the dog was placed on the trail he followed it to a house where Rowlands lived, six blocks from the scene of the murder, and baying to the bed the negro occupied. this was enough for the excited citizens. within a few minutes a mob of a thousand Rowing, bloodthirsty men, with sledge hammers, ropes and guns, were on the way to the jail.
    Sheriff Anderson and his two deputies made an attempt to protect the prisoners. The officers were sized by the leaders of the mob and disarmed. The sheriff, although locked in a room and placed under guard, stoutly refused to give up the keys or tell where the prisoners were hiding.
The mob made a determined but unsuccessful attempt to break in the jail door. Finally they secured a telegram pole and using it as a battering-ram caved in the side wall of the jail. The door Rowland's cell was then quickly broken in which sledge hammers, and he was dragged from the jail to the east side of the courtyard, where a noose was placed about his neck. He was given time to make a statement in which he implicated Jim Henderson and another negro. Rowlands then begged piteously for mercy, but the mob swiftly swung the confessed murder to a tree and riddled his body with bullets.
    Leaving the dangling body of Rowlands, the mob rushed back to the jail and burst open the cell occupied by Henderson. Before the bars yielded to the blows of the sledge some one in the crowd fired upon the terrified negro as he crouched in the far corner. It took but a few minutes to get at Henderson and the negro, more dead than alive, was dragged at a rope's end to the courthouse yard and swung to the tree beside the body of Rowlands. Firing a parting volley at the swinging bodies, the mob eager for another victim, hurried away to catch the other negro implicated by Rowlands. He was found at a hotel, where he was employed as a porter. The negro escaped to the roof of the building and Manager Debruler succeeded in convincing the mob he had nothing to do with the crime. The mob then dispersed, apparently satisfied with its work of vengeance.
    Simons was murdered in the most brutal manner one square from the main street of the city as he was going home from his barber shop at 2o'clock this morning. He carried the receipts of the days work, a fact of which the negros were aware. They attached him from behind, striking him over the head with a club into which a large nail had been driven. Although terribly beaten, Simons made a desperate fight. His cried attracted two passers by. The negros drove them away, and accomplished their criminal design, securing a bag containing something over $40.00 from their victim and then escaped.
    When an officer arrived Simmons was dead. His skull was crushed in and his head and face beaten to a pulp. The spike on the club had penetrated his brain.
Walter Evans, one of the young men who attempted to rescue Simons and who afterwards witnessed the lynching, had become a raving maniac. The dead man's wife is prostrated and it is believed she will die from the shock.



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