Butts-Talbot-Muscogee County GaArchives News.....Dr. W. L. Ryder July 23, 1897 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 July 25, 2006, 12:19 am Jackson Argus – Week Of July 23, 1897 July 23, 1897 Dr. W. L. Ryder Talbotton, July 19 Dr. W. L. Ryder was lynched last night. While being carried from Talbotton to Columbus jail, the officers having him in charge were overtaken by a number of men on horseback and Ryder was swung to a tree. News of the lynching had reached Talbotton and Sheriff Richards, accompanied by Dr. Charles Ryder, a relative to the murderer, and several armed men, pursued the lynchers with a view to preventing it. They were too late, however. Not a gun was fired, and no great effort was made to protect the prisoner. The officers had to go to Waverly Hall to take the train for Columbus. Soon after 6 o’clock the horsemen overtook the officers, covered them with pistols and took Dr. Ryder from them. Going in the direction of Talbotton, they stopped in front of the big farm house of Mr. John M. Willis, tied a rope about the murderer’s neck, threw one end over a limb and pulled the body from the ground. The trial of Dr. Ryder has just been postponed until September, and it is thought that the men who lynched him had grown impatient at the law’s delay, and feared that he would eventually escape punishment because of some legal technicality. The supreme court had recently granted a new trial because one of the members of the first jury was discovered to be related to the guardian of Miss Owens, and when the case was postponed yesterday, excitement ran high, although lynchers were very secret about their purpose – so much so that the sheriff did not suspect it. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/butts/newspapers/drwlryde1515gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 2.2 Kb