Spalding-Henry-Pike County GaArchives News.....OSCAR WILLIAMS - LYNCHED AT GRIFFIN July 23, 1897
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 July 25, 2006, 12:44 am

Jackson Argus July 23, 1897
Negro Rapist Strung Up At Griffin Yesterday Morning

Oscar Williams, the Negro who committed rape on the person of a little girl in 
Henry county, fell into the hands of a very humane lot of citizens at Griffin 
yesterday morning while enroute to safety and was lynched.  He was not buried, 
which shows that the lynchers were kind to a fault.   He was shot about 800 
times and this shows that the lynchers were generous to a fault.  It was a 
lavish waste of bullets.   Our southern people are so kind and wasteful that 
most of them stay poor.

The following is a brief account of the hanging:

Griffin, July 22 – Oscar Williams, the Negro brute who assaulted the little  
Pearl Campbell, the six year old daughter of A. C. Campbell, in Henry county 
Saturday afternoon, July 10, was taken from the Central railroad passenger 
train, en route from Macon to Atlanta, and lynched by an infuriated mob in the 
outskirts of this city at 7 o’clock this morning.

The body was swung to a red oak limb and was literally torn to pieces with 
pistol, shotgun and rifle wounds.

By 10 o’clock this morning the little clump of trees where the body hung 
suspended was surrounded by a big crows that had come from the country many 
miles around.  Among the thousands who viewed the body was the father of the 
victim of the brute.

Coroner Jesse Williams empanelled a jury at 10:30 this morning, and after a few 
minutes, a verdict of death at the hand of parties unknown was reached.   Not a 
single witness was examined.

I have looked all over town cant find a soul who knows anything about the case, 
said the coroner, and so the verdict was formulated.

At 11 o’clock this morning the body was cut down and there was at once a rapid 
division of the rope among the spectators.  It was cut into small pieces and 
distributed as far as it would go.  Some of the men were content with pieces of 
the dead negro’s shirt, trousers or suspenders, and desires were expressed even 
for pieces of his body for a memento.

Men, women and children, black and white, were gathered abent the scene of the 
lynching all the morning.

The body, after it was cut down, was carried to the city hall where it was 
viewed by thousands who came too late to see it swing.   The negro’s relatives 
at Zebulon have been wired to know if they want the remains.  If not the burial 
will take place at the county poor farm.

It is an open secret that the lynching was done by some of the best citizens of 
Griffin.   There have been rumors current that the men who took the law into 
their  own hands were farmers, but the facts do not support this.  Eye 
witnesses to the whole affair say confidentially that in the mob there were not 
a half dozen men who live outside the city.

Jackson Argus – Week of July 23, 1897


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