The Ouachita Telegraph - Three Lynched

Date: Aug. 2000
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>

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The Ouachita Telegraph
Friday, October 19, 1877
Page 2, Column 2

Lynching in Catahoula
        On Monday last three negroes, Geo. Henderson, Dick Holstein and another
whose name is not now known to us, were arrested on Sicily Island charged by
the constable for the purpose of bringing them down to stand a preliminary
trial before the Parish Judge.  As the prisoners had to be guarded all
night, the constable and posse who had them in charge concluded to bring
them to town that night, and thus be relieved of their charge.  On the way
here, when in the neighborhood of Mr. P.J. Holstein’s store, they were
surrounded by a body of armed men who demanded their prisoners, and ordered
the posse to make tracks, which they did.  It seems that here one of the
prisoners, who was on foot, escaped, but the remaining two, named above, who
were on horseback, were taken out in the woods about thirty or fourty (sic)
yards from the road and hung.  It was not known what had become of them
until their bodies were found dangling from a tree by some persons passing
by the next morning.  The probability is that the ropes were put around
their necks, then tied to the limbs of the trees and their horses driven
from under them.  – News.

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