Shiawassee County MI Archives News.....Savagery in Shiawassee 1897
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Jan Cortez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00020.html#0004939 June 4, 2009, 12:39 am

Big Rapids Pioneer - 1967 1897
Savagery in Shiawassee 

About 70 years ago on a rainy spring evening hundreds of normally responsible 
folk converged on the village of Corunna.  They began arriving early in the 
afternoon with one thought uppermost in their minds - blood.  Th eobject of 
their vengenance was William Sullivan.

The citizens were incensed oer the wanton murder of Layton Leetch and the 
assault upon his wife.  Sullivan had been identified as the murderer and the 
sheriff had posted rewards for his capture.  The county had offered $1,000 for 
Sullivan's arrest and conviction.  Weeks went by and word came that he had ben 
captured in Detroit.

The sheiff, Ed Jacobs, went to Detroit to bring Sullivan back for trial.  
Jacobs tried to keep his plans quiet, knowing the feeling of the public about 
Sullivan and fearing an incident.  But word got out and while the sheriff was 
bringing Sullivan back to Corunna, a local businessman began stirring up the 
embers of resentment which had smoldered since the killing.

Word spread that Sullivan was in the Shiawassee jail and the lust for revenge 
gripped the entire area.  People began arriving from all over the countryside, 
sensing that something was going to happen.

The sheriff got off the train about five miles from the town and sneaked the 
prisoner into a jail cell.

But the gathering crowd found out.  They broke into a blacksmith shop across 
from the jail and used the tools to smash the cell.  The sheriff fought the 
mob as best he could but his effors were useless.  The mob dragged Sullivan 
out to lynch him.

Some contended that Sullivan was already dead when he was lynched, that he had 
slashed his wrists with a broken bottle before the mob crashed into his jail 
cell.  But they strung him up anyway and afterwards cut down the body and 
dragged it through the streets of the town.

A Youth even dabbed a length of rope with red paint and sold pieces of it to 
the crowd for souvenirs.

Shortly after the hanging, a prominent businessman from Vernon rushed into the 
Grand Central Hotel bar and ordered three drinks of whiskey.  Gulping down the 
drinks, he turned to Clark D. Smith, the owner and gasped: "My God, Clark, I 
thought I could get here in time to stop it!  I rode a bicycle all the way, 
but I arrived too late."  That highly respected businessman was the man who 
stirred up the mob that hanged Sullivan.

Trees behind the jail stood for many years after the hanging - all but the 
tree upon which Sullivan had been hanged.  It died a short time afterward.

This was one of the last lynchings on the pages of Michigan history.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/shiawassee/newspapers/savagery122nnw.txt

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