Vigilante Mob Lynches Two Prisoners at Whitman County Jail
A masked party of fifty men broke into the courthouse to extract and hang a convicted assailant and a murder defendant, while a jury slept just feet away.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
At about 1 o'clock this morning a mob surrounded the Whitman county jail, forced the jailer to yield up the keys, broke into the cells, and took out Ed Hill and George F. Parker. The mob bound them, dragged them to the second-floor landing of the courthouse, and hanged them from the balustrade overlooking the main entrance. Ed Hill, who had been sentenced to eight years for the assault of Langford Summers, pleaded his innocence, but was gagged and killed. Parker, who was awaiting trial for the murder of A.B. Cooper in Pullman, was also hanged. The mob, numbering about fifty and all masked, arrived in teams from the direction of Spring Flat. The jury that had been trying Parker was sleeping only five feet from the scene of the execution. Coroner Shaw later ordered the bodies removed to the morgue. A grand jury will likely be called to investigate.
“The mob bound them hand and foot, dragged them from the jail to the second floor landing of the courthouse... adjusted a noose about each victim's neck, and hurled them out to dangle and die.”
This horrific event reflects a dark era in Washington's history, where frontier justice often superseded the legal system. It serves as a stark reminder of the state’s violent past regarding vigilante mobs, a stark contrast to today’s focus on due process and judicial transparency.
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