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Enjoy a sample of our Newsletter
It's now called "2 Hoots & a Hollar".
Lynching
Jun. 27, 1874 – White Hall REGISTER
A Man Up A Tree: About midnight, last Sat.
night, a buggy containing 3 men and a led horse, came into Carrollton
from the north, turned west at bank corner, circled square a time or
two. About the same time, another similar group came into N. E. corner
of the square & passed round on South side. The two met at the co.
jail. Jailor Halbert was not looking for them. They roused him & told
him they had a prisoner for him, & when he got keys, they took him into
custody & opening the jail secured Evans, the murderer of John Halbert,
& put him into one of the buggies & the two buggies passed off north at
a sharp speed.
They were seen to pass out at the N. W. corner of
square & take the W. H. road. In about 15 or 20 minutes the 2 horsemen
followed under whip. These horsemen, it seems, had been guarding Jailor
Halbert, while the Evans party should get on ahead.
Next morning about sun up somebody accidentally,
of course, happened on a body hanging to a tree near the Belltown bridge
& all who saw this were filled with wonder as to who took such a sudden
“rise in the world”! But when they put the two ends together, it
occurred at once that some men, without a very hard struggle, had taken
the murderer Evans from Carrollton jail & hanged him to a tree in
Belltown.
The jailor doesn’t claim to have known or
recognized any of the parties doing this deed. A coroner’s inquest was
held Sun. & the body buried.
Transcribed by Diane M. Loy
Tri County Preservation Society
RR 1 Box 9
Carrollton, IL 62016
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