Bob Williams
In August 1874, a mob of masked men took people from the jail in Trenton, Gibson County, Tennessee, and killed several of them. The Dallas Daily Herald reported that a mob of 75 to 100 armed men compelled the sheriff to hand over the keys, took the sixteen people held there, and killed four. Bill Ivey, Bob Williams, Bob Love and Nick Ivey were named in accounts that said their bodies were found shot many times in a bottom on Forked Deer Creek, about half a mile from town. Sheriff Williams said he heard shots within fifteen minutes and found bodies beyond the river bridge, while a later search by the justice of the peace found no bodies at the reported spot, and accounts of how many people were killed conflict. Officials and the press called the killings a massacre and a lynching.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. The Memphis Daily Appeal correspondent reported that masked men took Bill Ivey from the Trenton jail and shot him, and his body was found on Forked Deer Creek.
Reported by: Memphis Daily Appeal correspondent (reporters).