Ed Williams
Ed Williams was taken from the Gainesville, Texas county jail by a masked mob in the early morning of June 29, 1886, and hanged from a willow tree near the Missouri Pacific bridge. According to a newspaper report, the guard of seven or eight officers was overpowered after the mob battered down the front door, and the sheriff refused to surrender the cell keys before the mob broke open the inner doors with sledgehammers and axes. The report says he protested his innocence to the last. A brief telegraphic account published the same day also describes the lynching, and the reports say several people in the mob were recognized and arrests would probably follow.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A masked mob took Ed Williams from the Gainesville county jail and hanged him from a willow tree near the Missouri Pacific bridge, after overpowering the jail guard and breaking open the inner doors with sledgehammers and axes.
Reported by: news reports.