Elkanah Sullivan
Elcany Sullivan, also recorded as Elkanah Sullivan, was held in the jail at Williamsburg, Kentucky. According to the Alexandria Gazette, a mob took him from the jail on the night of Saturday, August 21, 1897, and hanged him from the timbers of the county bridge over the Cumberland River. The Crittenden Press reported that he was hanged near Somerville, Tennessee, the same night. A Southern Christian Advocate news summary dated his death to August 22 and said he was taken from a jail in Kentucky and lynched.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. According to newspaper accounts, a mob took Sullivan from the jail and hanged him in August 1897, and the accounts do not say whether jail officers resisted or handed him over.
Reported by: Southern Christian Advocate (reporters); Kentucky and Tennessee newspaper accounts of the lynching (reporters).