George Mitchell
George Mitchell, a Black man, was hanged under a death sentence on August 1, 1895, in Live Oak, Florida, in what a 2018 account places in the Suwannee County jail yard. A mob had earlier tried to storm the jail to lynch him and another man, and the governor first respited the sentences before allowing Mitchell's execution to proceed. Newspaper accounts from the time report that he protested his innocence to the end, and that a man hanged earlier for the same killing swore on the scaffold that Mitchell was innocent, while his co-defendant Henry Brown was also reported to have said on the gallows that he alone had done it. Accounts of his last words say he asked everyone to meet him in heaven, said his soul was saved, and died without hard feelings toward anyone.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. Mitchell maintained his innocence to the end, and his co-defendant said on the gallows that he alone was responsible.
Reported by: Sheriff J. W. Hawkins (the agency that held him); Times-Union dispatch reprinted in the Birmingham Age-Herald (reporters).
News reports (7)
- Birmingham Age-Herald, August 2, 1895, page 5
- Richmond Dispatch, August 2, 1895, page 1
- The Times, August 2, 1895, page 2
- Richmond Planet, August 10, 1895, page 4
- The Monticellonian, September 27, 1895, page 4
- Macon Beacon, September 28, 1895, page 1
- Remembering Suwannee: Three men executed for 1895 murder