Jack Williams
Jack Williams, a Black man, was held in a jail in South Carolina. According to a Charleston dispatch printed in the Savannah Morning News, about twenty-five men came to the jail around 2 a.m. on October 13, 1881, overpowered the jailer, took Williams to the edge of town and hanged him from a tree, and the dispatch reported a placard pinned to his body. A second newspaper, the American Citizen, printed a badly damaged text that also reports a mob taking him from a jail and hanging him from a tree, but it gives no place or date. Neither account says what the jailer did beyond being overpowered, and no one has been reported as held to account for the killing.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A Charleston dispatch printed in the Savannah Morning News says a mob of about twenty-five men overpowered the jailer, took Jack Williams from the jail and hanged him from a tree.
Reported by: Charleston dispatch printed in the Savannah Morning News (reporters).