Jacob McDowell
Jacob M. McDowell was a hard-working Black man of mature years, according to the Richmond Planet in 1910. He was held in the jail at Dixon, Webster County, Kentucky, when a mob of white men formed to take him, and the paper says the mob murdered him. A 1908 Daily Press account reports that masked men fired shots to call the jailer, demanded his cell be opened, took him away on a horse, and that his body was later found with gunshot wounds and knife cuts. Relatives and other young Black men went to Dixon to try to secure his removal to Henderson or to defend him, and a later official statement said officers who had first done their duty might have prevented the killing.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched (neglect alleged). A later official statement says officers who first did their duty might have prevented the killing.
Reported by: newspaper account; later official statement.