James Taylor
James Taylor had belonged to the church for three years, and an Evening Journal account reports that he told a questioner, "I feel prepared to go." He was held in the Chestertown jail in Maryland, where on the night of May 17, 1892, a crowd of several hundred men broke in, took him from his cell and hanged him from a tree. Sources disagree on the sheriff's conduct: the Delaware Gazette and State Journal reports that he refused to surrender the prisoner and was overpowered, while the sheriff's own later account says he tried to move Taylor out of town by boat. Some accounts give the date as May 10, and a coroner's jury found that he died at the hands of persons unknown.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched (neglect alleged). The coroner's jury ruled he died at the hands of persons unknown, and one account says the sheriff was kept at home by his wife rather than at the jail when the mob broke in.
Reported by: coroner's jury (medical examiner or coroner); Maryland State Archives; Gazette and Journal special dispatches (reporters); letter from a friend in Chestertown, as reported by the Smyrna Times (witnesses); Sheriff Plummer's later account (the agency that held him).
News reports (7)
- Smyrna Times, May 18, 1892, page 2
- Daily Public Ledger, May 19, 1892, page 3
- The Times, May 19, 1892, page 1
- Middletown Transcript, May 19, 1892, page 2
- Delaware Gazette And State Journal, May 19, 1892, page 5
- Evening Journal, May 19, 1892, page 3
- Shameful Past: Lynchings on Delmarva- James Taylor Lynched in Kent County, Md. in 1892