Jesse Thompson
Several Black men held in the Wetumpka jail in Elmore County, Alabama, were taken from the jail by a mob on the night of June 16, 1898. Reports name Sol Jackson, Lewis Spier or Spelr, Jesse Thompson and Camp Reese, and papers gave the number taken as four or five. The mob hanged the men the next morning, June 17, at a point about ten miles from Wetumpka. A telephone report from Wetumpka said troops sent from Montgomery could not locate the men in the hilly, wooded country. The governor was reported to have sent a state solicitor to Wetumpka to seek indictments of those responsible.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A mob took the prisoners from the Wetumpka jail and hanged them, and the article does not say whether jail staff resisted.
Reported by: telephone message from Wetumpka, as reported by the paper (reporters).