John J. Moore
John J. Moore was held in the Spartanburg jail in South Carolina in June 1879. According to the Spartanburg Herald, as quoted by the Yorkville Enquirer, a mob of two to three hundred mounted men came to the jail on a Monday night demanding him, and the sheriff, unable to raise enough men to guard the building, secretly moved him out under guard. The mob found him under a railroad trestle about a mile from town, took him back through town and hanged him early the next morning before about a thousand people, after he had been allowed to take leave of his family and had denied his guilt. Judge Pressley told the grand jury that no excuse existed for the killing, but the grand jury report defended it as an act of justice, a view the judge disputed, and other accounts give a different place for the hanging, the woods near Welford.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. Newspaper accounts say a mob took him from the Spartanburg jail and hanged him, and Judge Pressley told the grand jury no excuse existed for the killing while the grand jury report defended it as justice.
Reported by: The Marietta Journal (reporters); Spartanburg County Daily Democrat (reporters); Charlotte press report (reporters); Spartanburg Herald, as quoted by the Yorkville Enquirer (reporters); Judge Pressley (court); Spartanburg County grand jury (court).