Died in jail or a lockupUnder 18
John Lawrence
John Lawrence, a 17-year-old Black youth, was held in the jail at Girard, Kansas. According to the Savannah Morning News, on July 6, 1885, around noon, a group of armed men broke open the jail's iron door, took him out, and hanged him from the rafter of an unfinished house two blocks west of the jail. The paper reported that one man then fired a revolver into his body.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched
Reported by: news reports.