Mort Lee
Mort Lee, a Black man, was in the charge of officers who were taking him by train from Huntington, West Virginia, toward Coal Valley when a mob of about 300 to 500 people stopped the train, took him off and hanged him from an elm tree. A Cincinnati dispatch published in the New Orleans Daily Democrat says the crowd was orderly, that he was handcuffed, and that he asked for food and requested a minister before he died. The American Citizen places the hanging on the night of July 8, 1879, near Coal Valley, while the dispatch puts it at about 1 a.m. on July 9, and the two accounts also differ on the size of the crowd.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A mob of about 300 to 500 people took Mort Lee from a train while officers were conveying him under guard and hanged him near Coal Valley, West Virginia, in July 1879.
Reported by: newspaper account; Cincinnati dispatch published in the New Orleans Daily Democrat (reporters).