Scales
Dick Scales, a Black man, was held in the Burlington jail in Boone County, Kentucky, in September 1885. According to the Rock Island Argus, reporting from Covington, a mob of about eighty men broke the jail doors after it resisted for about half an hour, took him from his cell, threw him down stone steps and cut his head, then drove him away in a wagon and hanged him on a road outside town. The paper reports that he pleaded his innocence and asked for a chance to make a statement before he was hanged. A People and Patriot report, citing a Cincinnati dispatch, dates the killing to the night of September 10, a different date from the Argus account.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A mob of about eighty men seized Dick Scales from the Burlington, Kentucky jail and hanged him on a road outside town, according to the Rock Island Argus report from Covington.
Reported by: The Rock Island Argus (reporters); People and Patriot, citing a Cincinnati dispatch (reporters).