Thomas Wadkins
Wadkins was being held in the Fort Scott jail in Kansas in August 1880, when about fifty men came to the jail before dawn, seized the sheriff and locked him in a cell, and took Wadkins out. A report in the Sacramento Daily Record-Union said no trace of the group or of Wadkins had been found, and that one theory was that he had been lynched. A later account says the mob hanged him from the limb of a tree.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A newspaper report says a mob took Wadkins from the Fort Scott jail and hanged him from a tree limb, while a later account of the same night says no trace of him had been found and that one theory was that he had been lynched.
Reported by: Newspaper report on the Fort Scott jail seizure (reporters).