Tom Clark
Thomas Clarke was held in the Florence jail in Alabama. A Lauderdale Times account, reprinted in The Daily Phoenix, says that on the night of September 5, 1872, an armed crowd came to the jail and demanded the keys, that the guards refused and fired, and that the doors were broken open and the guards disarmed. The same account says the mob took Clarke and two other men from their cells to a nearby square and hanged them, and that the sheriff had summoned extra guards to protect the prisoners. A Kentucky Gazette report says armed guards fired at the attackers, while a Montgomery Advertiser report says it had no information about who carried out the hanging.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. The Montgomery Advertiser and a news dispatch report that an armed mob took Tom Clarke from the Florence jail and hanged him, and the Lauderdale Times reports the guards fired on the crowd before the jail doors were broken open.
Reported by: Montgomery Advertiser (reporters); news dispatch; Lauderdale Times, as reprinted in The Daily Phoenix (reporters).