Warner Williams
Warner Williams, a Black man, was one of six men chained together and in the custody of a deputy sheriff and a guard, who were taking them by wagon toward Millington in Shelby County, Tennessee, in late August or early September 1894. Accounts place the attack near a creek bridge in a dense, isolated area, where an armed mob stopped the wagon, held the deputy at gunpoint and shot the six prisoners. The deputy and driver said they did not recognize any of the attackers, and one news dispatch put the mob at about fifty men while another paper said about fifteen. An inquest jury found that the men died at the hands of persons unknown, and an investigation was reported to be promised. Some accounts spell his first name Warren.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. An inquest jury found the six men died at the hands of persons unknown, and a news dispatch citing the deputy and guard says an armed mob of about fifty men stopped their wagon and shot the prisoners.
Reported by: inquest jury; deputy sheriff and guard, as cited in news dispatch (the agency that held him); news dispatch.