Died in jail or a lockup
Wash. Atkinson
Wash Atkinson, a Black man, was held in a jail in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, in December 1877. Newspaper accounts report that on a Wednesday night that month, a party of armed men took him from the jail. They hanged him from a cross-piece of the railroad bridge over the Ouachita River.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched
Reported by: news reports.