William E. Watkins
William E. Watkins was a bricklayer working on a building in Aurora, Indiana, in August 1886. The Indianapolis Journal reported that officers were taking him to the jail in a buggy, with an officer on each side, when a crowd of hundreds stopped the buggy, pulled him out and hanged him from a makeshift gallows. Accounts in the Journal and other papers differ on how events began and on where he was hanged. The Journal said a coroner's inquest was under way.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. The Indianapolis Journal reports that a crowd of hundreds stopped the buggy carrying William E. Watkins to jail, pulled him out and hanged him from a makeshift gallows, while the coroner's inquest was under way.
Reported by: Indianapolis Journal (reporters); Delaware Gazette and State Journal, citing a dispatch (reporters); Dispatches from Aurora, Ind. (reporters).