Wm. Thompson
William Thompson, a Black man, was held in the jail in Culpeper County, Virginia, in August 1877. Newspaper accounts report that about sixty masked men took him from the jail and hanged him, and one paper says the men took the keys from the jailer. The Daily Dispatch reports that the group led him about a quarter mile to a large poplar tree near the Confederate Cemetery, where he was hanged, and that his body was still hanging while the coroner was awaited. Accounts differ on the date of his death, giving August 10 and August 28, 1877.
Cause of death, as reported: Taken from custody and lynched. A mob took William Thompson from a town jail, took the keys from the jailer, and hanged him from a poplar tree near the Confederate Cemetery.
Reported by: Culpeper County jail accounts in the Clarke Courier and other 1877 newspaper items (reporters).