(RECONSTRUCTION) Amanda C Ewell Letter describing a church m

Sale 2580 - Lot 220

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Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600

(RECONSTRUCTION.) Amanda C. Ewell. Letter describing a church meeting interrupted by rumors that "the negroes were coming in force." Autograph Letter Signed as "A.C.E." to mother Julia Franklin Williams of Belfast, TN. 2 pages, 7 x 8 inches, on one torn half sheet of paper; folds, minimal foxing. With pre-stamped envelope with Dyer, TN hand-cancel. Dyer, TN, 3 [September] [1874]

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While describing the religious revival meetings near her home in western Tennessee, the author writes: "The [religious] meeting at Dyer was absolutely broke up. Major Davidson came in, walked into the pulpit, took hold of the preacher's arm, said Trenton had dispatched to them for all the help they could get immediately. The negroes were coming in force against them. Everybody was on their feet instantly and great excitement prevailed. The country were all roused in a little time." Trenton was about 5 miles south of Dyer in western Tennessee.

This letter almost certainly relates to a mass arrest and lynching of 16 Black men in Gibson County, TN, as described in the long and perhaps semi-objective account in the Nashville Tennessean of 27 August 1874. The incident began on Saturday, 22 August in a dispute over fifty cents between a white and Black man in Picketsville. Two young white men were then shot at while riding through the woods. Rumors spread that "the negroes were organizing armed companies" and that "President Grant would back the negroes in whatever course they took against the whites. . . . Their object in organizing thoroughly was to shoot KuKlux." A white posse was summoned to arrest 16 alleged ringleaders of this plot on 25 August, and they were placed in jail at the county seat in Trenton, KY. At 1 a.m. that morning, a crowd of about a hundred masked men rode into town, "compelled the Sheriff to surrender the keys," and took the 16 prisoners, who were then killed in various horrible ways. The newspaper reported that "the wildest excitement existed throughout the country, owing to rumors of negroes marching in strong force for Picketsville, and rumors of their having murdered two white women. On the other hand, the negroes were terribly alarmed, and many fled to the woods, fearing the fate of those taken from the Trenton jail." The mob being recruited at the Dyer church meeting was probably not the arresting posse of 25 August or the lynch mob formed that evening, but rather the defense against the feared vengeful "negroes marching in strong force" the next day.