Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1858 — Brutal Murder and Lynch Law. [ARTICLE]

Brutal Murder and Lynch Law.

Joseph Beard, City Marshal of Lexington, Kentucky, was brutally murdered on the morning of July 10, about tour o’clock, while endeavoring to arrest a man named Barker, who was engaged in a fight in the market house. Barker stabbed Beard with a knife, cutting the right side and severing the lung and entering the heart, killing him immediately. The citizens were much excited. Barker was taken to the watch house, and thence to jail. He was taken from the jail by the citizens and marched to the court house yard, where a temporary scaffold was erected from the court house window, second story, and at eight A. M. Barker swung off. The first rope broke and he fell to the ground, a distance of about thirty teet, bruising his face considerably, but he recovered in a lew moments, and was again taken up to the window and another rope attached—he was then made to jump Irom the window, fie hung till twelve o’clock. Gratz Brown, Esq., the able editor of the St. Lours Democrat , was nominated for Representative in the Legislature by the Republican Convention at St, Louis, on Monday, but he declined to accept. Mr. Brown was the leading Opposition member of the last Missouri Legislature—did good service, and occupied an enviable position as a member of that bodr.