Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1900 — MOB HANGS NEGROES. [ARTICLE]

MOB HANGS NEGROES.

r y . DOUBLE LYNCHING IN SOOT*# 1 ERN INDIANA TOWN. rzr ’ftiHl Brntal Murder of H. Simons, 3 Barbwr : at Rock port, I* Soon Avenged—B. Rowland and J. Henderson Are Taken from Jail and Slain. ~ A mob of 500 men, after shooting Jas. Henderson in his cell, dragged bis body to the court house yard and there obtained a confession from Frank Rowland, another negro, that he and Henderson had killed H. S. Simons. They then bung both - negroes and riddjed their bodies with bullets. Sunday morning at 1:30 o’clock, as H. S. Simons, was going from his barber shop in Rockport, Ind., to his home, be was waylaid by two negroes and brutally murdered. Suspicion pointed to the two negroes, Frank Rowland and “Jim" Henderson. They had been seen together the evening before. Henderson had formerly been a porter and bootblack in Simons’ barber shop, and had been discharged some time ago for petty thieving. Bloodhounds were telegraphed for and put on the track. With their assistance both negroes were captured and locked in jail. When darkness came a mob of 500 men gathered, surrounded the jail, broke ' into it with picks and iron bars, shot / Henderson to death in his cell, and then' took Rowland and the lifeless body intd the court house yard. -There they tied a' rope amuud RowUmi’a. flfefrfc- Rowland hurriedly confessed that he and Henderson hud murdered Simons for his money. Rowland and the dead body of Henderson were then strung up to a tree and volley after volley from shotguns, pistols, and Winchesters fijifcd into the swaying bodies. Simons was 30 jjjpars old, a good citizen and a popular man. He had a wife and two small children. His wife is crazed with grief and may die from the shock. The speedy capturopf the men was due to the prompt disclosure of the crime. A countryman happened to be going along the street on his waj* home where the murdered man lay and heard terrible blows being dealt Simons with clubs. He gave the alarm and the negroes made for him. He saved life by patting ■spurs to his bogie and galloping to the main part of tIR town, where he summoned a posse to the scene of the murder. Simons was foufcd dead, in a pool of blood, his head/beaten into a jelly. A heavy bar of Jron and a large wooden ■ club had beeiynsed.