Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1904 — MOB BURNS NEGROES. [ARTICLE]

MOB BURNS NEGROES.

TWO BLACK MEN MEET BUMMARY VENGEANCE. Are Put to Deatl| Where They Had Killed Whole Family and Then Fired Home —Guard of Soldier* Routed Because Unarmed.

Dragged from the courthouse, after a determined mob had overpowered a heavy military guard, Paul Reed and Will Cato, negroes, two of the principals in the murder and burning of Henry Hodges and wife and three children, were taken to the borne of their victims two mjles from Statesboro, Ga., and burned to a stake about 2 o’elocjt Tuesday afternoon; As the two men, their cloth l g saturated with kerosene, writhed and twisted in their agony and screamed to heaven for the mercy that the mob would not show, the perpetrators stood by and cheered as the flames slowly but surely licked out the lives of t£e murderers. The mob Instead of showing mercy hurled burning embers at the suffering men every time one of them twisted in his efforts to get away from the fiery tongues which leaped upon them from every side. Just £efore the torch was applied to the brush pile which had been built about the victims a photographer was called from the crowd and as the fagots were ignited the camera snapped a picture of the horrible scene. Troops Have Unloaded Gan*. The mob’s struggle to get the men was desperate and persistent The military guard was charged again and again but the mob was bayoneted back, many being hurt. It was wondered at that the troops did not open Are on the mob, and the reason was not discovered until one of the mob grabbed a gun, broke it open and saw that it was not loaded. Tt was quickly passed from lip to lip that the guns did not contain cartridges and then 'the mob, gathering itself together, made a final desperate charge on the militia, overpowered the troops, entered the court house and pounced upon the crouching forms of the terrorstricken negroes, dragging them out into the streets, over rough roads to their doom. The forenoon had passed quietly, the trial of Paul Reed, the ringleader In the murder, being concluded and a verdict of guilty rendered. Both he and Will Cato, found guilty the day before, were sentenced to hang September 9.

, Family of Five Slain. The miyrder of the five members of the Hodges family, for which Reed and Oato were lynched, was an extremely brutal crime. Hodges was a resident of Statesboro and had a country home six miles from the town. On the evening of the murder ho drove to the home of a neighbor to get one of his children, a little girl, who had been passing thvday there. The last seen of him and the child alive by friendly eyes was whe;i he climbed Into his buggy with the little one and started home. About midnight It was discovered that the Hodges lioma was on Are. The blaze had made such headway that nothing could be done to stop it and the house was burned to the ground. As none of the members of the family was seen about the place the neighbors supposed that Hodges had taken bls'-fme and children back to Statesboro.

Inspection of the ruins next morning brought to light the bodies of the live victims. The head of Mr. Ilodgos was crushed in, as though he had been struck with an ax, and the head and body of Mrs. Hodges showed marks of bruises. The little girl had been horribly mutilated. The bodies of the other two children showed no marks of violence, their positions Indicating that they bad been burned to death; while asleep.