Erastus Brown Webpage
[Revisit this page periodically for updates and additions ... to be
continuing ]
Erastus Brown Week July 8-14, 2019
July 9 Tuesday The Performance Arts Display
portion of The 'CREATIVE DREAM EXHIBITION’
July 10 Wednesday Soil Collection Ceremonial
Event
July 14
Sunday
2:30 pm
Erastus Brown Memorial Procession from the Old Franklin County
Courthouse, Church & Main, pausing at the Bourbeuse River
Access, ending at ECC. Procession car by Request to
ErastusBrown@klinedinst.com
3 pm East Central College,
Training Center, Audrey Lane, Union, MO for words of memorial
recognition and community gathering
About the Lynching - from area newspapers and records
Erastus Brown - Key Events as reported from area newspapers
- the alleged crime committed on Friday afternoon
July 2
- Erastus captured on July 3
- Erastus Brown hanged on July 10 during early
morning hours
- body claimed on July 11 by brother and uncle,
buried in negro cemetery in Villa Ridge
victim: Annie Fehrring or Foerving
Erastus Brown’s lynching. From the July
11, 1897 issue of the St. Louis Republic
Image of UPTOWN OFFICE—THE REPUBLIC ST. LOUIS, MO SUNDAY
MORNING JULY 11, 1897 606 OLIVE Part III, Page 2 - a 3 column
article, “LYNCHED BY A MOB WAS ERASTUS BROWN”
also from
https://www.cousin-collector.com/projects/index.php/saline/history/1754-lynching-in-missouri
Erastus Brown, Villa Ridge, July 10, 1897
from
https://epdf.tips/queue/lynching-and-spectacle-witnessing-racial-violence-in-america-1890-1940.html
from http://digital.shsmo.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/frankcotrib/id/32114/rec/34
and https://digital.shsmo.org/digital/collection/frankcotrib/id/32114
Franklin County Tribune (Union, MO), 1897-07-16
Page Number 1 Source The State Historical Society of Missouri;
Columbia, MO
MOB LAW
_________
RULES IN FRANKLIN COUNTY
_________
Erastus Brown Taken From
The Jail and Hanged
by a Mob!
Last Saturday morning the majority of the
citizens of Union awoke as usual and many of them partook of their
breakfast, and even came to their respective businesses, before
learning that during the night a body of armed men had invaded our
streets, broken open the county jail and committed a horrible
tragedy.
But such was the case.
In the neighborhood of an hour past midnight a
force of men, estimated at about forty on horseback and three or
four in a spring wagon, quietly entered town from the east, and
surrounded and went to work upon the jail. To demolish the outer
door was but a momentary task, it being but a heavy wooden, panel
door.
Inside the ante room they proceeded directly up
stairs, and cutting the big lock from the blind door leading into
the corridor, and the iron bar door next to it, proceeded direct to
the cell containing Erastus Brown, the colored man who attempted to
rape Anna Fehrring near Villa Ridge the week before.
With cold chisels and sledge hammer the bolts
holding the large lock to the cell door were cut. The miserable
wretch was taked out, pinioned hand and foot, a role adjusted to his
neck, and placed in the spring wagon. The forces were called
together and the procession departed over the same road they had
come in on. It is estimated they were in town but little, if any,
over half an hour.
They passed over the Bourboise river bridge, and
halting under a willow tree that leans over the road, about half way
between the “slough bridge” and the bluff, the rope was passed
around the tree, above a large limb, and made fast, when they
evidently drove from under the body, already to all appearance
lifeless, and disappeared in the darkness, on the road towards Villa
Ridge.
[to be continued]
SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 2018 The Lynching of
Ras Brown
Missouri and Ozarks History
Information and comments about historical people and events of
Missouri, the Ozarks region, and surrounding area.
from http://ozarks-history.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-lynching-of-ras-brown.html
a sad coincidence:
another Erastus Brown hanged in Georgia in 1897:
from
https://epdf.tips/queue/lynching-and-spectacle-witnessing-racial-violence-in-america-1890-1940.html
Lynching and Spectacle Witnessing Racial Violence in America,
1890–1940
AMY LOUISE WOOD THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS Chapel
Hill
In some cases, the condemned was paraded through the center of town
so that a maximum number of citizens could see him before the
hanging. Henry Campbell, hanged in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 1908,
was taken to the courthouse square so he could address a large crowd
before being taken to the gallows set up in a semiprivate yard
behind the Baptist church (figure 1.1).37 In other cases, sheriffs
displayed the bodies of the condemned after the hanging to satisfy
crowds who had missed the execution. The coffin holding Erastus
Brown, hanged in Statesboro, Georgia, in 1897, was brought to the
stockade yard, “where all that wished could go see him.”
_______________
newspapers at the time:
see https://scenicregional.org/virtual-library/local-historical-newspapers/
and https://shsmo.org
Franklin County Observer Available: 1893-1926 Published in:
Washington, MO
Franklin County Tribune Available: 1887-1919, 1927-1966 Published
in: Union, MO
from this paper a search for lynch yields 5 issues: see separate
file
Marthasville News Available: 1896-1897 Published in: Marthasville,
MO
Marthasville News (Marthasville, MO), 1897-07-15
http://digital.shsmo.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/MarthaNews/id/158/rec/92
from FRANKLIN COUNTY TRIBUNE - Union, Missouri - Friday, July 30,
1897
For scanned newspapers from July, 1897 click below
http://www.klinedinst.com/FCCRP.klinedinst.com/EB/NewspapersFromJuly1897/
