A Lynching in Florida

A white mob kills two African Americans in custody, despite the sheriff’s best efforts.

Dade City, FLA., February 6.—Will Wright and Sam Williams, colored, charged with being implicated in the killing of Dan Childers and the wounding of J. B. McNeily, both white, at Rise and Phelps’s camp on January 26th, were killed in county jail by a mob of fifty or more men at a late hour last night. The mob first called upon Sheriff Griffith and demanded of him the keys to the jail. The Sheriff refused and stood firm through all efforts to intimidate him. The lynching party then moved towards the jail and succeeded in breaking through the outer walls but could not break through the steel cells. After exhausting every effort to do so they opened fire on the two prisoners from the outside through the steel bars. Williams was almost instantly killed and Wright was fatally wounded and died in a few hours. The coroner’s jury, at an investigation today, returned the verdict that the two men had been killed by parties unknown to the grand jury.

“A Lynching in Florida,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed September 14, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1027.