June 17th, 1898. The sweltering backwoods of Elmore County bore witness to a crime of such ignominy as to be sensationalized by newspapers all the way from California to Ontario; yet there is no evidence that any local county paper covered this tale of bloodshed. Perhaps the county would have liked to forget the occurrence of such a nasty incident, or perhaps the editor of the Wetumpka Weekly Herald had a healthy respect for his own well-being. Whatever the case, on that morning of Friday the 17th a posse of national guardsmen dispatched from Montgomery stumbled upon a grisly scene in the forest. Four black men hanged from tall trees, their corpses riddled with thousands of vengeful bullets fired by the men who served as their judges, jurors, and executioners. What force drove such violence? Nothing but burning anger kindled by the summer heat, and a desire to see justice enacted swiftly by one’s own hand before the watching eyes of the world. This was a tale of revenge for the murder of an entire household, and justice for the robbery of what today sums to over $40,000 in cash. In their haste for bloodshed, however, true justice afforded by the law was denied to those who subscribed to the law of lynch– let alone the victims of their violence.

The tragic tale begins with the unfortunate demise of William Carden, an elderly white farmer who lived with his wife and brother-in-law some miles southwest of Wetumpka. The old man was known for hiding a large amount of cash within his home, a tendency that proved to be his downfall when disaster struck the Carden home on the night of Tuesday the 14th. A gang of robbers invaded the un-prepared household and massacred the family by “having their brains knocked out with an axe” according to the Selma Times. They made off with either $1,200 or $3,000 in cash– sources vary– and torched the building on the way out; they left behind nothing but three bodies and smoldering ashes. Within the next couple of days, Elmore County officers arrested five black men who lived in the same neighborhood as the likely culprits behind the Carden family killing. These men were: Sol Jackson, Louis Spier, Camp Reese, Jessie Thompson and Jessie’s brother. They were said to be behaving “suspiciously” in the wake of the murders. To the public, however, these men were declared as potential witnesses to the murders rather than as the perpetrators themselves, and they were taken to jail to begin the legal process. The county rightly feared that by acknowledging the five as the suspected murderers they would incite mob violence, but lynch law made its way to Wetumpka irrespective of the county’s cautious considerations.

Concerning the arrival of the lynch mob to Wetumpka, the Montgomery Advertiser writes, “Yesterday afternoon [Thursday the 16th]  the very atmosphere seemed heavy and redolent, with latent sulphurous possibilities– even the rapids below the long bridge changed their murmurings to an ominous, muttering roar. About 4 o’clock something happened…  Presently a perfect avalanche of horsemen rode into town– they were all thoroughly armed and cool, calm and collected, as if they were on their way to a holiday frolic. They kept straight on to the jail at the far east end of the town… everybody not a fool realized then that the horsemen were after the five negro suspects– and the good people of Wetumpka are anything but fools.” Various papers contradict each other about the size of the mob; the smallest count is 200 and the most exaggerated claims say 1,100. The composition of the party was not a bunch of hillbillys looking to take vengeance by cover of night, but rather was composed of, “some of the most prominent citizens of Elmore and Coosa counties,” who made, “not the slightest effort to conceal their identity.” The mob approached the jail and requested that the five suspects be turned over to their custody– all-the-while a growing number of concerned or curious Wetumpkans began to gather about the scene.

The jail itself housed the prisoners of Elmore County and was a newly built structure made of brick with tough iron cells in the back. The formidable design did not stop the mob, however, who began to work on breaking down the outer doors of the jail shortly after 4:00 p.m., coming prepared for the work with a cold chisel and crowbars. It was reported that several prominent members of the Wetumpka community including the Reverend Dr. Andrews of the local Methodist church pleaded with the mob to disperse without causing violence, and even went so far as to offer money to hire a private detective to investigate the Carden killings. At one point, the mob seemed to be on the verge of giving up upon listening to the preacher’s wisdom and reflecting on their actions. However, at just that moment, one of the mob leaders hopped upon a nearby chair and began an impassioned plea for folks to remember the horrible fate that met the Carden family and the terrible scene of their destroyed home. This re-ignited the bloodthirst of the mob, who ignored the townspeople’s pleas and busted down the jail’s exterior door to enter the building and confront jailor Ollie Rhodes.

The mob demanded the jail keys to which Ollie obliged– seeing as he was quite outnumbered– and the men proceeded to unlock all of the cells the keys were capable of accessing. The keys were tampered with as a trick played by sheriff D. W. McCoy to stall for time, however; the sheriff had stashed away the keys the mob really wanted so they wasted valuable time opening cells to confront prisoners who had no connection to the Carden crime. It was past 6:00 p.m. at this point, and a telegram had reached Governor Johnston in Montgomery from the Elmore County sheriff’s office requesting immediate backup from national guards to restore order in the usually peaceful town. The riot bell rang out in Montgomery as 75 armed men under command of Captain S. W. Westcott prepared to board a special train to Wetumpka. Word of the approaching soldiers reached the leaders of the mob who were quick to locate blacksmith’s tools from a nearby shop in town to hack down the bars separating them from their prize. By the time Captain Westcott and company arrived at the Wetumpka depot around 9 o’clock, the mob had already stolen off into the woods with the five prisoners– they were evidently intent on holding a trial for the accused men at the very spot that the Cardens were murdered.

Concerning the murdered Carden household, the Birmingham Post Herald gives another strange detail about the incident that if not mentioned would leave part of the story incomplete; William Carden’s own mother and father were also victims of similarly brutal murders that took their lives. Almost 15 years to the day, William’s parents were murdered in their home near Rockford in Coosa County on June 15th, 1883. It was reported that– although more details are lacking– the murderer of the parents was hanged from a tree by an assembled lynch mob for his misdeeds. In fact, some of the same men who helped to apprehend the 1883 murderer were members of the lynch party seeking justice for the murder of the Cardens in Elmore County. It is more likely circumstantial than conspiratorial, but whatever the case it seems the Carden family was haunted by bloodshed and misfortune– misfortune that the lynch mob decided to re-distrubute when they convened a trial for their five prisoners that Thursday night.

According to sources, the lynch mob took the five captives 10 miles outside of Wetumpka and 3 miles from the actual scene of the crime as per the Birmingham News– perhaps the mob was cognizant of the possibility that the pursuing national guardsmen would anticipate their return to the exact spot of the crime scene. Upon arrival, the mob appointed twelve men from among its ranks to serve as jurors for this make-shift trial. All throughout the night, and well into the morning, these proceedings in the humid darkness and gloom of the Alabama woods sought to ascertain the truth of the murders in a manner that can be described as coercive. Here the newspapers give conflicting accounts of the trial’s findings. The Centreville Press reports that the lynch mob was able to extract full confessions from Sol Jackson, Louis Spier, Camp Reese, and Jessie Thompson. The Montgomery Advertiser reports that Sol Jackson broke down and confessed, implicating the other three while The Birmingham Post Herald reports Louis Spier as confessing. And then there is the matter of Jessie Thompson’s brother, who remains a fairly mysterious figure in the whole narrative of the lynching. It seems, though the account is murky, that the lynch mob ultimately found Thompson’s brother innocent of the whole affair as he was exculpated by the testimony of the other four– so apparently the mob let him walk free. Conflicted as the account of the trial’s proceedings were, the final verdict of the lynch jury was crystal clear. Sol Jackson, Louis Spier, Camp Reese, and Jessie Thompson murdered the Carden household, and for their crime were sentenced to be burned alive.

While the mob proceeded with their trial out in the forest, Captain Westcott placed himself and his 75 national guardsmen under command of Sheriff McCoy and made plans to locate the lynchers. The going was rough at first as the guardsmen struggled to find usable wagons to begin following the mob along the roads, so the pursuit only began in earnest around one in the morning. After many hours of walking and riding, the Montgomery Advertiser reports that a large campfire was spotted by the guardsmen just off the road. Captain Westcott made plans to perform a flanking movement to surround the mob, but Sheriff McCoy was opposed to this idea for some reason. It seems at this point the lynch mob was made cognizant of the nearby troops and had at this point finished the proceedings of its trial. Thus, as the troops approached the scene the mob schemed to break off into two columns headed opposite directions; one column in possession of the prisoners and the other without. Westcott and company pursued the first column, but soon realized in the early morning light that they chose the wrong group to chase. By 9 o’clock on that Friday morning, the soldiers had doubled back only to find the remains of those prisoners they had sought to rescue. Unable to be burned alive due to the time pressure applied by Westcott, the second column of the mob hanged their four victims the old fashioned way and then proceeded to mutilate their corpses with gunfire.

The mob, having achieved their goal, dissipated and quiet was once again restored to Wetumpka and the woods of Elmore County. Captain Westcott and his tired national guardsmen arrived back to the Montgomery depot by 5:30 in the afternoon as a brave group that was unfortunately outfoxed by the lynchers. Governor Johnston was angry about the mob’s usurpation of law and order, and the night of the soldier’s return he dispatched a solicitor to Wetumpka with instructions to prosecute the mobbers for murder. It is unknown if any of these “prominent citizens” were ultimately held responsible for the lynchings of Sol Jackson, Louis Spier, Camp Reese, and Jessie Thompson, however. This sensational account of violence soon spread to newspapers around Alabama, and then across the nation into even Canada. Papers in the state largely reported the facts without much moral judgement one way or the other– The Centreville Press did concede that “Mob law is dangerous and unjustifiable – except in cases of seduction or rape.” The southern penchant for lynching is well-illustrated by this Elmore County case that leaves more questions than answers in its wake. Would the four victims have been allowed to go through the proper legal process if they had been white? Or were the Carden murders so brutal and the desire for frontier justice so overwhelming as to render a hypothetical claim of white brotherhood invalid? Were the actions of officials in power undertaken to promote law and order or– more cynically– were they mere posturing to the wider world as men’s hearts silently assented to the law of lynch justice? These answers remain buried by the march of time, but the least we can do is to unearth the story of Sol Jackson, Louis Spier, Camp Reese, and Jessie Thompson and contemplate the lessons taught by this bloody tale.

Jun 17, 1898, page 7 – The Birmingham News at Newspapers.com

Jun 17, 1898, page 1 – The Montgomery Advertiser at Newspapers.com

Jun 18, 1898, page 3 – Birmingham Post-Herald at Newspapers.com

Jun 18, 1898, page 1 – The Hamilton Spectator at Newspapers.com

Jun 18, 1898, page 2 – Los Angeles Herald at Newspapers.com

Jun 18, 1898, page 7 – The Montgomery Advertiser at Newspapers.com

Jun 18, 1898, page 3 – The Selma Times at Newspapers.com

Jun 21, 1898, page 8 – The Stevenson Chronicle at Newspapers.com

Jun 22, 1898, page 4 – The Lamar Democrat at Newspapers.com

Jun 23, 1898, page 1 – The Centreville Press at Newspapers.com

Jun 24, 1898, page 2 – The Prattville Progress at Newspapers.com

Jun 25, 1898, page 1 – The Marion Democrat at Newspapers.com