Volume 18 , Issue 4

1884 - A Midnight Struggle For Life

Yet another version of the Monterey, Virginia lynching of January, 1884 could be found in The Evening Bulletin, Maysville, Kentucky, dated 12 January 1884, Saturday, on page 1, with the following headlines: "A Midnight Struggle For Life." Wounded and bleeding, a prisoner was finally overpowered and lynched.

Found on Newspapers.com

Staunton, Va., 11 Jan. (1884) -- Details of a horrible lynching affair which took place Friday night last at Monterey, in Highland County, have just transpired. Owing to the snow on the mountains, particulars did not arrive until now. E. D. Atchison was confined in jail for stabbing Sidney Ruckman, a prominent Readjuster, on Christmas day, while drinking together. Atchison was a Vermonter, and a desperate character. He was arrested against the protest of Ruckman, who was recovering.

Atchison was heard to make some threats that when he got out of jail he would kill some of the men who procured his arrest. Friday night ten rough fellows, with masks on, came to the jail about midnight, and demanded the key of J. Hiner, the jailor in charge. He said they were not in his possession. The mob then commenced to batter down the door, meanwhile shooting with pistols and guns through the doors and windows. Atchison fought furiously inside for his life, though shot three or four times.

The desperadoes were two hours in forcing their way into the cell of the doomed man. Atchison was finally secured, and bleeding from four wounds, almost dead, and unable to walk, he was tied and dragged away, about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. The lynchers told the guard that he would fined their prisoner on a certain tree about a half mile from town. After daylight he followed the track where the unfortunate man had been dragged through the snow, and found him hanging under the tree indicated. Ruckman was the Superintendent of Schools of Highland County, whose appointment the State Senate the week before refused to confirm.
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