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Preferred Citation

J. Wilder, Letter, 1891 June 14, Accession #10961, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

This letter was purchased from William A. Fox Auctions, Inc. of Springfield, New Jersey, on June 12, 1990.

Scope and Content Information

In his letter, June 14, 1891, to T.H. Canfield, J. [Wilder ?], Bristol, Virginia, describes witnessing the recent lynching of a black man taken from his jail cell by a mob which was also reported in the Bristol Courier . He attributes various motives to the participants in the lynching, "some drunk and some acted for the fun of the thing and some from feeling that the courts are ineffective. It was a horid thing but it is 'Southern'."

He also shares his own experience with the widespread corruption of the local and state court systems and law officers. [Wilder ?] and Dr. Bailey were both involved in a legal dispute over the ownership of some railroad property in Bristol against several wealthy New Yorkers, [Mr. ?] Clyde, [John Hamilton ?] Inman, G.S. Scott, and Nat Thayer of Boston. They had appealed to Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller of the United States Supreme Court to sit in on the case because of their fear that a fair trial over the matter was impossible in the local courts.