In the year 1836 the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger said that frequent inquiry had been made in the preceding year as to the origin of Lynch’s law. After an allusion to the historical interest of the subject, he answered the inquiry in the following words:
“It will be perceived from the annexed paper, that the law, so called, originated in 1780, in Pittsylvania, Virginia. Colonel William Lynch, of that county, was its author; and we are informed by a resident, who was a member of a body formed for the purpose of carrying it into effect, that the efforts of the association were wholly successful. A trained band of villains, whose operations extended from North to South, whose well concerted schemes had bidden defiance to the ordinary laws of the land, and whose success encouraged them to persevere in depredations upon an unoffending community, was dispersed and laid prostrate under the infliction of Lynch’s law. Of how many terrible, and deeply to be lamented consequences—of how great an amount of permanent evil—has the partial and temporary good been productive!
“‘Whereas, many of the inhabitants of the county of Pittsylvania, as well as elsewhere, have sustained great and intolerable losses by a set of lawless men who have banded themselves together to deprive honest men of their just rights and property, by stealing their horses, counterfeiting, and passing paper currency, and committing many other species of villainy, too tedious to mention, and that those vile miscreants do still persist in their diabolical practices, and have hitherto escaped the civil power with impunity, it being almost useless and unnecessary to have recourse to our laws to suppress and punish those freebooters, they having it in their power to extricate themselves when brought to justice by suborning witnesses who do swear them clear—we, the subscribers, being determined to put a stop to the iniquitous practices of those unlawful and abandoned wretches, do enter into the following association, to wit: that next to our consciences, soul and body, we hold our rights and property, sacred and inviolable. We solemnly protest before God and the world, that (for the future) upon hearing or having sufficient reason to believe, that any villainy or species of villainy having been committed within our neighborhood, we will forthwith embody ourselves, and repair immediately to the person or persons suspected, or those under suspicious characters, harboring, aiding, or assisting those villains, and if they will not desist from their evil practices, we will inflict such corporeal punishment on him or them, as to us shall seem adequate to the crime committed or the damage sustained; that we will protect and defend each and every one of us, the subscribers, as well jointly as severally, from the insults and assaults offered by any other person in their behalf: and further, we do bind ourselves jointly and severally, our joint and several heirs &c. to pay or cause to be paid, all damages that shall or may accrue in consequence of this our laudable undertaking, and will pay an equal proportion according to our several abilities; and we, after having a sufficient number of subscribers to this association, will convene ourselves to some convenient place, and will make choice of our body five of the best and most discreet men belonging to our body, to direct and govern the whole, and we will strictly adhere to their determinations in all cases whatsoever relative to the above undertaking; and if any of our body summoned to attend the execution of this our plan, and fail so to do without a reasonable excuse, they shall forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred pounds current money of Virginia, to be appropriated toward defraying the contingent expenses of this our undertaking. In witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands, this 22d day September 1780.’”[[123]]
The only indication of the source from which the editor obtained this agreement is found in the reference to “a resident, who was a member of a body formed for the purpose of carrying it into effect.” It is upon this reference that its authenticity depends. The agreement sounds genuine and is not out of harmony with the condition of affairs at that time in Virginia. Nothing is known, however, of any Colonel William Lynch in the county of Pittsylvania, Virginia.[[124]] It is possible that the man referred to was Colonel Charles Lynch of Bedford County.
An instance of summary corporal punishment occurred in Virginia on October 10, 1783, as is shown by the following act entitled “An act of indemnity to certain persons”: “Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That all and every person or persons who either directly or indirectly committed any insult or injury against the person of a certain Joseph Williamson, on the tenth day of October, in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty three, or breach of the peace on that occasion, and which was previous to the ratification of the definitive treaty between Great Britain and America, shall be, and they are hereby respectively indemnified for the same, and shall be exonerated and discharged of and from any fines, penalties, or forfeitures, which they might have incurred thereby.”[[125]]
Judge Roane’s statement that there were many suits in 1792 for inflicting Lynch’s law indicates that there were many cases of its infliction in the years preceding that date. It seems probable, therefore, that the practice of administering corporal punishment in a summary manner was very prevalent in Virginia from 1780 to 1792.
During the period 1792–1819 accounts of lynch-law procedure are very rare. There are but few sources of information on the subject during that period. Indeed, it is true that the chief source of information on the subject from 1792 to 1830 is the writings of travelers who have chanced to witness or hear of instances of such procedure.
Under the date of November 29, 1819, W. Faux describes the treatment given a young Yankee, of the name of Williams, near Princeton, Indiana, two years earlier. He was suspected of having robbed a store, but only circumstantial evidence could be adduced against him and he was acquitted. “The people of the place, however, prejudiced against him, as a Yankee, deputed four persons to inform him, that unless he quitted the town and state immediately, he should receive Lynch’s law, that is, a whipping in the woods. He departed, with his wife and child, next day, on foot; but in the woods, four miles from Princeton, they were overtaken by two men, armed with guns, dogs, and a whip, who said they came to whip him, unless he would confess and discover to them the stolen money, so that they might have it. He vainly expostulated with them; but, in consideration of his wife’s entreaties and cries, they remitted his sentence to thirteen lashes. One man then bound him to a tree and lashed him with a cow-hide whip, while the other held and gagged him; the alarmed wife, all the time, shrieking murder. He was then untied, and told to depart from the state immediately, or he should receive another whipping on the morrow, as a warning and terror to all future coming Yankees.
“This poor fellow was of respectable parents at Berlin, in the state of New York, and possessed a well-informed mind. He quitted the state, and returning, soon after, to prosecute his executioners, died at Evansville, before he had effected so desirable an object.”[[126]]
In “Letters from Illinois,” the second edition of which was published in London in 1818, Morris Birkbeck writes: