Lynching in America / Lynching of Christopher Davis

Marker Text: Near this site on November 21, 1881, a mob of at least 30 White men lynched Christopher Davis – a 24-year old Black farm laborer – who lived near Albany with his wife and two children. On October 30, a White woman living near Mr. Davis reported being assaulted. Her relatives accused Mr. Davis and had him arrested, though many believed he was innocent. After his arrest, the threat of lynching led the local sheriff to move Mr. Davis from Athens to the jail in Chillicothe. In a letter to his wife, Mr. Davis affirmed his innocence and stated, “for months [I] feared trouble was coming on me.” Mr. Davis was returned by evening train to Athens on November 20 to await trial, but a White mob seized him from the jail the next morning, dragged him by a rope around the neck to the South Bridge, and hanged him, despite his pleas of innocence. Mr. Davis was buried in the West State Street Cemetery on November 22, but later that day, his body was exhumed and taken to Starling Medical College without his family’s permission. The men who lynched Mr. Davis faced no consequences for their crime, and one later became a local judge. Though the law granted the mob impunity, one mob member reportedly cried out years later from his deathbed, “Take Chris off of me!” Mr. Davis’ lynching and the mistreatment of his body reflect the racial terror and hostility of that era, and contributed to a legacy of injustice that still impacts the community today.