Lynching in Chatham County

Marker Text: Between 1885 and 1921, white mobs terrorized and lynched at least six Black people in Chatham County, creating a legacy of violence, intimidation, and injustice. On September 28, 1885, a white mob in Pittsboro lynched four Black people—Jerry Finch and his wife, Harriet, John Pattishall, and Lee Tyson—following the unsolved murders of two white families. After months of terrorizing them, the mob stormed the jail, seized them, and hanged them from a tree despite their pleas of innocence. After the lynching, newspapers reported the lack of evidence against all of the victims for crimes that the mob accused them of committing, and the Chatham Record concluded, “If one set of men can force open our jail for one purpose,…who will be the next victim, and whose life is safe?” Fourteen years later, a white mob lynched a Black farmer in his mid-thirties named Henry Jones on January 11, 1899. The mob targeted Mr. Jones merely because he lived near a white woman who was found dead the night before. Then, on September 18, 1921, a white mob lynched a 16-year-old Black boy named Eugene Daniel after he was falsely accused of assaulting a white girl. The mob took Eugene five miles east to an area near Moore’s bridge, hanged him with a chain, and shot his body repeatedly. The next day, at least 1,000 spectators came to view Eugene’s hanged remains. No mob participants were held accountable for lynching these Black men, women, and children.