The Lynching of Wash Henley

Marker Text: Near this spot on the night of January 15, 1869, a group of masked horsemen lynched Wash Henley, a black Union army veteran, for running away with his white employer’s teenage daughter. Henley, born about 1841 in Mississippi, had served as blacksmith for Company B, 59th Ù.S. Colored Infantry with the rank of private from March 1864 until January 1866. In 1864 he married a woman named Emily Black in Memphis. After the war he worked near Bartlett, probably as a blacksmith, for farmer Philip T. Jones, where he met Jones’s daughter Susan, who was about 16. On the night of January 14, local newspapers reported, Susan Jones took $445 of her fathers money and left home with Henley. The motive for running away was not clear, although the local press reported it was an elopement. The day after Susan Jones and Wash Henley disappeared, Philip Jones located his daughter in Germantown and took her back home. That same day six of Jones’s friends captured Henley, probably in Collierville. The friends were taking Henley back to Bartlett, intending to turn him over to the authorities. However, a group of masked horsemen, estimated at 25 in friends, forcibly took Henley, and lynched him. One newspaper reported that Henley was hanged and set afire before being shot. A coroner’s jury found that Henley was killed by pistol balls at the hands of unknown parties. Wash Henley’s body was found on January 16 near Fletcher’s Creek. There were no efforts to investigate, arrest, or prosecute the lynchers. Henley’s burial site is unknown.