Victim ID: VA1900032401
Victim Name: Brandt O’Grady
Race: White
Sex: Male
Age: Unknown
Job: Unknown
Method of Death: Hanged
Accusation: Companion of the murderer of two/three white citizens
Date: 1900-03-24
City: Emporia
Mob Composition: Black with some whites
Summary: Brandt O’Grady, a white man from Boston, Massachusetts, was lynched on March 24th, 1900, on the court green at Emporia, in Greensville County, together with Walter Cotton, a black man. O’Grady was accused of being an accomplice of several murders committed by Cotton.
Walter Cotton and Brandt O’Grady had committed several robberies around Emporia, when, on March 22nd, 1900, they killed a justice of the peace, Mr. Saunders, and Constable Welton, as the officers were trying to arrest them. Following the killing of the two officers, O’Grady was arrested and put in jail in Emporia, while Cotton was captured the following morning. After his capture, Cotton confessed to be the killer of the two men, implicating O’Grady as his accomplice (Richmond Dispatch). Once in jail, O’Grady told the investigators that he had lost his wife and had become a drunk, but he also claimed to have not been a party to Cotton’s murders. Rumors of a potential lynching for the two men started to spread around Emporia, but eventually died down. Judge Goodwyn and sheriff Lee of Emporia had asked Governor Tyler for troops to protect the two prisoners from lynching mobs. Governor Tyler immediately agreed to send the Richmond Blues infantry to Emporia to prevent an attack on the jail. However, on the morning of March 24th, 1900, Sheriff Lee dismissed the state militia, and as soon as the troops left Emporia, both Cotton and O’Grady “were hanged to the limb of a tree immediately in front of the courthouse, and only about fifty feet distant from the jail in which they had been incarcerated for a few hours, and as their bodies dangled in the air hoarse cries of delight emanated from the throats of the assembled crowd” (Richmond Dispatch). The Richmond Dispatch also reported that “The officers of the county were witnesses to all of this, but none of them raised their hand or voice to stay the work of the mob. No effort was made to keep the mob from the jail; indeed, the military was sent from the town, in the forenoon, when it was tacitly understood on all sides that as soon as they left the lynching would take place. When a demand was made for the keys to the jail they were secured without delay, and no obstacle was thrown in the way of the mob.” Thousands of people are said to have attended his lynching. A well to do business man from New York believed O’Grady may have been his son and came to Emporia to investigate. He returned to New York convinced that the deceased O’Grady was not his son (Shenandoah Herald).
A grand jury started its investigation of the double lynching on April 2nd, 1900, with thousands of citizens filling the streets of Emporia, as several witnesses were examined (Alexandria Gazette). A witness identified former Judge George P. Barnum as the the leader of the mob; however, the grand jury failed to indict anyone for the double lynching (Richmond Planet).
News Coverage: Alexandria Gazette, Richmond Dispatch, Richmond Planet, Virginian-Pilot
Article Link (from Alexandria Gazette published on 1900-03-31)
Article Link (from Alexandria Gazette published on 1900-04-03)
Article Link (from Richmond Dispatch published on 1900-03-24)
Article Link (from Richmond Dispatch published on 1900-03-25)
Article Link (from Richmond Dispatch published on 1900-04-03)
Article Link (from Richmond Planet published on 1900-04-07)
Article Link (from Richmond Planet published on 1900-04-07)
Article Link (from Shenandoah Herald published on 1900-04-06)
Article Link (from Virginian-Pilot published on 1900-04-03)