Lynching in Frederick County
Three Black men were victims of racial terror lynching in Frederick County between 1879 and 1895. Each was abducted from police custody following reports of attacks against local white women. Prominent citizens of Frederick were involved in the killings, Ms. Weir told the audience at the dedication, but no one was held accountable for the lynching of James Carroll, John Biggus, or James Bowens.
James Carroll
On April 17, 1879, a mob of more than 70 white people lynched 24-year-old James Carroll. Mr. Carroll was in police custody, traveling by train from Washington, D.C., to Frederick when he was seized by the mob. After he was forced off the train, the mob tied a rope around Mr. Carroll’s neck and dragged him through a muddy embankment to the edge of the woods in Point of Rocks, where he was hanged.
Members of the mob took souvenirs from the tree and tip of Mr. Carroll’s finger, Jane Weir told the participants. His corpse was left on display until the Frederick County coroner and a constable arrived the next afternoon to cut him down. A coroner’s jury was assembled, but despite numerous witnesses, no one was identified, much less prosecuted, for Mr. Carroll’s murder.
John Biggus
On November 23, 1887, 19-year-old John Biggus was lynched by a mob of 100 or more white people who used axes and a rope from the nearby fire station to break into the Frederick jail. As Ms. Weir recounted, the perpetrators dragged Mr. Biggus out of the jail by a rope tied around his neck and taken down South Street to a nearby field as he professed his innocence.
The men threw the rope around a tree limb and began to hoist Mr. Biggus up from the ground. As he slowly suffocated, he was shot three times.
James Bowens
On November 17, 1895, a mob of approximately 300 white people lynched a young Black man, James Bowens, after seizing him from the Frederick jail. Ms. Weir said the mob dragged Mr. Bowens to the same exact field where they had murdered John Biggus eight years earlier. As Mr. Bowens was hanged, one of the perpetrators fired a gunshot into his head.
After the killing, a member of the mob announced that they had murdered Mr. Bowens “to teach men of his class that they must let the white women of Frederick county alone or suffer the consequences.” Ms. Weir noted that some people took photos of Mr. Bowens’s corpse as mementos and after the coroner cut him down, the rope used to hang him was divided up and the pieces distributed as souvenirs.
Lynching in America
Over 6,500 Black men, women, and children were killed in racial terror lynchings in the U.S. between 1865 and 1950. After the Civil War, many white people in the South opposed equal rights for Black people, and lynching emerged as the most public and notorious form of racial terrorism used to enforce racial hierarchy.
Almost 25% of documented lynchings were sparked by charges of inappropriate behavior between a Black man and a white woman that was often characterized as “assault” at a time when the mere accusation of sexual impropriety regularly fueled fatal mob violence.
In this era, it was common for lynch mobs to seize their victims from jails, prisons, courtrooms, or out of police hands. Though they were armed and charged with protecting the men and women in custody, police almost never used force to resist white lynch mobs intent on killing Black people. In some cases, police officials were even found to be complicit or active participants in lynchings.
The lynching of African Americans was terrorism, a widely supported campaign to enforce racial subordination and segregation.
Lynch mobs would often enact extreme violence to destroy the body of a victim, then allow the victim to hang for hours, preventing the family from claiming their loved one, in an attempt to maintain the racial order through the threat of violence to the entire Black community.
James Carroll, John Biggus, and James Bowens are three of at least 34 Black victims of racial terror lynching killed in Maryland between 1865 and 1950.
Community Remembrance Project
The Community Remembrance Project is part of our campaign to recognize the victims of lynching by collecting soil from lynching sites, erecting historical markers, and developing the Legacy Sites in Montgomery.
EJI believes that by reckoning with the truth of racial violence, communities can begin a necessary conversation that advances healing and reconciliation.
