Lynching of Jeff Bolden, 1898

Jackson County, Georgia

The Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., Tuesday, December 27, 1898

Harmony Grove, Ga., December 26-Special-

A mob of unknown persons lynched Jeff Bolden [possibly Bolding], colored, near here Christmas night.

The negro was accused of attempted murder and of arson. He had been given a preliminary hearing upon these charges and remanded to jail, and it was while officers were carrying him to the county site for imprisonment that he was hanged.

The crimes for which the negro met his death were perpetrated only a day or two ago. The attempt at murder was the first. Mr. Van Deadwyler, one of the leading farmers and most prominent men in the county, was sitting by his hearth and some party standing outside fired through the window at him. The bullet missed its mark, burying itself close by in a wall. Circumstances pointed strongly toward Jeff Bolden as the criminal.

On the succeeding night, Mr. Deadwyler’s barn was fired and completely destroyed, involving a heavy loss in farm products and stock. Again, all clews suggested Bolden as executor of the crime. He was run down, captured, and tried at Dry Pond and ordered remitted. The officers took him in charge and set out for the county jail. An armed mob met the party about two miles from here, demanded and secured the prisoner and disappeared into the darkness with him.

His dead body was today found swinging from the limb of a large hickory tree near Wood’s bridge on the Oconee river-close by the spot where Grady Reynolds and Bud Brooks assassinated Merchant Hunt two years ago. Coroner Wood was immediately notified and he in turn hastily summoned a jury to sit upon the case. After a fruitless effort to discover the identity of the lynchers, a verdict was rendered to the effect that the deceased came to his death at the hands of a mob composed of persons unknown.

There is being expressed throughout the county regret at the affair, but everybody is of the belief that Bolden was guilty and deserved to die, but say they would have preferred to see Bolden killed by the operation of the law.

A commentary from The News, Frederick, Maryland, dated December 27, 1898:

“Many curious ways of celebrating Christmas have been reported but the lynching party on Christmas eve at Harmony Grove, Ga., was the strangest. It was doubtless a harmonious affair.”

Transcribed 2005 by Jacqueline King