After all that has been in the news, I got to searching and happened to stumble upon a horrific, forgotten story of a lynching in Virginia that must be shared.
Amazingly, it occurred 100 years ago to the day. 15 August, 1917.
His name was William Page.
Northumberland County, Virginia — specifically, Lilian. Lilian (or Lillian as it was spelled in 1917) is a small community. Not a town, but not empty farmland either. Nestled neatly between the Potomac River and the Chesapeake Bay, only a few hundred people live there and it is hard to find the map unless you know what you are looking for. Aside from farming, the fishing industry in nearby Reedville once supported the local economy and at a time was considered the richest town in America. Of course, not all shared in that wealth, and as with all southern states racial tension was inescapable. Even today the relics of Jim Crow remain, scattered along the roadsides as abandoned Rosenwald Schools and still segregated neighborhoods. It is both one of the most beautiful places on Earth and slowly being devoured by a changing world and a dying population.
This story may sound familiar to you, because sadly it is. Perhaps it is because it is just that, a story. The individual elements sound eerily similar to a number of other lynching stories of the past. A young man, a farmer’s daughter and an angry mob. Although this summary is based on a number of available newspaper reports from the time, the underlying details have been told many times before, always leading to the same tragic ending — a black life lost and nobody held accountable.
The alleged story as reported in The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Alexandria Gazette and The Richmond Planet is as follows:
August 15, 1917
Eight o’clock PM and the sun has just about set. A young Miss Truitt and her cousin (no first names are provided) are traveling by horse and buggy nearby the family farm. Her father, Captain Truitt (presumably as a farmer, the Captain refers to a military ranking and not a ship) is at home at the end of the day, perhaps preparing for a coming harvest or tending to the livestock one last time before bed. Nearing home, the girls have stopped when they hear a sound coming from the bushes on the side of the road. Suddenly, a “burly” man emerges in front of their horse and quickly moves to the buggy where he grabs both Miss Truitt and her cousin and pulls them to the ground. Miss Truitt is startled and unable to move momentarily, but eventually manages to fight back, striking her attacker several times in the face. Her young cousin is paralyzed with fear. The two seem doomed.
At this point Miss Truitt devises a brilliant plan. She starts yelling “Hit him!” over and over while gazing past her attacker and manages to convince him that a good samaritan has come to help her and her little cousin. The plan works and the attacker flees the scene in a panic. Miss Truitt then puts her cousin back in the buggy and races home to the Captain where she identifies her attacker as one William Page, a farmhand recently hired by her father.
The Captain know what he has to do. He sets out with his shotgun and starts searching. Within 10 minutes he finds himself at the local store which is filled with a number of colored men. Raising his weapon at the entire room he shouts “Hands up!” Out of the shadows, only one man in the room raises his arms — William Page. Now his admission of guilt is there on display for all to see. As the room begins to clear of the other patrons, the Captain sends for the sheriff to arrest his daughter’s attacker.
Word spreads quickly in this small community, as always seems to be the case. By the time Sheriff Headly and Magistrate Cralle arrive by horseback from Heathsville (10 miles away) a crowd of masked men has gathered outside. William Page is bound and lead outside to where the now over 500 masked men stand in silence. Sheriff Headly knows what they want and steps between his prisoner and the angry mob. The good sheriff does everything he can to protect William Page, telling the men that he will arrest anyone who interferes and that the law must be followed to allow for a trial of William Page by his peers. Besides, this is what Captain Truitt wants, and it is his call. The crowd refuses to back down and repeats the demand they first uttered when William Page was led out — “We want that nigger.”
It is only at this point that William Page understands his fate and that there is no escaping it. He pleads to see his wife and mother and is allowed to do so for a few minutes before being led back into the now pitch black night. William Page is put in an automobile (a rare sight at the time) and is driven directly to the negro settlement. Around midnight he is dragged under a large oak tree, a rope is placed around his neck and he is stood up on his feet. After being granted permission to pray for a moment, a command is given and plow horse lifts William Page’s body off of the ground until he is dead. He was 18 years old and had recently been accepted to the draft army of World War I.
The lynching party retreats back into the shadows and leaves William’s body hanging there until the morning when sheriff Headly arrives to cut him down.
Aftermath
Nobody was ever charged for participating in William Page’s murder. The sheriff never brought charges to any of the masked men, and on August 22, one week after the killing took place, Governor Henry Carter Stuart said that he had no knowledge of the lynching and declined to comment or make a statement until he had official notice of the event. As far as I can tell, that notice was never given.
Editors note: I am providing the details as they were provided at the time using some of their words and some of my own. I do not believe the “official account” as reported with regard to the sheriff’s plea for peace or the father’s wish for a trial. I am not arguing that the assault on Miss Truitt did not occur, but in my years of reading history, I have come across a large number of stories in which a young girl, being caught with a black man, devises a story of assault to cover the indiscretion.
I am actively searching for more information to update this story and will do so if I find anything. Thank you for reading.
Part 2 of this story can be found HERE.
Links to the stories:
Richmond Times
Alexandria Gazette
Richmond Planet