.MTA1NQ.NzA5NDA

1839 July 30. continued

reasons: first, on the night of the 15th of the June preceding the dwelling house of William C.Wright was burned to ashes and Wright and four of his children were most inhumanly butchered & murdered, and one wounded and left for dead:- second, in consequence of this great outrage and the insecurity of their common jails, and the many escapes of murderers from justice, occasioned by the delay of the law in that coun-try, the citizens of Washington County organized themselves into the above described company for the purpose of ferretting out the perpetrators: third, suspicious having rested on some five or six of their citizens, they were taken into custody by said company and a committee of thirty eight of the most respectable citizens, consisting of old grey headed fathers of the County, and among the number four minis-ters of the gospel, and one of them the Chairman of said Committee, after having sat in solemn Council for six days with patience. ferreted out the perpe-trators of the diabolical deed and sen-tenced three to suffer death by hanging, which sentence they carried into exe-cutioin on Monday the 29th instant, - and, by the confession of John Richmond,