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Abolitionist minister lynched in Fort Worth
On this day in 1860, abolitionist Methodist minister Anthony Bewley was lynched in Fort Worth. Bewley, born in Tennessee in 1804, had established a mission sixteen miles south of Fort Worth by 1858. When vigilance committees alleged in the summer of 1860 that there was a widespread abolitionist plot to burn Texas towns and murder their citizens, suspicion immediately fell upon Bewley and other outspoken critics of slavery. Special attention was focused on Bewley because of an incendiary letter, dated July 3, 1860, addressed to a Rev. William Bewley and supposedly written by a fellow abolitionist. Many argued that the letter, which urged Bewley to continue with his work in helping to free Texas from slavery, was a forgery. The letter was widely published, however, and taken by others as evidence of Bewley's involvement with the John Brownites in Texas. Recognizing the danger, Bewley left for Kansas in mid-July with part of his family. A Texas posse caught up with him near Cassville, Missouri, and returned him to Fort Worth on September 13. Late that night vigilantes seized Bewley and delivered him into the hands of a waiting lynch mob. His body was allowed to hang until the next day, when he was buried in a shallow grave. Three weeks later his bones were unearthed, stripped of their remaining flesh, and placed on top of Ephraim Daggett's storehouse, where children made a habit of playing with them.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- BEWLEY, ANTHONY
- ABOLITION
- METHODIST CHURCH
- TEXAS TROUBLES
- TARRANT COUNTY
- RELIGION
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- Philanthropist Alexander Sanger dies (1925)
- Fence-cutting war reaches Mabel Day's ranch (1883)
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