Local History: The 1897 mob lynching in Versailles

(VERSAILLES, Ind.) – Do you know the story of the 1897 mob lynching that occurred in Versailles?

Five white men who were suspected of being in a gang and committing various crimes, including a robbery at a store in Correct. 

The men were incarcerated in the Ripley County Jail when a mob of about 25 people came into the jail. 

The mob killed three of the men in the jail and dragged all five of them to a tree behind the jail. All five were hung from a tree. 

The lynchers fled town before onlookers tore apart the tree to claim “relics” from the lynching. 

“Piece by piece it was carried away until nothing but the bare trunk is left standing. It was stripped of every leaf and twig, and then the limbs were sawed off and cut into small pieces,” the Logansport Pharos-Tribune stated. 

Following the lynching, police flooded the town to prevent acts of retribution by friends of the lynched men. 

The five lynched men were believed to have been living in Osgood. Some residents there later threatened to set fire to the jail and the courthouse.  

"The feeling between the two places is of the bitterest, and the opinion expressed here is that there are plenty of others in Osgood who deserve the same fate as the five found dangling to limbs yesterday morning,” the newspaper cited. 

Residents claimed the lynchers were from out of town but generally condoned the lynching. 

The story later inspired the The Hanging Tree restaurant which was in operation for several years in Versailles. 

The above image is believe to depict the tree after all the limbs had been removed.