More About the Burlington Lynching

A gentleman who lives in Boone county, and claims to have been well acquainted with Fred Wahl, the murdered man, and to know all about the tragedy, gives the following as the true statement of the facts of the case:

He says that Smith Williams, the negro man, lived on the farm of Mr. Lon Gaines, near Anderson’s Ferry, about six miles from Burlington, that he had been in the habit of hunting on the farm belonging to Wahl’s father, situated in the neighborhood, and that he had been warned off previously, and upon this occasion when he demurred at leaving the place, young Wahl attempted to put him off.  A scuffle ensued and Wahl’s hip was shattered by a shot from the gun in the hands of the negro – the negro claimed accidentally.  The wounded man lived two or three days, when he died, and a reward was offered for Williams, who had escaped.  His capture, incarceration in the jail at Burlington, there being none at Anderson’s Ferry, and subsequent lynching, is as the newspapers have stated; but as to the Cincinnati Turners having done the lynching, our informant gives it as his opinion that they had nothing to do with it as a body, and says the general belief in and around Burlington is that it was done by the people from the neighborhood of the scene of the tragedy, with perhaps a few from Cincinnati, where Wahl had many friends.

From the Covington newspaper, The Ticket, July 1, 1876