Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Sheriff Says Lynching of Jim Blackledge Never Occurred; Unidentified Persons Asked Four or Five Negro Families to Leave, and They Left, Aug. 10, 1922

Cyrus Long, Mail Carrier Is Dead. . . Succumbs to Wounds Inflicted by Four Negroes; Reported Lynching Denied

Jacksonville, N.C., Aug. 10—Sheriff Gurganus of Onslow county stated this morning that so far as investigators of his office were able to learn the negro Jim Blackledge, accused of instigating the attack on Cy Jones, rural mail carried, last Saturday night, was not lynched as reported in dispatches sent out from New Bern.

Sheriff Gurganus said a crowd of men went to the negro’s home Sunday night ordered him to leave the county and that he had not been seen or heard of since. Jones, who regained consciousness momentarily since being attacked by four negroes while returning form his route Saturday afternoon, died last night While feeling against the accused negroes in (ran?) high in the county, Sheriff Gurganus said he did not think there would be any trouble. The four negroes are now in the New Hanover jail at Wilmington where they were taken Monday for safe keeping.

The sheriff said four or five negro families who lived in the Swansboro section left the county after being warned by unidentified persons to leave. Because of reports that negroes were forming for an attack on Swansboro the town was guarded by armed white men Sunday night but no guards have been on duty since, the sheriff said. He said everything was quiet in the county and he did not expect any trouble between the races.

From the front page of the Salisbury Evening Post, Aug. 10, 1922

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