Endnotes
1 North Carolina Marriage Records, Stanly County, NC, 1867-1994.
2 “Bones of Man Hung in 1891,” Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), September 2, 1931.
3 “True Democracy—Equal Justice to All and Special Favors to None,” Vidette (Norwood, NC), June 9, 1892.
4 Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
5 “Hanging by Guesswork,” Watertown Times (Charlotte, NC), Saturday, June 11, 1892.
6 “Buried Where His Neck Was Broken,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 23, 1892.
7 “Stanly News Says This,” Standard (Concord, NC), July 7, 1892.
8 “Afraid of Whitley’s ‘Sperit,’ ” (Concord, NC), July 21, 1892.
9 Independent Tribune (Concord, NC), October 24, 2007.
10 Bruce E. Baker, “North Carolina Lynching Ballads,” in Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 219.
11 Charlotte Democrat (Charlotte, NC), Friday, June 17, 1892.
12 “Origins of Lynch Law,” Daily Herald (Brownsville, TX), October 13, 1892.
13 Arthur F. Raper, The Tragedy of Lynching (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, Southern Commission on the Study of Lynching, 2003), Appendix C, 479.
14 Robert A. Gibson, “The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States, 1880–1950” (curriculum), Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html
15 E. P. Harrington, “Lines Written on the Assassination of D. B. Tucker,” in Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 227-228. All subsequent references to the ballad are from this source.
16 Katie Grimes, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree,” posted April 22, 2011. https://womenintheology.org/2011/04/22/the-cross-and-the-lynching-tree/
17 Baker, “North Carolina Lynching Ballads,” in Under 229; 244, footnote 15.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid., 230.
20 Ibid., 229.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 232.
24 Heath Thomas, “Alec Whitley: The Man and The Ballad,” North Carolina Folklore December 1960, 17.
25 “Judy Burris’s Statement,” Arkadelphia Herald (Arkadelphia, AR), August 26, 1892.
26 “A Fiendish Crime,” Arkadelphia Gazette (Arkadelphia, AR), April 27, 1892.
27 “Lynch Law at Albemarle,” Observer (Concord, NC), June 9, 1892.
28 “That Western Murder,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 9, 1892.
29 “An Unjustifiable Performance,” Daily Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 10, 1892.
30 “Stanly Has a Lynching,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
31 Ibid.
32 North Carolina State Archives, 1878 Criminal Process Records.
33 1880 Stanly County Census.
34 North Carolina State Archives, 1887 Criminal Process Records.
35 Stanly County Registrar Deed Book 42, 1889, 54.
36 Stanly County First Grade Teacher’s Certificate, October 15, 1887.
37 “Alex Whitley or Burris, Swung to A Tree,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 9, 1892.
38 Stanly County Registrar Deed Book 42, 1889, 54.
39 Stanly County Will Book II, 1868–1910.
40 D. B. Tucker, letter dated July 19, 1891, retrieved from Stanly County Genealogical Society Journal XIX, 2.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 “Alex Whitley or Burris, Swung to A Tree,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
44 “Stanly Has a Lynching,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
45 Tucker, letter, retrieved from Stanly County Genealogical Society Journal XIX, 2.
46 Ibid.
47 “Rev. Dr. W. M. Roby,” Watauga Democrat (Watauga, NC), September 12, 1888.
48 “Help for Prohibition,” Pittsburgh Dispatch (Pittsburgh, PA), March 12, 1889.
49 Jackson Standard (Jackson, OH), January 5, 1888.
50 “Prohibition Victory,” Abbeville Press and Banner (Abbeville, SC), July 8, 1891.
51 “Anchors of Hemp Ropes,” Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), June 9, 1892.
52 Durham Daily Globe (Durham, NC), June 4, 1892.
53 David Almond, The Lynching of Alec Whitley (Albemarle, NC: D. D. Almond, 1978), 12, footnote 55.
54 “Alex Whitley or Burris,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 9, 1892.
55 “An Awful Record of Crime,” Semi-Weekly Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 13, 1892.
56 Ibid.
57 Baker, “North Carolina Lynching Ballads,” in Under 231.
58 “An Awful Record of Crime,” Semi-Weekly Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 13, 1892.
59 Ibid.
60 “A Tale of Crime in Two States,” Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 9, 1892.
61 Ibid.
62 Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), November 6, 1889.
63 “An Awful Record of Crime,” Semi-Weekly Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 13, 1892.
64 Ibid.
65 Ibid.
66 Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
67 Standard (Concord, NC), September 1, 1892.
68 “Judy Burris’s Statement,” Arkadelphia Herald (Arkadelphia, AR), August 26, 1892.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid.
71 Standard (Concord, NC), September 22, 1892.
72 “Judy Burris’s Statement,” Arkadelphia Herald (Arkadelphia, AR), August 26, 1892.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 This reference was probably to Deceiper Creek in Clark County, AR.
77 Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, UT), January 20, 1892.
78 Indianapolis Journal (Indianapolis, IN), January 20, 1892.
79 “Judy Burris’s Statement.” Arkadelphia Herald (Arkadelphia, AR), August 26, 1892.
80 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in
81 “State’s Newspapers Hold Awards Night at Duke,” Robeson (Lumberton, NC), January 23, 1950.
82 Baker, “North Carolina Lynching Ballads,” in Under 243, footnote 10.
83
84 Salisbury Post (Salisbury, NC), June 6, 1958.
85 Bruce Edward Baker, “Lynching Ballads in North Carolina” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina), 1950, 68.
86 Almond, Lynching of Alec 1978, 11, footnote 50.
87 Heath Thomas, “Stanly Folk Still Sing of Sad End of Alec Whitley,” Salisbury Post (Salisbury, NC), 1949.
88 Ibid.
89 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in
90 Ibid., 21.
91 Ibid., 17.
92 Ibid., 21.
93 Ibid., 17.
94 US Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861–1865,
95 Heath Thomas, “The Truth Unabridged—An Honest Painting,” Carolina Times (Durham, NC), December 24, 1955.
96 Heath Thomas, “A Word Picture of the Negro,” Salisbury Post (Salisbury, NC), December 24, 1955.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid.
100 Heath Thomas, “Condemned by Exodus 21:28—Biblical Death of Pharoah the Bull.” Reprinted from Salisbury Post (Salisbury, NC), 1958.
101 Baker, “Lynching Ballads in North Carolina,” 58.
102 Thomas, “Condemned by Exodus 21:28.”
103 Ibid.
104 Baker, “Lynching Ballads in North Carolina,” 68.
105 Ibid., 230.
106 Ibid., 70.
107 Ibid., 69.
108 Ibid.
109 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 17.
110 Baker, “North Carolina Lynching Ballads,” in Under 231.
111 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 18.
112 Baker, “North Carolina Lynching Ballads,” in Under 244, footnote 13.
113 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 17.
114 Ibid., 19.
115 “Lynch Law at Albemarle,” Daily Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 10, 1892.
116 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 17.
117 Ibid., 18.
118 Ibid.
119 Ibid., 19.
120 North Carolina State Archives, Criminal Process Records.
121 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 20.
122 Ibid., 21.
123 Ibid.
124 Ibid.
125 Genesis 4:16 (King James Version).
126 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 21.
127 “Bones of Man Hung in 1891,” Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), September 2, 1931.
128 “An Awful Record of Crime,” Semi-Weekly Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 13, 1892.
129 Guy Giulietta, “New Estimate Raises Civil War Death Toll,” New York D-1, April 2, 2012.
130 John Gilchrist Barrett, North Carolina as a Civil War 1861–1865 (Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh Office of Archives and History, 2003), 70.
131 Ibid., 73.
132 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 17.
133 “The Farm,” Standard (Concord, NC), March 28, 1890.
134 “Communication,” Standard (Concord, NC), August 17, 1888.
135 Standard (Concord, NC), December 14, 1888.
136 Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), October 9, 1889.
137 Standard (Concord, NC), November 15, 1889.
138 Standard (Concord, NC), February 7, 1890.
139 “What They Receive,” Wilson Advance (Wilson, NC), September 26, 1889.
140 “The Colored Exodus,” Wilson Advance (Wilson, NC), January 9, 1890.
141 “Let Them All Go,” Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), March 27, 1889.
142 “Let Them Go,” Wilson Advance (Wilson, NC), September 26, 1889.
143 “They Get Well ‘Greased,’ ” Wilson Advance (Wilson, NC), September 26, 1889.
144 “Let Them All Go,” Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), March 27, 1889.
145 Thomas F. Gossett, “The Status of the Negro: 1865–1915,” in Race: The History of an Idea in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 270-271.
146 Gum Springs, named for the gum tree near a spring, was established near the Missouri Pacific Railroad. In 1892 Gum Springs had a post office, a “poor farm,” and a few farmers.
147 Sun (New York, NY), April 23, 1888.
148 “Our Monte Carlo,” Pittsburgh Dispatch (Pittsburgh, PA), April 4, 1891. Reprinted as “Where Poker Rules,” in Omaha Daily Bee (Omaha, NE), July 7, 1891.
149 Nancy Snell Griffith, “Hampton Race War of 1892, aka: Calhoun County Race War of 1892,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Retrieved from
150 Ibid.
151 “Forty Feet in Air,” Daily Globe (Saint Paul, MN), February 15, 1892, Sunday morning edition.
152 “Judge Lynch,” Keowee Courier (Walhalla, SC), March 10, 1892.
153 “A Fiendish Crime,” Arkansas Gazette (Arkadelphia, AR), April 27, 1892.
154 Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (New York: Ida B. Wells, 1892).
155 “Life Turned Loose,” Standard (Concord, NC), April 30, 1891.
156 Ibid.
157 “Is It Right?,” Standard (Concord, NC), December 3, 1891.
158 “They Guarded,” Standard (Concord, NC), December 3, 1891.
159 “Cold-Blooded Murder,” Standard (Concord, NC), April 30, 1891.
160 “They Guarded,” Standard (Concord, NC), December 3, 1891.
161 Ibid.
162 “Lynch Law at Albemarle.”
163 “Stanly Has a Lynching,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
164 Ibid.
165 Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, Feeling is Tense (Atlanta, GA: Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, 1937), bulletin no. 8. Reprinted February 1938, March 1938, April 1938.
166 Ibid.
167 “Stanly Has a Lynching,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
168 Vidette (Norwood, NC), June 9, 1892.
169 Daily Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), June 10, 1892.
170 Durham Daily June 4, 1892.
171 Yorkville Enquirer (Yorkville, SC), October 7, 1891.
172 North Carolina State Archives, Stanly County Estate Records 1890.
173 Ibid.
174 Ibid.
175 “Alex Whitley or Burris, Swung to a Tree,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 9, 1892.
176 “Took Them Along,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 23, 1892.
177 “Alex Whitley or Burris, Swung to a Tree,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 9, 1892.
178 Sunday News (Charleston, SC), June 12, 1892, Sunday morning edition.
179 Watertown Times (Charlotte, NC), Saturday, June 11, 1892.
180 Bridgeton Evening News (Bridgeton, NJ), June 13, 1892.
181 Joe McCarty, The Apricity Forum—The Red Shirts of the South During Reconstruction and Retrieved from https://www.theapricity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-33755.html
182 “Are they Instigated?,” Keowee Courier (Chattanooga, TN), June 2, 1892.
183 Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), February 11, 1892.
184 “Murderer Lynched,” Sunday News (Charleston, SC), June 12, 1892.
185 “Horse and Halter: Unique Method of Lynching a Negro in North Carolina,” Richmond Dispatch (Richmond, VA), November 19, 1892.
186 Ibid.
187 James S. Hirsch, Riot and Remembrance: The Tulsa Race War and Its Legacy (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002).
188 “A Lynching in Stanly County,” Chatham Record (Charlotte, NC), June 16, 1892.
189 “True Democracy—Equal Justice to All and Special Favors to None,” Vidette (Norwood, NC), June 9, 1892.
190 Perry Deane Young, The Untold Story of Frankie Silver: Was She Unjustly Hanged? (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Kindle Edition, 2012).
191 Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, American Lynching (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).
192 Ibid., 28.
193 James Elbert Cutler, Lynch-Law: An Investigation into Lynching in the United States (New York: Longsman, Green, and Co. Publishers, 1905), 228.
194 Standard (Concord, NC), December 20, 1889.
195 “Fun,” Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), July 24, 1889.
196 “Wit and Humor,” Daily Herald (Brownsville, TX), September 29, 1892.
197 Daily Herald (Brownsville, TX), December 16, 1892.
198 “It’s a Buzzsaw,” Reidsville Review (Reidsville, NC), September 26, 1889.
199 “The Law Must Be Respected,” Wilson Advance (Wilson, NC), September 26, 1889.
200 “Good at Times,” Durham Globe (Durham, NC), June 13, 1892.
201 “Berrier Lynched,” Standard (Concord, NC), October 18, 1889.
202 “Berrier Lynched,” Press and Carolinian (Hickory, NC), October 24, 1889.
203 Ibid.
204 “Speedy Trial Preferred,” Goldsboro Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), November 6, 1889.
205 “After the Lynchers,” Standard (Concord, NC), November 1, 1889.
206 Ibid.
207 “What Should Be Done!,” Standard (Concord, NC), November 1, 1889.
208 Ibid.
209 “No True Bill Against the Berrier Lynchers,” Standard (Concord, NC), March 21, 1890.
210 Ibid.
211 “What Should Be Done!,” Standard (Concord, NC), November 1, 1889.
212 Ibid.
213 “Lynch Law,” Standard (Concord, NC), March 3, 1891.
214 Ibid.
215 “Wholesale Murder,” Standard (Concord, NC), March 19, 1891.
216 “More Lynching,” Standard (Concord, NC), October 1, 1891.
217 “The Courts,” Standard (Concord, NC), October 8, 1891.
218 “The Delay of the Law,” Wilson Advance (Wilson, NC), May 12, 1892, supplement.
219 Charlotte Democrat (Charlotte, NC), June 17, 1922.
220 Ibid.
221 Cutler, 232.
222 Stanly Enterprise (Albemarle, NC), August 6, 1906.
223 “Lawless Mob Lynched Three Murderers,” Courier (Ashboro, NC), August 9, 1906.
224 Watauga Democrat (Boone, NC), August 23, 1906.
225 “A Gruesome Picture the Result Mob’s Vengeance,” Hickory Democrat (Hickory, NC), August 9, 1906.
226 “The Salisbury Lynching,” Smithfield Herald (Smithfield, NC), August 10, 1906.
227 “Lyncher Sentenced,” Courier (Ashboro, NC), August 16, 1906.
228 1870 Federal Census for Big Lick, Stanly County, North Carolina.
229 Charlotte Home Democrat (Charlotte, NC), March 19, 1886.
230 Standard (Concord, NC), August 18, 1892.
231 Standard (Concord, NC), September 1, 1892.
232 Stanly County Deed Book 19, 1893, 300.
233 Stanly County Deed Book 21, 1893, 114; Book 26, 1893, 413; Book 28, 1893, 504.
234 Stanly County Deed Book 8, 1895, 416; Book 23, 1895, 300.
235 Stanly County Deed Book 23, 1899, 525; Book 26, 1899, 419; Book 16, 1899, 417.
236 “Our Gold Mines,” Vidette (Troy, NC), February 20, 1890.
237 Progressive Farmer (Winston-Salem, NC), September 22, 1891.
238 Progressive Farmer (Winston-Salem, NC), December 22, 1891.
239 “Stanly News Says This,” Standard (Concord, NC), July 7, 1892.
240 “Bones of Man Hung in 1891,” Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), September 2, 1931.
241 Stanly County Deed Book 19, 1893, 512.
242 Thomas, “The Man and The Ballad,” in 17.
243 Ibid.
244 Ibid.
245 “Stanly Has a Lynching,” Standard (Concord, NC), June 16, 1892.
246 Vann R. Newkirk, Lynching in North Carolina, A History 1865-1941 (Jefferson, NC: McFarlan & Company, Inc. Publishers), 2009. Two variations of the last name are recorded.
247 Headlight (Goldsboro, NC), October 6, 1892. Joe Barco, col., was lynched Saturday night at Camden, C. H., Camden County, for criminally assaulting Mrs. Frank Sanderlin and afterwards murdering her. A thousand bullets were fired into his suspended carcass.