Giles County Community Remembrance Project
Mr. Dan Smith, age 22, was murdered by a lynch mob in Pulaski on December 2, 1880.
Dan Smith was “raised” by white Elder William Smith who lived near Shoal Creek in southern Giles County. In 1880 Dan was married but still worked for Elder Smith. By that time Elder Smith had also “taken in” the orphaned white child Mattie Hendricks, age 12. On the afternoon of Wednesday October 6, 1880, Mattie was alone at the farm when she was brutally assaulted and avoided an attempted rape, but was seriously injured. Dan Smith was immediately assumed to be the perpetrator.
By the time a posse had formed to pursue Dan Smith, he had fled to Rogersville, Alabama. He was captured there on Sunday October 10 and “immediately sent under guard to [Pulaski], the party traveling all night and reaching [Pulaski] early Monday morning.” Sheriff H. Arrowsmith, “impressed with a sense of duty, immediately put him on the morning train for the purpose of carrying him to Nashville for safe-keeping” to avoid a lynch mob.
After word spread that Dan Smith would not be jailed in Pulaski, a mob gathered at Lynnville on the morning of Monday October 11 with plans to intercept the train carrying Dan Smith, Sheriff Arrowsmith, & Arrowsmith’s deputies as it stopped there on its way to Nashville. When the train arrived at Lynnville, the mob wrested Smith away from the special deputy in charge of holding him, and fled with him. Sheriff Arrowsmith pursued them several hundred yards down the railroad track, where he drew his pistol and demanded that the mob return Dan Smith to the Sheriff’s custody. They negotiated, coming to the agreement that the mob would release Dan to the Sheriff only if the Sheriff would send Dan south on the next train to Pulaski instead of sending him to Nashville.
Upon making this agreement with Sheriff Arrowsmith, leaders of the mob sent a telegram to Prospect (the nearest point to the neighborhood where the assault happened) to announce that Dan Smith would be headed to Pulaski on the train that evening. In response, a large party of armed men from the Prospect area mounted horses and “set out for Pulaski to wreak vengeance on the brute.” A mob of about one hundred men arrived in front of the jail (at the location of present-day City Hall on S. 1st Street) at about 1:00am and found the Sheriff’s brother Capt. F. Arrowsmith, inside. They demanded that Capt. Arrowsmith hand over the keys to the jail, which he promptly did. However, when the mob entered the jail they found that Dan Smith’s cell was empty.
Much to the crowd’s indignation, Sheriff Arrowsmith had removed Dan Smith from the jail and “put him in charge of Deputy John W. Dyer and Special Deputy R.A.F. Jackson, with instructions to convey him to Nashville over land. These gentlemen, by taking a circuitous route, made the journey through the country without being molested, and succeeded in reaching Nashville Tuesday evening [October 12] with the prisoner.”
On Friday October 15, a group of the most prominent citizens of the southern part of the county sent a letter to Sheriff H. Arrowsmith expressing their discontent with his decision. They argued that his action in protection of Dan Smith was “of such an extreme as knows no parallel, and is unwarranted by law.” They insisted that he return Dan Smith to Pulaski for a speedy trial, and they pledged themselves to “not in any way molest, or cause said Dan Smith to be molested, until the court shall have assembled which shall investigate his cause.”
The next morning Saturday October 16, Sheriff Arrowsmith responded that “I will use every effort in my power to bring Dan Smith to the speediest trial that can be had under the law, either at a special term, or at the next term in November, now four weeks off, and I will bring him promptly to the jail in Giles County, on the assurances in your petition, and I further request that you appoint one or more of your committee to go with me to Nashville to bring him back.”
Dan Smith would remain at the jail in Nashville for almost two months, until the Grand Jury came back into session to bring an indictment against him. The group of citizens who had petitioned Sheriff Arrowsmith were very upset about the delay. The Pulaski Citizen published a plea against the idea of lynching him as soon as he returned to Pulaski, assuring readers that he would face justice in court. Circuit Court Judge McLemore addressed the Grand Jury to the same effect and spoke strongly against lynching and mob violence.
On December 2, Policeman Porter went to Nashville to retrieve Dan Smith, the Sheriff having enlisted his help in order to avoid alerting local citizens that Smith would be returning. Dan Smith & Policeman Porter arrived in Pulaski at about 1:30pm on the train from Nashville, and took “a roundabout way” to the court-house where the judge and jury awaited Smith. This was “so quietly done that none but the court and officers knew that he was in town.” He was charged with assault with attempt to commit rape and assault with intent to commit murder. The jury promptly returned a verdict of guilty of assault with intent to commit murder, with a maximum penalty of twenty-one years in the penitentiary. During the trial “word spread quickly, and that delay was enough time for a mob of men from the southern part of the county to assemble.”
The mob had filled the courtroom, and after Dan Smith was sentenced “a rush was made for the prisoner, and the few officers present being unable to protect him he was snatched from their custody and hurried down stairs, somebody in the meantime ringing the court-house bell.” The sound of the bell alerted the entire city, and “in a moment the whole town was in commotion and people came rushing by the scores and hundreds toward the east gate [of the courthouse].”
“Swift, and without noise, they swept down 1st St. south, filing west on Flower St. to the Presbyterian church, where they halted and it was thought for a while that they would swing him from the projecting limb of a locust in front of that sacred edifice, but wiser counsels prevailed and a voice was heard to exclaim: “ON TO THE BRIDGE!”
The mob proceeded south down 2nd Street to the intersection with Cemetery Street, headed for the Richland Creek bridge. Just before they arrived at the bridge, they encountered Dan Smith’s wife Nancy, crying and pleading to be able to say goodbye to her husband. They had only been married for nine months. “Her prayer was unheeded. She was waved back by the men and soon left in the rear.”
When the mob reached the Richland Creek bridge, “a rush was made to attain eligible positions to witness the consummation of the tragedy. Men clambered up the walls and hung by the rafters and jammed the floor.” Near the middle of the bridge, Dan was ordered to climb into the back of a two-horse wagon, and the noose was fastened around his neck with the other end tied tightly to a joist.
After several white men spoke at length about the crime that had been committed, and gave Dan an opportunity to pray and speak (which he did not do), the crowd became impatient and demanded, “Drive out the wagon!” The horses were driven away at speed, leaving Dan dangling in the air. The fall did not break his neck and he died of strangulation.
The crowd immediately heard the shrieks and wails of Dan’s wife Nancy, who stood alone at the end of the bridge. Two hours later, the coroner cut down Dan’s body and placed it in a coffin. It was taken to “the colored cemetery” (most likely the Old Black Section of Maplewood Cemetery) and was not buried until the following week.
Sources:
Marriage Certificate of Dan Smith & Nancy Smith, March 1 1880
The Pulaski Citizen, October 14 1880
The Fayetteville Observer, October 14 1880
The Pulaski Citizen, October 21 1880
The Pulaski Citizen, November 25 1880
The Daily American, December 3 1880
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