Linda
07-15-2002, 12:46 AM
We just discovered a new way to uncover family history . . . neighbor's gossip. My husband has a great uncle who was hung for rape. A Coles. He looked black, his siblings looked white. (Some of the Coles in this family look purely native, but not these kids.) The family never really discussed it. We wondered if it was an execution or a lynching. I had intentions of going to Richmond to research it. If it were a legal execution there should be transcripts from the trial still around.
This weekend we came across an old lady who knew the story, she was from another family in town who had talked about it for a long time. The story was that he was accused of telling a white lady that her perfume smelled good. The lady denied it up and down, said he never said a word to her. It was someone else who claimed he witnessed it. They took him out and lynched him. Before he died, he told them they were killing an innocent man, and he was putting a curse on them. Boydton was going to go down in poverty, and never amount to anything. Take a drive through Boydton and you'll see he got that right. (His brother and sister left town, said they were done being colored, moved to NY and nobody ever heard from them again.)
There's another story she told that bothers me even more. There was a boy a lot like my son, who was mixed race, but mostly white looking. He was left orphaned and his natural father took him into his home as a "yard boy" as they called them. He started to complain to his white family that there was a white girl that kept coming down to the creek and flirting with him. They told him to ignore her. He kept ignoring her and she ripped her clothes and claimed he raped her. He ran home and told them what had happened. They rushed to get him onto a train out of town, but not in time. Some men ripped him out of the train and hung him.
We have Boyds in the family. Belonged to the Boyds at one time. But that's from another yard boy's line.
This weekend we came across an old lady who knew the story, she was from another family in town who had talked about it for a long time. The story was that he was accused of telling a white lady that her perfume smelled good. The lady denied it up and down, said he never said a word to her. It was someone else who claimed he witnessed it. They took him out and lynched him. Before he died, he told them they were killing an innocent man, and he was putting a curse on them. Boydton was going to go down in poverty, and never amount to anything. Take a drive through Boydton and you'll see he got that right. (His brother and sister left town, said they were done being colored, moved to NY and nobody ever heard from them again.)
There's another story she told that bothers me even more. There was a boy a lot like my son, who was mixed race, but mostly white looking. He was left orphaned and his natural father took him into his home as a "yard boy" as they called them. He started to complain to his white family that there was a white girl that kept coming down to the creek and flirting with him. They told him to ignore her. He kept ignoring her and she ripped her clothes and claimed he raped her. He ran home and told them what had happened. They rushed to get him onto a train out of town, but not in time. Some men ripped him out of the train and hung him.
We have Boyds in the family. Belonged to the Boyds at one time. But that's from another yard boy's line.