It happened in Oscarville: The Tragedy of Forsyth County.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Forsyth County was mostly rural and white. There were small contingents of African Americans living in pockets in areas like Big Creek, Sawnee Mountain, and Oscarville, but for the most part, they were poor and lived a hardscrabble existence. In September and October, several heinous crimes drew the ire of the White community.

After the slaves of the South became Freedmen, they competed for the same resources as the whites. In times of economic hardship, blacks often found themselves as targets of racial injustice. Groups of vigilantes appeared not just in the southern states, but throughout the nation. Often referred to as Night Riders, white men would don dark outfits, and riding horses, would harry the blacks of the United States. Atrocious tactics were routinely used by the Night Riders. Their methods included arson, mutilation, torture, rape, hanging, dragging by vehicles, and excessive gunfire, many of them ending in murder.

In September 1912, a white woman from Forsyth County named Ellen Grice claimed she was "awakened by the presence of a negro man in her bed." Eventually, bloodhounds and posses headed out in search of her would-be assailant. A teenager named Toney Howell and a few other men were detained as possible suspects.

Word quickly reached the people of Cumming that Ellen was injured. Tensions escalated and a mob gathered in town. A black preacher named Grant Smith made the mistake of speaking out against the bloodthirsty desires of the throng and was nearly beaten to death.

Out of concern for not being able to quell the crowd, Mayor Charlie Harris of Cumming called Governor Joseph Mackey Brown, for backup. Two elite units of the state militia were deployed to keep the peace: The Candler Horse Guards and the Marietta Rifles. To the chagrin of most of the residents in the square, the units arrived and safely escorted the accused away to the jail in Marietta.

A few days later, 18-year-old Mae Crow of Oscarville in Forsyth County went missing. Mae was supposed to have walked to her aunt's house, but she never arrived. Mae's father went searching for her at night. Groups of men joined in the search with no success. By daybreak, she was still missing.

Mae Crow, victim of murder and rape in 1912.

By the next day, the worst fears of any parent were realized as Mae was found nearly dead in a large pool of blood and deep wounds. Soon a 16-year-old black boy named Ernest Knox was questioned by a white man named Marvin Bell. He was threatened that if he didn't confess he would be hung. Like the criminal confession practices of medieval Europe, torture, and/or the threat of torture to garner a confession, was the flavor of the day (at least when it came to the treatment of blacks.)

After Bell got his confession by placing Knox under duress, he drove him to the Sheriff in Gainesville. It didn't take long for mobs to form near the jail and the suspect was moved again, this time to 'the Tower' in Atlanta for safety.

The Tower of Fulton County where the suspects of Mae Crow's death were held for their safety.

The citizens of Forsyth, having been robbed of their opportunity to hold someone accountable without the constraints of using the law, captured a field worker named Rob Edwards at Marcus Waldrip's property in Oscarville. Sheriff Reid and Deputy Lummus stopped the mob from burning Edwards on the spot and raced back to the Cumming jail.

His reprieve was brief. After securing Edwards in the jail, he left Lummus alone and walked out of the jail, through the crowd and out of sight. It didn't take long for a Blacksmith to pry open the jail door with a metal bar and sledgehammer. The mob stormed the jail and dragged Rob Edwards into the square.

Within minutes, he was hung by a telephone pole, dead, and hundreds of people gleefully shot bullets into his lifeless body.

This lynching in Cobb County, was very similar to the one which happened to Rob Edwards in Cumming.

Not satiated, the crowd headed for Marietta to get vengeance on the remaining suspects of Mae Crow's attack. Sheriff Reid returned to the jail and placed a call to the judge in Marietta, warning him of the oncoming assault. The judge arranged for the teens to be taken to Fulton's Tower and by the time the mob arrived, the prisoners were transferred to safety.

The next day, Edwards was cut down and examined by the coroner. He concluded that he died from blunt force trauma to the head and from hundreds of gunshot wounds. Many of the black residents in the county took the hanging body as a warning to leave the county.

An arson of a white man's storehouse happened and was interpreted as evidence of an uprising from the local blacks. Next Rob Edwards' wife Jane, her brother, and a neighbor were arrested as accomplices. Mayor Harris quickly moved them to the Fulton Tower to prevent a repeat of the earlier jail bust and hanging.

Things grew quiet in Cumming during the day, the trials were postponed, and local life returned to normal. The same was not so at night. Groups of terrorists would travel around the county threatening the black families to leave and in some cases forcing them to.

Then news broke of Mae's death. Within two weeks of her attack, she finally succumbed.

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Within a month, more than 20 houses occupied by blacks were burned down and five black churches were destroyed. Within a few months, most of the blacks had been driven away, with only the few who worked for the wealthy whites staying behind.

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The Trials of Ernest Knox And Oscar Daniel for the murder of Mae Crow, with Oscar's sister Jane Daniels being tried as an accomplice; and of Toney Howell for the rape of Ellen Grice, were all set on October 3rd. 1912 at the Forsyth County Courthouse in Cumming.

Old Cumming Courthouse, burned in 1973

The Governor declared a state of martial law for the area.

The four accused and two witnesses were then escorted from the Tower in Atlanta by the National Guard to the train station.

Left to right: Jane Daniel, Oscar Daniel, Toney Howell, Ed Collins, Isaiah Pirkle, and Ernest Knox. Of the six, the child seated the second from the left side and the child on the far right were hung.

They traveled by rail to the nearest location in Buford, Georgia. After arriving, 167 armed troops marched the prisoners 13 miles to Cumming.

A twelve-member White jury was selected for the trial. Among them were two men, who along with Cumming's Sheriff Reid, would become active members of the local Klan in the 1920s.

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In the meantime, in response to the terror tactics of Night Riders and angry whites, a mass exodus of black people ensued. Neighboring counties reported on the event as if they were refugees. In reality, they were.

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Within a few weeks, the white members of the community attempted to stop the exodus of the blacks. They tried enlisting the help of a judge, Sheriff, and the Governor. It was too late. The Governor refused to get more involved, Sheriff Reid was a part of the problem, and the judge was more concerned with arresting moonshiners than the men who threatened the blacks. Although, candidly, many of the moonshiners were Night Riders. It was far more illegal in the eyes of the locals to evade taxes than to threaten, arson, or dynamite black families and homes.

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On October 2, 1912, the four accused as well as two witnesses would be transported by the Georgia National Guard to the Atlanta train terminal. The train only went as far as Buford. From there, they marched on foot to Cumming. Soon the trial would commence and Ernest Knox, Oscar Daniel, Jane Daniel, and Toney Howell would take place.

Jane Daniel, Oscar Daniel, and Toney Howell being escorted to the Atlanta train terminal.

After getting little rest the night before, the prisoners were marched to the courthouse in Cumming. Jane, having spoken in private the night before to the authorities, suddenly decided to change her testimony. Now, Ernest and Oscar, as well as her husband, demanded she hold the lantern while they had their way with Mae Crow.

The jury found the two men guilty. Ernest and Oscar were both sentenced to die by hanging within one mile of the courthouse. The execution was set for October 25th.

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Dr. Ansel Strickland, a descendant of one of the most notable slaveholding families in North Georgia, lived less than a mile from the courthouse. His grandfather, Henry Strickland, moved to Gwinett County in 1828. At the age of 80, Henry owned 1,800 acres of land.

People gather on October 25th for the execution at the Strickland property.

The night before the hanging, someone had snuck into the gallows and burned down all the walls for privacy. The murder wasn't supposed to be visible to everyone. Except the hillside to the back left of his house formed a neat little ring, just high enough for them to sit on the hills with an unobstructed view. The military constructed a 100-yard fence to keep the public back from the spectacle.

The day came and Ernest and Daniel were hung to death. Neither of them had anything to do with the murder of Mae Crow, although the newspapers reported Ernest confessed right before his execution. Oscar Daniel maintained his innocence and silence until the end.

Within a year or so, nearly all the African-Americans in Forsyth County, over 87 percent of them were forced into exile into adjacent counties. And their houses and properties, if not destroyed by arson, were depredated, or stolen by avaricious white men.

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Seventy-five years later, in January 1987, a series of protests over the span of two weeks were carried out by Civil Rights leaders Hosea Williams, and other members of the African American community.

The first march of about 75 African Americans, was led by Hosea Williams. They met with resistance from 400 members of the KKK and other White Supremacist groups. The total number of protestors from both sides totaled over 21,000 during the second week. Among the KKK, was David Duke, a KKK member who made an unsucccessful run for President.

Two weeks later, a little known (then) interviewer Oprah Winfrey, left her studio in Chicago for the first time, and came into Forsyth County to film an episode for her five month old TV show.

A video of her episode can be seen at the link below:

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I visited Dr. Ansel Strickland's home in 2024. Looking at the topographic maps, it becomes clear the executions happened on an adjacent property today, but in his time, the land belonged to him. He donated the use of his land for the execution as well as the wood for the scaffolding, gallows for the hanging, and the surrounding fences. Ansel made no qualms about his feelings about blacks. In his words, "I say this hanging was a legal hanging, because it was the will of at least half of the citizens."

Dr. Ansel Strickland's home in downtown Cumming. The gallows and lynching took place on his land.

I understand that the world was a different place back in 1912, but it certainly wasn't better.