The lynching of Leander Shaw occurred near midnight on July 29, 1908, in Pensacola, Florida. Shaw was accused of the attempted murder and rape of 21-year-old Lillie Davis. Shaw, being positively identified by Davis, was arrested and taken to jail. On the night of July 29, an angry mob shot the Escambia County Sheriff and hung Leander Shaw in Plaza Ferdinand VII.[1][2]
Assault of Davis and arrest of Shaw
Earlier on July 29, 1908, 21-year-old Lillie Davis was beaten and found, a victim of assault in her Gull Point home. Davis' husband absent at the time, the assailant raped her, slit her throat, beat her in the head with a Colt revolver he’d stolen from the home, and then fled. Davis' daughter had also been struck. Davis was taken to a nearby hospital.[3][4][5]
Lillie Davis and her daughter
Two hours later, a sheriff’s deputy arrested Leander Shaw near the bridge over Bayou Texar, “realizing in an instant he had caught the negro brute.” The still-bloody knife and stolen revolver were reportedly found on Shaw. Shaw was taken to the hospital Davis was being treated at, where she recognized Shaw in an instant as the man responsible for the assault. Shaw was taken into custody and was held at the county jail. Lillie Davis died three days later, on August 1.[3][4]
Gentlemen, here I am. You can kill me if you want to, but if you get my prisoner, it will be over my dead body. I have sworn to do my duty, and I am going to do it if I die for it!
At 8:45, the mob stormed the jail, using a section of the streetcar rail to break down the jail yard gate. There was a volley from the second story windows of the jail building, where several deputies were stationed. Sheriff Van Pelt talked for thirty minutes before him and his deputies opened fire on the mob. A firefight began, several men on both sides being injured. Two people died, including "Bud" Nichols, a member of the mob who was shot in the head, and street car conductor Henry C. Kellum, who was shot in the heart accidentally, when the revolver of Sheriff Van Pelt was discharged while in his pocket.[4][3][5]
Sheriff James C. Van Pelt in 1904
At about 11:30, about a dozen members of the mob scaled the rear wall of the jail and entered the backyard. Proceeding quietly, while the officers were busily engaged with the mob in front, the dozen men leaped upon them, kept a number of them to the floor, while others kept deputies at gunpoint. Keys to the jail were taken from Deputy Cusachs. The mob took Shaws, attached a noose to his neck, and dragged him through east on Zarragossa street to Tarragona, before taking him to Plaza Ferdinand VII, where the crowd attached the rope to an electric pole, hung him, and shot his body with more than 500 bullets. In the final attack, H. C. Kellum was also killed. It is believed that Kellum received his death wound when a group of four or five men were engaged in overpowering Van Pelt.[4][3][5][6]
