1900 Colorado newspaper NEGR0 JOHN PORTER LYNCHED at Limon CO He is BURNED ALIVE

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1900 Colorado newspaper NEGR0 JOHN PORTER LYNCHED at Limon CO He is BURNED ALIVE
1900 Colorado newspaper 16 year old NEGR0 JOHN PORTER is LYNCHED at Limon COLORADO - He is BURNED ALIVE at the stake
- inv # 7M-234
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SEE PHOTO(s) - COMPLETE ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER, the
Denver Examiner
(CO) dated Nov 17, 1900. This original newspaper contains a prominent front page headline: "RAVISHER AND MURDERER BURNED AT THE STAKE" with a long detailed account of the
LYNCHING (by burning alive) of a 16 year old NEGR0, JOHN PORTER, for the rape and murder of a young white girl in Limon, CO
.
Very horrific description of the lynching of John Porter, Jr in LIMON, Colorado
The Town of Limon is the Statutory Town that is the most populous municipality in Lincoln County, Colorado,. Limon was the site of a lynching on November 16, 1900. Preston Porter Jr, a sixteen-year-old African-American male, had confessed under duress to the murder of eleven-year-old Louise Frost who was Caucasian. Porter was apparently being held some 90 miles away in Denver, but was sent back to Limon by request of unspecified people and against the wishes of Sheriff Freeman. When the train carrying Porter stopped in Limon, sixteen men selected from a mob of 300 "marked by calmness and determination" took Porter from Freeman's custody despite the sheriff's protestations "in the name of law." Originally it was announced that Porter would be hanged but many in the crowd including R. W. Frost, the girl's father, objected "that such a death would be too easy." The method was left to Frost who decided upon burning at the stake. Frost also refused to allow mutilation of Porter's body before burning. While waiting for his execution, Porter sat next to a bonfire reading the Gospel of Luke from the Bible. Porter was chained to an iron railroad rail set in the ground on the exact spot where the murder had taken place and burned to death, the match to start the fire being set by the girl's father.
On November 16, 1900, a sixteen-year-old Black teenager named Preston “John” Porter Jr. was burned alive while chained to a railroad stake in Limon, Colorado. A mob of more than 300 white people from throughout Lincoln County gathered to participate in the brutal public spectacle lynching.
Earlier in the year, Preston, his father, Preston Porter Sr., and his brother, Arthur Porter, moved to the Limon, Colorado, area from Lawrence, Kansas, to seek work on the railroad. When a white girl named Louise Frost was found dead in Limon on November 8, a search began for possible suspects. Newspapers reported that the Porter family had left Limon for Denver a few days after the girl was found dead, and white authorities focused suspicions on them. On November 12, all three were arrested and taken to the city jail in Denver.
During this era, the deep racial hostility that permeated American society burdened Black people and communities with presumptions of guilt and dangerousness when crimes were discovered. Allegations against Black people were rarely subject to serious scrutiny, and mere accusations of assault or violence by a Black person towards a white person often incited mob violence and the threat of lynching.
After the Porters had been in jail for four days, newspapers reported that Preston had confessed to the crime “in order to save his father and brother from sharing the fate that he believes awaits him.” Black suspects were often subjected to beatings, torture, and threats of lynching during police interrogations. While news reports often reported these confessions as justifications for the brutal terror lynchings that followed, the confession of a lynching victim was always more reliable evidence of fear than guilt.
Despite the Governor's order to not transfer Preston back to Lincoln County for at least eight days following Preston's confession, the sheriff of Lincoln County prematurely transported Preston by train from the Denver jail to return to Lincoln County. When the train stopped just outside of Limon, a mob of 300 or more people - including Louise Frost’s father - were waiting. Newspapers described the lynching as follows:
[Preston] was said to have been reading a Bible and was allowed to pray before his lynching. When the flames reached his body, reports documented his screams for help as he writhed in pain, crying, “Oh my God, let me go men!...Please let me go. Oh, my God, my God!” When the ropes binding [Preston] to the stake had burned through, such that his body had fallen partially out of the fire, members of the mob threw additional kerosene oil over him and added wood to the fire. It was reported that [Preston's] last words were “Oh, God, have mercy on these men, on the little girl and her father!”
Despite ample press coverage identifying multiple members of the mob, no investigation into the lynching was conducted and the coroner concluded Preston died “at the hands of parties unknown.” His father and brother afterward left Colorado to return to Kansas, and soon afterward the Colorado legislature voted to reinstate the state’s death penalty to avoid future “lawlessness” like the lynching in Limon.
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