On Friday, February 3, 1893, Henry Smith wasย lynchedย in Paris, Texas, in front of an estimated 15,000 spectators. Hisย death was one of the earliest spectacle lynchings on record. The heinousness of Smithโs death captured the attention of journalist and anti-lynching advocateย Ida B. Wells. She included a detailed description of the event in her seminal The Red Record, a work that sought to expose the iniquities of racialized mob violence.
Smith was implicated in the death of Myrtle Vance, a four-year-old white girl and daughter of Henry Vance, a Paris police officer. Her body was found in the woods near Paris on January 27. Considered inoffensive and feeble-minded by many Paris residents, Smith supported himself through odd jobs at the homes of local whites. Despite his seemingly harmless disposition, his encounters with the childโs father seemed to make him an easy target for suspicion. Henry Vance, a man known for his temper and mistreatment of prisoners, had arrested Smith and beaten him for disorderly conduct and drunkenness several days prior to Myrtleโs murder. Some local residents contended that Smith exacted the crime against Myrtle in revenge.
After discovering that he was named a suspect, Smith fled to Detroit,ย Michigan, then boarded a freight train and headed for his previous residence inย Arkansas. Perhaps Smith believed he could find a safe harbor in his former hometown.ย He was captured in Hope, Arkansas, more than one hundred miles from Paris. News of Smithโs impending return spread across portions of Arkansas and Texas. Citizens of Paris quickly announced the day and time that Smith would be tortured and burned as no trial was intended.
When the train carrying Smith back to Paris pulled into the station at Texarkana, 5,000 people awaited his arrival.ย He was placed atop a platform (described by some as being like a float in a parade) that carried him to a scaffold specially constructed near Paris with the monikerย justice written across the front. Eventually, 15,000 spectators gathered at the scaffold, with men, women, and children straining their necks and straddling other spectators to obtain an unobstructed view.
Relatives of Vance stood on the shoddy wooden platform beside Smith and began to cut his shirt, piece by piece, from his body and toss the pieces to the crowd as souvenirs. They then applied hot iron rods to his torso, plunging them down his throat and into his eyes. He was then doused in oil and set on fire, which made Smith scream in agony. As he and the coals beneath him began to burn, Smith attempted to escape the platform and fell ten feet to the ground. He was lassoed and lifted back into the fire by members of the mob.
Appalled by the lynching, Texas Governor Stephen Hogg dispatched a telegram to the Sheriff of Lamar County the day following Smithโs burning, requesting that those responsible be arrested. Despite both the governorsโ plea for justice and the public nature of the crime, no one was ever arrested for the torture and murder of Henry Smith.
Nearly two weeks following Smithโs death, a group of white men hanged William Butler, Smithโs stepson, in nearby Hickory Creek for allegedly concealing information regarding Smithโs location. Butlerโs murderers were also never punished.
