Lynching of the Walker family

The lynching of the Walker family happened in Hickman, Fulton County, Kentucky on October 3, 1908 at the hands of about fifty anonymous Night Riders.^[1]

The killings

After patriarch David Walker refused to come out of his house, the Lynch mob poured coal oil on his house, and lit it afire. After Walker tried to plead for the safety of him and his family, he walked outside, and his body was riddled with bullets. The same thing happened when David Walker's wife came outside, holding a baby in her arms. "She held in her arms their infant child and begged the Night Riders for mercy. Disregarding her pleadings the infuriated mob opened fire and a bullet pierced the body of an infant in its mother's arms. A second shot struck the mother in the abdomen and she fell, still holding the dead body of her infant." When the 3 children came out, they were met with the same fate. Walker's eldest son, however, refused to leave the burning log cabin house. As the Courier-Journal noted, "There is hardly a doubt but the oldest son of Walker preferred death by burning rather than to placing himself as the mercy of the mob, and it is probable that his charred body will be found among the debris."^[2]

Some say that the total killed was 7,^[2] but another reference suspected the total killed was 8.^[3]

There's also a possibility that one or a few of the children survived.^[4]

Reason for the lynching

The reasons are not clear, though there's three possibilities. The Fulton County Night Riders justified their murders because David Walker had swore "at a white woman"^[5] An other possible reason was that Walker had a bad reputation, and was a "surly negro".^[6] Another possibility was that David Walker's neighbor wanted to take his 21 1/2 acres of land from him. After David Walker was killed, his adjacent neighbor absorbed Walker's property into his own. The neighbor sold it to another man, whose daughter owns the undeveloped property today.^[4]

Governor's reaction

Augustus E. Willson denounced the Night Riders for the lynching of David Walker and his family in Hickman. Willson said, "If two or three men had gone to this poor cabin and murdered this family, the crime would have shocked humanity with its revelation of incredible weakness, brutality and dastardly cowardice. That a larger number—some fifty men—joined in such a crime, multiplies it's cowardliness and wickedness fiftyfold, and makes every member of the band guilty of murder in the first degree." Willson took the Lynching of the Walker Family as "an outgrowth and the logical results of the toleration of night rider crimes in the state. It is only one step removed from civil war." Augustus offered a five hundred dollar reward for the arrest and conviction of any Night Rider who participated in the Walker family lynching. Willson also urged law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, promising a Governor's pardon to anyone who shot and killed a Night Rider.^[7]

David Walker, his wife, and 5 children perished at the hands of the Night Riders on that October night. Nobody was prosecuted for this crime.^[8]

See also

• Lynching of Marie Thompson of Shepherdsville
• Lynchings of Benjamin and Mollie French

References