1898 America: The Burning of Baker, McGeisey & Sampson

Season 40: America's 250th Anniversary -- 50 states, 25 double-feature episodes. Two fires burned in 1898America. One in South Carolina, where a mob murdered a Black postmaster and his two-year-old daughter. Onein Indian Territory, where a mob burned two Seminole teenagers alive. Both cases reached federal court. Neitherdelivered justice.Frazier Baker held a federal appointment. Lincoln McGeisey and Palmer Sampson were teenagers with noconnection to the crime they died for. The federal government proved it could indict in both cases. What it couldnot do -- or chose not to do -- was convict. This is the story of 1898, when America showed exactly what it waswilling to tolerate.The VictimsFrazier Baker was born around 1857 in Effingham, Florence County, South Carolina. He became a schoolteacher,then a postmaster. On July 30, 1897, the McKinley administration appointed him the first Black postmaster ofLake City, Williamsburg County. He and his wife Lavinia had six children: Rosa, Cora, Lincoln, Sarah, Millie, and theyoungest, Julia, who was two years old in the winter of 1898. Baker refused to abandon his federal post despitethreats, a shooting, an arson, and a boycott. He stayed.Lincoln McGeisey was fifteen or sixteen years old. His father, Thomas McGeisey, was the superintendent of theSeminole Nation's public schools and was in Washington, D.C., negotiating on behalf of his people when the mobtook his son. Lincoln had four siblings -- Martha, Nora, William, and James -- and had never been in trouble. PalmerSampson was also a teenager, the son of Sukey Natuksie and Sampson Walker. Congress formally exoneratedboth young men within six months of their deaths, declaring them innocent before a single defendant stood trial.The CrimesOn February 22, 1898, at approximately 1:00 in the morning, a mob surrounded Frazier Baker's home in Lake City,South Carolina -- which also served as the post office. They set fire to the building and fired approximately onehundred bullets into the structure while the Baker family was inside. Frazier Baker was killed. Two-year-old JuliaBaker died from a bullet that passed through her mother Lavinia's forearm. Three more Baker children survivedwith gunshot wounds.On January 8, 1898, shortly after 2:00 in the morning, Lincoln McGeisey and Palmer Sampson were chained totrees at the Maud tabernacle in Indian Territory. A minister named Andrew J. Mathis prayed over them, then setfire to the dry brush heaped around them. A crowd numbering in the hundreds watched. Three white Protestantministers were documented as present. Neither teenager had been formally charged, brought before any legalauthority, or connected by evidence to the murder of Mary Leard, the crime the mob claimed to be avenging.The InvestigationIn March 1898, journalist and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett organized a delegation to the WhiteHouse, meeting President McKinley. She was the sole woman in a group that included eight Illinois congressmen.She demanded federal action and a federal anti-lynching law.In the Baker case, thirteen men were indicted on twenty-four criminal counts in April 1899. Joseph P. Newhamtestified under immunity, admitting in open court that he personally started the fire. An all-white jury inCharleston, South Carolina, acquitted three defendants outright and deadlocked on the remaining eight. Thejudge declared a mistrial. No one was ever convicted for the murder of Frazier Baker or Julia Baker.In the Seminole burning case, more than fifty people were indicted. Fifty-four were tried. The prosecutionsucceeded in convicting six individuals, including Nelson M. Jones, a former Deputy U.S. Marshal whose federalstatus made the prosecution legally viable, and Andrew J. Mathis, the minister who set the fire. It was the firstsuccessful prosecution of lynchers in the American Southwest. When convicted mob member Mont Ballardreturned to Maud after serving seven years, the town threw him a celebration.Historical...