Fiendish Act Summarily Avenged by an indignant People

Below we give an account of the hanging of one John J. Moore of Spartanburg County, for murder and rape upon the person of a poor but responsible young lady by the name of Fanny Heaton on the 5th inst. We omit some of the details of the crime as being too revolting and, in our opinion, unfit to appear in the column of a journal that reaches the homes of virtuous and refined people. We take the account from the Spartanburg Herald and with the editor of that journal would have preferred that the villain had explained his crime upon a legal gallows; at the same time we are impelled to believe, from the many outrages committed of late upon defenceless women and little girls, that the law is too tardy and uncertain in dealing with the devils who commit them. Our mothers, wives, daughters and sisters, of all ages, are not safe from the pollution of the lecherous villains now infesting the country, and as escapes from jails are frequent and punishment by law uncertain, we are inclined to wink at the decision of Judge Lynch in such aggravated cases and where there is no doubt as to the victim being the right man.

An inquest held by Trial Justice T.P. Gaston over the dead body of a white woman found near John J. Moore's distillery, about thirteen miles above Spartanburg, developed the following facts: Miss Francis Heaton, a young lady of good character and respectable family, from Pickens County, came on foot to the house of John J. Moore on Thursday the 5th inst., to inquire where Mr. Paschal O'Shields a relative of hers lived. She stayed there to dinner and after dinner John J. Moore started with her, against her protest, to show her the way to Mr. Jefferson O'Shield's house. Her body was found on Sunday the 8th inst., by parties noticing buzzards hovering around the spot in the woods only about a half-mile from Moore's house. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition and partly devoured by the buzzards when discovered, but it was plain to be seen that she had been outraged, and shot in the breast and her throat cut.

The verdict of the Jury of Inquest was that she had come to her death from the wounds mentioned, and that the jurors believe that the wounds were inflicted by weapons in the hands of John J. Moore. upon this finding John J. Moore was arrested Monday night, 9th inst., and brought here and put in jail on the 10th inst.

Further facts having since been discovered tending more conclusively to convict Moore of the diabolical act, public indignation rose to the highest pitch and on Monday night a body of mounted men, estimated at between two and three hundred, approached the town about 11 o'clock at night, for the purpose of taking John J. Moore out and hanging him. News of the approach of the body of armed men was whispered about town late in the evening and considerable excitement was created. Sheriff Thompson endeavored to get up a posse comitatus to guard the jail, and a collision being apprehended, efforts were made to induce the mounted men to desist from their purpose. Their minds, however, were made up and they rode into the town, and surrounded the jail, demanding the prisoner. The Sheriff, finding that he could not get up a posse comitatus sufficient to protect the prisoner secretly took the prisoner out of jail, under guard, and had carried him off and secreted him just outside the limits of the town. The mounted men searched every cell and room in the jail, and upon being satisfied that the prisoner had been carried off, they scattered in every direction and continued their search until they found the prisoner under the Chinquepin trestle of the Air-Line Railroad, one mile from town, where Sheriff Thompson had left him in hand cuffs under guard, with orders to take the cars on the 12 o'clock train towards Charlotte.

Taking possession of the prisoner they rallied their forces and rode through town with their prisoner and carried him off to the spot where he had committed his diabolical deed and hung him, we are informed by a person present, at 8 o'clock this (Tuesday) Morning in the presence of about one thousand persons, among whom were two sisters of the lady whom he had murdered, who arrived from Pickens yesterday. He was permitted to take leave of his family and was placed in a buggy under a tree to the limb of which a rope was tied and adjusted around his neck. He was then given permission to speak and made a few remarks, denying his guilt and saying "that he didn't blame them, thinking as they did, for what they were about to do, but hoped that after he was dead the right man would be found and they would say that John Moore, for once, spoke the truth." When he closed his remarks the buggy was driven from under him and his body hung until life was extinct.

Thus ended the career of John J. Moore, a man of notoriously bad character - perhaps the worst man that ever lived in Spartanburg County - a man who, himself, had admitted that "he had committed every crime known to the law, except suicide." It is a monument to the peace and law abiding character of our people that he has been permitted to live in this County, implicated, as he has been, in so many crimes and rascalities. There is no doubt of his being guilty of the infamous crimes for which he has been summarily executed by our incensed citizens, and he has received his just deserts none too soon. And yet we regret that the lawful gallows has been cheated out of its victim. Convinced of this guilt and believing that he deserved such a fate, and even a worse fate if possible, we made an honest effort to prevent it, not for his sake, but that the law might be vindicated, believing that it would have a better effect upon the country at large that such a fiend should be tried, convicted and hung according to law, however heinous the crimes of which he was guilty. Similar efforts were made by others but of no avail. The men who came and took him off and executed him were prompted, we know, by the best of motives. It was no excited mob of men, under the influence of liquor, but was composed of some of the best men in the country who were determined to rid this county of a villain of the deepest dye. While we think it was wrong because the law should take its course under any and all circumstances, yet we are free to say that if Lynch Law ever was justifiable in any case, it was in this one, and the hanging was done publicly by unmasked men, in open daylight, in the presence of a thousand spectators.