Negro Escapes From Mob

• Walter Clayton (Attempted Lynching)

Mobile, Ala., April 6. – A long distance telephone message from Sheriff Booth of Baldwin county at Bay Minette tonight says that Governor Comer has offered a reward of $100 for the recapture of Walter Clayton, the negro rapist, who was taken out by a mob of lynchers on Saturday night at Bay Minette and supposedly lynched. The citizens of Bay Minette have added $50 to this reward.

Clayton is reported as having been seen by employes of the Hand Lumber Company, operators of the convict stockade, where he had been a prisoner, within three miles of Bay Minette late this afternoon. Sheriff Booth telephoned this information to Chief of Police Rondeau of this city.

Sheriff Booth tonight admited that Clayton escaped from the mob of would-be lynchers about daylight Sunday morning. He says the members of the mob were drunk and no intelligent explanation of the manner in which the negro got away has been offered. Clayton was seen by Frank Nipart, a school teacher, about one and a half miles from Bay Minette this afternoon and he reported the facts to the officers.

The warden at Dolive convict camp, at which Clayton was a trust, although serving 15 years for murdering a white man in Mobile, secured two bloodhounds and followed the trail of the negro for one and a half miles, when the scent was lost. Two other dogs were obtained and the trail again taken up. A large posse is scouring the woods for the negro.

“Negro Escapes From Mob.” The Democrat-Reporter (Linden, AL), April 9, 1908.