Lynching redux

[George Thompson]

As regards the question of whether "lynching" always signified an extra-
legal execution, I have 3 very early occurences -- not antedatings,
however -- in which it did not.  By the end of the 19th C the word may
have been understood differently, of course.

After being lynched by the citizens, he was permitted to escape.  New-
York American, July 13, 1837, p. 2, col. 6

LYNCHING.  [The headline to a brief story: Anthony Gallagher was caught
stealing shoes from Anderson's shoe store, Chatham street; he's given
the choice of arrest or a beating]  New York Daily Express, March 27,
1838, p. 2, col. 3

1843:   Dr. Wells, of Madison county, Ohio, charged with habitually
whipping his wife, was lately taken from his house at night by some of
his neighbors and severely lynched.  New York Daily Express, March 8,
1843, p. 2, col. 4

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.