Wheeling Sunday Register

HE HAD SAND
In His Composition And Plenty at That.
Swung off By a Lynching Party From a High Bridge
A Tennessee Criminal Climbs Up the Rope Hand Over Hand
Amid a Shower of Bullets and Almost Escapes.

KNOXVILLE, TENN., September 4.-Last night about 10:30 a large body of masked men passed down Gay street in the direction of the jail. They were joined at various points along the street by about two hundred citizens. The mob approached the jail in perfect order, except the firing of pistols. The jailer surrendered the keys to the main entrance and the crowd broke through the door of the cell containing Lee Sellers, the young man charged with the murder and robbery of Edgar Mains last Tuesday morning, one mile east of this city. Sellers had a knife in his possession, and when one of the vigilantes went in the cell to adjust the hand cuffs he gave him two or three very serious stabs. Both doors were soon battered down and masked vigilantes shot at Sellers twice without inflicting serious wounds. Seizing Sellers the mob poured out of the jail yard and to the middle of the high bridge over the Tennessee river. A rope was placed around the criminal's neck while he was yet in the corridor of the jail. He stood with arms folded and never flinched while the knot was being arranged. He called for a drink of water before leaving for the bridge. His wishes were complied with. After reaching the middle of the bridge the mob halted and demanded a confession. Sellers refused to say a word and the rope was placed over the cross beam, about twenty-two feet above the floor, and he was swung off. He was not handcuffed, and as soon as the noose began to tighten
He Climbed Up Hand Over Hand
and gained the top. He crawled along the cross beams to one side of the bridge. While he was crossing at least fifty shots were fired, none of them with fatal effect. He rose to his feet and yelled at the top of his voice: "My friends, come to me. I'm murdered; come quick!" The wounded man then lay down on a sleeper and several more shots were fired, but none of them could hit him in a vital part.
Runners were sent to the city for ladders and another rope. The rope was ordered and but few people outside of those implicated knew anything about it. Young men at a ball left the dancing and followed the masked men in swallow tails. After the ladders were brought two men climbed up to the top stringers to readjust the rope. Sellers had taken the rope from around his neck and begged the crowd to kill him and end his sufferings. The men started out to take him down. He lost his hold and fell into the edge of the water eighty feet below. He has not been found yet. He protested his innocence to the very last. Mains was a traveling salesman for a wholesale house of this city, and was found murdered one mile east of here, September 1st. He was known to have a large sum of money on his person, and it was shown very conclusively that he had been beguiled by Sellers to a remote spot and killed. Mains was very popular, and was engaged to be married.