Remembering a 19th-century lynching near my church
A historian contacted us about a tour of sites where mobs had lynched people—including the locust tree across from our sanctuary.
I opened up the email late in the evening, one forwarded to me by the web admin of our little church. It was one of those messages from the website that we get every now and again, as someone tries to be in touch with the church. This one from a local historian in the county who was doing an event in our little town through the local historical society and wanted to know if we’d be willing to connect with him about it.
The event: a lynching tour. In June of 1880, a black man in Poolesville, Maryland, named George Peck was accused of molesting a white girl. He was arrested, but a mob formed, overpowered the arresting officer, and lynched him. A Washington Post article describing the event gives a very specific location for his death: a locust tree, in a field directly across the road from a Presbyterian church. According to the article, the body was still hanging from the tree on Sunday morning as worshipers were going to church.
There is and has been only one Presbyterian church in Poolesville. Mine.
