1869-12-02
Orange County, NC
Alleged offense: Racially motivated (no alleged crime)
Race: Black
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Legal intervention (in alleged offense): No
Legal intervention (following lynching): Yes
Mob size: 100 (“a hundert”)
Mob members: None named
Alleged victim: N/A
Household Status: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
An mixed-race man named Cyrus Guy allegedly made a snide remark to a white woman, prompting a mob to form and kill him. Members of the mob cut Guy in order to write his sentence in blood above his body before hanging him. After the mob had lynched him, they left his body hanging in the tree on the highly-travelled intersection of Faucette Mill and Lebanon Road as a sign for other “Mulattos” in the area to know their place. Once the Sheriff took Guy’s body down from the tree, no one claimed it, and he was buried in the Orange County Poorhouse Cemetery. It is believed that the Klan was responsible.
Documentation
Death certificate:
Cyrus Guy Death Inquisition
Census: None found
News coverage:
Cyrus Guy Lynching
Location
Town: Efland, North Carolina
Latitude/Longitude: 36.101940, -79.177843
Rationale: Site was named as the “Old Orange County Poorhouse.”
Additional Resources:
Cyrus Guy Death; Orange County Lynching
Researcher’s Note: