The Sun (New York), 15 March 1891, page 2: The slaughter at the prison

Page 2 of The Sun, New York, Sunday, 15 March 1891, continues a report from New Orleans that begins on page 1, which was not opened for this record. The first column carries the subheads “The Slaughter at the Prison. How the Mob Secured an Entrance and then Shot Down the Sicilians” and, further on, “After the Lynching.” The right-hand columns carry related items, among them “What Led to Lynch Law” and a report on the New York paper L’Eco d’Italia.

The page describes armed men marching to the Parish Prison and surrounding it. The Library of Congress OCR of this passage is poor; read from the page image, it says the main body drew up “in front of the main gate on Orleans street, other squads went to Treme, Marais, and St. Anne streets, completely surrounding the prison.” It reports that the prison’s keeper refused the keys, that a side door on Marais Street was battered in, and that men inside shot prisoners. Under “After the Lynching” it reports a speech by W. S. Parkerson, named as the mob’s commander, saying the blame rested with the jury in the Hennessy case.

This is a newspaper account, filed while the events were fresh, with the paper’s own framing in its headlines. This archive cites it for the place and the streets around the prison. It does not take a casualty count from this page, names no one beyond the speaker the page itself names, and does not reproduce the page’s language about the victims beyond the printed subhead.