Hamp Biscoe, his wife and a thirteen-year-old son.  Hamp Biscoe, it appears, was a hard working, thrifty farmer, who lived near England, Arkansas, upon a small farm with his family.  The investigation of the tragedy was conducted by a resident of Arkansas named R.B.  Caries, a white man, who furnished the account to the Arkansas Democrat over his own signature.  He says the original trouble which led to the lynching was a quarrel between Biscoe and a white man about a debt.  About six years after Biscoe preempted his land, a white man made a demand of $100 upon him for services in showing him the land and making the sale.  Biscoe denied the service and refused to pay the demand.  The white man, however, brought suit, obtained judgment for the hundred dollars and Biscoe’s farm was sold to pay the judgment.

The suit, judgment and subsequent legal proceedings appear to have driven Biscoe almost crazy and brooding over his wrongs he grew to be a confirmed imbecile.  He would allow but few men, white or colored, to come upon his place, as he suspected every stranger to be planning to steal his farm.  A week preceding the tragedy, a white man named Venable, whose farm adjoined Biscoe’s, let down the fence and proceeded to drive through Biscoe’s field.  The latter saw him; grew very excited, cursed him and drove him from his farm with bitter oaths and violent threats.  Venable went away and secured a warrant for Biscoe’s arrest.  This warrant was placed in the hands of a constable named John Ford, who took a colored deputy and two white men out to Biscoe’s farm to make the arrest.  When they arrived at the house Biscoe refused to be arrested and warned them he would shoot if they persisted in their attempt to arrest him.  The warning was unheeded by Ford, who entered upon the premises, when Biscoe, true to his word, fired upon him.  The load tore a part of his clothes from his body, one shot going through his arm and entering his breast.  After he had fallen, Ford drew his revolver and shot Biscoe in the head and his wife through the arm.  The Negro deputy then began firing and struck Biscoe in the small of the back.  Ford’s wound was not dangerous and in a few days he was able to be around again.  Biscoe, however, was so severely shot that he was unable to stand after the firing was over.

Two other white men hearing the exchange of shots went to the rescue of the officers, forced open the door of Biscoe’s cabin and arrested him, his wife and thirteen-year-old son, and took them, together with a babe at the breast, to a small frame house near the depot and put them under guard.  The subsequent proceedings were briefly told by Mr. Carlee in the columns of the Arkansas Democrat above mentioned, from whose account the following excerpt is taken: