MOB LAW IN ORANGE COUNTY
A Daring Robbery Summarily Punished.
Two Robbers Taken from the Officers and Hanged.
Lost River Bridge Used as a Gallows.
Great Excitement among the Citizens.

 Southern Indiana has been again disgraced by the outrages of a mob and the course of law and order disregarded and set at defiance by men who have usurped the places of the administrators of justice and the executioners of the law.   Two more men have been taken from the custody of the officials and sent into eternity without trial and without a moment for preparation.  The particulars of this outrage are as follows:

On Wednesday night last, four men went to the residence of Mr. John Fisher, about three miles from Orleans, Orange County, and with a rail battered down the door.  They then entered the house, all of them undisguised and heavily armed, and one of them bearing a lighted lantern.  They demanded of Mr. Fisher, who was in bed with his wife and two small children, his money, threatening to kill him if he refused to deliver it to them.  Fisher had a revolver and threatened to use it in defense of his property; but the scoundrels told him if he attempted to do so they would kill him, his wife, and children; and under this threat and the importunities of his wife, he surrendered his pistol and money to the robbers, the money amounting to $150, and with their booty they left.

Mr. Fisher, after they had gone, went out and raised the alarm, and soon men were out upon all the roads leading from the place, in search of the daring robbers.  Two of them were captured at Mitchell Thursday night, but escaped.  They were still pursued, however, and on Saturday, were captured in Lawrence County, and taken on Sunday, to Paoli, and lodged in jail.  Their names were James Pickard and Lewis Tongarte, Tungate, both of them claiming to be residents of Owen County.

On Tuesday, Pickard and Tongarte Tungate were taken to Orleans for preliminary examination, and after a hearing, in which both were identified by Mr. Fisher, their victim, they were each held in the sum of $1,500 to answer a charge of robbery in the Orange Circuit Court.

About 10 o’clock last night they left Orleans, in charge of some twenty-five men, for the jail at Paoli.  But this they were destined never to reach.  The posse had proceeded with them to the bridge across Lost River, about four miles from Orleans, when of a sudden about a hundred men, all disguised in masks, rode out from a strip of woods and demanded the prisoners of their guard.  This demand was refused at first, but the guards were distinctly informed that resistance would be vain, and all the Vigilantes were well armed, and were determined to summarily execute the prisoners.

A scene of the wildest consternation ensued.  The guards were ordered to stand aside, and the trembling robbers begging and imploring in the wildest manner for mercy or time to prepare for death, were seized and their arms and legs pinioned.  Ropes were placed around their necks and, with no time for preparation for their awful fate, they were hurried to the bridge, the ends of the ropes thrown across a rafter, and they were then drawn up, the ropes made fast to a beam, and the struggle of death commenced.  The scene was a fearful and heart-sickening one.  The miserable wretches writhed fearfully, and it was fully ten minutes before the spasmodic motion of their bodies ceased.

The mob then dispersed, leaving the victims of their outrage hanging in the bridge, where they continued to hang until the Coroner and his posse reached the scene this forenoon, when they were cut down, and an inquisition held on their bodies.

The remains of one of the unfortunate men, Pickard, was sent by express to Farmer’s Station, in Owen County, today, in charge of his brother, who was compelled to stand by and witness this tragedy.  The other man, Tongate Tungate, was still on the round at the late of our dispatch, where he was hung.  He will have to be buried by the county.  No further particulars had been received up to the hour of going to press from our telegraphic correspondent, at Orleans, who furnished us with the foregoing particulars.

It is true there has been a fearful amount of crime committed in Orange County during the past five or six years; but this can in no way justify mob law.  There is no justification for such high-handed outrages, and it is time they were ended in this section of Indiana, by punishment of those engaged in them. It is just as much murder for an organized body of men to take a fellow-being and hang him, even after a trial by Judge Lynch, as it is for a single individual to shoot down his neighbor in cold blood.  We trust this Orange County affair will be thoroughly investigated by the legal authorities of the county, and those engaged in it made to answer for the great crime they have committed.

THE LATEST

Since the above was put in type we learn by a special dispatch from Bedford that Tongate Tungate and Pickard were arrested in Green County, Pickard residing in Greene, and Tongate Tungate in Orange County.

Two more of the robbers were arrested in Greene County today.  Their names are Dyer and Cooper, and they will be taken to Orleans for preliminary trial today.

The excitement of Orleans is intense, and it is believed that Dyer and Cooper will be taken from the officers and hung upon their arrival in that town.  Hundreds of people are today visiting the scene of the tragedy.

Published by The New Albany Ledger on October 26, 1870.   

Article was retyped for clarity.