Plantation Field is actually listed as being in Coatesville. There was a guy in Coatesville named Zachariah. Back in 1911 he got into more than a little bit of trouble that led to him shooting an officer of the law. He then attempted suicide, but failed.
He was hospitalized and chained to his bed. A mob of 2000 people went to the hospital, dragged him out, bed and all and lynched him.
He was the last recorded person lynched in Pennsylvania.
Usually lynching is thought of as hanging, but Zachariah was placed on a fire and burned to death.
Now I do not need to tell you that nobody was convicted for this.
So in 1911 in Coatesville Pennsylvania a black man can be dragged out of a hospital, burned on the street with 2000 people watching, and nobody faces any consequences for that.
The history of Chester County is complicated, so I cannot say with the assurance that others here have, that there is no malign intent to the naming of Plantation Fields.
“When the Klan staged its first organizational rally in July 1924 in quiet and decorous West Chester, a community with a small black and immigrant population – but a good number of Quakers – a crowd of several hundred surrounded Memorial Hall, greeted the Klan with boos and hisses, and called out their names to shame them publicly. KKK gatherings in the counties surrounding Philadelphia often drew crowds who attacked the organization’s members.”
Below was published in 2000.
"On the evening of Aug. 13, 1911, in the little town of Coatesville in Chester County, a black man named Zacariah Walker, arrested for killing a policeman but not yet formally charged, was dragged from his hospital bed by an angry white mob.
The citizens of Coatesville bound him to a bed of straw, then set the straw on fire. The onlookers who watched Zack Walker die that Sunday night included the men, women and children of a Christian congregation fresh from church.
“The tidal wave of Lynch law has invaded the envied borders of Pennsylvania, and the fair State suffers a severe fall from her historic place of honor,” wrote the Pittsburgh Courier on Aug. 19, 1911, in an editorial on Walker’s lynching."
"In Pennsylvania, there were three lynchings, according to a black genealogy Web site that draws its information from two books, Ralph Ginzburg’s “100 Years of Lynching,” published in 1962, and W. Fitzhugh Brundage’s 1993 “Lynching in the New South.”
The same source – Christine’s African American Genealogy and Black History Web site – reports eight lynchings in Ohio, 24 in West Virginia, 118 in South Carolina and 237 in Mississippi. (Christine Charity’s Web site [http://ccharity.com/] is one of the most comprehensive online sources for information about lynchings.)"
Maybe someone can see if there were more uncovered since 2000 (link below). Duty calls.
"Against great local opposition, fifteen men and teenage boys, all with close ties to community, were indicted and prosecuted. No one was convicted, however, and faced with a deep “conspiracy of silence” that thwarted testimony the prosecutors requested directed verdicts of not guilty. In acceding to their request, Judge William Butler issued a stinging rebuke of the community and the failure of justice that let Walker’s killers go free. Crowds cheered and chanted as the remaining defendants walked from the courthouse.
An anonymous writer to the local Coatesville Record summed up the attitude this way: “Insult has been reaped upon injury by those two races [immigrants and blacks] and the citizens of this town have been compelled to take it for several years. Both races have practically gone over the town roughshod until the people, good American citizens, were goaded into something desperate once the signal was given.” Significantly, in the months following the lynching, European newcomers seemed to garner a greater degree of respect in public new accounts, even as the papers took every opportunity to reinforce an unflattering view of southern black migrants."
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹Attempts to reopen the case failed, but the Walker lynching did mobilize a movement in Pennsylvania for a state anti-lynching law. First proposed in the General Assembly in early 1913, it took ten years for the measure to gain enough support to become law. The ordeal also attracted the attention of the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which launched its own investigation and used this northern lynching as one of the springboards for its famous national anti-lynching crusade. (Repeated attempts to pass a federal anti-lynching law during the First World War failed.)"
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹It appears many ascribe to the biblical belief in “Visiting the sins of the fathers on the children”.
To the best of my limited knowledge, Mr. Cuyler Walker isn’t related to Joseph Swartz, Chester Bostic or Oscar Lamping.
Apparently that is what that poster believes. A suspicious mind might suggest that the animus is probably motivated by the way that Glaccum and Walker are likely to vote in the upcoming election, as opposed to say the owners of Morven Park. But we have been dodging that fun fact (for all posters not just the current one) for 80 plus pages. However, I am ‘sure’ that is ‘not’ the case. There, enough dog whistles for all?
Jumping back in, just for a second, even though this thread has gone so far off the rails that it deserves to be banished to the Current Events forum. What he posted aren’t “political postings.” They are far right, conspiracy theories with blatant racist intonations.
But hey, look what he’s done for the sport, so he MUST BE A GOOD GUY! :rolleyes:
SMGDH.
[edit] I don’t give two [edit] about his history with USEA or if he donated half his bodily organs to underprivileged youth. His words and beliefs - that he exposes for everyone to see - are disgusting, full stop. [edit].
Those of you who look the other way when people show their true colors like this - you are part of the problem.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
No, I am saying I am not sure. So I guess I would ask if your confidence level on this scaled 1-100, are you at 100%. I mean could there possibly be a 1% chance? Are you really that sure? And if your are sure because of abolitionists, what about Zachariah?
Well, if people truly believe that Unionville, PA in 2020 is little changed from 1911 then I hope they are showing support in more tangible ways than posting here. Supporting Black-owned businesses is particularly helpful at all times, particularly now.
No, I am more looking at the original naming in the 30’s, which would have had closer temporal proximity to 1911 than to the 1850’s, which is when you would have seen abolitionists being the most active.
It was about glorifying the traitors of the Confederacy and rewriting it as some noble lost cause BUT it definitely was far too cozy with the KKK, its goals and how it sought to achieve them. Not unlike HSUS, Animal Wellness Action, PETA & ALF & other groups that want to see an end to animal ownership, breeding or use.
But did you read what residents did in 1924 when the KKK tried to set up an outpost in West Chester? Unionville, Coatesville and West Chester are all reasonably close to one another.
West Chester is about 17 miles from Coatesville; Unionville is 25 miles from West Chester and Coatesville is about 25 miles from Unionville.
@sing do you have any concrete facts that suggest that the owners of the property were racist when they choose the name? Or is it simply the name and the fact that in 2020 it is perceived as racist? I would truly like to know.
Also, for those saying that Glaccum and Walker are [edit], can the rest of us, who don’t seem to be able to see their racist Facebook posts, have some proof? As in actual links/screenshots of the racist content posted by them. Not posted by their Facebook ‘friends’ or that they were associated with but actually posted by them. Because when I pull up Glaccum on a public profile all I get is a long list of comments on eventing…which interestingly enough often seem to disagree with EN articles…
No, I am thinking about the naming in the 30’s, and I am not sure. And I don’t understand where the 100% confidence, no doubts what so ever that it was completely benign comes from?
