Donegan, William c1824 - 1908

DONEGAN

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/28/2019 at 11:22:32

Source: Twice-A-Week Plain Dealer Aug. 21, 1908, FP, C5

The recent race riots at Springfield, Illinois, has some little local significance in the fact that one of our barbers, P. Donegan, has a relative, who was one of the victims of the mob, as well as several other relatives living there, and was himself born and brought up in that city. The relative was an uncle, Wm. Donegan, an old man 84 years of age, a man well thought of and possessed of considerable property, owning about a half block of land covered with buildings. He lived several blocks from the real scene of trouble but the mob went to his place, dragged him from a hammock where he had been sleeping, shot him, cut his throat, and then hanged him, when he was rescued, and in spite of his injuries lived until the next day. That he had married a white woman was the excuse of the mob. He, however, had been married to her for about 50 years and they had raised a family.