Today, there’s a grocery store on the spot where Samuel and Charles Vinson were hanged on the night of August 14, 1895. The two, father and son, were strung up in a large cottonwood tree on the northwest corner of East Seventh Avenue and North Pine Street in Ellensburg. It is believed to have been the only vigilante-style lynching to ever occur in Kittitas County.
The two Vinsons were well-known in the city as troublemakers. Sam was generally considered a hard-working carpenter—when not drinking. However, his son was a ne’er-do-well, who had served two years in the territorial penitentiary for armed robbery and burglary, and had been jailed several other times. Both regularly panhandled for money and drinks in the downtown saloons.
Sam Vinson had been born in 1841 in Kings County, New Brunswick, Canada. Sometime in his early 20s, he married a local woman, Martha, with whom he would have six children (two stillborn). Of the surviving four children, the second youngest was Charles.
Sam and his family immigrated to Minnesota in 1866 (Charles was born there) and, in about 1884, traveled to the Washington Territory. After unsuccessfully homesteading near Tacoma and near Gig Harbor, the Vinsons settled in Allyn in about 1889. The family moved one more time, in 1894, to Ellensburg.
A Deadly Night
On a hot evening on August 11, Sam was hassling patrons for drinks in the Teutonia Saloon on West Third Street, located where a Pita Pit restaurant sits today. One of those Sam hit up was John Buerglin, known as “Dutch John.”
According to the late Howard D. Baumgart, who wrote a book about the incident, “The Ellensburg Tree of Justice,” Sam overheard Buerglin invite several of his friends to join him for beer. “The elder Vinson walked up and said, ‘Am I in it?’” Baumgart wrote. “Buerglin replied in his German accent, ‘No, you ain’t in it; I lend you two dollars, and you not pay it.’”
The remark incensed Sam, who grabbed a knife off the “free lunch table” (something most bars offered in those days), and violently stabbed Buerglin in his right side, just below his ribs. Meanwhile, Buerglin pounded Sam on the head with a whiskey bottle until his assailant slumped to the floor.
Buerglin’s wounds were severe, Baumgart wrote, with the injured man having to hold his intestines in place as he walked to the office of Dr. Thomas Newland, which was located around the corner on Pearl Street.
Just prior to this happening, Charles Vinson, who was usually armed with a pistol in his belt, was in a nearby restaurant, Maison Doree, where he argued with the owner for refusing to serve him. The disgruntled Charles headed to the Teutonia just as his father and Buerglin began to quarrel.
One of the bar’s owners, Frank Uebelacker, who was tending that night, saw the confrontation escalating and grabbed a “bung starter,” a wooden mallet used to pound a bung or wooden stopper into a beer keg, in the hope of stopping the fight before it got worse.
Seeing Uebelacker with the wooden hammer, Charles Vinson pulled his gun and pointed it at the barkeeper, who backed away. Uebelacker’s partner, Michael Kohlhepp, who was in a back office came out to see what all the commotion was about and saw Charles menacing his colleague. He snatched a pool cue from the wall and used it to try to force Charles out of the bar.
Witnesses later said that Charles first headed for the door, then turned suddenly and fired at Kohlhepp, hitting him in his right lung. Despite being shot, Kohlhepp wrestled with Charles and managed to disarm him, while several bar patrons held him until the authorities could arrive. Others in the bar held Sam, so he couldn’t get away.
Deputy city marshals Emil Becker and Charles Frazier soon arrived and handcuffed the Vinsons, who were taken to the nearby county jail. The wounded Kohlhepp was carried to an upstairs room, where Dr. Paschal P. Gray, who was summoned, found that a .44 caliber bullet had entered Kohlhepp’s chest about two inches above and to the left of his right nipple before exiting near his shoulder blade. About two hours after being shot, Kohlhepp died from his injuries.
As for Buerglin, Dr. Newland found that the knife had not cut any of his vital organs. He dressed the wound and believed the man would fully recover. The next day, August 12, following a coroner’s jury, Charles Vinson was charged with first degree murder for killing Kohlhepp. However, on August 13, Buerglin took a turn for the worse and died from infection that afternoon.
Both Kohlhepp and Buerglin were well liked and active in Ellensburg’s German community. Buerglin, in addition to being a teamster for a local freight company, was a popular bandleader. Their deaths sparked rumblings among many local citizens about doing something about the murders, including possibly hanging the Vinsons.
Concerned about his prisoners’ safety, Sheriff William M. Stinson, took certain precautions. He deputized six armed men, who joined him in keeping watch over the prisoners. Additionally, he gave the keys to the jail cell containing the Vinsons to his office deputy, Frederick D. Schnebly, and sent him to another location.
According to Baumgart, Sheriff Stinson had received information that led him to believe that while the townspeople were angry, they wouldn’t attempt any type of mob action. He also was convinced the jailhouse would be impossible to breach, especially the case-hardened steel cell door lock. He would be proven wrong.
Vigilante Justice
At just after midnight, a mob estimated to number between 50 and 100 men, some wearing masks, gathered at the jail. City marshals attempted to get the crowd to disperse. Failing that, they ran to city hall to ring the fire bell. Despite the clamor, the mob pressed forward.
Meanwhile inside the jail, Sheriff Stinson and his guards had stowed their rifles on a bed in the sheriff’s bedroom. They were standing in the hallway, unarmed, when the mob rushed the building. Seeing a rifle barrel pocking through the door, the sheriff and his men tried to grab their guns in the bedroom, but, according to the later recollections of an eye witness, “the night latch on the bedroom door had snapped on, locking them out so they could not get the rifles.”
The mob quickly gained control and access to the jail building. But upon reaching the cells, they found they were unable to break the lock or batter down the doors with a railroad rail. Defiantly, the younger Vinson was said to have taunted the mob, spat tobacco juice at them, and, several times, blew out their candles by fanning his hat. At one point, one of the vigilantes fired twice at Charles, But the latter was able to hide in a darkened corner of his cell and escape being shot.
Not everyone was on board with the mob violence. A couple of times during the night, several prominent local citizens, including Superior Court Judge Carrol B. Graves, attempted to calm the crowd, but those efforts proved fruitless. Finally, a blacksmith in the mob started chiseling at the wall where the cell door hinges were embedded. About an hour and a half after the mob had broken inside the jailhouse, the cell doors gave way. The mob quickly grabbed the two Vinsons and, following a brief struggle, placed ropes around their necks.
The mob dragged the two first to a livery stable at Sixth and Main, but found a telephone pole there was inadequate for hanging the two men. They continued on Main Street to in front of Dr. Gray’s house, but, again none of the poles or trees there were usable.
At Seventh and Pearl streets, the mob stopped to hang the Vinsons from the cross-arm of an electric light pole in front of the home of George “Ed” Dickson. The home owner, however, came out to plead with the crowd not to hang the men there because his wife was sick and upset about the hanging. The mob leaders agreed to bypass the Dickson house, especially after being unable to climb the light pole.
On the northeast corner of Seventh and Pine streets, however, the mob found a cottonwood (some accounts say it was a silver poplar) tree that was thick and sturdy enough to be useful. “Rope were thrown over the first limb and father and son hauled up by many willing hands,” noted the Associated Press wire service on August 14. “Their feet were not even a foot from the ground and her two men were choked to death with their faces within six inches of each other.”
The news account said Sam Vinson was stoic prior to and during the hanging, but Charles struggled beforehand and said, “I hate it on my mother’s account. You’ll be sorry for this.” The elder Vinson was strung up first and just before Charles joined him, a man in the crowd said, “Your pa is up there; go up and see him.”
The men remained hanging in the tree until about 7 a.m., when authorities took them down and laid them beneath the tree. At about 8 a.m., the bodies were placed in a wagon and taken to an undertaker parlor.
The two were later buried in unmarked pauper graves in the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery. The hanging tree was chopped down a few years later by a new property owner who didn’t want the stigma.
The Aftermath
In the days following the hanging, legal authorities said they would immediately take steps to identify the leaders of the lynching party and have them arrested and punished. On August 19, eight Ellensburg men, including bar owner Frank Uebelacker, were arrested and charged with participating in the hanging.
During the preliminary hearing, three of the eight men were dismissed due to a lack of evidence. Several other men were later arrested, bringing the total back to eight defendants, who would be tried in two separate trials (one for those accused of hanging Sam and one for those accused of killing Charles). Following a lengthy jury selection process—impartial witnesses were difficult to find—the first trial involving five of the men began on September 19.
Over the next day and a half, the prosecution called 13 witnesses, most of whom were deputies, while the defense presented 26 witnesses, most being character witnesses. Closing arguments lasted until about 11 p.m. on September 20.
On the morning of Saturday, September 21, jurors returned a verdict—not guilty. Prosecutors decided that taking the remaining three defendants to trial would be a “useless” exercise, so those charges were soon dismissed. Ultimately, no one was punished for the hanging.
In the end, the Ellensburg Dawn newspaper probably said it best in a story that appeared following the lynching, when it simply noted: “Thus ends a week of sorrow and horror in the history of Ellensburg.”
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