Warden, Granville (Murder of)
The 1883 murder of an African American man named Granville Warden at Duncan Station (Monroe County) appears as a lynching on the Equal Justice Initiative’s website and several other lynching inventories. The murder itself may not actually qualify as a lynching, however, depending upon the definition employed. Two men were eventually convicted of being directly involved, and then only on charges of intimidating a witness. But the case itself is notable since it brought up crucial questions of state and federal jurisdiction. In 1880, twenty-six-year-old farm laborer Granville Warden was living in Pine Ridge Township in Monroe County with his wife, Fanny, whom he had married in June 1879. Also in the household were three young children: Salena, Louisa, and …
