Henry LeSane (Execution of)

Henry LeSane was an African American sharecropper hanged at Marianna (Lee County) on May 16, 1902, for the ambush murder of a local farmer.

John Greenwood, who was thirty-five at the time of the 1900 census, was a Black farmer who owned his home and lived in Lee County’s Union Township with his wife Hattie and their six children. Henry LeSane (sometimes spelled Lessing) was a twenty-two-year-old sharecropper who lived next door to Greenwood with his wife and daughter, likely renting from Greenwood.

In late January 1901, Greenwood was driving a wagonload of cotton to the cotton gin at Oliver Owens’s farm when LeSane allegedly shot him in the back five times with a .44-caliber Colt pistol. “Greenwood was killed without a moment’s warning,” the Arkansas Democrat reported, in “a horrible and cold-blooded affair.”

LeSane was tried in the March 1902 term of the Lee County Circuit Court, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to hang on May 16. Lee County residents sent a petition asking Governor Jeff Davis to commute the penalty to life in prison, with the petition saying, “We believe the execution of the death sentence would do no good in this community, but on the other hand be detrimental to the best interests of the county.”

However, state senator J. F. Wood led a “very strong protest” against the commutation because the “murder was absolutely without extenuating circumstances, and there is no place where the force of a legal execution could have a more salutary effect.” Davis ordered the execution to proceed.

Lee County lawmen entered LeSane’s cell just after 10:00 a.m. on May 16, 1902, to escort him to the gallows, and he said, “All right, sir, I am ready.” He climbed the steps “unaided and with a firm step” and gave a short speech in which he thanked the sheriff and jailor “for the kindness shown him during his imprisonment” and “confessed his guilt on the scaffold.”

LeSane stepped on the trap door and when asked, “‘Are you ready, Henry?’ replied ‘yes, sir,’ and with a good-bye the trap was sprung and LeSane was launched into eternity.” He was declared dead thirteen minutes later and buried at the county farm.

The Lee County sheriff saved the rope used to hang LeSane and brought it to St. Francis County in July 1902 so that it could be used to hang convicted murderer Sy (or Cy) Tanner.

For additional information:
“Cy Tanner Hanged.” Forrest City Times, July 25, 1902, p. 2.

“Le’Sane [sic] Must Hang.” Arkansas Gazette, May 10, 1902, p. 6.

“One Day of Crime.” Arkansas Democrat, May 17, 1902, p. 6.

“Refuses to Commute Lesanes’ [sic] Death Sentence.” Arkansas Democrat, May 10, 1902, p. 5.

“State News.” Arkansas Democrat, January 26, 1901, p. 8.

Mark K. Christ
Central Arkansas Library System