Sheriff Jacob Campbell
Sheriff Campbell was born on June 10, 1880, and died on January 4, 1960
Sheriff Campbell served as Sheriff of Grant County from 1927 to 1930
The most infamous incident in Grant County history that made nationwide news and an image of two African American males hanging from a tree are known the world over. It is known as the last lynching and Sheriff Jacob Campbell was in charge the night it occurred. Although he did not hang the men he did not stop it. The federal government looked at bring charges against Sheriff Campbell for the incident but it never occurred. So many great men have served the office of Sheriff in Grant County and it is despicable to have this stain on it’s history. On two different known occasions either the Sheriff has moved or actually fought off risking his life a lynch mob. Sheriff Campbell did not.
From the website yourhometown.org comes a synopisis on what happened the faithful night two men were lynched on the courthouse square:
On the night of August 6, 1930, James Cameron, 16, a shoeshine boy, accepted a ride from his friends, Thomas Shipp, 18, and Abe Smith, 19. All were black. While driving around town in a dilapidated 1926 Ford roadster, one of the boys suggested holding up someone and they drove to a lover's lane near the Mississinewa River.
– One of the boys handed Cameron a .38-caliber revolver and told him to take the gun and hold someone up. Cameron approached a car and pointed the gun at the white couple inside, Claude Deeter, 23, and Mary Ball, 19, both of Fairmount. But when he realized the man was one of his regular shoeshine customers, he gave the gun to Shipp, told him he wouldn't rob anyone, then ran down the road. During the attempted robbery, Shipp shot Deeter in the head. After Shipp and Smith ran off, Mary Ball ran to a nearby farmhouse to get help. When help arrived they found Deeter bleeding profusely from the head and his brain was exposed. He was taken to the Marion General Hospital where he died about 1:30 p.m the next day, August 7.
– All three boys were arrested for murdering Deter and raping Miss Ball and were placed in the Grant County jail in Marion. (Miss Ball later testified that she had not been raped). By 6:30 p.m., a crowd of white people started gathering on the Grant County Courthouse Square. The crowd included mostly men, but there were also some women and children. The crowd grew and headed to the jail where they demanded that Sheriff Jacob Campbell release the prisoners. Campbell refused, but the mob, using sledge hammers, battered down the jail doors. Tear gas bombs thrown by police were thrown back at the officers.
– After overwhelming the police, the mob surged through the jail. It found Shipp first. Men beat him senseless and hanged him from a window on the east side of the jail. Smith was next. He was taken to the courthouse square and hanged from the limb of an elm tree. Somebody rammed a crowbar through his chest several times. After souvenir hunters divided up the bloody pants of Smith, his naked lower body was clothed in a Ku Klux Klansman's robe. Then Shipp's body was taken down from the courthouse and hanged along side Smith.
– Others came back for Cameron, but as the noose was placed around his neck, a voice — some say it was Mary Ball's uncle's — cried out that Cameron had not killed anyone. He was released and taken back to his cell. The lynchers then posed for photos under the limb that held the bodies of the two dead men. The bodies of Shipp and Smith were left hanging from the tree most of the night before they were taken down. At dawn the next day, Marion police drove Cameron to the Indiana Reformatory at Pendleton to keep him safe and hidden.
– Claude Deeter was buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana.
* Thomas Shipp and Abe Smith were buried in unmarked graves near Weaver, Indiana.
* Cameron was convicted of being an accessory before the fact to voluntary manslaughter. He spent four years in prison, then attended technical high school and college. He moved to Milwaukee in the 1950s where he founded The Black Holocaust museum. Cameron supported his wife and five children as a truck driver, laundry man, record store owner, waiter, junk man and maintenance engineer. In 1991, he came back to Marion and received the key to the city.
* Mary Ball, who moved away from Marion shortly after the lynchings, died in 1987 at the age of 76 in San Bernardino, California.
* Eight men were charged with the lynching. Two had trials, and juries acquitted each of them. Charges were dropped against the other six.
* Lover's Lane, where Claude Deeter and Mary Ball parked on that fateful night in 1930, ran off of what is now Stone Road by the Mississinewa River.
Leader Tribune
January 5, 1960
Ex-Sheriff Campbell Dies Monday
Jacob C. Campbell, 79, 2801 S. Washington St., and former sheriff of Grant County, died at 1:30 p.m. Monday in Marion General Hospital where he had been admitted about an hour earlier.
Born inn Dark County, Ohio, Campbell had lived in this community for about 60 years. He had served as captain of the Marion Police Department for 13 years, from 1914 to 1927.
In 1927, he was elected sheriff of Grant County and served until 1931. Campbell also was a former Republican county chairman. He formerly was employed as the personnel director and industrial relations coordinator of the Farnsworth Radio Corp.
Campbell was a member of the First Christian Church, Samaritan Lodge 105, F & AM: Marion Chapter 35, R>A.M.; Marion Council 28, R & SM; Marion Commandery 24 of the Knights Templars; Scottish Rite Valley of Fort Wayne; Mississinewa Valley Scottish Rite Club; AAONMS of Murat Temple, Indianapolis, and the Marion Fraternal Order of Police.
Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. Mary E. Fuller; a stepson, Earl Michel Sr., and a grandson, Jacob Havens, all of Marion.
Services will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday at 2722 S. Washington St., with the Rev. G. Lavon Sisher in charge. Burial will be in IOOF Cemetery, where Masonic graveside rites will be conducted.
Friends may call at the funeral home after 7 p.m. today.
