George Washington Peck of Poolesville, was reportedly found struggling with a white girl and accused of attempted rape before he was lynched in 1880.
“An angry white mob soon gathered, seizing Mr. Peck, forcing a noose around his neck and dragging him to the vacant lot across from the Poolesville Presbyterian Church. There he was hanged from a locust tree,” said Maya Davis, chair of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture.
She explained to visitors in attendance at the Universities at Shady Grove that, at the time, Montgomery County was a rural area consisting of small farms raising corn and tobacco. The population was about 25,000, a third of whom were Black…