Outlaw was thought to be of mixed racial heritage. He was mentioned in a letter as being the son of a white Alamance County slave-owner Chesley F. Faucett, and apparently lived on the tobacco farm of Nancy Outlaw on Jordan Creek, northeast of Graham, North Carolina.

Sources conflict on the question of whether Outlaw was born a slave or a free person of color.

Outlaw served in the 2nd Regiment U. S. Colored Cavalry from 1864-1866. He served in various engagements in Virginia and late in the Civil War was stationed on the Rio Grande in Texas until he was mustered out in February 1866.

After returning from his service in the Civil War, Outlaw became a prominent African American in Alamance County.

In 1868, Outlaw was among a number of trustees who were deeded land for the establishment of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Alamance County. He was also prominently involved in the Union League and the Republican Party.

Outlaw's prominent activities on behalf of African Americans in Alamance County made him a target of the White Brotherhood, the Constitutional Union Guard, and the Ku Klux Klan.

As a prominent Republican in Alamance County, Outlaw was appointed to the Graham Town Council by Governor Holden and soon became one of three constables of the town - all three of whom were African Americans.

On one occasion in 1869, white residents of the area who were incensed by the prospect of being policed by an all African American constabulary organized a nighttime ride in Klan garb through the streets of Graham in an effort to frighten the African American constables. Outlaw and another constable opened fire on the night riders, but no injuries were sustained.

Outlaw's aggressive response to the night riders further inflamed the anger of Klan sympathizers.

On the night of February 26, 1870, a party of unidentified men rode into Graham, dragged Outlaw from his home and hung him from a tree in the courthouse square in Graham.

Outlaw's body bore on the chest a message from the perpetrators: "Beware, ye guilty, both black and white."

A local African American man named Puryear claimed to know who was responsible for the lynching, but Puryear was soon found dead in a nearby pond.

In 1873, Guilford County Superior Court Judge Albion Tourgee advocated for re-visiting the murder of Wyatt Outlaw. That year the Grand Jury of Alamance County brought felony indictments against 63 Klansmen, including 18 murder counts, in connection with the lynching of Wyatt Outlaw.

However, the Democratic-controlled state legislature repealed the laws under which most of these indictments had been brought, so the charges were dropped. No one was ever tried in connection with Outlaw's murder.

n 1914, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and United Confederate Veterans erected a Confederate Monument on the exact spot where Wyatt Outlaw was lynched. North Carolina’s United Daughters of the Confederacy President Bettie Jackson London led the statue unveiling ceremony. London’s husband, Henry London, participated in Outlaw’s lynching and delivered a speech at the unveiling ceremony.
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The Courageous Life And Tragic Death Of Wyatt Outlaw
Posted Aug 16, 2015 at 3:30 PM -Updated Aug 16, 2015 at 8:03 Pm

EDITOR’S NOTE: We asked Alamance County historian Walter Boyd to compile a feature about the lynching of Wyatt Outlaw after it was suggested that a statue of him or a marker commemorating the incident be placed at the Court Square.

Walter Boyd
Special to the Times-News

Wyatt Outlaw, one of Alamance County’s most influential, progressive, and respected citizens, has been all but forgotten today, primarily because it was long feared that any mention of him might resurrect painful memories. Even today, more than 145 years after his tragic death, there is great apprehension among local citizens that any attempt to honor him, or even tell his story, might unnecessarily inflame racial tensions.

Wyatt Outlaw was born near Union Ridge about 1820, the son of Chesley Farrar Faucett, one of the richest and most powerful men in the county, and Jemima “Mima” Phillips, one of his slaves. Nothing is known of his early life except that at some point prior to his 40th birthday he was sold to George Outlaw, a tobacco farmer living near Company Shops (now Burlington), and assumed his surname. He was married and had at least two sons, but neither his wife’s name nor the year he was married is known.

It appears that he was part of a work detail sent to help build earthworks in the Petersburg, Va., area in late summer 1864. He and several other slaves from Alamance County promptly escaped and enlisted in the 2nd Regiment of Cavalry, U.S. Colored Troops. While in Union service, Outlaw participated in several battles near Petersburg and Richmond later that year and into 1865. After the war ended, his regiment was sent to Texas, where he served until being discharged in February 1866.

WHEN WYATT OUTLAW returned to Alamance County in April 1866, he found the whole area impoverished, humiliated, prostrate and exhausted. A total of 236 men from Alamance County were killed in battle or died during the war — more than in any other war before or since. Due to the fact that so many people were related, and due to all of the intermarriages, there was hardly a white family in Alamance County that did not have a father, son, husband, nephew or cousin killed or seriously wounded.

Before the Civil War, most white men in Alamance County had been subsistence farmers and were not slave owners.

They had voted overwhelmingly against secession, generally despised the Confederate government, and had been drafted into the army against their will. After being pushed to their physical and mental limits during the war, they returned home to find their families starving and everything in ruins.

Their livestock had been eaten or stolen, or was worn out. They needed to buy seed, livestock, lumber and tools to get their farms going again, but everyone was bankrupt and there was no money to lend. To add to this despair, they found they had lost their voting rights and were no longer in charge of their own destinies.

A new political and social order was in place that apparently excluded them, and no one seemed to care. There seemed to be no hope for the future.

If the whites had it bad, the newly freed slaves had it worse. At least while they were in servitude they were provided with clothing, shelter, and food. Once freed, they were on their own.

Outside of farming, about the only other way for a person to make a living in Alamance County was to work for one of its two major industries — the railroad or the cotton mills.

However, the mills refused to employ blacks and were hiring only white women at the time because they worked more cheaply than white men. Moreover, nearly all of the unskilled railroad positions went to the newly freed male slaves because they worked more cheaply than white men.

Not surprisingly, crime rates soared, and lawlessness was widespread for several years after the Civil War.

What little everyone had seemed at risk of theft from roving bands of hungry and unemployed former Confederate soldiers and newly freed slaves.

Although there was a desperate need for law and order, the only real authority was the U.S. Army, but many of the soldiers were overtly hostile to white Southerners, believing they deserved to suffer for causing the horrible war they had just endured, so they had a tendency to look the other way when crimes occurred.

In such chaotic times, people start looking for a scapegoat to blame for their predicament. Whites blamed all of their problems on blacks and Republicans. The blacks blamed all of their problems on Southern whites.

WYATT OUTLAW WAS ONE of the lucky returning soldiers and was able to secure a job as a carpenter for the N.C. Railroad in Company Shops. He also became a leader in the local black community, which ultimately would lead to his death.

Specifically, Outlaw organized the local chapter of the Union League, a patriotic society set up by the Republican Party as an instrument to build its power base in the South. Since its membership was composed almost entirely of newly freed slaves, Union League meetings usually were devoted to stirring up grievances and resentment toward whites.

Throughout North Carolina and the rest of the South, the Union League encouraged, sanctioned, and sometimes conducted acts of violence against whites and their property, and rumors of whites being murdered and tortured by the League quickly spread.

But unlike most of his counterparts in other counties in North Carolina, Outlaw did not advocate Union League violence or retaliation against whites. In fact, he strongly counseled against such action whenever young hotheads suggested it, telling the members of his chapter that such action would be suicidal.

Wyatt was neither a rabble-rouser nor an activist, and started the Alamance County chapter of the Union League more as an effort to raise funds to build a church and school than as a political organization.

Despite the fact that the Union League in Alamance County was docile and never advocated or conducted a single act of violence against anyone, its mere existence caused a large group of white males to form several Ku Klux Klan-like organizations to combat it in 1868, the most prominent being the White Brotherhood.

Headed initially by Graham lawyer Jacob Alson “Jake” Long, it may have had as many as 800 members at one time. The vigilante group targeted both blacks and whites for nightly “visitations,” which usually consisted of beatings and whippings, but more than 75 percent of the reported incidents were directed against black men.

Meanwhile, Outlaw and all of the other black employees of the railroad maintenance and repair shops were fired in July 1867 when Josiah Turner became the N.C. Railroad’s president. Although most were rehired a year later when William A. Smith took over the presidency, Outlaw instead chose to settle in Graham and erected a house and carpenter shop at what is now 224 N. Main St.

In spite of the fact that Outlaw was an extremely polite, intelligent, industrious and rational man who got along well with people of both races, and his purpose in starting the local chapter of the Union League was relatively benign, he became the focal point of hatred by both whites and blacks. For whites, the Union League was the epitome of evil, and therefore Outlaw, as its local head, was as tainted as the whole organization.

Due to his relatively restrained leadership, Outlaw was similarly despised by some local blacks who sought vengeance against whites and demanded reparations for slavery.

Most prominent among this group was a young minister from Company Shops named Allen Paisley, who became Outlaw’s rival for leadership in the black community.

While Paisley advocated violence in response to the White Brotherhood’s outrages against blacks, Outlaw insisted on operating within the framework of the law. In an attempt to persuade the black community to adopt his methods and to stir up additional racial animosity, Paisley even formed his own Klan-like organization and carried out raids against his own people, hoping the White Brotherhood would be blamed.

By early 1869 the White Brotherhood effectively controlled Alamance County, and both whites and blacks lived in fear of retribution from its members. Whites who spoke out against the group’s excesses or who helped former slaves in any way were beaten, whipped, tortured, or threatened with death.

Only a few brave white men such as Graham Magistrate Peter Ray Harden or Company Shops general store manager Alex McAllister, a former Confederate Army officer, openly defied the White Brotherhood.

BY FEBRUARY 1869, the White Brotherhood was bold enough to stage public a demonstration in downtown Graham. Its robed and hooded members were riding on horseback around Courthouse Square when shots rang out, causing them to flee. No one knew who fired at the klansmen, but Paisley spread the rumor that Outlaw, who had been appointed a Graham police officer, had done so. The White Brotherhood vowed revenge but waited a year before carrying out its threat.

On the night of Saturday, Feb. 26, 1870, an estimated 60-80 mounted and disguised riders came into Graham about 11 p.m., and about 20 hitched their horses in front of the Bason & Sons general store (now the W. J. Nicks store building). Carrying torches, they marched around the east side of the courthouse and then up North Main Street, yelling for Wyatt Outlaw.

When they arrived at his house, they beat down the door with axes. When Outlaw’s 73-year-old mother confronted them, she was knocked to the floor and then kicked and stomped.

Outlaw was awakened by the noise. Still in his underwear, he was just able to pull on a pair of purplish-colored pants and pull up his suspenders before the men seized him. His 6-year old son Oscar saw what was happening and clung to his father’s leg, crying, “Oh, Daddy! Oh, Daddy!” But he was soon pulled away and thrown aside.

The next morning, when the people of Graham headed out to church, they were startled to see the body of Wyatt Outlaw hanging from the limb of an elm tree in the vacant lot next to Robert Hanna’s store (now Graham’s Sesquicentennial Park). The limb was pointed directly toward the courthouse 20 to 30 yards away. A sign attached to Outlaw’s chest read, “Beware! Ye guilty parties — both white and black.”

Wyatt Outlaw’s tragic death was not in vain because it marked the beginning of the end of Klan activity in Alamance County during that period, although it took about another year before it ceased entirely. Unfortunately, although a number of men were indicted for Outlaw’s murder, no one was ever tried because of a general amnesty passed by the N.C. Legislature in January 1873.

Ironically, the only people ever imprisoned for Klan activity in Alamance County were the Rev. Allen Paisley and his supporters.

Walter Boyd is a historian in Alamance County and a frequent contributor to the Times-News. He lives in Burlington.

Source: https://www.thetimesnews.com/article/20150816/NEWS/150819177

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatt_Outlaw
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Mr. Samuel Merritt
Descendant of Wyatt Outlaw, Mr. Samuel Merritt Likes Potential Tribute To Great-Great Grandfather
by Kristy Bailey/ The Alamance News - Jan. 21, 2021

Image: Samuel Merritt, 77, of Raleigh, NC, who is Wyatt Outlaw’s great-great grandson, during an earlier visit to Graham’s Sesquicentennial Park. County NAACP president Barrett Brown, who is also a Graham, NC resident, is urging Graham’s city council to rename the park for Outlaw.

Wyatt Outlaw’s great-great grandson – who, at 77, appears to be one of the last remaining relatives of Graham’s first black city commissioner and constable – says he supports a proposal to rename the Sesquicentennial Park in Court Square as Wyatt Outlaw Park.

Graham’s city council members have agreed to consider a request to rename the “garden park” in downtown Graham at their next meeting on February 9, in response to a proposal that Alamance County NAACP president and Graham resident Barrett Brown submitted last week.

Outlaw’s great-great grandson, Samuel Merritt, a retired epidemiologist who worked for the state Department of Health and Human Services and lives in Raleigh, said this week he thinks it’s a “great idea” to rename the park for his great-great grandfather.

Outlaw grew up in the Union Ridge community in northwestern Alamance County and served in the 2nd Regiment U.S. Colored Cavalry during the Civil War.

He returned home in April 1866 and rose to prominence in the local Union League and Republican Party, based on a history of the county that Drs. Bill Vincent, then-director of the Alamance County Historical Museum, and Carole Troxler, then a history professor at Elon University, wrote for the 150th anniversary of the county’s founding in 1999.

During the four years between his return home from the Civil War and his murder by the White Brotherhood in 1870, Outlaw rose to prominence within the local Republican Party and the Union League, which was established during Reconstruction to recruit blacks to the Republican party, Vincent and Troxler wrote in their history book, Shuttle & Plow: A History of Alamance County, North Carolina.

“I think it’s something that would definitely be endearing to family members,” Merritt said Tuesday in an interview with The Alamance News. “Our ranks have sort of thinned out, but I certainly am happy that would be happening.”

Merritt descended from the youngest of Outlaw’s three sons, William “Oscar” Outlaw, he said Tuesday. Other than him and his three grown daughters – and possibly one cousin near Baltimore – Merritt said he doesn’t think there are any remaining descendants of Wyatt Outlaw.

Merritt credits local historian Walter Boyd – a retired patent attorney and an amateur actor who has written and performed in community theater productions, including a play about Wyatt Outlaw that ran at the Paramount Theater in Burlington in 2015 and 2016 – with much of what he knows about his great-great grandfather.

Boyd initially learned about Outlaw through stories his grandmother told him as a child, and later from poring over thousands of pages of historic documents archived in Raleigh, he explained Tuesday. Several years ago, while helping out with a play about Outlaw that ran at the Paramount Theater in Burlington, Merritt came to meet him, and they’ve been friends ever since, Boyd said.

Growing up, Merritt picked up bits and pieces about his great-great grandfather’s life and murder through stories that his grandmother, Nancy Outlaw Williams, and his mother, Lucy Williams Merritt, passed down, he told the newspaper Tuesday. “I guess, for reasons of hurt, it was never fully discussed,” Merritt explained.

Accounts from the state historic archives helped to fill in some pieces of the genealogical puzzle, he said, but his side of the family had migrated to the Henderson area by the time he was born, leaving a 70-mile and 73-year gap between great-great grandfather’s murder in downtown Graham in February 1870.

“A lot has been omitted [from the history books],” Merritt elaborated. “I never had a thorough education as to everything that happened during those years; I’ve had a more personal education. My mother, grandmother, we had small conversations, but nothing in depth.”

Merritt’s education about Wyatt Outlaw has deepened in recent years, mainly through people like Boyd, whom he calls a “wellspring of information,” and other local historians, he said this week. In fact, Merritt deferred many of the newspaper’s questions about his great-great grandfather’s civic involvement in the early days of Graham to Boyd.

Boyd said much of what he unearthed about Outlaw, mostly from thousands of pages of testimony given during the 1871 impeachment trial of N.C. Governor William W. Holden, will be incorporated into a book he’s writing about the history of Burlington and Elon.

“Quite a bit has come about to enlighten me about what happened during that turbulent period,” said Merritt. “History is what it is – some folks treat it like a buffet, choose the things they like and leave the things they don’t.

I feel almost as though I’ve been adopted [by Boyd and others in Alamance County] because so much of that family history was not available to me growing up. I never had the luxury of knowing the historical facts regarding my family member.”

Merritt grew up in Henderson and says he had never even visited Alamance County until the last 15 or 20 years. He said he hasn’t followed the news about the “racial justice” protests that have been held in Graham since last summer and wouldn’t offer his opinion about proposals that have been made to remove or relocate the Confederate monument that stands at the northeast entrance to Alamance County’s Historic Court House.

Merritt, however, is less reserved when it comes to whether Outlaw deserves a tribute. “That warms my heart,” he said Tuesday. “I’ve seen the park, and that’s a nice gesture.

He had quite a significant footprint on North Carolina’s history during that turbulent period. I’m not the newest kid on the block or the youngest kid in the congregation – I would like something done that honors him.

I’m that long-lost relative that lives in Raleigh and would like something done appropriately to commemorate him.”
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Source: https://alamancenews.com/descendant-of-wyatt-outlaw.../