Chapter One
Florida:
"Incomparable and Indescribable"
When he was seven years old, Ossian Sweet witnessed a lynching. It was spring in the Peace River Valley, a time for recitals, fishing, and garden parties. Sweet was meandering home along the banks of the Peace River in Bartow, Florida, when he saw a mob escorting a black hostage named Fred Rochelle. The very sight of Rochelle sent him under cover near the river's shore, where he hid, quiet as a rock, under the freckled canopy of a cypress tree while the white men went about the business of claiming their vengeance.
Rochelle's crime was murder. Late in the month of May he had brutally killed a white woman, Rene Taggart, a hometown favorite and bride of the local baker. One morning she had been fishing in the Peace River, and by noon she had had as much of the Florida sun as she could take. As her boat came closer, Rochelle, a drifter, stood alert, watching her from the bridge spanning the river. Perhaps he a ...
read full excerpt from One Man's Castle ebook
