Jake Johnson

Jake Johnson was an African American Texan accused, tried, and convicted in Harris County for the murder of local white storekeeper B. W. Loveland in 1869.¹

On August 5, 1870, he was executed by hanging.²

News reports about Johnson’s conviction, imprisonment, and execution mention Sandy Parker as his spiritual advisor.³ Just before Johnson’s final statement to the assembled crowd, according to the Telegraph:

The colored minister, Rev. Sandy Parker, then read a hymn, which was sung by the entire assemblage. A prayer was then offered by the colored preacher, after which the prisoner himself knelt down and prayed. The doomed murderer said farewell to the vast crowd…⁴

Newspaper reports said that the morning of the execution, “the freedmen began arriving at the jail, and by noon a crowd of about one thousand had collected.”⁵ The execution itself, said another report, was “witnessed by about 5000 persons, mostly freedman [sic]—some from the Brazos and other distant points. This was the event of the week, and one that will long be remembered by the freedmen of this city.”⁶

The Daily Union initially reported that Johnson was “to be hung in the jail yard—not at Hangman’s Grove, as is generally supposed.”⁷ But in the end, the execution did take place in Hangman's Grove.

Several reports describe the location of the gallows for the execution of as “at Hangman’s Grove, in the southwestern suburbs of the city,” where a scaffold was set up.⁸