Mingo Jack Memorial to be unveiled Sept. 23

A Mingo Jack memorial will be unveiled on Sept. 23 at Wampum Memorial Park on West Street in Eatontown, N.J.

Samuel “Mingo Jack” Johnson was lynched without a fair trial at the former site of the Eatontown Lockup on March 5, 1886. This was New Jersey’s only documented 19th century lynching.

The Mingo Jack Remembrance Group will place a large stone and plaque at the site of the Old Lockup jail cell near Wampum Pond where the lynching occurred.

The ceremony will be held at that site at 1 p.m. and will be attended by Mayor Gerald Tarantolo, several members of the Eatontown Council and James Stone, local historian and author of The Murder of Mingo Jack: New Jersey’s Only Nineteenth Century Lynching.

The group has held several fundraisers to help pay for the Mingo Jack memorial and will pay homage to those who contributed to the purchase of the stone and plaque.

Source : Long Branch Patch