Will Reynolds

On 6 April 1902, Colbert County Sheriff Charles Gassaway was informed of Reynolds' return to his residence.^[3] Reynolds had reportedly gone to Isbell's store and engaged in an argument over the debt, due to which Isbell wanted Reynolds to be arrested.^[6] At 11 a.m.,^[14] Gassaway arrived in the settlement with the claimant Isbell at Reynolds' three-room cottage ^[3] on Cave Street,^[6] located three blocks from Tuscumbia's business center.^[3] At the front door, Gassaway told Reynolds of the active warrant against him, with Reynolds excusing himself, claiming he wanted to get his hat before he left with them. Reynolds instead grabbed a Winchester ^{[2] [7]} or Marlin rifle^[15] from another room and shot Gassaway twice in the stomach and arm at a distance of 3 feet (91 cm), mortally wounding him. Isbell fled as Reynolds fired at him, with all gunshots missing. Gassaway was able to crawl away into the yard, taking cover behind a wagon and shooting at Reynolds, who was struck by a single bullet, which grazed his left cheek and nearly his eye. Reynolds again fired at Gassaway, but missed.^[3]

Reynolds fled his own residence for the neighboring house of Hilliard James, a local prominent black man, forcing him and his family to leave at gunpoint before barricading himself inside the home. He used various vantage points of the house, such as the windows of three upstairs dormer, facing the south, west, and east, and the cellar to fire at those who came near the house, which was located in a hollow^[2] and surrounded by open field.^[10] Deputy Will Gassaway, brother of the sheriff, was fatally injured as he was standing behind a tree 300 yards (270 m) from the house. Two other deputies, Pat Prout and James Payne, were struck by a single bullet in the back and chest respectively. Prout was not rescued until an hour after being shot due to fear that Reynolds would open fire.^{[2] [3]} He reportedly only shot at armed men, in one instance shooting a "country boy" in the hat from a distance of 300 feet to scare him off.^[12]

Several white Tuscumbia townsfolk who had access to guns formed a posse and attempted to subdue Reynolds.^[16] No one directly approached the house where Reynolds had hidden himself inside, but posse members threw dynamite in its direction from behind a hay or cotton bale, which had been loaded onto a wheeled cart to act as a barrier, though the explosives did not damage the building, with the strategy abandoned shortly after.^[7] From behind the bale cover, kerosene-filled bottles and cotton balls soaked with turpentine were also thrown at the roofs of houses surrounding Reynolds', destroying four of them, but leaving the targeted house undamaged.^{[12] [13]} Over the course of four hours, the posse also spread coal oil in the houses next to Reynolds' location.^[16]

Throughout the shootings, several calls were made to the landline of the James residence, usually asking Reynolds to surrender. Reynolds, pretending to be Hilliard James, calmly answered each, including during active shootouts, saying that he believed that his arrest would have resulted in torture by police. The actual Hilliard James was able to re-enter his home two or three times, unsuccessfully trying to convince Reynolds to surrender before Reynolds threatened to kill James if he returned again.^[3]

At 1 p.m., Captain Simpson of the Wheeler Rifles,^[7] a militia under Company B of the Third Infantry in the Alabama National Guard,^[17] arrived from Florence, distributing twelve rifles and 1,000 rounds of ammunition between twelve civilian men. The group surrounded the house and opened fire from all sides,^[7] during which Reynolds killed one of the gunmen, Hugh Jones, who was peering from cover behind a corner, and injured two others, Jim Finney, who had taken aim at Reynolds from a vacant building,^[13] and Bob Patterson, an onlooker who had left his cover to get a better view of Reynolds.^[2]

At 3^[2] or 6 p.m.,^[12] 42 additional members of the Wheeler Rifles arrived^[17] at the order of Governor William D. Jelks.^[12] By this point, the group numbered around 1,000 people. It was either the National Guard^[3] or three posse members, Jesse Davis, Bob Wallace, and a man named Falkner,^[7] who set fire to Reynolds' hideout at 8^[7] or 9 p.m.,^[2] by dousing the porches on the front and back of the house with kerosene before igniting the liquid with burning cotton.^{[2] [12]} The fire spread despite increasingly rainy weather.^[12] Reynolds is thought to have left his original spot and relocated to an outbuilding to escape the flames.^[2] The men who laid the fire ran from the property without being injured. Three posse members remained concealed in the bushes, waiting for Reynolds reveal himself. Two of them, Davis and Wallace, left their hiding spots to shoot at the upper story windows of the house from its eastern side before both were shot in the head by Reynolds.^{[2] [12]} Wallace was killed instantly while Davis was mortally injured.^[7] The body of Wallace fell into burning debris, but was recovered before it was burned.^[16]

Due to the increasing heat, Reynolds fled the burning house, attempting to run towards a nearby shed behind the house. Reynolds was killed by multiple gunshots to the torso fired by Springfield rifles while running from his pursuers. He had thrown up his arms while still holding his rifle.^[3] One posse member, Sheffield railroad worker Jack Denton, was identified as one of the gunmen.^[18] His corpse was shot "hundreds" of additional times and mutilated, with several posse members cutting off various body parts, mostly fingers, as trophies before throwing his remains into the burning James house.^[7] As it was uncertain whether Reynolds was truly dead, the body was tied to a dead horse to ensure he could not escape,^[3] with burning piles stacked around him.^[2] One account claims that Reynolds (named as Will Randle) was still alive and burned to death.^[19] In total, 2,000 people from the neighboring towns of Florence and Sheffield were involved in the entire operation, including all available surgeons.^[7] Three^[7] or four^[12] dwelling houses, all belonging to the family of Hilliard James,^[2] were destroyed and several horses were killed.^[7]

The day after the shooting, Reynolds' body was retrieved and publicly displayed, with onlookers taking items from the burned house and pieces of leftover clothing such as buttons from Reynolds' corpse.^[12]

• Sheriff Charles Gassaway, 33, shot in the abdomen and arm
• Deputy William Gassaway, 37, brother of Charles Gassaway, shot in the abdomen
• Deputy James Payne, shot in the left lung
• Deputy Pat A. Prout, shot in the stomach
• Robert Wallace, shot in the head
• Jesse Davis, 45, shot in the jaw
• Hugh Jones, shot in the head

• James Finney, around 15, shot in the right shoulder
• Robert Patterson, shot in the ankle^[25]

The shootings were described as unprecedented in Alabama history, though with noted similarities to the shootings in New Orleans two years earlier by Robert Charles, also a black man who killed several police officers in a stand-off.^[3] Historian Steven E. Siry characterized both incidents as mass shootings, but noted that unlike the Winfield massacre, which is more widely accepted as the first mass shooting in the United States, the shootings of Charles and Reynolds were the result of confrontations with police, also only targeting law enforcement and those aiding police rather than random members of the public.^[26]

Racial tensions were high after the incident. The extrajudicial killing of other black men was subsequently justified as retaliation for Reynolds' actions.^[10] A Florence journalist wrote that the killing of Will Reynolds should serve as a reminder for the black community to "avoid conflict with their best friends, the law abiding white man of the South."^[10]

The following day, in nearby Florence, a white man named Walker turned himself in to police for killing Simon Simpson, a black patron who had refused to leave his butcher shop after "cursing all men who had participated in the killing" and telling those present that Reynolds' death should be avenged. Simpson struck Walker in the head with a board and in response, Walker slashed the hamstrings in both of Simpson's legs and cut off one of his thumbs before leaving Simpson to bleed to death.^{[7] [2] [27] [28]}

Several newspapers praised Reynolds' "wonderful courage, coolness, and bravery".^{[2] [3]} John Mitchell Jr. complimented Reynolds' aim in several reporting headlines on the shooting in the Richmond Planet newspaper. In response to criticism by other press outlets, Mitchell stated that "black people, men, women, and children [...] have been tortured and brutalized, sometimes while on their hands and knees. They should die fighting rather than trapped and killed". He criticized Reynolds' killing as a lynching while complimenting Reynolds' resistance during the shootout as bravery, though noting "Lawless colored people, must be sent to the rear with the lawless white people."^[1] Historian Arthur Graves credits the aftermath of the shooting with improving race relations in Tuscumbia as white and black townsfolk "did everything they could to relieve [racial tensions]".^[6]

There was initially conflict over whether the city of Tuscumbia or the county of Colbert was responsible for compensating residents whose houses were destroyed during the incident.^[12] On March 4, 1903, the Alabama Legislature reimbursed 1,500ドル (equivalent to 53,750ドル in 2025) to Hilliard James and 1,000ドル (equivalent to 35,833ドル in 2025) to Henry Spriggs, James' son-in-law, through the Alabama State Treasurer for the destruction of their homes by the National Guard and others.^[29] Their homes had been worth between 2,000ドル-2,500, with James having also lost a mare and colt in the fire while Spriggs' two mules were shot and killed by posse members during the shootout.^[2]

Will Reynolds' rifle was taken by a posse member from Florence.^[3] The rifle was later gifted to Jack Denton,^[15] one of the men credited with killing Reynolds, with Denton becoming a police officer in Sheffield and Colbert County. He was dismissed shortly after and killed another black man during a "desperate encounter" in Mobile County. He subsequently became a bootlegger, smuggling whiskey in the Yellow Creek, and was wanted on eight or ten charges for violating revenue law. On October 3, 1905, Denton was shot by a posse member named McCorke while on a river at Waterloo, dying of his wounds on October 6. Denton had been caught by Alabama police and attempted to shoot the arresting Sheriff Hill.^[18]

Reynolds is considered a victim of lynching^{[10] [30] [31] [32]} and listed in the Alabama section of the Memorial to the Victims of Lynchings exhibit at America's Black Holocaust Museum.^[33]

The house where most of the shootout took place was not rebuilt. As of 2002, Deshler High School stadium was located on the site.^[13] The shooting is the topic of "The Will Reynolds Incident - A Shootout in Old Tuscumbia" at the annual Helen Keller Festival in Tuscumbia.^[6]