[Examination of Ellen Baker by Assistant Attorney General Sanford (2/13/1906).]
SANFORD: Mrs. Baker, you were arrested in the early part of last year on a charge of selling whiskey without a license?
BAKER: Yes, along in March.
Q: Were you brought into jail in Chattanooga?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Were you there on March 19th?
A: I reckon.
Q: What floor were you on?
A: I was on the upper floor.
Q: Was there a negro prisoner on that floor named Ed Johnson?
A: Yes sir; that is what they called him, the folks that came up to see him....
[Baker testified that she noted that a white prisoner that had been on the upper floor was no longer there. Sanford asked about this.]
Q: Did you tell anybody?
A: Yes, sir...I called for the night jailer and I says, "That man hain't over thar." He says, sezzee, "I think they took him out this evening." I says, "Did they take him out on bond, though?" He says, "No, I reckon not." He says, sezzee, "You hurry on back to your room," he says. "There is a mob coming in here." And I just went up to my room and went to bed.
Q: Who was it you spoke to?
A: It was Mr. Gibson, the night jailer...
[Sanford asked Baker to describe the attack that came later that night.]
BAKER: After they all come up there and cut up, and he came and was hollering, and it scared me. There was another man standing in the door, and he says, "We ain't agoing to hurt you, it's that colored man we want" and then Mr. Gibson, he come there too.
Q: What did he say to you?
A: Why, he told me to hush hollering, there weren't nobody going to hurt me....
Q: There was a considerable racket, was there?
A: Yes, there was a powerful racket. I never heard so much.
Q: Did anybody interfere with you that night, threaten you in any way?
A: No...I don't know them. I don't know anybody at all. They asked me if I got pretty bad scared. I told them yes, and then I went down in my bed and went to sleep.