The Story of George Peck (c.1858-1880)

George Washington Peck was the first recorded of the three known men who were lynched in Montgomery County, Maryland in the 19th century. Born into slavery, Peck lived in the Poolesville/Beallsville area his entire life, which was about 22 years. In January of 1880, he was accused of attempted assault on a white girl and arrested by the constable. Before he could be transported to Rockville for a trial, a crowd of local men seized him in the night and hanged him from a tree in downtown Poolesville until he died.

The only accounts that survive of his murder are those published in local newspapers, including the Montgomery County Sentinel, the Baltimore Sun, and the Washington Star, and other papers that picked up the story via the associated press at the time (Shepherdstown Register and Wheeling Register, both from West Virginia). These accounts are inconsistent with each other and demonstrate clearly racist bias against Peck: stating his “guilt” outright (though he was neither tried nor convicted, merely accused) and using inflammatory and derogatory language to contribute to his condemnation in the court of public opinion.

From the distance of 140 years, it is impossible to ever discover the true nature of the incident. However, we can not only recognize the injustice of one life cut short without due process, but also imagine the continued terror inflicted on the lives of Black people in a small town, barely fifteen years out of enslavement, whose neighbors, employers, and community/religious leaders thought so little of violently murdering a man in the dead of night, based only on unsubstantiated charges. This event and its aftermath constitutes a cruel injustice and a shame that can never be forgotten or erased.