The Lynching of Sidney Randolph: Maps and Visual Aids
The circumstances that led to the lynching of Sidney Randolph in 1896 were complicated, and involved events that took place not only in several locations in Montgomery County, but in other areas of Maryland and Washington, D.C. On this page we have provided several different kinds of resources to help in geo-locating these events against a modern landscape as well as images to provide a sense of time and place.
Gaithersburg: 1890s Photographic Map
This brief slide show uses a hand-drawn map of Gaithersburg from 1894 to geo-locate many of the key places that feature in the Sidney Randolph narrative, as well as period photographs of Gaithersburg landmarks that would have existed in Randolph’s time.
Google Earth virtual tour: The Path of the Lynchers (Rockville)
This Google Earth presentation explores the present-day locations, as close as they can be determined, of the path the lynch mob took through 1896 Rockville, after forcibly removing Sidney Randolph from his jail cell early in the morning on July 4. Each site has a description of the significance, often with both modern-day and period photographs to help bring these settings to life from today’s perspective.
Content published on February 2, 2021 by Sarah Hedlund, Archivist/Librarian. Content copyright Montgomery History, 2021, all rights reserved.