As June 7, 1903, dawned and churches prepared for Sunday service, a blackened spot on the brick pavement of the Public Square remained as silent testament to one of the darkest days in Belleville history.
For five hours that previous spring evening, a mob had stormed the county jail, trying to attack a black Brooklyn school teacher who had earlier shot a local school official. At 11:30 p.m., the angry residents broke the final lock to his cell.
The trouble had started Saturday morning when David Wyatt, who was black, came to Belleville seeking to renew his teaching certificate. County Superintendent of Schools Charles Hertel, who was white, refused the request and Wyatt left muttering angrily.
Six hours later, Wyatt returned to the court house to find Hertel still at his desk after a busy day of examinations. "Then, damn you, you'll never sign another!" Wyatt reportedly shouted before shooting Hertel in the right breast. After both a wounded Hertel and an assistant slowed his escape, Wyatt was quickly nabbed and taken to the city police station.
Word spread quickly and soon a large throng had gathered at the station. As cries of "Lynch him!" and "Get a rope!" rang out, the police, fearing for Wyatt's safety, literally ran the attacker four blocks to the county jail, billy-clubbing the arms and hands of those who came too close.
At 7:30 p.m., lights at the jail were turned off and all available officers were stationed outside the front door. At 8, the city fire department was called to try to hose down tempers. A half-hour later, Mayor Fred Kern showed up to plead for law and order. He was jeered and forced to leave.
For a while, the mob was held in check, but at 10:45 p.m., it broke through the rear door. For the next 45 minutes, the vigilantes worked their way through three more locks while Wyatt "piteously prayed for mercy." With the last bolt broken, the mob quickly subdued Wyatt, slipped a rope around his neck and dragged him to the Public Square.
The mob took its prisoner to the center of the square and placed the rope over the cross-arm of a pole there. "Instantly, the negro was jerked into the air," the Belleville Advocate reported Monday. "He made a few spasmodic efforts to grasp the rope but failed and in a few moments he was apparently dead."
Still not satisfied, the crowd poured coal oil over the body and ignited it, sending a ghastly glare over the sea of faces watching the spectacle. The ringleaders then produced knives and began slashing the burning corpse. At a little after midnight on Sunday, the body was cut down to smolder on the pavement as the mob dispersed.
"An affair that will give Belleville and St. Clair County an ugly name throughout the civilized world," the Advocate editorialized. Hertel, meanwhile, survived his wounds and lived until 1932.
