Robert Lewis

Robert Lewis was a 28-year-old African American man who was lynched in Port Jervis, New York on June 2, 1892. His lynching was attended by what the local newspaper reported was a mob of 2,000 people, and may have inspired Stephen Crane's novella The Monster.

Assault on Lena McMahon On or about June 2, 1892, a young white woman named Lena McMahon was assaulted on the banks of the Neversink River, Foley claimed that there had been black men or boys fishing in the area. According to Foley, when he stepped away to get sandwiches, McMahon was viciously assaulted by one of the black men. He claimed he saw a man fitting Lewis' description fleeing the scene when he returned with the sandwiches. He was ultimately apprehended either in a nearby rail yard or while boarding a train at a train station.

Per a report in the Middletown Times-Press published the following day, public opinion on the lynching was divided but the "majority approve and openly applaud[ed] the work of the lynchers, claiming that a terrible warning was necessary to prevent future repetitions of the same offence." However, according to the same article, "he better sentiment of Port Jervis" was that the lynching was "one of the most disgraceful scenes" ever to occur in the city, if not Orange County.

Aftermath A postmortem examination found that Lewis' neck had not been broken and that he had died of asphyxiation.