1898 America: The Burning of Baker, McGeisey & Sampson

Season 40: America's 250th Anniversary -- 50 states, 25 double-feature episodes. Two fires burned in 1898

America. One in South Carolina, where a mob murdered a Black postmaster and his two-year-old daughter. One

in Indian Territory, where a mob burned two Seminole teenagers alive. Both cases reached federal court. Neither

delivered justice.

Frazier Baker held a federal appointment. Lincoln McGeisey and Palmer Sampson were teenagers with no

connection to the crime they died for. The federal government proved it could indict in both cases. What it could

not do -- or chose not to do -- was convict. This is the story of 1898, when America showed exactly what it was

willing to tolerate.

The Victims

Frazier Baker was born around 1857 in Effingham, Florence County, South Carolina. He became a schoolteacher,

then a postmaster. On July 30, 1897, the McKinley administration appointed him the first Black postmaster of

Lake City, Williamsburg County. He and his wife Lavinia had six children: Rosa, Cora, Lincoln, Sarah, Millie, and the