Harperville, Mississippi

Harperville is an unincorporated community in rural Scott County, Mississippi, United States. Harperville is located on Mississippi Highway 35, 9 miles (14 km) north of Forest. Harperville has a post office with ZIP code 39080.[2][3]

Harperville, Mississippi
Unincorporated community
Harperville, Mississippi Harperville, Mississippi
Coordinates: 32°29′40″N 89°29′22″W
Country	United States
State	Mississippi
County	Scott
Elevation	407 ft (124 m)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	39080
Area code(s)	601 & 769
GNIS feature ID	693419[1]

History

Harperville was named for G. W. Harper, an early European-American settler.[4]

In October 23–25, 1898, Harperville was the scene of what national reporters described as a "race war", when a white mob retaliated for African Americans resisting arrest. One African American allegedly had a confrontation with his white boss; when a white posse showed up at his house to arrest him, his friends shot at the group to force them away. They fatally shot a deputy and wounded three others. Hearing about it in Harperville, a white mob quickly gathered, hunting down and killing at least nine blacks from that night through the next day. They continued hunting more suspects and were said to have buried some in the woods. It is not clear how many blacks were killed by the mobs. The county sheriff gathered a posse, and the governor asked for National Guard support. Governor Anselm J. McLaurin went by train to Forest to assess the situation.[5]

After arresting several blacks, the sheriff took them under armed guard from Harperville to the county seat at Forest for their safety, fearing he would be unable to deal with the mob. He nearly had to fight his way out of Harperville.[6] The Los Angeles Herald reprinted an article from the New Orleans Picayune, dated October 24, stating that a total of 11 blacks and one white had been killed, with one black and three whites seriously wounded. It reported a posse member saying he had helped bury blacks in trenches, but he did not know their names and did not "care enough about them to inquire."[6] The night of October 24, Sheriff Stevenson took the black suspects by train to the county seat at Meridian, Mississippi, in Lauderdale County for their safety, as he had heard rumors of a planned lynching of the prisoners.[6]

References

1. "Harperville". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
2. United States Postal Service (2012). "USPS - Look Up a ZIP Code". Retrieved 2012-02-15.
3. "Postmaster Finder - Post Offices by ZIP Code". United States Postal Service. Retrieved June 7, 2013.
4. Gannett, Henry (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. Govt. Print. Off. pp. 150.
5. "Fierce Race War in Mississippi", San Francisco Call, Volume 84, Number 146, 24 October 1898; California Digital Newspaper Collection; accessed 19 March 2017
6. Associated Press, "Mississippi Race War/ Counting Its Victims by the Dozen", Los Angeles Herald, Volume 26, Number 25, 25 October 1898; California Digital Newspaper Collection; accessed 20 March 2017