“Let him hang,” the blood-thirsty mob of hecklers screamed Monday night as they watched Diamond L. “Slim” Clifton retrace his steps through the streets of Newcastle as a pack of vigilante cowboys took justice into their own hands.
Accused of murdering the couple John and Louella Church, the cowboys busted Slim out of jail and led him — with fiery torches blazing — to his demise, as Slim (aka Garrett Borton) quietly and starkly protested his innocence in bare feet and union suit.
Monday night, unlike that fateful night 115 years ago, the tone was light as the crowd cheerfully traipsed along sipping plastic cups of beer and snapping photos with their smart phones. A roar of laughter mingled with a few gasps emerged when Slim’s head popped off after he was pushed off the makeshift bridge on Seneca Avenue, a block north of the Methodist Church.
Though some of the structures and locations were altered to suit changes in the past century, the historic event was nonetheless brought back to life as a means of celebrating Newcastle’s rich past.