Born into bondage around 1820 on the Laird family farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey, Samuel Johnson was raised as property. At the time, Colts Neck was a rural community where white families like the Lairds often relied on enslaved laborers. Johnson’s enslavers, noting his small stature — he stood barely over five feet tall and weighed just 120 pounds — forced him to work as a jockey. He rode a horse named “Mingo Chief” to victory in a race that earned him the nickname Mingo Jack, which he would carry for life, local newspapers reported.

Johnson was freed in his 20s. By the 1880s, he was well established in his community. He worked at the Monmouth Park racetrack, which had opened in 1870 and was known as the ‘Newmarket of America,’ according to a Monmouth Park History site, and lived in Eatontown, near the Jersey shore, with his wife, daughter and several grandchildren.
But in 1886, the life he had built came crumbling down.

On March 5 of that year, a white woman named Angeline Herbert told the authorities that she had been raped by a Black man in Eatontown and claimed that Johnson was her assailant, the New York Times reported. Later that day, Johnson, who was in his sixties at the time, was arrested at his home by a local constable, Herman Liebenthal. Johnson denied committing the crime. Still, Liebenthal took him into custody and told townspeople, according to witnesses, that he “wouldn’t be surprised if Mingo were lynched before morning.”

That same evening, a white mob of up to 75 men, many of them drunk, went to the jail where Johnson was locked up and broke down the jail door with a crowbar and sledgehammer. They beat Johnson with the weapons, gouged out one of his eyes, and hung his body from the jail cell door, according to the Red Bank Register. Neighbors, including a terrified Black couple, heard his agonizing screams but did nothing, frozen by fear, the Register reported.

Johnson’s lynching is the only documented lynching in New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Social Justice Remembrance Coalition, a reminder that racial terror extended far beyond the South. The case illuminates the widespread use of rape accusations to justify the lynchings of Black men across the country, a pattern that was documented by Ida B. Wells and by the NAACP in its “History of Lynching in America.” Between 1882 and 1968, 4,743 people were lynched in the United States, with Black Americans comprising 72 percent of victims, according to the Equal Justice Initiative’s report “Lynching in America.”

“A common claim used to lynch Black men was perceived sexual transgressions against white women,” the NAACP report states. “Charges of rape were routinely fabricated. These allegations were used to enforce segregation and advance stereotypes of Black men as violent, hypersexual aggressors.”

Historians and archivists who have studied the case say the evidence against Johnson was weak from the start. Gary Saretzky, a retired archivist and photographer who researched the case for an exhibit called “Murder in Monmouth,” found those discrepancies in the history.

“It seemed very improbable that he did it,” Saretzky said. “The victim described clothing that didn’t match what Johnson had on that day… and he didn’t have any record of ever doing anything like that. There was no particular reason for him to be singled out except for the fact that the victim said she knew ‘Mingo Jack.’”

Saretzky also noted that although several men were arrested in connection with the lynching, none were ever punished or convicted of doing anything wrong — emphasizing why cases like Johnson’s must continue to be told. “This case shows that prejudice against African Americans wasn’t limited to the South,” he said.

An inquest into Johnson’s death also revealed that witnesses saw him elsewhere at the time of the attack. Witnesses identified several local men as participants in the mob — including a painter named Frank Dangler, a butcher named Edward H. Johnson, a farm hand named George Sickles, and a loafer named William Snedeker — and six men were arrested in connection with the murder, but none were convicted, according to the Red Bank Register. The jury determined that Johnson had been killed by “persons unknown” despite clear evidence identifying participants, according to The New York Times.

Constable Liebenthal was arrested for negligence in allowing the lynching to occur, the Times reported. Although Liebenthal faced charges for failing to protect Johnson while he was in custody, historical records do not indicate that he was ever convicted or held meaningfully accountable. Jury members were reported to have appeared drunk during the trial.

Two years later, in February 1888, the New York Times reported that there was growing belief that Johnson “was innocent of the crime laid to him.”

More than a century after Johnson’s murder, Eatontown has begun to reckon with this history — though not without challenges. Danielle Jones, a council member in Eatontown, said she didn’t even know about the case until she joined the council.

“I grew up in Eatontown and went to all the public schools here, but I didn’t even learn about this until I was almost in my forties,” Jones said. “I’m not surprised how many residents still don’t know that this happened.”

Jones and other Eatontown community members continue working on shifting the narrative away from the violence alone and toward Johnson’s life and who he was as a person. She says that plans are underway to create and implement an annual student essay contest in the Eatontown schools, as a way to encourage younger generations to learn about Johnson beyond the circumstances of his death. For Jones, acknowledging this history is not about assigning blame, but about facing the past.

“Not many people want to be confronted by negative things that happened,” Jones said. “But by ignoring it, you’re not only diminishing what happened — you’re being dismissive of the experiences of people of color, especially African Americans who have had experiences of discrimination and bias with a lack of due process. By not acknowledging what happened to Mr. Johnson, you’re not helping to address issues facing the country today.”

In 2012, Eatontown Mayor Gerald Tarantolo also issued a public apology during a memorial ceremony at Wampum Park, according to the Long Branch Patch. He acknowledged that Johnson’s civil rights were stripped away when jail security failed, and he apologized to Johnson’s spirit, wife, and descendants, asking for forgiveness for the actions taken that night. Tarantolo called the lynching “a low point in the history of Eatontown.” But no apology could return Johnson to the family he left behind or restore the life that had been stolen from him.

Today, Johnson’s name is etched into a historical marker and remembered in memorial ceremonies. As Saretzky noted, much of what is known about him comes from newspaper accounts, reflecting how easily lives like his can be reduced to moments of violence rather than fully remembered histories.

The night Johnson was murdered, his neighbors heard him die but felt powerless to help — a silence born of the racial violence that terrorized Black people far beyond the South.