The law, enacted in March 1928, enabled the Virginia attorney general to prosecute lynching participants as well as local authorities. It was never used against whites for lynching a black, but it was the first such law in the country.

Kenneth W. Coker, 70, a lifelong Waverly resident and a College of William and Mary graduate, is the author of “Waverly: The First One Hundred Years, 1879-1979.” Like other longtime residents, he said he heard of the lynching from his parents and others who lived there.

He said he did not include the incident in his book because he heard conflicting accounts and did not want to rely on rumor and innuendo. He said the newspaper records available to him in the 1970s were incomplete and there was no body of original source material.

Coker said that for much of Waverly’s history the Gray Lumber Co. was a primary employer of both blacks and whites.

In 1968, The Times-Dispatch reported that volunteers with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference complained that the impoverished conditions for employees of the Gray lumber mill living in an area called Wye were among the worst in the state.