Joseph Vermillion was a 27-year-old white man[1] lynched December 3, 1889 for the crime of arson in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
[2] Vermillion had been jailed in Upper Marlboro for a series of arsons involving barns filled with tobacco and houses in Prince George's County.
[3] At 2:30am, a band of masked men broke into the jail, overpowered the jailkeeper, and left with Vermillion.
[3] Vermillion was dragged to the "iron bridge just between the town and the railroad depot"[4] and hanged.
[3] That same bridge was used 5 years later in another lynching, of Stephen Williams, by a similar band of masked men.