 Lynchings took place in the United States both before and after the American Civil War, most commonly in Southern states and Western frontier settlements and most frequently in the late 19th century.They were often performed without due process of law by self-appointed commissions, mobs, or vigilantes as a form of punishment for presumed criminal offences.At the first recorded lynching, in St. Louis in 1835, a black man named McIntosh who killed a deputy sheriff while being taken to jail was captured, chained to a tree, and burned to death on a corner lot downtown in front of a crowd of over 1,000 people.