George Washington Peck of Poolesville, was reportedly found struggling with a white girl and accused of attempted rape before he was lynched in 1880. “An angry white mob soon gathered, seizing Mr. Peck, forcing a noose around his neck and dragging him to the vacant lot across from the Poolesville Presbyterian Church. There he was hanged from a locust tree,” said Maya Davis, chair of the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture.