BELTON – A 1907 pass to witness a hanging in Belton is for sale online at eBay.

The preprinted pass, thicker than a business card and tattered along the edges, would admit one person to the Oct. 4, 1907, execution of Hence Williams at the Belton Jail Yard. It was never used, however, because Williams was never executed.

The Texas governor at the time, Thomas Campbell, commuted Williams’ death sentence to life in prison after receiving a petition from white Temple and Belton residents who felt the punishment was too harsh.

Segregation of races was a still a way of life in 1907. Newspaper accounts from that year identify Williams as a “negro” who got into a fight with Jack Moore, another black man, at an all-black bar. The dispute started when one of the men sat next to the other man’s girlfriend. Williams ended it when he stabbed Moore to death, according to the newspaper account.

An October 1907 article from the Temple Times tells how close Williams came to dying from hanging. It gives an account of the rope being stretched and tested prior to the scheduled execution. The author even mentions that Williams had “very little hope.”

The man selling the pass, Ron Loveall of Cleveland, Ga., didn’t know the history behind it until he was contacted by the Telegram on Wednesday.