The white mob burned black churches in Rosewood. Philomena Goins' cousin, Lee Ruth Davis, heard the bells tolling in the church as the men were inside setting it on fire. The mob also destroyed the white church in Rosewood. Many black residents fled for safety into the nearby swamps, some clothed only in their pajamas. Wilson Hall was nine years old at the time; he later recounted his mother waking him to escape into the swamps early in the morning when it was still dark; the lights from approaching cars of white men could be seen for miles. The Hall family walked through swampland to the town of Gulf Hammock. The survivors recall that it was uncharacteristically cold for Florida, and people suffered when they spent several nights in raised wooded areas called hammocks to evade the mob. Some took refuge with sympathetic white families. Sam Carter's 69-year-old widow hid for two days in the swamps, then was driven by a sympathetic white mail carrier, under bags of mail, to join her family in Chiefland.