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HANGINGS
1866-1909
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Editor's
Note: At our new exhibit of the Old
Stone Jail there are eight pamphlets.
For those unable to get to the exhibit
we intend to publish each pamphlet. This
is #3 of 8.
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A total of eleven men were executed by hanging at both the
“Old Red Jail” and the new “Stone Jail” between the years
1866 and 1909. All were convicted of murder. News accounts range
from the spectacular; with crowds of several hundreds in attendance
to unimpressive occasions in which only the obligatory officials and
clergy were present. Double hangings occurred in 1866 and in 1906.
The first double hangings, those of Daniel Busser and John
Howser, occurred on
April 20,
1866
, at a
make-shift site just east of the “little red jail” on
South Center
Street
. Michael
Moore’s execution was held on
November 27,
1872
, and was the
first at the “new” jail. The fourth man scheduled to be executed
in
Cambria
County
generated a
bit of folklore at the jail and was even the subject of
“ghost stories” as told by generations of prison guards.
Labeled: “The Man They Could
Not Hang”, Michael Smith, “Old Smitty” to the guards,
simply vanished the night before his scheduled date with the
gallows. He had been convicted of murder on
April 25,
1883
. Though he
was never re-captured, the very human Michael Smith did leave a long
letter in his jail cell. The sheriff maintained a
display case of the jail’s previous hanging ropes. When
Michael Smith's unused noose was added to the
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collection it only
perpetuated the myth of “The
Man They Could Not Hang”.
see: “Early
Cambria
Countians Viewed Hangings As A Source of Entertainment”
- Mountaineer-Herald -
Oct.
28, 1976
.
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Then
followed the executions of Michael “Pegleg” Murray on
September 23,
1884
, Charles
Carter on
April 9,1890
, Harry
Muriah on
February 26,
1891
and Frank
Davis (a.k.a. William Mangen) on
August 11,
1904
.
from: Scaffold
and Chair - A Compilation of Their Use In Pennsylvania 1682-1962,
Dr. Negley K. Teeters, Temple University.
Though their crimes were not connected, both Jacob Hauser and
Stephen Fellows were scheduled to be executed by hanging on
February 15,
1906
, at the
Cambria County Jail. Hauser was convicted of killing his wife and
her mother with a large Philippine knife known as a bolo. Fellows
also killed his wife and shot his son in the head. The boy
miraculously recovered. Four to five hundred tickets were issued by
the Sheriff’s Office to view the public execution. Construction
workers adapted the single gallows to accommodate both men. The
hanging took place in the customary northeast corner of the yard.
Black caps were placed over their heads prior to the hanging.
see: “Hauser and Fellows Drop Into
Eternity” Mountaineer-Herald,
February
17, 1906
.
The last two hangings at the Cambria County Jail garnered
little attention in the press. No tickets were issued by the
Sheriff’s Office for the John Caraffa hanging on
March 25,
1909
, nor for the
Thomas Joseph Johns hanging on October 19 of the same year. Only
prison officials, the jury, clergy and
members of the press attended the executions. The Ebensburg
newspaper’s headline read: “Hanging Today Quiet Affair.”
Mountaineer-Herald
-
Oct.
21, 1909
.
Beginning in 1915, the state began to execute convicts by
electric chair at Rockview State Prison.
Cambria
County
sent 16 men
to their deaths at Rockview between 1916 and 1956.
The most infamous of those sent to the electric chair at
Rockview were Bassie and Pezzi who were executed in 1925 for their
part in the Belsano Train Robbery.
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