The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1891-03-10
BURLINGTON TOPICS.
Minor Scenes and Incidents Con.
nected With The Execution
at BOOnyille.

| AanilJ ICudluCu III TIC City uuisuS tus
execution, but gave no expression, 81
far as known, concerning the affair.
The negro sexton, who dug Tur.
liDgton's grave, said he had never
done that kind of work for live man
before; and Undertaken w. l.. Spain
said that he had never prepared 6
coffin before for a man not yet dead.
The BAzoo representative, in
passing to and from the Jail shortly
before the hanging, noticed a lady
standing at a window across the way,
looking out and crying. The curtain
was partly drawn and she was deeply
affected at the tragical scenes so near
her home.
Two men rode sixty miles on
horseback from north of The Missouri
river to see tie hanging ofTurliugton.
They had understood that the execu.
ton would be public, and were
greatly disappointed upon their ar
rival in town to find that they would
not be admitted inside the jail.
Photographs of John Oscar Tur-
lington were peddled about the streets
by boys on the day of the execution.
They were taken by o. d. Edwards,
of that city, and be realized a neat
sum from the sale. They represented
burlington as he looked before he had
turned out full growth or beard.
The coffin in which the dead
man was buried, was placed by I'm
dertaker w. l.. Spahr on the back
porch of the Jail residence and
covered with black oil cloth. 1t was
near the doorway where burlington
walked out to the scaffold, but he
failed to catch gIimse of the gloomy
box that would 80 soon hold his mortal
remains.
-Turlington's hands were not tied
behind him on the scaffold, with a
rope, as is the usual custom, but they
were crossed and bound in front of
him by a leather strap, neatly but
securely arranged, and made by a
Boonville harness-msker. 1t looked
and worked better than the cid way
of pinioning.
William Lee, a jolly Irishman,
erected the scaffold on which Tur-
lington was hanged. This was his
third job of the kind. Among his
other scafolds was the one on which
three Italians were executed in st.
Louis some years ago. MIR. Lee does
not seek this kind of work-it has only
been his fate to perform it.
The doad man had hardly haan
placed in his coffin before rumor
became current that DIR. Dresel, of
Sedalia, had purchased the body and
would have it shipped to this city for
dissection. There was no foundation
for the report further than the pres
ence of DR.. Dresel at the execution
and the flippant imagination of some
unsanctified liar.
j. NJ. Green, proprietor of the
Mahan hotel, who was one of the
guards, while viewing the prisoner on
the scafold, called special attention to
Turlington's terribly knitted and
corded brow-a popularity not noted
in him Heretofore. As Mr.. Green re.
marked, it was an indication of the al
most superhuman strain burlington
was enduring.
Shortly before the last scene,
Sheriff Ellis r. Smith, of Sedslia,
sent message upstairs to burlington
that, if he wished to m axe any con
fession concerning certain points
about which he and Smith had previ-
ously talked, that he would call on
him once more. burlington sent back
word that he did not desire to say
anything further in reference TO the
matters alluded to. "It will do me
no good and it may harm some other
persons, and shall not say anything"
said the doomed man. Sheriff Smith
did not desire to press the matter,
though he is confident thst burlington
died, carrying with him many an i'm
portsnt secret.
An old gentleman named Pogue,
who resides in the eastern part OF
Cooper county and who, for many
years has caused much amusement
when in his cups, by declaring that
he is "Garibaldi, by Cd" applied
at the Jail door to see burlington.
Guard Nicholson told him that as be
had no ticket, be could not pass him
in. "But, l am a newspaper man,
said the old fellow still this tails manic
proposition did not meet with sue
cess as he had no credentials. 81 am
writing a history of the Black
Hawk war;" persisted the old gentle
- S.;II tb;, eailod RI movp the