The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-03-18

Stories Of Executions Told by an Ex-
uarshal of Oklahoma.


Stories Of Executions Told by an Ex-
uarshal Of 0klahoma.
The execution. legal or otherwise, of
any human being is certainly an interest
ing although decidedly dolorous subject, ~
said an ex United States deputy marshal
from Oklahoma to New York Sun man.
''In western districts Government mar
shals, men who do not value their own or
otheEs' lives at farthing when making
an srrest or trailing q criminal, shrink
back appalled, at the bare idea of having
to pull trap at legal execution. Jack
6tillwell, the oldest, most noted and des-
perate officer on the border, with record
of over forty deaths to his account, once
said to me as we stood together at the
hanging Of two Greek Indian murderers
at Wichita, Kan. 81
81 have pulled the trap at sew nteen
executions, and have never done 80
without feeling of horror and desire
to shirk my duty. would willingly
forfeit three months salary rather than
obey the mandate of the court in this
particular
.:As it was with Jack at this execution,
so it is with spectator, at least at his
first hanging. remember distinctly my
original experience in this line. It was
also at Wichita. An eighteen -year-old
boy, Lee Mosher, had been CONVICTED of
having deliberately planned and carried
out the killing of man when only 16
years of age. A large stockade sixteen
feet high had been erected just outside
the Jail, and on the morning of the execu-
ton a curious crowd gathered there with
the morbid desire to see the condemned
boy as he passed from the Jail to the
stockade annex. When the hour arrived
for the execution the prisoner was taken
from his cell into the Jail parlor, and
there standing chastity white but firm and
determined, the death warrant was read
to him.
'The Marshal reading the paper broke
down and sobbed like child, the prison
ers lips quivering painfully fora moment,
and all the persons present brushed the
tears from their eyes as they followed the
officers and the boy from the building
and through lane of anxious spectators
into the door of the stockade. The rab.
BILE saw the feeling that animated the Sc
lect few who followed the boy, and 1t was
communicated to them. Perhaps there
was not one in hundred but would have
turned him free if they could have done
80. Numerous petitions had been sent to
President Cleveland, but no reply had
been received. Once inside the stockade
the door was shut and barred. The con-
demned boy mounted the scaffold with a
firm step. The moose and black cap were
adjusted and the trap sprung. As the
body shot through the hole my knees
gave way under me, and heard great
sigh of pity 60 up from those around
Before we could recover from the shock
thunderous rap came upon the door and
a thousand voices on the outside shouted: :
ga reprieve! A reprieve! Don't
hang that boy on your livesn
''The officers turned pale and the spec
tators. as they looked in fascinated horror
at the swaying, shivering body at the end
of the rope, gasped in horror. Some one
opened the gate to admit the messenger,
and the mob outside saw the dangling
body. Then assembled cry Of:
"'Lynch the officers! They hanged the
boy after he had been reprieved.'
1.-THE message, however, did not prove
to be reprieve, but was notice that the
President refused to interfere. A border
tragedy was thus narrowly averted.
have never forgotten my feeling of utter
weakness and knee shaking as I expert
enced it then.
"The next time saw a man hanged it
was not legal execution by any means.
l was doing newspaper work for East
ern papers around the Oklahoma country
in 1888, and while at Purcell had an ex-
perience that l don't care to repeat in
kind.
"The place was filled up with strangers.
The Santa Fe depot is down in the valley
near the South Canadian river and the
town IS perched high up on projecting
spur on the Arbuckle mountains. Dur
ing the months prior to the opening of
Oklahoma this river bottom was one
mass of wagons, oxen, horses, dogs, men,
women, children and side shows. Here
you found the buckeye from Ohio, the
hoosier from Indiana, the sucker from
Illinois, and representatives of other
Eastern and Middle States, who had been
lured out to this wilderness BY glowing
newspaper reports of the new Ell Dorado.
OF course gamblers of every description
abounded, from three card monte and
shell-game fakirs up to the regulation
keepers of tiger den. The tough citizen
also abOunded One ovon;nr 90 tho <ro;r