The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-04-29

~ ~ vas CRPdl CflllA uEdlt1X- anu
was not molested in any way, but it
died- have frequently seen it since
when / was fishing along the creek.
Inere was another case over in the
I Cl1nch valley that simply bears out the
theory. Clinch valley is just about the
toughest spot in the whole sidereal uni
verse, and may say. merely as a per-
sonal view, of course, that lynching
about 80 per cent OF its population
would improve it immensely This trip
they got five negroes, three men and
two women The five were hanged on.
two trees, and both the trees died.
Now, when you get a story of that
sort perhaps you may be willing to lis
ten to another incident, something in
the same line, but if anything stranger,
that happened down in the Shenandoah
valley considerably after the war. The
story was told to me by Zachariah
Flick. who at the time was on the DO
/ lice force in Roanoke and was one CT
/ the jury in the murder case in ques-
| ton.
There had been pretty nasty muir
| der committed between the Waynes-
boro and Luray, and for some reason
suspicion fell on a man named Hen
/ derson, prosperous merchant He
was tried and convicted by the iurv
on which Flick served but the convic-
tlon was on purely circumstantial evil
| dence. That did not bother the Jury
or the judge, either, and he sentenced
Henderson to hang. Henderson pro-
| tested mis- innocence and swore he knew
| absolutely nothing about the case. but
IN MS speech on the scaffold he made
! queer prediction. Said he: God
! KNOWS [ am innocent and he knows By
| whom this murder was committed
Within three years from this day he
VIII blast line of trees from the foot
OF this scaffold to the door of the muir
derer
We'll, nobody paid much attention to
this at the time, but in about a year
some Of the cedar trees close to the
jail began to turn brown and die. That
was not 50 queer, either, but the blight
seemed to extend away from the Jail in
a straight line across country, killing
tree after tree in single file like a man
Dlazlng Il trail through a wood. The
line of dead trees reached out like a
hnger for a mile and a half across
country and stopped with a big cedar
right at the gate leading to the house
of man who had never been suspected
IN any way in connection with the
case. The thing caused so much talk
that he was arrested, and subsequently,
confessed. Now as far as I am con-
cerned, If such a thing as that had hap
pence to me would have confessed
whether L was guilty or not. Anyhow.
the dead trees are there now, ana are
one OF the sights of the Shenandoah
valley"
Those are curious Stories" remarked
a western railroad man, who had been
| listening, but when you come to think
OF 1t, they are no more curious than a
happening l was mixed up in out in
Kansas a good many years back l was
a cub telegraph operator at the time
! OS-ing for the railroads, and 1 had
the day trick at little station called
raleigh, about fifty miles beyond To-
peka. We had a hanging on in the
county Jail, rather mixed up case of
a tramp named Smithers, who was
convicted, largely on circumstantial
| evidence, Of having killed a mail car
rler on the outskirts of town. He was
due to hang Friday, and 1 ,recollect 1
| was 1eellng pretty sore because
| couldn't get up to see it. It seems the
tramps lawyer, appointed by the court
| because the hobo did not have money
| enough to pay an attorney, had taken
| a good deal of interest in the case, and
/ had been working hard, out of sheer
philanthropy, to get stay of execu-
ton, because he thought he was on the
| track of some new evidence that would
| clear the poor devil But I'D TO the
hold Of anything tangible, and had
gone up to Topeka to see the governor
| There was a commercial wire ran
! through my office, but there was never
much doing on it, for Raleigh and l did
/ not know the men on it as we'll as on
/ the railroad wire. It was a vicious
| morning, wet, clustering cold, Just the
sort of a day for wire trouble, and we
had it wholesale. The hanging was
I mr. o1n1 1
heard someone calling RI on the COM
mercial wire. That was my call, and
L opened my key and said 'WhO?' Tx,
said the man ON the other end. That
was Topeka, and he seemed to be in an
awful rush. What he had was a mes
sage addressed to the sheriff, saying:
Stay of execution granted, papers. by
! - Then the wire went down, and
| couldn't get a dot nor dash out of it.
/ saw. anyhow. what the message was
driving at, and l grabbed a teamster
1 knew, who happened to be loafing in
the station out of the wet, and sent him
chasing out through the storm up to the
Jail.
Pretty soon the sheriff came down
on horseback to see il 1 had got the
rest of the message, but l tried the
railroad wire, and that had gone up,
| too, so we were up against it. / told
less from the prisoners attorney Or
| from the governor, as the case Nigh.
! be, calling off the hanging and an
nOuncing that the official papers were
| coming by train. The first train from
Topeka was due about 1:45 p. m. The
sheriff said he guessed it was safest to
] take that view of it and he would put
| off the hanging till the train came in,
| anyhow. l tried the wires several
times, but couldn't raise anything ex-
cept west of Raleigh, which Wasn't
| what 1 wanted
| Finally, about 12:10, the commercial
| wire came up all right and Tx COM
Tnenced to call so fast he fairly slut
| tered. When l answered, he said: Re
prieve for Smithers; stop the hanging
if you can, quick
Il told him few choice things about
himself and assured him l had stopped
the hanging on the strength of his in
terrupted message over an hour before
Then he was wilder than ever, insisted
he had sent no message, that l was
stringing him and wasting time while
en- innocent man was hanging. 1t took
US a good while to get ourselves
Strengthened out but finally convinced
him that / was in earnest that ] had
got a message, that I had stopped the
hanging and that the sheriff was in
the Office waiting further eXamina TONS
ThereupOn Topeka said that the gov
ernor had granted a reprieve and
Smithers' lawyer was coming with it on
a special engine. But he declared he
had been trying to get wire into Raj
eigh for an hour and could not do it.
Sure enough, in a little while light