Executions at the Pen are frequently mentioned as a source of the hauntings in the building. Between 1885 and 1963 there were 343 legally sanctioned executions at the Ohio Penitentiary. Twenty-eight were hangings; 315 were electrocutions. Three of the condemned were women. All of them took place in precisely the same spot in the Death House; when they retired the gallows, the electric chair was mounted directly beneath its trap door.
Photographs show the chair and the gallows trap directly above it. Less likely are some of the bits of death row folklore that grow up in every death penalty state. There's the one about the chair being built from the gallows wood; the tale of the carpenter trustee who eventually went to his death in the electric chair he built; the myth of the automatic pardon for anyone who survived the execution process, or did so three times. It is true that Ohio administered the second legal electrocution ever; the first was at New York's Auburn Prison, on August 6, 1890--by all accounts a gruesome event. Ohio, the second state to adopt the method, performed its first on April 21, 1897, running deadly current through a man named William Haas.
The Penitentiary was finished and had been in operation fifty years before legal executions were moved inside its walls. Before that, most hangings were carried out no more than a week from the day the judge passed sentence, and some happened within twenty-four hours. Most, however, were delayed long enough to allow people time to plan to come and see what were then public executions--"necktie parties" that were such a highlight of the social calendar. The authorities allowed the general public to witness the death of a condemned criminal in part to satisfy the legal preference for witnesses, and partially for the same reason parents brought their young children: to serve as deterrence, a lesson for those who might stray from the straight and narrow.
There was a religious aspect to the public hanging, an element of civic duty, and a public warning. But most of all it was a fair and a festival, a public exhibition with vendors cooking food and selling homemade crafts and telling fortunes; kids ran and played; musicians sometimes performed. All in preparation for the public executions. Sometimes crudely printed pamphlets were sold or handed out in the crowd, giving a time schedule of events, as well as brief details of the trial and a lurid description of the events surrounding the crime. It was a combination of bloodlust and boredom that brought families by the wagonful in from farms and crossroads villages sometimes a hundred miles distant, just to get a look at a dead man walking, as it were, up the steps onto the scaffolding and to view the expression on his face as the noose was pulled over his head and tightened just the right amount, with the knot in exactly the proper position behind an ear. Hands were tied behind the back, legs usually bound as well. At the appointed hour, after having been prayed with and given a last benediction by the clergyman of their faith, the condemned was permitted to offer last words. Prayers and exhortations of innocence were the most common, with the occasional warning to young men not to make the same mistakes he had and to steer clear of whiskey and loose women--which is still excellent advice. Last words generally spoken above the heads of a crowd gone silent for that very purpose.
Usually a hood was fitted over the head, but not always. Then a somber-faced court official (the executioner, who else?) would release the trap door, and the condemned would plummet through toward the ground, only to be jerked short, and then commence a violent death dance, arrested somewhat by rope tied around the legs. In many ways hanging can be considered the most humane way to have your government murder you; reports from the brink say the sudden tightening of the noose causes instantaneous blackout and an end to all consciousness, including pain. Hanging is a genuine science; the height, weight, and size of the condemned must be taken into account and the hanging rope measured accordingly. A rope properly measured snaps the neck between two upper vertebrae, killing instantly. Too short a rope and no one knows if the instant blackout happens, but the visuals are stomach-turning: the person chokes to death slowly, strangling audibly and kicking and swinging on the rope, seemingly clinging to life the whole time. And if the rope is too long, the head is simply pulled off the body. (This happened to outlaw "Black Jack" Ketchum in 1901 in New Mexico Territory; Black Jack was a member of the Hole in the Wall Gang made famous in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But it happened to hundreds of others as well, and often spoiled spectators' enjoyment of the day's public hanging.) Interesting side note: Hangings, even when performed properly, are messy affairs. The bladder and bowels evacuate immediately, leaving a pile of wet shit. Most of the audience at a necktie party was too far back to notice, however, and most people still don't know that hangings (as well as many deaths in the electric chair) have this effect.
At any rate, until July 31, 1885, Ohio's legal executions were hangings conducted on courthouse lawns or specially designated spots. Ohio's capital city held its necktie parties at the southwest corner of Mound and Scioto Streets. Whole families traveled two or three counties on foot or by horse or buggy. As ghoulish as it sounds, watching someone hanged was pure entertainment, and not an everyday occurrence. They even took the condemned out of the State Pen to be killed. One example is a double hanging on February 9, 1844: William Clark and Esther Foster, both inmates of the ten-year-old Pen. William had killed a guard with an axe; Esther beat a fellow female prisoner to death with a shovel.
After June 1885 they moved the Mound Street gallows into the Penitentiary (not literally; most likely a new scaffold was built for each public hanging). Thus made private and given stricter protocols, the noose began to claim more victims. When Valentne Wagoner took the plunge in 1885 he became the first of many, many victims of Ohio's capital punishment statute. The last to hang was William Paul, on April 26, 1896. The first to die in Old Sparky was, as mentioned, William Haas, almost exactly one year later (April 21, 1897). The electric chair remained busy until 1963, when Donald Reinbolt became its 315th and final casualty. When executions resumed in Ohio it wasn't until 1999, when the Ohio Pen was just a memory and Death Row had long since been moved to Lucasville, and lethal injection tables had replaced gallows and electric chairs. It was in Lucasville that Wilford Berry, Jr. waived his remaining appeals and volunteered for his lethal injection. That was in 1999; since then Ohio has resumed executing prisoners with regularity.
After June 1885 they moved the Mound Street gallows into the Penitentiary (not literally; most likely a new scaffold was built for each public hanging). Thus made private and given stricter protocols, the noose began to claim more victims. When Valentne Wagoner took the plunge in 1885 he became the first of many, many victims of Ohio's capital punishment statute. The last to hang was William Paul, on April 26, 1896. The first to die in Old Sparky was, as mentioned, William Haas, almost exactly one year later (April 21, 1897). The electric chair remained busy until 1963, when Donald Reinbolt became its 315th and final casualty. When executions resumed in Ohio it wasn't until 1999, when the Ohio Pen was just a memory and Death Row had long since been moved to Lucasville, and lethal injection tables had replaced gallows and electric chairs. It was in Lucasville that Wilford Berry, Jr. waived his remaining appeals and volunteered for his lethal injection. That was in 1999; since then Ohio has resumed executing prisoners with regularity.
Of the several books written about the Pen, most were written around the turn of the century--a time when the state took great pride in its large, modern prison. Most are a kind of survey of the facility and general description of its operations, and therefore not terribly compelling reading. But there is one exception: Palace of Death, a 1908 book by H.M. Fogle. Each chapter is about a different man executed in the Ohio Penitentiary's Death House. It offers an amazingly detailed report on the circumstances of the crime, the arrest, the trial, the sentence, the convict's time in prison--and, most dramatically, the execution itself. The first fifty-nine executions carried out at the Pen are detailed in chapters that read like short stories, made all the more interesting because the author didn't seem to have to worry about libel or the presumption of innocence. It's a fairly vicious book, as you might expect (and painfully racist), but it's utterly compelling reading. You can read more about it--and read entire chapters--by clicking here.
Palace of Death:
A True Tale of 59 Executed Murderers
A True Tale of 59 Executed Murderers
