Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [107]
The long road of appeals had come to an end. When he learned that he would die during the week beginning August 4, Kemmler took the news stoically "Well, the sooner it's over with now the better," he told Keeper McNaughton. "I'm tired of this monkeying."24
*It was later revealed that Westinghouse wrote a letter to Roger Sherman on May 7 explaining why he thought electrical execution would be unreliable. Although the letter does not explicitly state that Westinghouse had hired Sherman, many observers viewed it as further evidence that Westinghouse was financing Kemmler's appeal. The New York Tribune estimated that Westinghouse spent $100,000 on the case.
CHAPTER 20
The First Experiment
KEEPER MCNAUGHTON entered William Kemmler's cell at five o'clock on the morning of August 6, 1890, turned a key on an iron lighting fixture, and struck a match to light the gas jet. By the flickering light, the prisoner ate a breakfast of dry toast and coffee, then combed his beard and wavy brown hair. He carefully stepped into his favorite yellow patterned trousers, then put on a white linen shirt, a dark gray coat and vest, and a black-and-white checked bow tie. The prisoner dressed, one reporter noted, "as carefully as if he were going to a ball."1
Kemmler collected his worldly possessions—Bible, pictorial Bible primer, writing slate, Pigs in Clover puzzle—and placed them on a small stand, along with his last will and testament. He left the items to his friends in the prison: The Bible primer would go to Mrs. Durston, the Bible to Keeper McNaughton, the slate to Chaplain Yates, the puzzle to Reverend Houghton. Just before six the chaplain, the minister, and the keeper crowded into his cell. They were joined by Joseph Veiling, a deputy sheriff from Buffalo who had befriended Kemmler in the process of guarding him before and during his trial the previous year. Veiling produced a pair of clippers, and the prisoner reluctantly allowed the hair at the crown of his head to be shorn very close. Then Veiling split the seam on Kemmler's trousers just below the waistband. When these physical preparations were completed, the four men turned to the spiritual. They got down on their knees and began to pray.
AT THE GATES of the prison a crowd of 1,000 people gathered under a cloudless morning sky Although the date of the execution was kept secret, all of the witnesses had arrived in town the day before, leading to speculation that Kemmler's execution was imminent. The platform of the New York Central Railroad Station across the street from the prison was filled to capacity. A few intrepid souls climbed trees, and the World reporter had constructed a special platform twenty feet up a telegraph pole. But these lofty perches only afforded a better vantage on the prison's fanciful turrets and ivy-covered walls, for the death chair was hidden in a basement cell. In a dimly lit freight room next to the train station, dozens of telegraph operators—sent up from New York City by Western Union just for the occasion—sat at makeshift tables, ready to relay the news of William Kemmler's historic death.
Auburn prison in 1890. Kemmler's cell and the death chamber are in the basement to the left of the entrance. The woman in the foreground may be the warden's wife, Gertrude Durston, accompanied by her English mastiff.
Starting a little before six, well-dressed men in groups of two or three began to emerge from the Osborne House, the local hotel, and walked briskly toward the prison. The men forced passage through the throng at the gate and presented themselves to the guards, who escorted them to the warden's parlor. Durston was pacing the room, angry that