Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [108]
When the machinery was first installed in April, the electric chair and the switchboard had been in the same room, but at the beginning of August the warden decided to move the chair to an adjacent room, while leaving the switchboard in its original place. His purpose, apparently, was to shield the identity of the man who threw the switch. Formerly the keepers' messroom, the new death chamber was about eighteen by twenty-five feet. Two iron-grated windows, partially covered by Virginia creeper ivy, looked out toward the crowds at the main gate. The death chair sat at the center of one end of the room.2
Wooden chairs were arrayed in a half-circle around the electric chair, and the witnesses took their seats. Despite the provision of the law prohibiting newspapers from publishing details of executions, the warden had invited two wire service reporters, one from the Associated Press and another from the United Press. Alfred Southwick—now referred to as the "father of the electrical execution law"—was in the room, as was Dr. Fell. A few men were notable by their absence. Harold Brown had not been invited, and Elbridge Gerry turned down his invitation in favor of a cruise with the New York Yacht Club. Edison did not attend, nor did his chief electrician, Alfred Kennelly, who a year earlier had expressed a wish to do so.3
Of the twenty-five official witnesses, fourteen were physicians. They included the editor of the Medical Record; the head of the state's Board of Health; a deputy coroner from Manhattan (invited because he had autopsied many men killed in electrical accidents); and the coroner who autopsied Lemuel Smith after his 1881 death in the Buffalo arc lighting plant. Dr. Carlos MacDonald, who had been the state's electrocution expert for nearly a year, served as one of the official execution physicians. The other was Dr. Edward C. Spitzka, the current president of the American Neurological Association.4
When everyone was seated in the room, Durston called aside his two official physicians. Astonishingly, the warden had not yet decided how long the prisoner should be subjected to the current, so he asked the doctors for advice.
"Fifteen seconds," Spitzka told him.
"That's a long time," said the warden, who feared burning Kemmler.
"Well, say ten seconds at least," MacDonald offered.
It was agreed that Spitzka would decide when to turn on the current and when to turn it off. He asked if anyone had a stopwatch, and MacDonald pulled one from his coat.5
Warden Durston abruptly left the death chamber and walked down the hall to Kemmler's cell. He greeted the prisoner and the ministers, then read the death warrant. "All right, I am ready," Kemmler said. He bid good-bye to Keeper McNaughton, who declined to be present in the death chamber. The prisoner fell into step behind the warden, the ministers followed the prisoner, and Sheriff Veiling brought up the rear. The execution procession was brief, requiring just a few steps down a hallway and into the death chamber.
The witnesses had been whispering nervously among themselves, but they fell silent as the warden and the prisoner entered the room. Kemmler walked toward the death chair, then paused, uncertain as to whether he should sit in it. He peered at the warden's face, like an actor uncertain of his cue.
"Will some gentleman give me a chair?" the warden asked. A witness pushed a common kitchen chair into the circle, and the warden placed it in front and a little to the right of the death chair, facing the witnesses. He pulled another chair next to it. He and Kemmler sat side by side facing the witnesses, the warden's arm over the prisoner's shoulder.
"Now, gentlemen, this is William Kemmler."