Public executions were not an especially rare occurrence during the nineteenth century, although a double event was, and the hanging of a man and a woman side by side was virtually unheard\u00a0of.\u00a0 A little over a year earlier, some fifty thousand spectators had swarmed Bellefontaine to see Andrew Hellman swing for poisoning his children.\u00a0 And just a\u00a0month before, a crowd of some fifteen to twenty thousand flocked to Zanesville to witness the hanging of Solomon Shoemaker for the murder of his brother.<\/p>\n
In 1840, Columbus was a budding community with a population of 6,048, which climbed to 17,882 just ten years later.\u00a0 It had little to recommend save for the fact that it was the state capital and the site of a rather fine new penitentiary opened in 1834.\u00a0 That same year, Graham was sentenced to fifteen years for highway robbery.\u00a0 He was twenty years old and headstrong;\u00a0twice he tried to escape.\u00a0 On June 9, 1841, Graham, who worked in the penitentiary stone shop, had slain the twenty-two-year-old guard Cyris Sells by striking him with a cooper’s ax while he was combing his hair.\u00a0 Five blows had nearly severed his head from his body.\u00a0 Sells had earlier whipped the entire prison company for some violation of prison rulses, and Graham vowed revenge.<\/p>\n
Foster, a resident of the prison’s Female\u00a0Department, was serving a twenty-year sentence for aiding an assault and rape with intent to murder.\u00a0 Although it was an ugly offense, the penalty was still regarded as unusually harsh.\u00a0 A former chambermaid from Cincinnati, she had killed another female convict, Louisa White, on March 13, 1843, by bashing in her head with an iron fire shovel while they were working in the kitchen.\u00a0 Until then, Foster had been a rather docile inmate.<\/p>\n According to early prison historian Daniel J. Morgan (superintendent of the prison school), Foster was assisted by another prisoner, whose trial, for some reason, was continued until the next term.\u00a0 Nothing more was heard of her.\u00a0 What is known, however, is that the victim was white and Foster was “colored” (as was her codefendant).\u00a0 Foster purportedly was a woman of limited intelligence who “did\u00a0not have a bad history.”\u00a0 Graham, on the other hand, had been a troublesome inmate from the start.\u00a0 Sells was a member of the soon-to-be-famous Sells Brothers circus family.”\u00a0 He was also the first prison employee killed in the line of duty.<\/p>\n Because Graham’s trial was postponed until December 1843 at the request of his attorneys, both cases – his and Foster’s – were tried in the same term of court. Graham’s defense was insanity.\u00a0 He was represented by Gustavus Swan, later president of the State Bank of Ohio, and John W. Andrews.\u00a0 Swan, who had never lost a criminal case, said that if he lost this one, he would never practice law again.\u00a0 He did, and he didn’t.\u00a0 While the name of Foster’s attorney is unknown, many openly questioned the first-degree murder charge against her since the crime clearly was not premeditated.\u00a0 However, prosecutor John Heyl, a young and relatively inexperienced attorney, prevailed in both cases, assisted by Colonel Noah H. Swayne.<\/p>\n As the time approached, several ministers attempted to pray with the condemned. An emotional Foster knelt to join the pastors in prayer.\u00a0 If she had any last words, they were not recorded.\u00a0 Graham, however, twice refused to participate, defiant to the end.\u00a0 He did make a short statement:\u00a0 “My name is Graham, my father and brother killed a traveler in Missouri\u00a0and were lynched for it.”\u00a0His last words were, “Let her go quick.” After a “short, fervent and solemn exhortation” by Reverend Whitcomb, Sheriff William Domigan adjusted the nooses around Graham’s and Foster’s necks, and then they dropped through the trapdoor and into eternity.<\/p>\n Whether Foster and Graham died quickly or not is unknown.\u00a0 In exchange for all the “candy and sweetmeats” she could eat, Foster had agreed to allow a Columbus doctor to dissect her body after her death.\u00a0 A number of other local physicians attended Graham’s autopsy to test a theory held by many phrenologists that criminals had certain physiological deficiencies and could not be held morally responsible for their behavior. However, there was disagreement over what his brain revealed.<\/p>\n Sheriff Domigan had promised Graham that he would not end up as an anatomical specimen, so his remains were interred in the old prison graveyard nearby. Nevertheless, two groups of physicians had designs\u00a0on Graham’s corpse. As one crew was digging him up, the other fired on them, causing the would-be grave robbers to flee. The rival group then took possession of the body. For many years, Dr. Ichabod Gibson Jones and his colleague, Dr. Little, kept one of Graham’s feet in a body of alcohol in their office on East Town Street between High and Third Streets.\u00a0 And a “good wax figure likeness” of Graham was on display at Captain Walcutt’s museum.<\/p>\n Culled from:\u00a0Inside the Ohio Penitentiary<\/a> <\/p>\n Weegee\u00a0was the\u00a0pseudonym\u00a0of\u00a0Arthur Fellig\u00a0(June 12, 1899 \u2013 December 26, 1968), a\u00a0photographer\u00a0and\u00a0photojournalist, known for his stark black and white\u00a0street photography. Weegee worked in\u00a0Manhattan,\u00a0New York City\u2019s\u00a0Lower East Side\u00a0as a press photographer during the 1930s and \u201940s, and he developed his signature style by following the city\u2019s emergency services and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a photo from the book\u00a0Weegee\u2019s New York: Photographs, 1935-1960<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/inside-ohio-077.jpg\")
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\nThe Ohio Penitentiary in the early cow town days.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe “dual event” was captured in this widely circulated woodcut from Harper’s Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nSpecial thanks to\u00a0Jim<\/strong>\u00a0for gifting me the book!<\/p>\nWeegee Du Jour!<\/h3>\n