Description
“Hangings in Platte County” - - The hanging in this city on Friday last was the second legal execution in Platte County. William C. White witnessed the execution of Armstrong, and also the hanging by Sheriff Lycurgus Shepard on the 24th of June, 1853, of a slave named Abe, for the killing of another named Dan. Abe was hanged publicly to a limb of a white oak tree about an 1/8 of a mile east of Hon. R. P. C. Wilson’s residence. Both these slaves belonged to Nathan Newby. Each was valued at $2,000. The state paid Newby $3,000 after the hanging, or the value of 1½ the value of the other slave—the full price being paid for the one that was hanged. Dan was Newby’s foreman, and Newby ordered him to whip Abe. Abe said: “If you strike me I will kill you.” Dan struck him, and Abe kept his word, using a knife. Judge E. H. Norton sentenced Abe on the 31st of May to be hanged on the 24th of the following month. On November 12, 1867, Clinton County did for Platte what Platte did for Clinton last Friday - namely, hung a negro, Alfred Hughes, for the killing of Daniel Jenkins, another negro, in Platte City. The case was taken to Clinton County on change of venue. On July 29, 1876, in the night, a mob took Ralph Williams from the Platte City jail and hanged him near Tracy on the Weston road. It was charged that Williams was guilty of the same crime against a white woman that Armstrong was hanged for last Friday. Some alleged afterward that Williams was innocent. On June 14, 1881, Charles Reece attempted the same crime on Miss Stilwell and was hanged by a mob near Weston. He was a young mulatto. There have been others sentenced to bang, but their sentences were commuted to life in the penitentiary. One was a white man who killed a man on the island in the Missouri river bottoms, and another a negro (Charles Grant) who killed his wife in Parkville.Date(s) of Creation
5/1/1902
