THE FIRST WOMAN TO DIE IN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR...

 


40 year old Martha Place (nee Garretson) became the first woman to die in the electric chair when she was executed at 11.00 a.m. on Monday March 20th, 1899 at New York's Sing Sing prison for the murder of her 17 year old stepdaughter, Ida, on February 7th of the previous year.  

An account of the execution in the National Police Gazette said she was guided into the death chamber by Warden Sage who had escorted her from her cell.  She was clutching a Bible in one hand.

 A female day warder and a lady doctor followed her into the room and witnessed the execution.  The scene on the execution room was described thus :"Her eyes were closed, she was dressed in a black gown with a few fancy frills at the bosom. She wore russet slippers."

spot had been clipped near the crown of her head to make room for the electrode. Another electrode was fastened to her leg. At 11.01 a.m. the executioner, Edwin Davis, threw the switch that sent a current of 1,760 volts went through her body.  The high voltage shock lasted for four seconds, being then reduced to 200 volts for a further 56 seconds.  

A second shock was then given, which was normal practice at Sing Sing.  By 11.04 a.m. all was over.  The physician who pronounced her dead was also a woman, reportedly dressed in the height of fashion.  The execution was described as "successful in every way”.  It was the 26th electrocution at Sing Sing.

Ida’s widowed father, William, had originally employed Martha Garretson as a housekeeper at his home at 598 Hancock Street in Brooklyn, New York.  In 1893 they married but Martha was jealous of William’s attentions and affection towards Ida.  On February 7th, 1898 William arrived home and was attacked by Martha wielding an ax with which she struck him two blows to the head, fracturing his skull.  

He managed to escape into the street where he was helped by passers by who sent for the police. They discovered Ida’s body under her bed.  She had been struck on the back of the head with the same ax, blinded with acid and then suffocated with pillows.  The murder had taken place that morning, after Martha had sent their servant on an errand.

Martha was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death on July 13, 1898 by Justice Hurd.  Her appeal was heard and dismissed in August of that year.  

There was the usual agitation for a reprieve, but Theodore Roosevelt, the governor of New York state refused to do so. She was attended by an old family friend on death row, the Rev. Dr. David Cole of Yonkers.  Martha was buried in the family cemetery plot in East Millstone, New Jersey without a religious service.

Although newspapers could not print photographs at this time they did print drawings of Martha Place and very detailed reports of her execution.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In WWIl the Russians trained dogs to run under German tanks with bombs on their backs.

Image
 In WWIl the Russians trained dogs to run under German tanks with bombs on their backs. However, the tanks the dogs were trained on were Russian and used different fuel, so the dogs ended up running under their own tanks and blowing them up. While bullets rang out and shrapnel flew on the battlefields of World War II, a new and ethically suspect tactic was deployed by the Russian Army in an attempt to hold the advancing Germans in check.  Dogs strapped with explosives were sent out to disable and destroy enemy tanks – and later themselves in the process. The German Panzers were quick and powerful vehicles of war, and dynamic weapons were needed to stop them – so how did they fare against these canine kamikazes? Also known as dog mines or dog bombs, anti-tank dogs were a new take on age-old thinking. Dogs have been employed in warfare since ancient times, and the Soviet Union had endorsed their use in the military for a range of less destructive tasks since 1924.  It was n...
Read more

The hanging of Mary Rogers...

Image
  The three-ton granite monument measured eight feet high and three and a half feet wide at Sullivan and Sons’ stone shed in Barre. All that was required to complete the marker was carving the inscription. And then a letter arrived from the Catholic Church prohibiting the memorial from ever being erected in the Catholic cemetery at Hoosick Falls, New York. “Stone,” a magazine for the granite trade noted, “The Messrs. Sullivan have just been notified by the Augustinian Fathers who control the cemetery that they will permit the erection of no monument over Mrs. Rogers grave while her body is in their cemetery. It is understood that this action is in part due to the wishes of Mrs. Rogers relatives who desire no permanent memorial of the unfortunate woman.” In 1905 Rogers earned the dubious distinction of being the last woman hanged by the state of Vermont. While her arrest, imprisonment and trial for the murder of her husband Marcus made scandalous and lurid headlines in the nation’s ...
Read more