Hamilton Gallows

In the shadow of the gallows, justice is as wild as the frontier. From the tragedy of three deserters at Fort Hamilton in 1793, to the fixed fight and political corruption of 1868 Hamilton, and the dark final act of a son's murder of his mother in 1884—these are the stories of every man who met his fate at the end of a rope in Butler County. Explore the desperate race for mercy, the quiet power of a deathbed confession, and the unsettling calm of a condemned man's final smile. "The Deserters" (1793) Seven soldiers desert Fort Hamilton during the Indian Wars. Major Michael Rudolph, the tyrannical "Lion of the Legion," sentences three to hang: John Brown, Seth Blinn, and Patrick Gallaher. Corporal Daniel Tate races through hostile wilderness carrying a pardon from General Wilkinson—but arrives fifteen minutes too late. The men are already dead, strangled on a crude gallows. Witnessed through Private Nat Beatty, scarred from his own gauntlet punishment, and Hannah Cobb, a widow who survived St. Clair's Defeat, the story explores how mercy was complete and in motion, but the frontier was wider than compassion could cross in time. "The Wrestlers" (1869) Uzile Prickett, "Champion of America" wrestler and professional grifter, is murdered after throwing a fixed match in Hamilton. Irish blacksmith John Griffin admits to beating Prickett but denies firing the fatal shot. Was Griffin a scapegoat for the McGehean political machine controlling Hamilton's vice economy? The story opens with Griffin's execution, then works backward through the fixed match, murder, and trial. A new character—barkeeper's wife Siobhan Galloway—witnessed the real killer but kept silent for fifty years, confessing only on her 1918 deathbed. Two lawyers later stated Prickett was already dead before Griffin struck him. "The Son" (1884) George Schneider murders his 74-year-old mother Catharine on Halloween night for ninety dollars. She'd walked miles to his remote farm to collect a debt and quarreled with George's wife Margaret. At the gate, Catharine said of Margaret: "If she was dead I would have a home." George picked up a stone and struck twice, burying her nearby. For five weeks he blamed mysterious robbers while her body decomposed two hundred yards from his house. Arrested, tried, and hanged on June 19, 1885, George maintained an eerie calm and "peculiar, half-defiant smile" throughout—the last person executed in Butler County.