Jean Starling
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Member # 2512
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posted 12-03-2005 08:08 PM
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Wow, pretty cool stuff, Johnee, from your link:
THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC CHAIR Electric Chair Timeline:
1880 - Most state laws provide for capital punishment, usually by hanging.
Unfortunately, hangmen's ignorance produced horrific scenes of slow
strangling deaths and gruesome decapitations.
1881 - Dr. Albert Southwick, a dentist and former steamboat engineer, sees elderly drunkard touch terminals of electrical generator in Buffalo, New York. He is amazed at how quickly and apparently painlessly the man is killed and describes episode to friend State Senator David McMillan.
1881 - McMillan speaks to Governor David B. Hill. Hill asks state legislature to consider how modern
day electricity might replace hanging.
1882 - Thomas Edison was the first person to establish himself in electrical utility industry with DC
service.
1886 - AC technology, developed by Westinghouse, was much more flexible and economic seriously
threatens Edison's hold on electrical utility market .
1886 - Legislature enacts Chapter 352 of the Laws of 1886 entitled "An act to authorize the appointment
of a commission to investigate and report to the legislature the most humane and approved method of
carrying into effect the sentence of death in capital cases."
1887 - Copper prices skyrocket when French syndicate corners market. DC requires very thick copper
cables. AC has a strong economic advantage. Edison realizes this and starts planning his attack on
other that economic reasons.
1887 - Edison conducts demonstration in West Orange, New Jersey, in which he kills large numbers of
cats and dogs by luring the animals onto a metal plate wired to a 1,000 volt AC generator. The press
describes these proceedings in detail.
1887 - Edison publishes pamphlet A Warning, comparing AC and DC, including of AC victims.
1888- Elbridge T. Gerry (grandson of signer of Declaration of Independence), Dr. Southwick, and
Matthew Hale, a judge from Albany,are appointed to commission created by 1886 law.. The Gerry report
is a detailed analysis of execution methods.
June 4, 1888 - New York Legislature passes Chapter 489 of Laws of New York of 1888 establishing
electrocution as the state's method of execution. Medico-Legal Society of New York is designated to
recommend how to implement new law.
June 5, 1888 - Inventor Harold P. Brown writes a very compelling editorial letter to the New York Post,
describing the death of a boy who touched a straggling telegraph wire running on AC current. Brown
recommends limiting AC transmissions to 300 volts, which negates economic advantage.
July, 1888 - Brown goes to Edison's West Orange, New Jersey lab to do research.
July 30, 1888 - Brown and his assistant Dr. Fred Peterson of Columbia show experimental results
at the School of Mines at Columbia University by administering a series of DC shocks to a large Newfoundland mix dog. By 1,000 volts DC, the dog is agonized but not killed. Finally, Brown finishes
the off with a charge of 330 volts AC. On a follow-up demonstration, SPCA steps in and second dog becomes first creature ever publicly reprieved from execution by electrocution (although it was later
killed at another demonstration).
Fall, 1888 - Medico-Legal appoints Brown's assistant Dr. Peterson to carry out further research.
Over the next few months, they electrocute two dozen dogs.
December 5, 1888 - Brown and Peterson electrocute two calves and a 1,230-pound horse. The New
York Times account ends with the observation that "alternating current will undoubtedly drive the
hangmen out of business in this state." This PR is probably engineered by Brown or Edison.
December 12, 1888 - Peterson committee submits report to New York Meidco-Legal Society,
recommending use of chair rather than tank of water or rubberized table.
December 13, 1888 - Westinghouse writes letter in NY Times accusing Brown of acting "in the interest
in and pay of the Edison Electric Light Company."
January 1, 1889 - World's first Electrical Execution Law goes into effect.
March, 1889 - Brown meets with Austin Lathrop, superintendent of New York prisons, to arrange for
purchase of Westinghouse AC generators to power the electric chair. Because Westinghouse will not
sell directly to the prisons, Brown and Edison resort to subterfuge to acquire three generators for $7,000
to $8,000.
March 29, 1889 - William Kemler kills his lover Matilda ("Tille") Ziegler with an axe in Buffalo, New York,
which was then known as :the "Electric City of the Future."
Spring, 1889 - Joseph Chappleau, convicted for poisoning neighbor's cows, is first person sentenced to
death under Electrical Execution Law. His sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
May, 1989 - William Kemmler is sentenced to death.
1889 - 1890 - Westinghouse funds appeals for Kemmler on the grounds that electrocution is cruel and
unusual punishment. Edison and Brown are witnesses for the state. The appeal is denied, as are two
subsequent appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1890 - Edwin R. Davis, Auburn Prison electrician, designs an electric chair model which closely
resembles our modern device, as well as elaborate testing procedures involving large slabs of meat.
August 6, 1890 - Kemmler is executed in the electric chair at Auburn Prison, the first person ever to be
executed by electrocution. The first application of current is botched and Kemmler does not die until the
current is fired up a second time.
http://www.ccadp.org/electricchair.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 110 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: May 2005