Last Hanging In The Panhandle |
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On the morning of June 3, 1910, many residents of this area journeyed to Clarendon to witness the last lawful hanging in the Panhandle of Texas.
The doomed convict was G.R. Miller who had worked for a cement company in his home town of Childress . In March, 1909, Miller left his job at the cement company after appropriating some of its dynamite caps. Then he stole a pistol from the house of a relative and rifled the house of a friend before blowing it up with the dynamite he had stolen.
He caught a westbound freight train leaving Childress. On the way to Memphis he became so displeased with two youths already on the train that he shot and killed one of the boys and wounded the other. The wounded boy jumped off the train to give an alert.
As the train was moving between Memphis and Hedley, two other young men - also hoboing free rides - came under Miller's fire. Again, one boy was killed and the other boy was injured.
Miller left the train after it passed through Hedley and was coming into Giles. He was apprehended by Donley County law officers and lodged in the county jail.
In November of that year (1909) Miller was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of one of the boys. However, after serving a few months at Huntsville , he was returned to Clarendon for trial of the second murder which he confessed to committing. At this trial he was given the death sentence by Judge J.N. Browning.
Several days before the execution a scaffold was built and rigged at the edge of town. It stood grimly outlined against the sky.
By mid-morning of the day of the execution, the crowd became so great around the rude scaffold that a nearby work crew laying a road across the sand hills was forced to stop working until after the hanging.
Every train into Clarendon brought people, and others arrived in buggies wagons, on horseback and on foot. The crowd included nearly every man and boy for miles around, but women were conspicuous by their absence. Women had tried to convince their husbands that they needed to go to Clarendon for shopping and other activities, but husbands firmly stated that women had no business being in Clarendon that day. The few women who were in Clarendon had to wait in a group in the wagon yard until the hanging was over.
The execution had many of the aspects of a Fourth of July picnic. Because Judge Browning had ordered the murderer executed not earlier than 11 a.m. and no later than sundown, many of the spectators brought their lunches.
When it was time for the execution, Miller, tall, dark and good-looking, was led onto the platform by law officers. They were accompanied by a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. Miller, who appeared calm, was neatly dressed in a dark suit and white shirt.
He was allowed to "make a speech," and he remained calm until the end of his talk when his voice began to tremble and falter. His last words were directed to young people: "All you children be good children." Then he muttered a paraphrase of the old axiom about crying over spilled milk and signaled that he was ready to die.
A black cap was slipped over his head; the noose was adjusted; the trap door was sprung and he plunged into the shed below with a broken neck.
The crowd turned into a mob and tore the rough shed apart to get a better view of the hanged man. Miller's body was taken away in a horse-drawn hearse with the feet protruding outside the end of the vehicle because the hearse was too short for the convicted killer's corpse.
The execution made a lasting impression on those who were witnesses, especially the young boys. But in those days men - and boys- were conditioned to punishment, and the execution of punishment was acceptable, expected, and tolerable.
(Information obtained from Lumarion Sumner's account in the Amarillo Daily News, September 12, 1966.)
The doomed convict was G.R. Miller who had worked for a cement company in his home town of Childress . In March, 1909, Miller left his job at the cement company after appropriating some of its dynamite caps. Then he stole a pistol from the house of a relative and rifled the house of a friend before blowing it up with the dynamite he had stolen.
He caught a westbound freight train leaving Childress. On the way to Memphis he became so displeased with two youths already on the train that he shot and killed one of the boys and wounded the other. The wounded boy jumped off the train to give an alert.
As the train was moving between Memphis and Hedley, two other young men - also hoboing free rides - came under Miller's fire. Again, one boy was killed and the other boy was injured.
Miller left the train after it passed through Hedley and was coming into Giles. He was apprehended by Donley County law officers and lodged in the county jail.
In November of that year (1909) Miller was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of one of the boys. However, after serving a few months at Huntsville , he was returned to Clarendon for trial of the second murder which he confessed to committing. At this trial he was given the death sentence by Judge J.N. Browning.
Several days before the execution a scaffold was built and rigged at the edge of town. It stood grimly outlined against the sky.
By mid-morning of the day of the execution, the crowd became so great around the rude scaffold that a nearby work crew laying a road across the sand hills was forced to stop working until after the hanging.
Every train into Clarendon brought people, and others arrived in buggies wagons, on horseback and on foot. The crowd included nearly every man and boy for miles around, but women were conspicuous by their absence. Women had tried to convince their husbands that they needed to go to Clarendon for shopping and other activities, but husbands firmly stated that women had no business being in Clarendon that day. The few women who were in Clarendon had to wait in a group in the wagon yard until the hanging was over.
The execution had many of the aspects of a Fourth of July picnic. Because Judge Browning had ordered the murderer executed not earlier than 11 a.m. and no later than sundown, many of the spectators brought their lunches.
When it was time for the execution, Miller, tall, dark and good-looking, was led onto the platform by law officers. They were accompanied by a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister. Miller, who appeared calm, was neatly dressed in a dark suit and white shirt.
He was allowed to "make a speech," and he remained calm until the end of his talk when his voice began to tremble and falter. His last words were directed to young people: "All you children be good children." Then he muttered a paraphrase of the old axiom about crying over spilled milk and signaled that he was ready to die.
A black cap was slipped over his head; the noose was adjusted; the trap door was sprung and he plunged into the shed below with a broken neck.
The crowd turned into a mob and tore the rough shed apart to get a better view of the hanged man. Miller's body was taken away in a horse-drawn hearse with the feet protruding outside the end of the vehicle because the hearse was too short for the convicted killer's corpse.
The execution made a lasting impression on those who were witnesses, especially the young boys. But in those days men - and boys- were conditioned to punishment, and the execution of punishment was acceptable, expected, and tolerable.
(Information obtained from Lumarion Sumner's account in the Amarillo Daily News, September 12, 1966.)