The 169th Anniversary of the First Woman Executed by Hanging

It was 169 years ago today that Elizabeth Reed was taken from the Lawrence County jail, riding on top of her coffin, to be hanged for the murder of her husband. And her story remains one of questions, conflict, and mystery almost 170 years later. 

Elizabeth (Betsey) Reed was a frontier wife from the tiny Illinois town of Heathsville. She and her husband Leonard resided quietly in their home just outside of town.

But Betsey was not well liked in the tiny village. Many of the local women found her to be coldhearted, uncaring and too eccentric for their tastes.  However, men appeared to be fascinated by her, observing none of the traits that the women did.

Public opinion of Leonard wasn’t much better.  Some viewed him as a calculated businessman who made ruthless decisions. Others said he was a failure who was unwilling to try and fit into society. 

Then, in May 1844, Betsey Reed was accused of giving her husband Leonard, a cup of arsenic-laced sassafras tea (or some said, squirrel soup). He died the next day and she was charged with murder based on a relative’s accusation.

Reed was arrested, taken to Palestine, Illinois and placed in the Crawford County jail. The building was reportedly built from oak trees with walls that were three feet thick. Then the unthinkable happened - a fire, reportedly started by Betsey Reed, burned down the building. 

Officials said that Betsey had had nothing in her possession that could have been used to start the blaze, but the story spread like wildfire across the prairie. Soon insinuations were made that she was a witch and spread around the community, titillating resident. 

Reed was moved to the Lawrence County jail in Lawrenceville, Illinois, about 25 miles away.  The change of venue did nothing to assist in her defense.  The story was so horrifying for the time that it was being covered by newspapers from around the state, and around the country, some as far away as New York City.

Augustus French

Usher Linder

Two well-known attorneys, Augustus French and Usher Linder, prepared Betsey’s defense. The only witness to the supposed poisoning was a relative, 16-year-old Evelyn Deal.  Evelyn said that she saw Betsey pour a white powder into Leonard’s tea and then serve it to him. No other evidence was given. 

William Wilson

Betsey’s trial lasted for three days. During that time, she was never allowed to take the stand in her own defense.  Illinois State Supreme Court Justice William Wilson, after hearing the evidence, pronounced her guilty of murder and sentenced her to be hanged.

Lawrence County Courhouse

On the morning of May 23, 1845, thousands of people lined the streets of the small town of Lawrenceville.  Crowd estimates ranged from 8,000 to 20,000 people, all on hand to witness the first woman to ever be hanged. 

It was rumored that Betsey Reed ‘found God’ in the eleventh hour and had been baptized in the Embarras River the night before.  Newspaper reports said that she went to the gallows, riding on top of her coffin, singing hymns and chanting religious verses.  The minister who presided, Reverend John Seed, preached a long sermon to the crowd while Betsey continued to sing and chant. 

Ninety minutes after the event began, Elizabeth (Betsey) Reed became the first woman in the U.S. ever publicly executed, and the only woman executed by hanging in the state of Illinois.

According to the New York Daily Tribune, Betsey’s body was taken down and dissected.  It was discovered that she had swallowed tiny pieces of brick and pulverized glass in an attempt to kill herself and escape the hangman’s noose.

Betsey Reed was buried outside of the local town cemetery, in an unmarked grave.  But family members, who did not believe she was guilt, demanded she be given a proper burial.  After waiting what they considered “long enough” for her exhumation, relatives stole into town at night and dug up her remains, taking them by river through the "Dark Bend" and across the prairie back to Heathsville.

Betsey was re-interred in the tiny local cemetery called Baker, just outside of Heathsville.  Up a narrow country lane, surrounded by crops and woods, the cemetery has a gloomy feel, even during the day. 

Elizabeth is buried next to Leonard, the husband she was found guilty of murdering, at the back of Baker cemetery.  A simple stone marked E.R. can be found in the grass.  Along side it is a replacement gravestone that simply lists their names, dates, and how they died.  Under Leonard’s name it says “Death by murder.”  Under Betsey’s name it reads “Death by hanging.”

Two Orbs on Cemetery Road

But according to the Crawford County Illinois Ghost Hunters, it appears that Betsey Reed did not go ‘quietly into that good night.’  After exploring this cemetery they have reported paranormal activity around her and Leonard’s graves including this EVP where a woman’s voice states, “I’m innocent.” www.crawfordcountyghosthunters.com/EVPiminnocent.htm

It is now one hundred sixty nine years later and questions still exist as to her guilt or innocence.  Regardless, Elizabeth Reed has gone down in the annals of U.S. history as the first women to be hanged in the state, and the country … a sad legacy, indeed.

~ Joy

Untouchable Eliot Ness: The Man, The Myth, The Legacy

Eliot Ness

He was America’s Number One Prohibition Agent, famous for nabbing gangster Al Capone on tax evasion and enforcing the anti-alcohol laws of Prohibition. But was he really responsible for Capone’s arrest? And how true was his autobiography, “The Untouchables”?

Eliot Ness was born in Chicago in 1903. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1925 with a degree in economics, but returned to pursue a degree in criminology. His brother-in-law, a Bureau of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) agent, helped get Ness hired, and by 1927, Ness was working with the Bureau of Prohibition in Chicago.

Busting Stills

These "Prohibition agents" were to stop people from selling or drinking alcohol and that was usually done by breaking up illegal bootlegging rings and raiding stills, breweries, and popular nightclubs around Chicago.

Al Capone

This put Ness head-to-head with gangster Al Capone who ran most of the speakeasies and breweries in the “Crime Capital of the World.” After refusing bribes from Capone, Ness and his 8-man team, dubbed “The Untouchables” (for refusing bribes) were prepared to bring Capone in on over 5,000 provable charges of bootlegging.

Capone in Court

But prosecutors knew the charges wouldn’t stick; the public loved drinking but not tax cheats, so Capone was prosecuted on charges of tax evasion, an area Ness had not been involved in.

Eliot Ness

Capone was tried and sentenced to 11 years in prison

while Ness was promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago. When Prohibition ended in 1933, Ness worked as an alcohol tax agent in the “Moonshine Mountains” of Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. By 1935, Ness was working as the safety director in Cleveland, vowing to end police corruption in the city.

Ness and the Cleveland Police Force

Ness spent seven years in Cleveland, cleaning up the 2,000-man police force by ferreting out corrupt police officials and battling against local Mafia and crime lords. It was during this time that he began to develop his style of policing with science: what today we consider a part of forensic science. He also created a professional police force that served under rigorous moral codes. Ness also helped improve conditions for the Cleveland Fire Department, and promoted traffic safety.

Torso Killer Victim Found

But then Ness began to falter: a serial killer known as the Cleveland Torso Murderer was loose in the city; at least a dozen people had died. Ness indicated in his journal that he knew who the murderer was but could never get him convicted. Personal problems also took a toll and he began to drink and carouse. His first marriage ended in divorce.

In 1942, he resigned his position as Public Safety Director, remarried and moved to Washington D.C. to work for the federal government in the battle against prostitution and vice. By 1947, he was remarried and was living back in Cleveland where he ran for the office of Mayor. He lost the election, sank into debt, and started drinking heavily. In 1953, he took a job with North Ridge Industrial Corporation, a paper company from Cleveland, and moved his family to the new headquarters in rural Pennsylvania.

Oscar Fraley

It Never Happened

Ness decided to write his autobiography but soon realized he needed a ghostwriter. He hired Oscar Fraley, a reporter, to collaborate with him. Fraley ended up writing the book, creating events and characters that were totally fictitious. Fraley painted Ness and his men as fearless agents who were mysteriously ‘untouchable,’ when in fact it was the careful, methodical planning on Ness’s part, the integrity of his team, and sheer gut instinct that kept most of the men from being gunned down.

Eliot Ness's Grave

The book, “The Untouchables” was published in June 1957. Ness never knew that his myth and legend had been secured: Eliot Ness died of a massive heart attack on May 16, 1957, one month before the book came out. He was 54 years old. Eliot Ness was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

1960's TV Show

But the Capone/Ness crime-fighting legacy continued. Several television programs, movies, novels, and comic books (Dick Tracy was said to have been modeled after Eliot Ness.) have been made about Elliot Ness’s life as an American hero. 

The Untouchables Movie

Eliot Ness

But what is the true story? Fifty-seven years after Ness’s death, it’s hard to decipher between what he really said and did, and the Hollywood version: a highly fictionalized story of a super-hero lawman.

ATF Building

In January, it was proposed that the headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington D.C. be named after Ness. But several authors and a Chicago Alderman opposed the resolution, inferring that Ness's legacy was not representative of who the man really was.

Now, almost 60 years later, it appears that Eliot Ness has indeed become “untouchable” but not in the way he had hoped …

~ Joy

The Tombstone Trail: An Innovative Idea

There are wine trails, bike trails, bourbon trails, food trails, art and culture trails – but have you ever been on a Tombstone Trail?

The nation’s only historic cemetery trail tour can be found in Noble County Indiana along the Grand Army of the Republic Highway (U.S. 6) and State Road 9. 

The trail was founded by John Bry, executive director of the Noble County Convention and Visitors Bureau www.visitnoblecounty.com in 2010. What began as a trail for Noble County now includes DeKalb, Koscisuko, Whitley, and Huntington Counties as well.

Bry wanted to create something that tied together Hoosier history and genealogy, with area cemeteries and included profiles of the famous and infamous of Indiana’s history. Volunteers have researched and pulled together over 80 stories including tales about architects, a Noble prize winner, and soldiers who served in the War of 1812, Civil War, both World Wars, and Vietnam, along with accounts about a Salvation Army donut girl, the last Miami Indian Chief, and Indiana author and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter.

If you are a Tombstone Tourist, you are aware that cemeteries are rich repositories of history, art, architecture, and stories. This Trail is a creative way to coax others into the graveyard for a chance to explore what is really there and admire the monuments and stories of those who have gone before.

The Tombstone Trail offers self-guided tours of 10 cemeteries over an 85-mile radius. Last year the group published pdfs and books on each cemetery and offered them for sale on their website www.tombstonetrail.com. Those wanting to take a tour should purchase a pdf or book to learn more about the stories of a certain cemetery. Each book contains a map with the graves marked. Once at the cemeteries, QR (quick response) codes are located at the gravesites for more information.

The Tombstone Trail is beginning its fifth season late this summer with guided tours for groups of 10 or more held during the autumn; some tours may be conducted by candlelight! Self-guided tours may be taken year-round. Some of the cemeteries on the guided tour trail may change each year so that each season offers new stories and some old favorite. Proceeds from all tours and books go to historic cemetery conservation. 

Cemetery locations include the Old Kendallville Cemetery, Lake View Cemetery, Rose Hill Cemetery, and Oak Park Cemetery in Noble County; Syracuse Cemetery in Kosciusko County; Blue River Cemetery, Greenhill Cemetery and South Park Cemetery in Whitley County, and Mt. Hope Cemetery and Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Huntington County. For more information about touring the Tombstone Trail, contact the Noble County Visitors Bureau at (877) 202-5761 or visit them on Facebook @ www.facebook.com/TombstoneTrail.

Bry’s idea of a Tombstone Trail is slowly spreading; there are now over 30 cemeteries involved and the trail also includes cemeteries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

What a great way to introduce people to the cemetery with all its beauty and history: a chance for people to learn about some of our country’s famous, infamous and not-so-famous “permanent” residents of those silent cities of stone.

~ Joy