The last state public hanging in Georgia occurred right here in Augusta in June of 1931, and it is particularly notable because it signaled the end of an era when public executions were just as much public entertainment as justice being served.
The event was so well attended that a near tragedy occurred when a rooftop filled with spectators at May Park collapsed, injuring many, according to press reports at the time.
By 1936, public executions were outlawed nationwide.
The first public execution in Georgia happened in 1735, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections, and the first person executed in Georgia was a woman. The convict, an Irish indentured servant named Alice Ryley, went to the gallows for killing her master, Will Wise.
It is quite amazing that only an estimated 500 condemned died on Georgia’s gallows from the time of Ryley to the point they were outlawed in 1931, given the fact that executions had become big business, so to speak.
Photos from the time when the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln were hanged show what appeared to be a solemn event, but in other places, executions had become parties with food and other vendors.
It became an urban legend that the word “picnic” was derived from the behavior of people to bring baskets of food and blankets to executions; however, the myth was busted by Reuters, who traced the term to the 17th Century French word, “pique-nique,” which only means a light meal taken while on an outdoor outing.
Yeah, like having a quick snack before watching someone getting guillotined.
According to a report from the School of Law at the University of Georgia, early Georgia law allowed for more that just murderers to be executed; people could be sentenced to death for crimes including “treason, rape, castration, feticide, arson, mutiny in a penitentiary, insurrection, and attempted insurrection.”
In the case of Arthur Meyers, the last man hanged in Georgia, the process here in Augusta would help start the domino effect bringing the end to public executions.
According to reports published in The Augusta Chronicle, at the time, a local panel of judges fussed over whether the punishment for the condemned should be hanging or the new-fangled electric chair.
The primary tool for execution at the time of Meyers’ crime of murdering a railroad inspector in 1924, was hanging, so the judges went with hanging as the sentence and a gallows were hastily constructed at May Park.
However, the electric chair was already in use in 1924, when the shooting occurred, so it is more likely that the judges didn’t want to risk transporting a known escapee the 90 miles to Milledgeville (remember that this was 1931) and also wanted to give the crowds their spectacle as well.
According to The Augusta Chronicle, when the roof of a car garage holding some 40 spectators collapsed, “general pandemonium broke out and Sheriff Gary Whittle decided enough was enough.” Whittle was then reported to have kicked the trap door open and completed the execution.
Just five years later, according to The New York Times, 20,000 people descended on the small town of Owensboro, Ky., to witness what would be the last state-sanctioned public execution in America; by then, the feds had had enough of the parties.
These days, executions are performed using lethal injection and only viewed by prison staff, victims’ representatives, family of the condemned and credentialed members of the media.
When asked, Columbia County Sheriff Clay Whittle, says that his family lore has it that Richmond County Sheriff Gary Whittle is his ancestor, a distant cousin; however, there has never been any genealogical studies performed, so the jury remains out on that one.
…And that is something you may not have known.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
