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From: "Cathy Joynt Labath" <>
Subject: [IASCOTT] !! The Gazette; Scott Co, Iowa; Oct 30, 1845
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 17:47:51 -0600


...cont.

The Gazette
Davenport, Scott, Iowa
Thursday, Oct 30, 1845

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE MURDERERS

...About one o'clock the prisoners, preceded by a band of music and forming
the centre of a hollow square of armed men, were marched from the jail
around the Court House, and to the scaffold, which they ascended and which
was immediately surrounded by the guard. The sheriff then proceeded to read
the sentence of the court which was to the effect that they severally be
taken from the jail upon that day and be hung by the neck until dead. That
the body of John Long be then delivered into the hands of Dr. Gregg, of Rock
Island, for dissection; that of Aaron Long to Dr. Barrows, of Davenport; and
that of Granville Young to Dr. Knox of St. Louis. The arms of the criminals
were then unloosed and they were each allowed to address the assembled
people. John Long spoke first and very lengthily and after a few remarks
from the other two, continued his speech for about an hour. The burthen of
his remarks was his own guilt and the innocence of his brother and Granville
Young. He stated the true murderers of Col. Davenport to be Robert Burch,
William Fox, Theodore Brown and himself, and declared that if death be meted
out to any other person for that murder it would be done unjustly. Fox, he
said, shot Col. D. which, however, was done unintentionally. He himself
brought up the pitcher of water for the wounded man to drink, while Burch
plundered him of his watch. He accused E. Bonney of many crimes and as being
accessory to the murder of the Germans, for which the Hodges suffered death,
and cited those present to Mr. Loomis, proprietor of a tavern in Nauvoo and
Dr. Williams of the same city as evidence of his crimes. Shall he be allowed
to escape and a boy like Granville Young be punished?

About the year 1840, desiring to live above the station in life which his
parentage placed him and having a desire to cut a figure in the world, Long
connected himself with a gang of counterfeiters under Bridges, a man now
lying in irons in the Ohio penitentiary, and whom he visited about two
months since. In the year 1842 a general explosion of counterfeiting
establishments occurring throughout the Union, being too proud to work he
betook himself to robbing for a living. The one for which he was about to
suffer, he stated, being the first robbery that he ever committed which was
attended by cruelty of any kind; a victim, he continued, being as safe with
his pistol to his breast as if guarded by a regular officer of justice.
Although many times arrested for robberies yet- and it was a beautiful
comment upon the general loose manner of eliciting testimony- he always
escaped punishment. As part of his experience, and to illustrate which he
cited many authorities, he stated that the general tendency of what is
termed Lynch law was to make of honest men robbers and murderers, and that
it was owing to the frequency which western men took the law into their own
hands and administered punishment upon innocent men, that so many murders
abounded throughout the west. As one instance stated that Fox, the murderer
of Col. Davenport, was always an honest man until he was unjustly classed
and punished with a band of horse thieves at Belleview, Jackson county,
Iowa, in the year 1840. Will not those persons, who are advocates of this
summary method of administering justice, as it is termed, take seriously
into consideration the reflections of this malefactor?

As an important part of his confession he stated that he had desired of his
counsel the privilege of confessing in court his own guilt and freeing his
brother and Granville Young form all participation in the horrible deed.
This his counsel refused because it would incriminate himself. In makine his
statement Long appealed to one of his counsel then upon the stand who nodded
his head in token of assent. We suppose that they did their duty as lawyers
by thus acting, but did they act the part of conscientious and upright men?
If it subsequently be proven that Aaron Long and Granville Young were
innocent of the charge for which they yesterday suffered upon the scaffold,
and which during his remarks John Long so vehemently and repeatedly
protested to be the fact, what must be the feelings of the prisoners counsel
when they reflect upon their instrumentality in hastening those young men to
an untimely grave?

In the whole of his remarks John Long betrayed the hardened and impenitent
wretch. Remorse and contrition appeared to be swallowed up in the desire to
be considered a hero in his last moments- to step off the stage of action
with a proud bearing, that it might be afterwards said that John Long was no
coward. His profession of robber had taught him to esteem cowardice as the
worst passion ever betrayed by man and he sought to impress this idea upon
the minds of those who listened to him. He appeared in his last moments to
glory in the deeds that he had committed and to lament that his profession
was about to lose one of its brightest constellations. As for eternity; his
ideas of futurity extended no further than the bounds of the gallows upon
which he stood. He feared not death and in the face of his offended God,
stood before that audience and made his boasts of the fact. If ever a man
deserved death, John Long, from his own statements, was that man.

But what shall we say of Aaron Long and Granville Young, they in whose
innocence John Long persisted and who in their own limited remarks with
tears declared the statement of John Long to be true?- They were tried in
company with one who has confessed himself a participant in the murder of
Col. Davenport, at a time of general excitement, and before a jury who from
the nature of circumstances and as honorable men, must have been prejudiced
more or less against the cirminals. The testimony against Granville Young
was chiefly given by Bonney and consisted mainly in the fact that he, Young,
had stated to Bonney whilst on a steamboat and a perfect stranger to him,
that he knew Fox, Burch and Long to be the murderers of Col. Davenport. Why
were they then not tried separately? Will not the same reasons which caused
those me to be tried together be apply equally well to the trial of Burch
and Baxter?

One statement of John Long deserves to be remembered, and by the youth to be
constantly borne in mind. He said that during his confinement in prison
under sentence of death, he had had time for reflection and that the had
reviewed his life from his infancy to the present time and hand then asked
himself, at what period of his life was he most happy? The answer was, only
during that period in which he led an honest life.

As a last request John Long desired that the bodies of himself and brother
be given to his friends, who were then present, and conveyed to his parents
that they might look upon the mortal remains of their only children. A
beautiful and impressive prayer then was offered up to the Throne of Grace
by Dr. Gatchell, after which, at the request of the prisoners, the 139th
Psalm was read. The convicts then passed around on the scaffold and shook by
the hand each person present. Their arms were then confined behind, the
ropes adjusted around their necks, caps drawn over their faces, and at a
stroke from the axe of the Sheriff, the drop fell. The rope attached to the
neck of Aaron Long broke and he fell heavily upon the boards beneath the
gallows. A sympathy was immediately created in favor of the criminal, who
was led upon the scaffold in a very weak state, pleading in heart-rending
tones that his life be spared. Some cried out, "Let him go!" others, "Let
the law be fulfilled!" "Murder!" "Make haste!" and finally a panic seized
the multitude- who were under the impression that a rescue had been
attempted and that they were in danger of being shot- and they fled in all
directions, men, women and children, while to aggravate the evil teams
dashed pell-mell through the crowd, but, as it providentially happened, not
a person was hurt and no accident occurred save the breaking in pieces of
one wagon. Hats, shawls, chairs, and not a few shot guns belonging to the
brave rifle company, who guarded the prisoners, were afterwards picked up on
the field of bloodless confusion. The rope was quickly adjusted about the
neck of Aaron Long, the plank upon which he stood knocked from under him and
his cries were hushed in the spasmodic efforts of a dying man.

John Long fell motionless, nor moved not, as though determined previously
that nothing should cause him to display the least sympathy of cowardice.
The other two displayed signs of animation for some minutes afterwards.

We left hte gound fully established in the conviction with which we have
long been impressed, that capital punishment is a relic of barbarism,
tending to the corruption of the community wherein practiced, and that
sooner it be abolished and imprisonment for life substituted, the more
speedy will be murder and crimes of magnitude cease to be common
occurrences.





Cathy Joynt Labath
Scott Co, IA USGenWeb Project
http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/


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