By Christian Crouch, Assistant Curator and Museum Technologist

[Content Warning: Graphic Description of a Hanging]

We are one week closer to that scariest of seasons, Halloween, and that brings us the second in our literary triptych of stories - the execution of William Hendricks. While being the shortest story and one of two that deal with the execution of a white man, this will serve as a nice bite-size break before the last story of John Jones and his requisite ghost story.

This time we find ourselves in 1860. One year before the start of the Civil War in the United States, a time where one could feasibly see the national Crock-Pot about to boil over but obfuscated enough to not be a certainty. This year also saw one of the major anti-slavery speeches of then-lawyer Abraham Lincoln in New York City at the Cooper Institute (now called the Cooper Union), the election of Lincoln, the birth of Annie Oakley in Ohio, and the secession of South Carolina from the Union. In 1860s Lynchburg, citizens were toying with the idea of voting to leave the Union. Being largely dependent on Northern industrial interests, the wealthy population of Lynchburg was not convinced that cutting ties would be in their best interests.

Amongst these turbulent times, citizens were also probably obtusely aware of the second high profile murder case committed in Lynchburg by a local twenty year-old cart driver William Hendricks.

“The Candy Pull” St. Nicholas Magazine, 1882

The story goes, on December 29, 1859, William Hendricks was visiting a so-called “house of disreputable character” on either “11th Street between Main and Lynch” (what is now Commerce Street) or, as another source contrarily states, “Eleventh street, between Jefferson and Lynch”, and kept by one Lucinda Floyd. Hendricks and his victim, a canal boat worker named Thomas Johnson, were both in the building for what is described as a “candy pulling”[1] and that Johnson was simply there “to have a candy stew.”[2] Candy pullings[1] were used as a way to celebrate a number of different occasions, including birthdays, and mimicked taffy pulling today. Albeit, the actual pulling was done by man, not machine, and was usually pulled by two partygoers with buttered hands[3]. All the way until his eventual execution, he denied “bearing malice towards Johnson, or ever having threatened to kill him” and also denied “any premeditation or design in the commission of the murder.” Though the actual account and description of the crime seems to point the other direction. Hendricks is described as insulting Johnson in some way that is censored in the newspaper account, but seems to be unprovoked. According to the building owner, Lucinda Floyd, “there was an old grudge” between the two men that required little to engage.

Current map of the former location of Lucinda Floyd’s home in 1859, via Google Maps

According to Catherine Floyd, who is believed to be a daughter of Lucinda, Hendricks said he would kill Johnson and Johnson replied saying “Can’t I kill some too; but if you are going to kill...I have not got so much as a gravel in my pocket. [sic]” Lucinda was standing between the two men with an otherwise unidentified L. Mayo as Hendricks stabbed out with a knife at Johnson, wounding him in the neck. Knife lodged in his neck, Johnson proclaimed “I am dead, come and pull this knife out.” Hendricks then made for the door but turned around shortly after arriving and went to go pull the knife out of Johnson. According to Lucinda, he “pulled the knife three times and raised the body three times” which could either refer to the knife being stuck in the body, requiring multiple tugs, or repeated wounding of the body.

After retrieving the knife from the body, Hendricks deposited the knife “into the cellar grate, near Mr. Newhall’s” and ran to the local police station located inside the court house - housing the Lynchburg Museum today. He ran in the building at a “quarter to nine o’clock” and spoke with Captain C.H. Dowdy saying “I come [sic] to give myself up, I’ve killed Thomas Johnson.” After being asked by Dowdy if he was sure, he replied “I struck him with all the power I had; I done [sic] it in self-defense.” Quickly putting Hendricks in a holding cell, Dowdy went to the crime scene and found Johnson lying on the floor still barely alive as he “breathed twice” upon his arrival. Dowdy then found the bloodied knife in the spot indicated by Hendricks.

Alexandria Gazette, Volume 61, Number 139, 11 June 1860

Hendricks was slated to be tried in the Hustings Court (the Museum today) on January 2, 1860, but was sent on to Circuit Court on January 3, 1860. Hendricks was found guilty on June 8, 1860 - a whopping 6 months after his arrest. His case was defended by G.W. Latham and S.A. Gordon and prosecuted by Major Samuel Garland[2] . Garland opened the case with an hour long speech which was described as “being one of the very best of Major Garland’s criminal efforts”, proceeded by the two defense attorneys each having an hour long speech who “delivered excellent arguments, and made quite as much out of out of a very hard case as it was possible for anyone to do.” Garland then delivered a two hour closing speech and the jury was released to deliberate the verdict. After ten minutes, the Jury returned and pronounced the verdict of “Murder in the First Degree.” On his way to the jail, Hendricks confided in a jailer saying that he “supposed it was alright” and that he would “willingly meet death on the gallows as in any other way.” The defense counsel appealed for a retrial, but were denied after a review by an unnamed judge.

Another one and a half months later, August 31, Hendricks was slated to be executed publicly in the “rear of the Methodist Graveyard” - the same site of execution for John Jones (who will be featured next) which is today Old City Cemetery. The morning of his execution, in a heart-rending display, Hendricks was visited by his younger brother who “clinging to the neck of his dying brother” said “Oh! My brother, my brother, must you die?” The proceedings of the day will be recounted here in full:

At 12 o’clock everything was ready, and the prisoner was taken from the jail to the cart which was to convey him to the gallows, which had been erected in the rear of the Methodist graveyard. At his request, his head and face were entirely covered with black cambric, and it was impossible to see his countenance, but no trembling of the body, no quivering of the limbs, gave evidence that he felt any fear of the dreadful fate soon to be his. The procession being formed, the Home Guard and the Wise Volunteer Troop acting as a guard, proceeded slowly to the gallows. Arrived there, the condemned was assisted from the cart, and placed on a platform at the foot of the gallows. The Rev. Mr. Manning, the attending minister, then, at the request of the prisoner and in his name, ‘warned all there assembled against drinking-houses, bawdy-houses, and other like places, for to them, and to the evil company he kept, did he attribute the crime for which he was about to suffer’...he says he believes God has forgiven him, and after death he will go to a place of rest...A fervent and most appropriate prayer was offered up for the prisoner, and the time of execution having arrived, the doomed man mounted the steps of the scaffold with a firm and steady step. The sheriff and his deputy shook hands with the condemned and left the scaffold, and at 10 minutes to 2 o’clock, the drop fell, and the soul of Wm. Hendricks stood in the presence of his Maker! He died easily and quickly; two or three spasmodic contractions of the legs and arms, quickly succeeded each other, for probably a minute, and all was still.

Approximately 3,000 people attended the execution of William Hendricks from all around Lynchburg and surrounding areas.

On an interesting and somewhat unrelated note, there were actually two other military executions, in addition to the private enslaved executions mentioned last week, that informally took place in Lynchburg in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. William Asbury Christian in his book Lynchburg and Its People referencing the public execution of John Hancock states, “Except two negro boys executed during the war for robbery, this was the third person ever hung in Lynchburg, the other two being white men.” Further, the Bedford Democrat wrote on October 6th, 1898 also in reference to John Hancock “It will be the first hanging in that city since two weeks after Lee’s surrender.” Though no other concrete evidence could be found about these two men.

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[1] The Evening Star, Monday, January 2, 1860.
[2] Lynchburg Daily Virginian, Saturday, December 31, 1859.
[3] http://researchingfoodhistory.blogspot.com/2010/12/candy-stew-candy-pull-and-taffy-pull.html

Public Executions in Lynchburg, Part 2

Lynchburg Museum System