Gallows

[BettyO]

It's no wonder that with the close proximity of the gallows in reference to the prison cells that the condemned could hear quite plainly the construction as well as the "testing" of the gallows drops - enough to give anyone, even the guards, the creeps!

[NJREB1863]

(04-23-2013 12:28 PM)barryssentials Wrote:  Hi all. It is so funny to me how difficult it is to get our heads around the orientation of where the scaffold stood and other like icons. In 2008, I had my own issue with this. I just couldn't figure out how the penitentiary was situated on overlays of modern-day Fort McNair. It took a couple of days and several sketches to finally figured it out when, just one week later, my blog received its first email from a really nice Texan, John Elliott (who would later become my research and writing partner). What is so amazing is that he had the exact same question as I had earlier...how to orient the penitentiary It must have been meant to be and it brought us together. So now, anytime anyone has trouble locating where the penitentiary stood or where the scaffold was oriented, I feel their pain. You are on the right track in using the Google Earth views to get your head around this. I will send Roger a photo composite of the layout for the penitentiary and the scaffold which John and I presented during our talk at the 2012 Surratt Conference. It was part of a much longer presentation which showed how, photographically, the exact location of the scaffold was determined. I would post the image myself but I still haven't figure out how yet! LOL. The site lines from the Model Arsenal to the penitentiary, triangulated with the site lines from the old shoe factory to the east wall, place the scaffold in the northeast corner of the tennis courts within the fenced area. Only the stairs would protrude outside of this boundary to the east (right). The four conspirators faced west with their backs to the eastern wall. A picture is worth a 1000 words. I'll send it to Roger very shortly.
Best
Barry

Barry, thanks for clearing this up. I've struggled with his "problem" for some time using Google Earth as well. Now I've got a pretty clear picture of where the scaffold was located at the time.

The one thing I've always wondered is what must have gone thru the minds of those four poor soles as they reached the top platform and looked out to find hundreds of people gawking and waiting to watch them die. It had to be a terrible last few minutes for them.