Conspirator Execution

[MaddieM]

I read recently from a newpaper clipping that the conspirator's families and loved ones could witness the execution. Was this so? Or were they ushered into a back room out of the way?

[L Verge]

I believe I'm correct that only Anna Surratt and one or two of Herold's sisters were on the Arsenal grounds during the execution. After Anna was allowed her last visit with her mother and pinned a jet arrow broach on Mary, she was led to another area of the penitentiary where attorney Doster and a Mrs. Dix waited with her. The story we have been told is that Anna watched until the hood was placed over her mother's head and then turned away and flung herself down in hysterics. I have also heard another version that she fainted as the hood went over her mother's head.

John Elliott is the one to fill in the details on this. His and Barry Cauchon's work on what went on Inside The Walls is absolutely amazing.

[BettyO]

I believe you are very correct, Laurie. In all the reports I've seen of the execution (and I have a lot of them), Anna was taken to another part of the prison upon her final separation from her mother where Doster and Mrs. Dix assisted her. Supposedly she either went into hysterics and/or fainted upon viewing her mother being hooded. I had never heard that the Herold girls remained on the Arsenal grounds - but could have.

[L Verge]

Where's Lindsey? We need her to answer questions about the Herolds.

There's a sad story about the Herold daughters trying to shield their mother from knowing when it was time for the execution of her son. Since the time was set from between 1 and 2 pm on the afternoon of July 7, the girls decided to stop all of the clocks in the house so that they would not chime the hour.

They forgot, however, that church bells in that day chimed the hour. When the bell chimed two o'clock, Mrs. Herold knew that her son was dead.

[MaddieM]

(02-14-2013 06:59 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Where's Lindsey? We need her to answer questions about the Herolds.

There's a sad story about the Herold daughters trying to shield their mother from knowing when it was time for the execution of her son. Since the time was set from between 1 and 2 pm on the afternoon of July 7, the girls decided to stop all of the clocks in the house so that they would not chime the hour.

They forgot, however, that church bells in that day chimed the hour. When the bell chimed two o'clock, Mrs. Herold knew that her son was dead.

How sad. To have been the mother of any of those people and knowing they were to die must have been ghastly.

[Lindsey]

I've had a visitor to SH try and tell me that the mystery figure in the upstairs window of the execution photo was Emma Herold, one of the younger sisters. I have also been told that it was Anna Surratt, but neither suggestion has any validity. While I have been away from my Davey research for awhile I did come across a source that described two of Davey's sisters (throughout the trial whenever they are mentioned in the newspapers they're always in pairs and never named!) went to see Johnson on July 7th just like Anna did but were also turned away. I just have a gut feeling that they would not come, but nothing to back that up.

Speaking of which, do we know who the person is in the window at the execution?