University of Nashville Medical School – Nashville Historical Newsletter

Public Executions in Nashville

by Lewis L. Laska.

On January 25, 1866, four young men were hanged in the yard of the Tennessee State Prison, located on Nashville’s Church Street. They were known as the Hefferman (Heffernan in some sources) killers. The oldest was 20, two were 17, and the youngest, who was so small that he bragged his hanging would not succeed, was only 16.

This is the story of public executions in Nashville. The practice was ended in 1883, for a rather surprising reason. Too many people were being injured by the crowds that attended hangings, which had turned from being solemn religious occasions to festive events that included public drinking. It was Victorian manners, rather than morals, that ended public executions in the state.

Slaves had been hanged for murder in Tennessee from the beginning, but the first white hanging in Nashville took place on December 29, 1801, when Henry Baker was hanged for horse stealing. The highest court in the state, which included Andrew Jackson, affirmed the sentences of three other horse thieves, who were hanged together on June 25, 1802, on Rutledge Hill.

Nashvillians did not see many executions. The next was a dual hanging of Jacob Pickering and Stewart Thornton, murderers, on July 13, 1811. John Lusk, also found guilty of murder, was hanged on June 26, 1820. It was more than two decades later that two more men were executed in Nashville: slaves named Jacob Bedford and Dick Dyer in 1842.

Thousands attended the October 2, 1843, triple hanging of murderers Willis Carroll, Archibald Kirby, and Zebediah Payne. By that time newspapers were widely available, and enough Middle Tennesseans could read to draw a crowd to the event. The hangings were discussed for decades because Kirby, who vigorously protested his innocence, had been convicted of killing a young woman based on circumstantial evidence. And his “innocence” was confirmed to many credulous Victorians after a young woman who witnessed the execution fell into a swoon and died two days later.

By the middle of the 19^th century, execution had become a fervent religious occasion. Well-known clergy vied to preach a sermon from the gallows, and the condemned man typically made an impassioned statement exhorting the crowd to live a proper life. The lesson was meant for slaves, as well, for the March 17, 1852, execution of Alec, Jerby, and Bob (their surnames were not published) involved vigorous preaching on the evils of disobeying one’s master, as well as criminal wrongdoing.

No other executions took place in Nashville until October 21, 1865. This was the most famous trial and execution in Nashville history. Confederate guerilla Champ Ferguson boasted he had killed 100 men during the war. A military tribunal convicted him of the wanton killing of eleven. One victim was lying in a hospital bed when Ferguson entered his room and shot him in the head. Ferguson’s hanging took place in the courtyard of the Church Street prison in front of 300 people, who had been given passes to attend.

The execution of the Hefferman killers the following year (January 25, 1866) was somewhat related to Ferguson’s. The four teenage thugs had robbed and killed an elderly and well-respected Nashville railroad contractor as he rode home one night in a carriage with his family. Because the killers were civilian employees of the Union Army, their case was decided by a military tribunal and approved by Gen. George H. Thomas, commander of U.S. forces in Tennessee. The swaggering youngsters expected to the end that they would be reprieved, but President Andrew Johnson denied their appeal, and the post-Civil War federal authorities needed to demonstrate that they could serve even-handed justice to all. Fifteen thousand people attended the execution. The military denied applications from whiskey, candy, and apple vendors to sell refreshments to the crowd.

The next public execution took place on May 9, 1874, when African American rapist Bill Kelly was hanged before a crowd of ten thousand people. The Reverend Nelson Merry, the most famous black minister of the time, delivered a homily and a prayer, after which Kelly said, “Jesus is with me. I am ready to be offered up. I am ready to die – hear me: I am prepared to die. I have religion and I don’t fear death. I’m going home.” At the moment the trap sprung, the crowd surged forward, and hundreds were injured (most not seriously), as a 50-member guard fixed bayonets and drew pistols. All of Nashville’s “fallen women,” dressed in their best and seated in lavish carriages, witnessed the execution.

The last truly public execution came on March 28, 1879, when Knox Martin, known as the Bell’s Bend Killer, was executed before a crowd of at least ten thousand, including parents who had taken their children out of school to attend. Martin had become a Catholic in the weeks before his death, and the homily was delivered in Latin before a disappointed crowd. A passing train spooked some of the horses and someone fired a pistol in the excitement. The bullet struck a young woman in the leg, causing another stampede. No one was seriously injured in the melee, although, in a similar incident in Memphis, a carriage turned over, killing a spectator.

It was clear that public executions were becoming too rowdy and dangerous. Part of the blame could be assigned to false science – Knox Martin had given doctors and medical students permission to conduct an experiment that would attempt to bring him back to life. The moment his body was taken from the scaffold, it was hurried to a nearby shed and connected to electrical batteries. The body jerked convulsively but did not come to life. Undeterred, doctors at the University of Nashville Medical School continued the experiments for some time.

Plainly stated, throngs of people were coming to public executions hoping to see both a death and a resurrection. The event had become a circus of death.

After 1883 executions in Tennessee were no longer public. New laws required them to be quasi-private, so gallows were constructed in such a way that the public was barred from seeing the actual drop. The law was amended to require the hanging to take place inside a jail or jail courtyard, viewed by only a select group of witnesses that did not include the victim’s family. Finally, in 1909, all executions were moved to the main prison in Nashville, and in 1916 the mode of execution was changed from the gallows to the electric chair.

Previously published in David C. Rutherford, Bench and Bar II, Nashville Bar Foundation, 1981. Used by permission of the author.

The Relevance of 1850s Nashville

by Mike Slate.

*The Clover Bottom Mansion, Donelson, built in 1858, is currently home to the Tennessee Historical Commission*

Events of the past continue to shape our lives today, and the prosperous era of the 1850s is a case in point. In 1850 the first locomotive arrived in Nashville, sustaining and enhancing the city as a regional commercial and metropolitan hub, a standing we have never relinquished. Today’s Union Station, built at the turn of the century during the railroad boom, survives as one of our most beloved cultural landmarks.

*Nashville’s Union Station opened in October 1900 as a Louisville & Nashville Railroad station.*

The Medical School of the University of Nashville opened in 1851, met with immediate success, and quickly established Nashville as a medical center. Following in its wake, Shelby Medical College opened in 1858. The Nashville medical tradition continued with Vanderbilt University, which today provides one of America’s finest medical centers.

The Medical Department of the University of Nashville opened on Second Avenue South in 1851. It would become part of Vanderbilt University in 1874, forming the nucleus of what is today the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

In 1854 the publishing arm of the Methodist Episcopal Church South opened on the public square, securing Nashville’s future as a publishing mecca. No doubt the presence here of the Methodist Publishing House played a part in the 1870s formation of Vanderbilt University, which began as a Methodist school. Still in operation today and publishing under several imprints, the publishing house has employed thousands of Nashvillians and pumped millions of dollars into our economy.

In 1873 Cornelius Vanderbilt, known as “the Commodore,” endowed the city of Nashville with $1 million to establish and build the university that today bears his name. The old “Main Building” (pictured above) was dedicated in 1875. Nearly destroyed by fire in 1905, the structure was rebuilt in Italianate style crowned with a single tower and renamed Kirkland Hall in honor of Chancellor James Hampton Kirkland.

Nashville’s first public school was named in honor of educator Alfred Hume, who has been called “the father of Nashville public schools.” Hume School opened in 1855 with 12 teachers. From that modest beginning developed the sprawling Metro Nashville public school system with a total proposed operating budget for the 2021-2022 fiscal year of $1,017,807,500, which provides for 157 schools, 86,000 students, and 11,000 employees.

The Hume School, Nashville’s first public school, opened in 1855 for grades 1-12. In 1874 the high school students moved to the Fogg High School, newly built on an adjoining lot fronting Broad Street. In 1912 the two schools merged and moved into this Gothic Revival building designed by architects William Ittner and Robert Sharp.

The Tennessee State Capitol, completed in 1859, is the governmental temple in which our state laws are still sanctified. Other structures built in the 1850s that contribute to Nashville’s present character include Downtown Presbyterian Church (dedicated in 1851), Holy Trinity Episcopal Church (1852), Sunnyside Mansion (ca. 1852), Belmont Mansion (1853), Literary Building of the University of Nashville (1853), Church of the Assumption (completed in 1859), Clover Bottom Mansion (1859), and Two Rivers Mansion (1859).

Holy Trinity Church, located on 6^th Ave. S at Lafayette, became an Episcopal parish in 1851. The building was occupied by Federal troops during the Civil War and received considerable damage. Restored after the war, it has served the African American community for decades.

These and other events from 150 years ago belie any notion that history is irrelevant. The past has not only a chronological relationship with the present but also a causative one. We did not just happen upon the present: the past is the impetus for today.

All postcards and photographs used in this article are part of the NHN collection.

John Berrien Lindsley, 1822-1897

by Kathy B. Lauder.

Born October 24, 1822, John Berrien Lindsley came to Nashville in 1824, when his father, Philip, became president of the University of Nashville. Young Lindsley was educated at home by his parents and a neighbor, Septima Sexta Rutledge.¹At 14 he entered the University of Nashville, earning a B.A. at 17 and an M.A. two years later.² In 1842 he entered the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, receiving his M.D. in March 1843.³Here Lindsley began a lifelong friendship with adventurer William Walker.⁴

Lindsley’s next pursuit was theology: in December 1843 the Nashville Presbytery accepted him as a candidate for the ministry.⁵ He was licensed to preach in April 1845,⁶ shortly before attending to Andrew Jackson at his deathbed.⁷ Lindsley ministered to churches at the Hermitage and in Smyrna and, beginning in 1847, preached to slaves and the poor.⁸ An 1849 cholera epidemic⁹ kindled his interest in public health.

When Philip Lindsley left the University of Nashville in 1850, his son John Berrien became Chancellor. He proposed to rescue the faltering university by merging with the Western Military Institute of Georgetown, Kentucky,¹⁰ and by establishing the long-awaited medical school. Though apprehensive, Board members permitted the merger. Lindsley spearheaded the development of the medical school in 1851, became its first dean, and taught there until 1873.¹¹ [Note: the following year the University of Nashville Medical School was incorporated into Vanderbilt University, which had been founded in 1873 by virtue of a grant from Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. From that point on, it would be known as the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.]

In 1857 Lindsley married Felix Grundy’s granddaughter Sarah “Sallie” McGavock, with whom he had six children. He served on the Nashville Board of Education and was secretary of the State Board of Education, administering the Peabody Education Fund and overseeing the transition of the University of Nashville into Peabody College.¹² Having received a Doctorate of Sacred Theology from Princeton (1858), he lectured in the Cumberland University Theological Department in Lebanon.¹³

Following the capture of Fort Donelson (February 1862), Lindsley became post surgeon of Nashville hospitals. His valiant efforts to protect university property during federal occupation saved the library, laboratory equipment, and the valuable Troost mineral collection.¹⁴

After the war, Lindsley served on the Nashville Board of Education and was superintendent of Nashville public schools. He helped establish Montgomery Bell Academy (1867) and the Tennessee College of Pharmacy (1870),¹⁵ and in 1875 presided over the State Teachers Association. Having promoted the passage of an 1877 law establishing the State Board of Health, he served as its first executive secretary.¹⁶ As Nashville Public Health Officer from 1876-1880, he supervised all health efforts in Tennessee during the 1878 yellow fever epidemic.¹⁷ He taught Sanitary Science and Preventative Medicine at the University of Tennessee from 1880-1897.¹⁸

Dr. John Berrien Lindsley in later life.

Distressed by wartime divisions within the Presbyterian Church, Lindsley became a minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874.¹⁹ He authored History of the Law School of Cumberland University at Lebanon, Confederate Military Annals of Tennessee, and many works on medicine and public health. He was an early member of the Tennessee Historical Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Medicine.²⁰ His many talents led Alfred Leland Crabb to call him the “Benjamin Franklin of Nashville.”²¹

John Berrien Lindsley died December 7, 1897, in Nashville. He is buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery. (2014)

SOURCES:

¹ Windrow, John Edwin. John Berrien Lindsley, Educator, Physician, Social Philosopher. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938, 8.

² Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 21. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

³ Windrow, 11.

⁴ Lindsley, John Berrien. Letter to Adrian Van Sinderen Lindsley, April 8, 1843. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953. Oversize folder (49). Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁵ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856.

⁶ Windrow, 12.

⁷ Lindsley, Philip. Journal. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 2, Folder 33. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

⁸ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 4, 1849-1856.

⁹ Pyle, G. F. “The Diffusion of Cholera in the United States in the Nineteenth Century,” Wiley Online Library, accessed 1-4-2014. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1969.tb00605.x/pdf

¹⁰ Conkin, Paul K. Peabody College: From a Frontier Academy to the Frontiers of Teaching and Learning. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, 83.

¹¹ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Collection No. 41. Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Annette & Irwin Eskind Biomedical Library, Special Collections: Accessed 1-5-2014. http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/diglib/sc_diglib/biopages/jlindsley.html

¹² State Board of Education Records, 1815-1958. Record Group 91, Volume 55, 1875-1885. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹³ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

¹⁴ Crabb, Alfred Leland. The Historical Background of Peabody College. Nashville: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1941, 20-21.

¹⁵ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

¹⁶ Lindsley, John Berrien. Diary, Volume 5, October 6, 1856 – January 1, 1866. Lindsley Family Papers, ca. 1812 – [1840-1940] – 1953, Box 1, Folder 23. Tennessee State Library and Archives.

¹⁷ Windrow, 140-141.

¹⁸ Windrow, 159-160.

¹⁹ DeWitt, Rev. M. B. Letter, March 11, 1898, quoted in Windrow, 13-14.

²⁰ John Berrien Lindsley Papers, Vanderbilt University.

²¹ Crabb, Alfred Leland. Nashville: Personality of a City. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960, 95.

Theodore Roosevelt’s 1907 Nashville Visit

by C. Michael Norton.

Theodore Roosevelt’s rise to the Presidency was meteoric. In 1897 he resigned from his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to lead the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War. Returning from Cuba a hero, he was elected Governor of New York in 1898. In 1900 he was chosen to serve as William McKinley’s Vice President, and, when McKinley was assassinated a year later, Theodore Roosevelt became President. He was 42 years old. In 1904 he was elected President in his own right.

This dynamic man visited Nashville on October 22, 1907, and received a warm welcome. After he arrived at Union Station about 9:00 a.m. in his own rail car , a parade formed on Broadway behind the President in a horse-drawn carriage, accompanied by 25 to 30 automobiles. The escort of honor was Troop A of the Confederate Veteran Cavalry. The procession moved down Broadway to Eighth Avenue. At that corner were some 2,000 students from schools including the University of Tennessee Medical School, the Hume and Fogg Schools, Buford College, Belmont College, Radnor College, Boscobel College, and St. Cecelia Academy. The parade then wound its way through downtown, ending up at the Ryman Auditorium.

Theodore Roosevelt at Peabody College (postcard image courtesy of C. Michael Norton)

At the Ryman, Roosevelt delivered his principal address of the day. He touched on such current issues as turning the Mississippi River and its principal tributaries into navigable waterways, as well as more enduring issues, like the necessity of preventing stock manipulation (in his words, the need to “punish successful dishonesty”). Leaving the Ryman, Roosevelt changed vehicles to a 50-horsepower Peerless automobile and headed toward the Hermitage. The procession stopped at Peabody College, then located on “College Hill” at Second and Lindsley. This area also included the University of Nashville Medical College and Montgomery Bell Academy.

After a few brief remarks, Roosevelt and his entourage left again for the Hermitage. On the trip out Lebanon Pike, the vehicles passed the site of the Clover Bottom horse racing track where Andrew Jackson had raced his horses. Arriving at the Hermitage where a crowd of over 10,000 had gathered, Roosevelt met with officials of the Ladies’ Hermitage Association. After a tour the President spoke to the crowd on the grounds and promised to secure federal funds to be used toward the preservation of the Hermitage.

The procession’s final stop was at the Confederate Solders’ Home, where the President also made a few remarks. Finally, he returned to his rail car at the Hermitage Station and left Nashville a little after 1:00 p.m., heading south to Chattanooga. During the trip he stopped and briefly spoke from his rail car at several towns, including Murfreesboro and Tullahoma.

An interesting aside concerning this visit involves the advertising campaign later developed by Maxwell House, which attributed its slogan “good to the last drop” to Roosevelt, based on a comment he allegedly made at the time. In fact, it is unlikely that he made such a statement. Nashville newspapers reported that, during his visit to the Hermitage, Roosevelt did ask for a cup of coffee; none of the reports, however, indicated the brand of coffee that was served to him. The Nashville Banner reported that Roosevelt enjoyed the coffee and said, “This is the kind of stuff I like, by George, when I hunt bears.” One can hardly imagine a successful advertising campaign based on that slogan!

Sources:
Nashville Tennessean, October 23, 1907.
Nashville Banner, October 22, 1907.
The Nashville American, October 23, 1907.
Carey, Bill. Fortunes, Fiddles, & Fried Chicken, Hillsboro Press, 2000, pp. 47-48.