1904: Mart Vowell, aged Civil War veteran
25 comments June 9th, 2011 Headsman
On this date in 1904, a 61-year-old veteran of the U.S. Civil War was hanged for murder at Paragould, Ark.
Mart Vowell, the hanged man, was anomalously the former city marshall of Rector, Arkansas — and his victim the town troublemaker, whom Vowell had previously arrested.
(Vowell fought in the Confederate army under Nathan Bedford Forrest. If it’s the same Mart Vowell described in this Reconstruction-era report, he apparently stuck around in Tennessee after the fighting stop and followed Forrest into the Ku Klux Klan.)
Even the grand jury summoned to indict the killer had to be dismissed after repeatedly returning only second-degree charges.
This case cries out for primary research beyond the scope of this blog’s daily deadlines further to the motivations of the characters involved, but the bottom line is that Vowell hanged before a highly sympathetic crowd — calling “Good-bye, Mart!” as he “died game” — in Paragould, Ark.
Arkansas Governor Jeff(erson) Davis — named after, but not related to, the Confederate president* — was himself hanged in effigy the next day for his refusal to spare Vowell in the face of thousands of petitioners. Davis being an open advocate of lynching (“without apology to any tribunal on the face of the earth”) we suppose the populist governor could hardly have been sore about a little mannequin, however “carefully prepared.”
* Given the famous characters evoked by name, we need to note that our day’s principal, Mart, was actually named Martin Van Buren Powell, which would presumably make him a namesake of abolitionist former U.S. President Martin Van Buren.
On this day..
- 1980: Ten Hafizullah supporters - 2020
- 2010: Melbert Ray Ford, abusive partner - 2019
- 1944: The Massacre of Tulle - 2018
- 1863: Lawrence Williams and Walter Peters, bold CSA spies - 2017
- 1741: Cook, Robin, Caesar and Cuffee - 2016
- 90: Cornelia, Vestal Virgin - 2015
- 1715: Margaret Gaulacher, Cotton Mather ignorer - 2014
- 1809: Andreas Bichel, Bavarian Ripper - 2013
- 1944: Johanna Kirchner, Frankfurt antifascist - 2012
- 1716: Banda Singh Bahadur - 2010
- 1864: Doctor Edmond-Désiré Couty de la Pommerais, poisoner - 2009
- 1983: Simon Thelle Mogoerane, Jerry Mosololi and Marcus Motaung, anti-apartheid soldiers - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Arkansas,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Confederates,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,History,Murder,Public Executions,Soldiers,USA
Tags: 1900s, 1904, jeff davis, jefferson davis, june 9, ku klux klan, mart vowell, nathan bedford forrest, paragould, police, rector
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