
Philadelphia Sun, March 26, 1884.
On this date in 1844, Samuel Mohawk, an indigenous Seneca Indian, was hanged for slaughtering Mary McQuiston Wigton and her five children in Slippery Rock, Penn.
Many witnesses noticed Mohawk in a violent rage as he traveled by stage from New York, and his mood grew fouler with drink and with the repeated refusal of hospitality by white establishments. It’s unclear what specific trigger turned his evil temper to murder at the Wigton residence — if there was any real trigger at all — but in his fury, he pounded the brains of his victims out of their skulls with rocks. The case remains locally notorious to this day, in part for being the first execution in Butler County.
I’d tell you all about it but the (inert but very interesting) blog YesterYear Once More has already got it covered.
On this day..
- Feast Day of Saint Octavian, martyred by the Arian Vandals
- 1540: Hans Kohlhase, horse wild
- 1945: Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim, Lord Moyne's assassins
- Themed Set: More like Drop-shire
- 1824: Richard Overfield, wicked stepfather
- 1864: Kastus Kalinouski, Belarus revolutionary
- 1819: Hannah Bocking, 16-year-old poisoner
- Themed Set: Arsenic
- 1881: George Parrott, future footwear
- 1686: A man and a woman broken on the wheel in Hamburg
- 1733: John Julian, pirate and slave
- 1803: Thomas Hilliker, teen machine wrecker
- 1699: William Chaloner, Isaac Newton's prey
- 1796: Mastro Titta's first execution of many