Judicial Executions in Hamilton Co. TN

Judicial executions were originally a local affair, always by hanging and usually in the county seat, which in Hamilton County, Tennessee, was at Harrison after 1840.  Only one person was ever executed there.  In all, only three public judicial executions were ever carried in the county, with the rest of the eight (total) performed in the gallows in the basement of the old Hamilton County Jail.

Washington Gann, white, was the first person in Hamilton County to be convicted of first-degree murder since the county’s incorporation in 1819.  Gann was sentenced to hang on 10 July 1857 at Harrison for the murder of William (or David) Wilcoxen at Dallas, Hamilton Co., but escaped custody.  A team from the Knox County Sheriff’s Office captured him at Independence, Missouri, and brought him back to Knoxville, but there is no further record.

Joseph (or Jacob) Huff, black, was hanged 27 December 1867 at Harrison for the murder of Kilpatrick.  Reportedly 2000 attended his execution, the first in the county.

In 1870, the county seat moved from Harrison to the railroad center at Chattanooga to the southeast.

In 1871, Hamilton County split at a line from the mouth of Harrison Spring Branch to Blackwell’s Ford on the Chickamauga River (South Chickamauga Creek), with the eastern portion becoming James County.  Ooltewah was voted the county seat.  In the whole time of its existence into 1919, its courts never handed down a death penalty.

Shade Westmoreland (or Wood), white, was hanged 19 November 1874 in Chattanooga at the intersection of Baldwin and Vine Streets (the site of the seal in front of the UTC student center) for the murder of William Emberling.  The first to be hanged in Chattanooga, reportedly 5000 attended his execution.

Henry Lawson, black, was hanged 2 September 1881 in Chattanooga at the commons just east of the East Tennessee, Virginia, & Georgia Railroad between Oak Street and McCallie Avenue (the site of the outdoor seating for the Yellow Deli) for the rape of Miss Donaldson of Missionary Ridge.

Jesse Frierson (or Trierson), black, was hanged 2 January 1892 at Hamilton County Jail in Chattanooga for the murder of CPD Officer David Musgrove.  He was the first to be hung from the gallows in the basement.

George Mapp and Buddy Wooten, both black, were hanged 11 January 1895 at Hamilton County Jail in Chattanooga for murder and robbery of white saloonkeeper Marion L. Ross.

Ed Turner, white, was hanged 27 February 1908 at Hamilton County Jail in Chattanooga for murder of his wife Lillie.

Dave Dudley Edwards, white, was hanged 29 January 1909 at Hamilton County Jail in Chattanooga for the murder of J.W. Davis (one of sixteen men he’d killed by his own account).  Edwards, who was contracted by Sheriff Sam Conner to track down Ed Turner while out on bail on charges of manslaughter over the killing of Sam Brooks, was the last person executed in the county jail.