LOCAL HISTORY AS IT WAS REPORTED

From the Cape Girardeau Democrat

Saturday, June 17, 1899

Page 4

The First Legal Hanging for Fifty-Two Years.

The execution of John Headrick here today is the first legal execution had in this county for more than half a century. To be exact, 52 years, 3 months and 25 days have elapsed since the last previous hanging, which occurred at a spot of ground within a few feet of where the east mill now stands. Nathan Watkins, a slave belonging to Asa Watkins, killed Thomas Criddle, a slave owned by Jesse Criddle. For this crime he was sentenced in December, 1846, and hanged February 20, 1847. In those days the gallows and the manner of execution were not so elaborate as now. A post was erected with a piece of timber attached at right angles and braced, the criminal put in a wagon and the wagon driven from under him. In this way Nathan, the colored man, was executed 52 years ago. Old residents who remember it say a great crowd of people came to witness the hanging and that there was a company of militia present to keep the people quiet. James N. Bennett was sheriff then, John D. Cook judge of the court and Albert Jackson circuit attorney. -- Cash-Book

From the Cape Girardeau Democrat

Saturday, June 24, 1899

Page 1

The First Legal Hanging in this

County Since 1847.

The hanging of John Headrick for the murder of James M. Lail, which took place at Jackson last week, recalls stories of the last legal hanging in Cape county. Aside from a military execution during the war and the hanging of a negro by a mob in 1896, there has been no hanging in that county since 1847, when a slave by the name of Nathan, the property of Asa Watkins, was hanged for the murder of another slave. The charge brought against the negro by the grand jury is a curiously worded document which reads as follows:

"The grand jurors of the State of Missouri, impaneled and sworn to inquire in and for the body of the county of Cape Girardeau, upon their oath do present that Nathan, a boy of colour, and a slave for life, late of the county of Cape Girardeau, in the State of Missouri, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil, on the twenty-eighth day of November, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-six, at the county of Cape Girardeau in the State of Missouri aforesaid, with force and arms in and upon one Tom, a boy of colour, then and there being in the peace of God and the State of Missouri, feloniously, wilfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and of his malice aforethought, did make an assault; and that the said Nathan with a certain axe, of the value of one dollar, which he the said Nathan then and there in both hands had and held."

Ann Criddle, the wife of Nathan, is still living in Cape county at the age of 90 years. -- Perryville Republican.

MDSU