Many Farmington People Witnessed Execution

CLARK, HESS

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri
Date: 9/1/2015 at 22:27:06

Many Farmington People Witnessed the Execution last Wednesday at Kahoka.

The crime which Frank Clark expiated with his own life last Wednesday, was committed on the evening of July 25, last, and assumed the heinour form of an assault upon the person of Miss Ollie Hess, living with her widowed mother, and who was then just less than seventeen years of age. The young lady, who lives a short distance west of Kahoka, was overtaken by Clark in a lonely hollow a short distance west of her home. Clark who was in the vicinity of Medill, saw the young lady passing toward her home and followed after a few hundred feet to overtake her in the lonely hollow where the deed was done.

Details of the crime, hunt, arrest, trial and conviction, are of such recent occurrence and fresh in the minds of our people, as to render a fully detailed account unnecessary. Suffice it to say that Clark was identified by young Mechan, of Galesburg, about six weeks after the crime, was promptly arrested, indentified by Sheriff Arnold and L. Alexander, of Kahoka Review, taken to Palmyra jail where he was kept until a few days before his trial, which began on Monday, October 12, and ended with his conviction on Thursday evening. One week later Clark was duly sentenced by Judge McKee, to hang on Wednesday, November 25, just four months after the day on which the crime was committed.

The march from the Sheriff's office to the scoffold was begun shortly after two o'clock. The doomed man was attended by Father Muckelman and Cooney, the latter of St. Patrick. The former made a few appropriate remarks, touching the crime and uttering a warning against criminality. Clark, held by Sheriff Arnold and his deputy Wm. Porter, smiling ascended the several steps leading from the landing of the court house door to the scaffold. He readily assumed position over the trap, accommodated his hands, feet and legs to the thongs as adjusted, and calmly surveyed the several hundred people, who having destroyed the stockade command a full view of the final acts.

After the priest had finished, Clark spoke briefly. In a clear, steady voice, pitched high enough that all could hear, he sounded a final warning before plunging to his doom. He referred to his own crime, confessed and said he was sorry for it; said whisky did it and admonished all to take warning against drink, bad habits and company, not to ramble or gamble, but to remain home and obey their mothers. He said he was prepared and ready to go.

His limbs were pinioned, the noose adjusted and the black cap drawn over his head, the trap sprung his body shot downward like an arrow to end of the rope, a drop of six feet and eight inches. For a few minutes only a quiver was discernable, then briefly followed a noticeable writhing of the body, which was studied by those physicians standing by. From the action of the heart it was promptly discerned by the physicians that Clark's neck was not broken by the fall and that he was strangling slowly, thought painlessly, to death. The trap fell at 2:17 and after eleven minutes Drs. J.G. Martin and J.R. Bridges, the invited physicians, pronounced him dead.

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book E, Pages 200, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA