Iowa Old Press

Maquoketa Sentinel
Maquoketa, Jackson County, Iowa
February 1, 1855

On Friday at 2 o’clock P.M., John I. Taylor was hung at the county hospital, near Galena, for the murder of his wife. At 1 P.M., in charge of an armed posse, he was conducted to the place of execution, followed by a large crowd of all classes and ages, maintaining a sad composure during the funeral march. He was an old man of sixty years of age. We copy the execution from the Galena Jeffersonian.

Upon reaching the ground ten thousand persons there stood in one solid mass. Taylor ascended the scaffold perfectly self-possessed and with a firm and steady tread-clothed in a white gown and cap he addressed with a firm voice the crowd for more than thirty minutes. His dying declarations were in substance the same as those uttered by him when sentence was passed upon him. He reiterated his innocence of the crime of willful murder-declared that he knew not how his wife was killed-expressed the hope that as Christ was crucified for all, he was crucified for him, and the belief that he was forgiven by his God.

After the cap was drawn over his eyes, and he knew not what instant he would be ushered into eternity, he again for ten minutes addressed the crowd in a firm and distinct voice, and admonished them to beware of intoxication, the cause of his misfortune and the curse of his life. Weighing some 180 lbs., and having been given a fall of six feet upon the removal of the trap door, he died almost without a struggle-his neck seeming to have been stretched near four inches. Thus died John I. Taylor, who had rendered the state some service in the Seminole War -performed in this city last summer, during the cholera season, offered of kindness and humanity from which others shrank from as dangerous, but who unfortunately was addicted to drunkenness, and slew his wife in a fit of inebriation.

[transcribed by K.W., April 2009]

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Maquoketa Sentinel
Maquoketa, Jackson County, Iowa
February 8, 1855

DENTISTRY
Dr. J. G. Dearborn has taken a room at the Goodenow Hotel and will be ready to perform any operating necessary to preserve or beautify the teeth. Inserting on plate or pivot, filling, regulating or extracting done in a scientific manner with as little pain as possible.--Maquoketa, February 1, 1855.

[transcribed by K.W., April 2009]

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