(J. P. Brown, Chattanooga historian now residing in Memphis tells of two sensational events which occured years ago - the last legal hanging here and a lynching which brought national ramifications.)

The recent excitement about the Chessman case in California brings back to me the last public execution (hanging) in Chattanooga, which took place I believe about 1893, and which I witnessed.

Buddy Wooten had committed an unmentionable crime against a young girl. At that time there were no automobiles, and criminals could be traced by bloodhounds. Perry Phipps who lived at Hixson, had several bloodhounds. One, especially called Old Jude, was considered very fine. Mr. Phipps was called in and placed Old Jude on the trail at the scene of the crime. The negro evidently realized that he should put all the distance between himself and the scene that he could, for it was near Ringgold that Old Jude overtook him. He was duly tried, and sentenced to hang.

Scott Hyde was sheriff, and to him fell the duty of carrying out the mandate of the court. There was much discussion as to whether Sheriff Hyde should violate the Scriptural commandment "Thou shalt not kill." The Sheriff said that he was the Sheriff, and so long as he was responsible for such duties, he would not shirk it off on any deputy. He caused a high scaffold to be erected at the corner of East End (now Central) and McCallie Avenue, where Nixon's flower garden had been located, and where the Lovejoy Sanitarium was later erected.

On the appointed day a tremendous crowd assembled at the scaffold. My father took me to see the execution, I was then nine years old. The crowd was so big we stood down near the railroad where the McCallie Avenue Viaduct is located, pretty far away, but we could see the scaffold plainly, and the hanging came off promptly on time.

There was another hanging in that was public in a way, which I narrowly missed. Ed Johnson had assaulted a young white woman at the Forest Hills Cemetery, and was tried and found guilty before Judge Sam Whitaker. General Matt Whitaker was Attorney General, and Judge Lewis Shepherd acted as attorney for Johnson. After Johnson was convicted, his people employed a lawyer who appealed to the Supreme Court, and Justice Stone issued a stay of the hanging until the Supreme Court could review the evidence. That night, Johnson was taken from his at the Walnut Street jail, and hanged on the Walnut Street Bridge.

I had worked late that night, and caught the last street car to East Lake where I lived at the time. While waiting for the car, I heard the pounding as the mob broke into the cell with a sledge hammer, but did not realize what the noise meant until I read in The Times next morning about the lynching. The case created a tremendous furor in Washington. Sheriff Joseph Sharp and a number of suspected citizens, among them W. L. Marquet, were called to Washington and tried either for complicity in the crime, or for having been part of the mob. They were found guilty, I believe, of negligence, and were given a small fine and imprisonment. Mr. Marquet was acquitted.

There was talk that because of the trial and lynching, friends of Johnson had plotted on a certain night to "get" Judge McReynolds and General Matt Whitaker. The Judge was really alarmed. His good friend, Albert H. Rogers, organized a party to go out and patrol the streets around the Judge's home, which was on McCallie Avenue. I was one of the party. Armed with a shotgun, I patrolled Palmetto Street all night East Third to Ninth. A couple of crowds of young Negroes, headed toward East Ninth, were turned back in a polite but firm manner, by telling them that the judge wanted no trouble, and was determined there should be none. At Ninth Street I met a policeman, Otto Crump, who asked me to tell the judge that it was the quietest night he had ever seen on East Ninth Street. On reporting back to the Judge's home, I found General Whitaker sitting up in bed, talking to his wife who was in Winchester. He was telling her not to worry about him, as there was an arsenal of shotguns all around him, and men patrolling the streets all directions. About daylight, Judge McReynolds thanked us all, and sent us home.

I realize that many people are conscientiously opposed to capital punishment because of the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill." But the Good Book also tells us that God said, too, "Whoso sheddeth a man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." If any man deserves capital punishment, Chessman does. One of his victims died, and another, a young woman, has spent her life in an insane asylum.

-J. P. Brown