Winnebago County IL Archives News.....The Execution of Alfred Countryman April 8, 1857
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Deb Haines http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000719 September 2, 2011, 6:32 pm

Milwaukee [WI] American April 8, 1857
The Execution of Alfred Countryman, at Rockford, Ill.

The facts of the murder were briefly these:--
On Monday the 11th day of November last, Alfred Countryman and a younger 
brother came to Rockford with some cattle in their possession, which the[sic] 
sold at a price so low as to create a suspicion that the cattle were stole. 
Sheriff John F. Taylor consequently had Countryman and his brother arrested 
and brought before an examining magistrate, and they were ordered to ___ bail 
to answer to the alleged offense at the next term of the Circuit Court. The 
bail not being forthcoming, Mr. Taylor proceeded to convey Alfred Countryman 
to jail. After they had reached the front door of the prison, Countryman broke 
away from the Sheriff, jumped over the fence, and started to run-the officer 
in quick pursuit. They had gone only some two or three hundred feet when the 
fugitive drew a pistol and shot the Sheriff through his heat, killing him 
instantly. Countryman escaped to the woods, and was shortly afterwards 
arrested by a crowd who went in his pursuit, and lodged him in jail. On the 
23d of February last, the trial of murderer was commenced in the Circuit 
Court, which resulted in his conviction, and he was sentenced to be hung on 
this day.

The arrangements for the execution, made under the immediate direction of 
Sheriff Church could not have been better or more complete.--The place 
selected for the scene of the execution is some two miles northwest of from 
the city.--The ground rises rapidly from three sides of a flat or "swale" in 
the prairie, forming an amphitheatre. The gallows was placed on the flat at 
the foot of the ridges, so that fifty thousand persons might have viewed the 
solemn scene.

About 1 o'clock the cortege started from the jail for the gallows. It 
consisted of five carriages containing the prisoner and the Sheriff and his 
deputies, members of the bar, the spiritual advisor of the criminal, 
physicians, members of the press, and the prisoner's father, brother and 
sister. Upon each side of the carriage marched a guard of some three hundred 
firemen and citizens, armed with sabres and carbines. After reaching the 
ground, those in the carriages took their place on the scaffold. After a short 
pause Rev. Mr. Crews offered a short prayer in behalf of the doomed man in 
which the prisoner seemed to join with great earnestness.

The criminal then addressed the crowd as follows:

GENTLEMEN AND LADIES:--I do not feel able to address you much. I am not gifted 
with great speech. Thank the Lord! there is one above that I trust that I may 
have a world of peace. Ladies and Gentlemen, I warn you all to love God! My 
time here is short, and it is time I should disappear. I have had great 
trouble to make my peace; but thank God! I had a friend on earch. Blessed be 
to God! yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, I can go to God with this terrible murder 
to my charge; and when we all meet there we will find out who is right and who 
is wrong. I have but a few more minutes to live. Lord have mercy upon my wife 
and little ones, on my old father and my dear mother, on my brothers and 
sisters and on each one of you here that we may meet in a world of peace where 
sorrows be no more! Praise be to God that I pray to die! --- that heavenly 
land where sorrow is no more---God pardon me!

Up to the utterance of the last four or five sentences of this address, the 
prisoner had exhibited a wonderful self-possession, and though very pale, 
betrayed but little agitation; but at the close, his ___ness seemed to 
partially give way, and his language was incoherent and broken. He sat down 
upon a chair, in the centre of the scaffold and, after parting with Rev. Mr. 
Crews and his counsel, the Sheriff and his deputies proceeded to pinion the 
criminal and adjust the rope. During this the prisoner exclaimed, "Farewell 
both friends and foe! Glory be to God! Glory be to God! Glory be to God! Glory 
be to God!--I'm going home.--Glory be to God!!"

Everything being ready, the sheriff bade him good-bye, and a moment later the 
_____bolt was withdrawn, and at seventeen minutes past two o'clock, the soul 
of Alfred Countryman went to the judgment bar of God! The prisoner struggled 
for nearly five minutes, although his neck was broken, and after hanging 
thirty-two minutes, was cut down, and his body given to his friends. During 
the scene upon the scaffold, the father, brother and sister of the condemned 
man stood upon the ground within a few feet of the gibbet, and their 
lamentations were truly heart-rending.

During the whole of the terrible scene, the immense crowd of fully twenty 
thousand people, manifested the utmost decorum and during the whole day 
indeed, your correspondent saw but two drunken persons. I should judge there 
was over one thousand ladies present, and many of them walked to the ground, 
some with infants in their arms, through mud ankle deep, to see a sight that 
caused so many a manly heart to quail. Wost the effect of this execution may 
be upon the minds of the thousands who witnessed it, would be difficult to 
determine. Curiosity was, no doubt, the prime motive which induced their 
attendance; and those who contend that examples of this kind have the effect 
to deter man from incurring a similar penalty, would be sadly puzzled to 
determine the effect of the conflicting emotions which __lered the breasts of 
that vast crowd of spectators, who had congregated for the single purpose of 
see-a fellow creature die.--Cor. Chicago Tribune.

April 8, 1857
Milwaukee American

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