Freestone County, Texas Obituaries Galveston Weekly News (of Galveston, Texas) - April 1, 1880 – Page 2 THE GIBBET. Two Men Legally Launched Into Eternity Yesterday. John Henry, at Corsicana, and Allen Towles, at Fairfield, Pay the Penalty of the Law for the Highest Crime Known To the Calendar ....... Execution of Allen Towles at Fairfield FAIRFIELD, via Mexia, March 26 – The legal hanging in Freestone county took place today – Allen Towles, colored, paying the death penalty for the atrocious murder of his wife last December. Five minutes before execution the condemned man was interviewed by the NEWS reporter. He accused the judge, jury and officers of unfairness in his trial, and insisted that he had no recollection whatever of any of the circumstances in connection with the murder. He did not deny having committed the crime, but said he was unconsciously drunk at the time. Continuing in a rambling way, he said that in 1874 he had killed, at Bryan, an Irishman one night, dirking him to the hilt in the breast seven times. At Waco, in 1876, he had exchanged shots with a white man and had floored him, but whether he died then, or subsequently, he did not know, having immediately fled the city. He said he had read the Bible and the Age of Reason, and was of Paine’s way of thinking. He believed that Christ had lived, but doubted his divinity – regarding him as a good man, who had by his virtues been had a high priest in his generation,, and when dead had been deified by the ignorant masses, traditions finally attributing his birth as divine. The scaffold erected in 1861 was in the hall of the jail, and his execution was witnessed by only twelve persons. At 2:05 p.m. he was lead form his cell to the grated window in the hall. He spoke as follows: “Colored people, I have only this to say; Take care of my two children; see that I am buried by my wife, and bring the children occasionally to our graves. Farewell.” He was moved to tears. He stopped on the dead fall at 2:10, and four minutes later was launched into eternity without benefit of clergy. His neck was broken and pulse ceased to beat at 2:22, when the corpse was cut down. The crowd around the jail was small, not exceeding 150 persons. Of the four executions in Freestone county, two were for wife-murder, one for incest, and the other for murdering an overseer in slave time. Before leaving the cell the condemned asked to see and speak with a playmate in boyhood. He said to him in substance that he had sent for him to obtain three solemn promises - first, that he would be a father to his children; second, that he forswear drinking; and lastly, that he never touch cards; as those two sins brought him to the scaffold. Before leaving the jail at Corsicana, some two weeks ago, a NEWS reporter interrogated Allen Towles as to his past life. Towles made the following statement: I was born in Alabama and was raised in Georgia. Came to this country when I was seven years old. Lived in Grayson county till ’65, when I ran away from my mother and went to Freestone county. I never did anything mean except kill my wife, and I have been wretched every since then. I had rather die twice over than to suffer in my mind as I do when I think of her and my two little orphan children. Me and my wife went to Fairfield, the day of the night I killed her, to buy some things for Christmas. After we bought them, I got drunk, and she went home. Towards night I went home and went to bed. That’s all I remember until after I had killed her. The witnesses said I went to bed with her. After I had been asleep a little while, she woke me up and called my name, and I told her if she knew me I would kill her. She answered and said, “Why, Allen, do you suppose I don’t know you?” As soon as she said that I shot her. I am willing and I know I ought to die. I hardly know what to think of a hereafter. I have been treated very kindly, with only one exception; since I have been here. Whenever a woman comes in jail, the jailer jokes and tells her not to come near me; that I kill women. I don’t like to hear this; it grates on my feelings. Otherwise the jailor is as kind as he can be.