Sheriff hangs on to history
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By Barb Ickes | Wednesday, June 11, 2008 |
The sheriff sat in the shade on a wooden stoop Saturday as the noose swung in the breeze just a few feet away.
In Henry County, it seems, everybody knows Sheriff Gib Cady. And who better to ask about the gallows that were erected in the old park in Cambridge, Ill., than the owner.
Cady got a phone call sometime in the early 1980s from an acquaintance in Woodhull, Ill., who had made an unusual purchase at an estate sale — the gallows that were used to hang two men in Henry County in the late 1880s.
“I grabbed the horse trailer and went down there that night,” Cady said. “He told me he’d take the 10 bucks he paid for it.”
So, for 25 years or better, the sheriff stored the gallows, routinely promising local historians that he would one day drag it out and put it on display. He was m0erely making good on the promise Saturday during a town festival.
“It’s fun, getting everyone’s take on it,” he said, gazing up at the noose that hung from a 20-foot-high crossbeam, supported by two upright pieces of pine. “Some people told me I tied the bow knot wrong.”
The reactions by many of those who stopped to quiz the sheriff were oddly lighthearted.
When one woman was asked what she thought, she answered, “I know I wouldn’t like to hang from that.”
Others joked.
“A couple people asked me where I was going to get a volunteer,” Cady said with a chuckle. “Somebody else told me I ought to go over to the Lion’s Den, which is an adult novelty-type of store, and buy a robber doll. Somebody else suggested I put a hood over its head and put it in the noose.
“I’m not going to the Lion’s Den.”
Cady, who has 30 years of sheriffing under his badge, said that he suspects people have become hardened to morbid realities, such as public hangings. But that can’t be true.
A killer named Clement Gallion was the first to hang from the county gallows in 1881, and his death created a huge, excited stir. Some people even demanded the sheriff remove a barrier that surrounded the gallows so everyone could watch.
Instead, he was hanged privately, and his body was then put on display.
“They didn’t waste money on embalming,” Cady said. “There would be no long-term showing, and these two guys had no family to claim the bodies.”
The Gallion case is riddled with odd little factoids. He was arrested in Lyons, Iowa, records show, after witnesses fingered him as the man who tried to rob a Henry County farmer, believing he was loaded with cash from a recent hog sale. But the victim already had deposited the dough in a bank, and he and his wife were murdered.
Witnesses were able to identify the killer by his unusual, embroidered shirt, which bore the words: Good luck.
“Turned out it wasn’t such a lucky shirt,” said a woman giving historic tours in a nearby barn.
The fairly flippant reactions probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. People are sick to death of criminals. And the board game (for heaven’s sake) “Hangman” has been on the market for years.
The sheriff certainly wasn’t shy in talking about the way we once dealt with society’s worst elements.
“When I was sworn as sheriff, the previous sheriff instructed me in how to use gallows, and, when I swear my successor, I’ll pass the instructions along,” he said. “Not all of history is pretty, but it’s history, nonetheless.”
In the case of this particular piece of history, it’s not clear whether the gallows incorporated a trap door for the hanging, or if a horse or wagon was used. There’s really not much to it — just a wooden frame and a rope.
“Man, he could’ve made a killing with that thing on eBay,” one person remarked, seemingly unaware of the unfortunate phrasing.
But I’ll bet she’s right.
Imagine that description: “Gallows. Vintage. Low miles. Rope included.”
I’m not sure we’ve really come all that far.
Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.
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