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1794: Rosalie Filleul, painter1917: Dragutin "Apis" Dimitrijevic, of the Black Hand
1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio
June 25th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
At 11:35 a.m. on this day in 1880, three teen boys were publicly hanged in Canton, Ohio. George E. Mann was sixteen, Gustave Adolph Ohr was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, and John Sammet(t) had just turned eighteen the day before. Between them, they had committed two murders.
Left to right: Mann, Ohr, and Sammett.
George Mann and Gustave Ohr came from similar backgrounds: both lost a parent in early childhood — George's mother and Gustave's father — and both didn't adjust well. By the summer of 1879, both boys had run away from home. They were riding the rails when they met each other and began traveling with an older tramp, John Watmough.
The trio had reached Alliance, Ohio when, on June 27, 1879, Gustave and George decided to rob Watmough as he slept. They beat him on the head with a railroad coupling pin, mortally wounding him, and the boys took his watch, money and clothes and ran away. Watmough was able to crawl to a nearby house and mumble a few words before dying. His killers were arrested within minutes.
George, although he insisted it was Gustave who'd struck the fatal blows, was convicted of first-degree murder on December 6. Gustave was convicted on December 13. On December 31, both were sentenced to death. George went to his grave saying he was innocent, but his partner-in-crime refused to cinch his clemency argument by taking full responsibility.
According to the Stark County Democrat, while awaiting their deaths, George and Gustave were both able to obtain "many luxuries" by selling copies of the gallows ballads they supposedly wrote themselves. (Mann's | Ohr's)
John Sammett, like George Mann, lost his mother at a very early age and lived with his father and stepmother at the time of his crime. Like the Bavaria-born Gustave Ohr, he was of German parentage, although John was born in Ohio. He developed a reputation as a petty thief and was arrested several times, but his relatives always bailed him out of trouble.
In August of 1879, John and a sixteen-year-old friend, Christopher Spahler, broke into a saloon. They were arrested, and Spahler agreed to turn state's evidence and testify against his erstwhile friend. The burglary trial was scheduled for November 26; the day before, John tracked down Spahler and tried to get him to change his mind. Spahler would not relent, and John shot him in the chest.
People heard the shot and came running; Spahler died a short time later without speaking, but both John and the murder weapon were still at the crime scene. He was arrested immediately, and on March 2, 1880 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Meanwhile, in a different hanging circus … (widely reprinted wire story via the Milwaukee Journal of Commerce of (despite the dateline) June 23, 1880.
This Akron Law Review article notes,
The public hanging of Mann and Ohr, along with John Sammett, was the occasion for a community-wide extravaganza. People came to the small town of Canton in eastern Ohio by excursion train from as far away as Chicago and Pittsburgh to witness the event. A circus was part of the extravaganza [literally, Coup's circus was in town at the same time -ed.] and the night before the hangings included much music, cannon firing, speech making and similar merriment. The next morning, Mann and the other two teenaged boys were hanged in the city square of Canton before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people!
After the triple hanging, sheriffs deputies placed the three bodies in the jail corridor and permitted the entire crowd to file through and view the bodies. The public viewing lasted almost four hours, with the doors being closed at 3:30 p.m.
This was the first time the state of Ohio had executed minors.
These three young killers were featured in Daniel Right Miller's 1903 book The Criminal Classes: Causes and Cures, which remarks (speaking of Ohr specifically) "that parental neglect, impure literature, and vicious companions were all responsible for this ruined life and forced death."
On this day..
1950: The Martyred, at the outset of the Korean War - 2020
1999: Eduardo Agbayani, omnishambles execution - 2019
1942: Gordon Cummins, the Blackout Ripper - 2018
1942: Evzen Rosicky, athlete - 2016
1483: Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers - 2015
1646: Jan Creoli, for sodomy in slavery - 2014
2003: He Xiuling, Ma Qingxui, Li Juhua and Dai Donggui - 2013
10 executions that defined the 1980s - 2012
1804: Georges Cadoudal, Chouan - 2012
1790: Thomas Bird, the first federal execution under the U.S. constitution - 2011
1591: Euphane MacCalzean, witch - 2010
1579: Hatano Hideharu, en route to the Tokugawa Shogunate - 2009
1959: Charles Starkweather, Nebraska spree killer - 2008
Possibly Related Executions:
1861: Paula Angel … but why?
1866: Anton Probst, "I only wanted the money"
1890: Otto Leuth
1828: James "Little Jim" Guild
1837: The slave Julius, property of John and Rebecca Matthews
1833: A 13-year-old slave girl
1838: The slave Mary, the youngest executed by Missouri
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Children,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,Milestones,Murder,Ohio,Other Voices,Public Executions,Theft,USA
Tags: 1880, 1880s, canton, george mann, gustave ohr, john sammett, june 25
3 thoughts on "1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio"
Greg Artzner says:
9 October, 2021 at 12:22 pm
I found 2 mistakes in this account. I researched this story for months with my father in the archives of the Stark County Courthouse sixty years ago. We had a keen interest since one of the young perpetrators was my great grandfather's brother. John Sammet is correctly spelled with one T. (It was my grandmother's maiden name!) The boy he murdered was named Christopher Spuhler, not "Spahler." Kimberly A. Kenney's account in MURDER IN STARK COUNTY has that right. Sammet's name was misspelled in some newspaper accounts, but is actually spelled with one "T". My father wrote a novel based on the story entitled "The Black Minute."
Reply
Bterclinger says:
25 June, 2020 at 6:04 am
We should bring this back. Only make all the high school kids watch it.
Reply
Meaghan says:
25 June, 2017 at 10:32 pm
It looks like Mann and Ohr, or whoever actually wrote their gallows ballads, ripped them off the 1874 ballad for Christopher Rafferty (or the 1858 ballad for James Rodgers that Rafferty's ballad was ripped off of). If you compare all the ballads side by side the plagiarism is obvious.
Reply
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1794: Rosalie Filleul, painter1917: Dragutin "Apis" Dimitrijevic, of the Black Hand
1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio
June 25th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
At 11:35 a.m. on this day in 1880, three teen boys were publicly hanged in Canton, Ohio. George E. Mann was sixteen, Gustave Adolph Ohr was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, and John Sammet(t) had just turned eighteen the day before. Between them, they had committed two murders.
Left to right: Mann, Ohr, and Sammett.
George Mann and Gustave Ohr came from similar backgrounds: both lost a parent in early childhood — George's mother and Gustave's father — and both didn't adjust well. By the summer of 1879, both boys had run away from home. They were riding the rails when they met each other and began traveling with an older tramp, John Watmough.
The trio had reached Alliance, Ohio when, on June 27, 1879, Gustave and George decided to rob Watmough as he slept. They beat him on the head with a railroad coupling pin, mortally wounding him, and the boys took his watch, money and clothes and ran away. Watmough was able to crawl to a nearby house and mumble a few words before dying. His killers were arrested within minutes.
George, although he insisted it was Gustave who'd struck the fatal blows, was convicted of first-degree murder on December 6. Gustave was convicted on December 13. On December 31, both were sentenced to death. George went to his grave saying he was innocent, but his partner-in-crime refused to cinch his clemency argument by taking full responsibility.
According to the Stark County Democrat, while awaiting their deaths, George and Gustave were both able to obtain "many luxuries" by selling copies of the gallows ballads they supposedly wrote themselves. (Mann's | Ohr's)
John Sammett, like George Mann, lost his mother at a very early age and lived with his father and stepmother at the time of his crime. Like the Bavaria-born Gustave Ohr, he was of German parentage, although John was born in Ohio. He developed a reputation as a petty thief and was arrested several times, but his relatives always bailed him out of trouble.
In August of 1879, John and a sixteen-year-old friend, Christopher Spahler, broke into a saloon. They were arrested, and Spahler agreed to turn state's evidence and testify against his erstwhile friend. The burglary trial was scheduled for November 26; the day before, John tracked down Spahler and tried to get him to change his mind. Spahler would not relent, and John shot him in the chest.
People heard the shot and came running; Spahler died a short time later without speaking, but both John and the murder weapon were still at the crime scene. He was arrested immediately, and on March 2, 1880 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Meanwhile, in a different hanging circus … (widely reprinted wire story via the Milwaukee Journal of Commerce of (despite the dateline) June 23, 1880.
This Akron Law Review article notes,
The public hanging of Mann and Ohr, along with John Sammett, was the occasion for a community-wide extravaganza. People came to the small town of Canton in eastern Ohio by excursion train from as far away as Chicago and Pittsburgh to witness the event. A circus was part of the extravaganza [literally, Coup's circus was in town at the same time -ed.] and the night before the hangings included much music, cannon firing, speech making and similar merriment. The next morning, Mann and the other two teenaged boys were hanged in the city square of Canton before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people!
After the triple hanging, sheriffs deputies placed the three bodies in the jail corridor and permitted the entire crowd to file through and view the bodies. The public viewing lasted almost four hours, with the doors being closed at 3:30 p.m.
This was the first time the state of Ohio had executed minors.
These three young killers were featured in Daniel Right Miller's 1903 book The Criminal Classes: Causes and Cures, which remarks (speaking of Ohr specifically) "that parental neglect, impure literature, and vicious companions were all responsible for this ruined life and forced death."
On this day..
1950: The Martyred, at the outset of the Korean War - 2020
1999: Eduardo Agbayani, omnishambles execution - 2019
1942: Gordon Cummins, the Blackout Ripper - 2018
1942: Evzen Rosicky, athlete - 2016
1483: Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers - 2015
1646: Jan Creoli, for sodomy in slavery - 2014
2003: He Xiuling, Ma Qingxui, Li Juhua and Dai Donggui - 2013
10 executions that defined the 1980s - 2012
1804: Georges Cadoudal, Chouan - 2012
1790: Thomas Bird, the first federal execution under the U.S. constitution - 2011
1591: Euphane MacCalzean, witch - 2010
1579: Hatano Hideharu, en route to the Tokugawa Shogunate - 2009
1959: Charles Starkweather, Nebraska spree killer - 2008
Possibly Related Executions:
1861: Paula Angel … but why?
1866: Anton Probst, "I only wanted the money"
1890: Otto Leuth
1828: James "Little Jim" Guild
1837: The slave Julius, property of John and Rebecca Matthews
1833: A 13-year-old slave girl
1838: The slave Mary, the youngest executed by Missouri
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Children,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,Milestones,Murder,Ohio,Other Voices,Public Executions,Theft,USA
Tags: 1880, 1880s, canton, george mann, gustave ohr, john sammett, june 25
3 thoughts on "1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio"
Greg Artzner says:
9 October, 2021 at 12:22 pm
I found 2 mistakes in this account. I researched this story for months with my father in the archives of the Stark County Courthouse sixty years ago. We had a keen interest since one of the young perpetrators was my great grandfather's brother. John Sammet is correctly spelled with one T. (It was my grandmother's maiden name!) The boy he murdered was named Christopher Spuhler, not "Spahler." Kimberly A. Kenney's account in MURDER IN STARK COUNTY has that right. Sammet's name was misspelled in some newspaper accounts, but is actually spelled with one "T". My father wrote a novel based on the story entitled "The Black Minute."
Reply
Bterclinger says:
25 June, 2020 at 6:04 am
We should bring this back. Only make all the high school kids watch it.
Reply
Meaghan says:
25 June, 2017 at 10:32 pm
It looks like Mann and Ohr, or whoever actually wrote their gallows ballads, ripped them off the 1874 ballad for Christopher Rafferty (or the 1858 ballad for James Rodgers that Rafferty's ballad was ripped off of). If you compare all the ballads side by side the plagiarism is obvious.
Reply
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RECENTLY EXECUTED
1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman's last
1941: Ivan Sullivan
2009: Ehsan Fatahian, Iranian Kurdish activist
1066: John Scotus, sacrificed to Radegast
1801: Hyacinth Moise, Haitian Revolution general
1738: George Whalley and Dean Briant, wife-murderers
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1959: Guenther Podola
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RECENT COMMENTS
David on 1327: Adso's lover in The Name of the Rose
mediafeathers on 1589: Peter Stubbe, Sybil Stubbe and Katharina Trump
http //mywifiext.local on 1831: Gesche Margarethe Gottfried, the Angel of Bremen
hydrogenexecutor on 1734: Marie-Joseph Angélique, for burning Montreal
RICHARD on 1938: Nikolai Bryukhanov, hung by his balls
© Copyright 2023 ExecutedToday.com :: All Rights Reserved :: A WordPress joint
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Brian at Logjamming
Contact the Headsman
ExecutedToday.com
home
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1794: Rosalie Filleul, painter1917: Dragutin "Apis" Dimitrijevic, of the Black Hand
1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio
June 25th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
At 11:35 a.m. on this day in 1880, three teen boys were publicly hanged in Canton, Ohio. George E. Mann was sixteen, Gustave Adolph Ohr was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, and John Sammet(t) had just turned eighteen the day before. Between them, they had committed two murders.
Left to right: Mann, Ohr, and Sammett.
George Mann and Gustave Ohr came from similar backgrounds: both lost a parent in early childhood — George's mother and Gustave's father — and both didn't adjust well. By the summer of 1879, both boys had run away from home. They were riding the rails when they met each other and began traveling with an older tramp, John Watmough.
The trio had reached Alliance, Ohio when, on June 27, 1879, Gustave and George decided to rob Watmough as he slept. They beat him on the head with a railroad coupling pin, mortally wounding him, and the boys took his watch, money and clothes and ran away. Watmough was able to crawl to a nearby house and mumble a few words before dying. His killers were arrested within minutes.
George, although he insisted it was Gustave who'd struck the fatal blows, was convicted of first-degree murder on December 6. Gustave was convicted on December 13. On December 31, both were sentenced to death. George went to his grave saying he was innocent, but his partner-in-crime refused to cinch his clemency argument by taking full responsibility.
According to the Stark County Democrat, while awaiting their deaths, George and Gustave were both able to obtain "many luxuries" by selling copies of the gallows ballads they supposedly wrote themselves. (Mann's | Ohr's)
John Sammett, like George Mann, lost his mother at a very early age and lived with his father and stepmother at the time of his crime. Like the Bavaria-born Gustave Ohr, he was of German parentage, although John was born in Ohio. He developed a reputation as a petty thief and was arrested several times, but his relatives always bailed him out of trouble.
In August of 1879, John and a sixteen-year-old friend, Christopher Spahler, broke into a saloon. They were arrested, and Spahler agreed to turn state's evidence and testify against his erstwhile friend. The burglary trial was scheduled for November 26; the day before, John tracked down Spahler and tried to get him to change his mind. Spahler would not relent, and John shot him in the chest.
People heard the shot and came running; Spahler died a short time later without speaking, but both John and the murder weapon were still at the crime scene. He was arrested immediately, and on March 2, 1880 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Meanwhile, in a different hanging circus … (widely reprinted wire story via the Milwaukee Journal of Commerce of (despite the dateline) June 23, 1880.
This Akron Law Review article notes,
The public hanging of Mann and Ohr, along with John Sammett, was the occasion for a community-wide extravaganza. People came to the small town of Canton in eastern Ohio by excursion train from as far away as Chicago and Pittsburgh to witness the event. A circus was part of the extravaganza [literally, Coup's circus was in town at the same time -ed.] and the night before the hangings included much music, cannon firing, speech making and similar merriment. The next morning, Mann and the other two teenaged boys were hanged in the city square of Canton before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people!
After the triple hanging, sheriffs deputies placed the three bodies in the jail corridor and permitted the entire crowd to file through and view the bodies. The public viewing lasted almost four hours, with the doors being closed at 3:30 p.m.
This was the first time the state of Ohio had executed minors.
These three young killers were featured in Daniel Right Miller's 1903 book The Criminal Classes: Causes and Cures, which remarks (speaking of Ohr specifically) "that parental neglect, impure literature, and vicious companions were all responsible for this ruined life and forced death."
On this day..
1950: The Martyred, at the outset of the Korean War - 2020
1999: Eduardo Agbayani, omnishambles execution - 2019
1942: Gordon Cummins, the Blackout Ripper - 2018
1942: Evzen Rosicky, athlete - 2016
1483: Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers - 2015
1646: Jan Creoli, for sodomy in slavery - 2014
2003: He Xiuling, Ma Qingxui, Li Juhua and Dai Donggui - 2013
10 executions that defined the 1980s - 2012
1804: Georges Cadoudal, Chouan - 2012
1790: Thomas Bird, the first federal execution under the U.S. constitution - 2011
1591: Euphane MacCalzean, witch - 2010
1579: Hatano Hideharu, en route to the Tokugawa Shogunate - 2009
1959: Charles Starkweather, Nebraska spree killer - 2008
Possibly Related Executions:
1861: Paula Angel … but why?
1866: Anton Probst, "I only wanted the money"
1890: Otto Leuth
1828: James "Little Jim" Guild
1837: The slave Julius, property of John and Rebecca Matthews
1833: A 13-year-old slave girl
1838: The slave Mary, the youngest executed by Missouri
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Children,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,Milestones,Murder,Ohio,Other Voices,Public Executions,Theft,USA
Tags: 1880, 1880s, canton, george mann, gustave ohr, john sammett, june 25
3 thoughts on "1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio"
Greg Artzner says:
9 October, 2021 at 12:22 pm
I found 2 mistakes in this account. I researched this story for months with my father in the archives of the Stark County Courthouse sixty years ago. We had a keen interest since one of the young perpetrators was my great grandfather's brother. John Sammet is correctly spelled with one T. (It was my grandmother's maiden name!) The boy he murdered was named Christopher Spuhler, not "Spahler." Kimberly A. Kenney's account in MURDER IN STARK COUNTY has that right. Sammet's name was misspelled in some newspaper accounts, but is actually spelled with one "T". My father wrote a novel based on the story entitled "The Black Minute."
Reply
Bterclinger says:
25 June, 2020 at 6:04 am
We should bring this back. Only make all the high school kids watch it.
Reply
Meaghan says:
25 June, 2017 at 10:32 pm
It looks like Mann and Ohr, or whoever actually wrote their gallows ballads, ripped them off the 1874 ballad for Christopher Rafferty (or the 1858 ballad for James Rodgers that Rafferty's ballad was ripped off of). If you compare all the ballads side by side the plagiarism is obvious.
Reply
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your ad right here on the scaffold
EXECUTION PLAYING CARDS
Exclusively available on this site: our one-of-a-kind custom playing card deck.
Every card features a historical execution from England, France, Germany, or Russia!
RECENTLY EXECUTED
1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman's last
1941: Ivan Sullivan
2009: Ehsan Fatahian, Iranian Kurdish activist
1066: John Scotus, sacrificed to Radegast
1801: Hyacinth Moise, Haitian Revolution general
1738: George Whalley and Dean Briant, wife-murderers
1888: Pedro, the pirate Ñancúpel
1837: Luis Candelas, urban bandit
1959: Guenther Podola
1912: Alexander Kompovic, "nurderer"
RECENT COMMENTS
David on 1327: Adso's lover in The Name of the Rose
mediafeathers on 1589: Peter Stubbe, Sybil Stubbe and Katharina Trump
http //mywifiext.local on 1831: Gesche Margarethe Gottfried, the Angel of Bremen
hydrogenexecutor on 1734: Marie-Joseph Angélique, for burning Montreal
RICHARD on 1938: Nikolai Bryukhanov, hung by his balls
© Copyright 2023 ExecutedToday.com :: All Rights Reserved :: A WordPress joint
Theme originally by WarAxe at Negative99, modified by
Brian at Logjamming
Contact the Headsman
home
cards
about
1794: Rosalie Filleul, painter1917: Dragutin "Apis" Dimitrijevic, of the Black Hand
1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio
June 25th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
At 11:35 a.m. on this day in 1880, three teen boys were publicly hanged in Canton, Ohio. George E. Mann was sixteen, Gustave Adolph Ohr was somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, and John Sammet(t) had just turned eighteen the day before. Between them, they had committed two murders.
Left to right: Mann, Ohr, and Sammett.
George Mann and Gustave Ohr came from similar backgrounds: both lost a parent in early childhood — George's mother and Gustave's father — and both didn't adjust well. By the summer of 1879, both boys had run away from home. They were riding the rails when they met each other and began traveling with an older tramp, John Watmough.
The trio had reached Alliance, Ohio when, on June 27, 1879, Gustave and George decided to rob Watmough as he slept. They beat him on the head with a railroad coupling pin, mortally wounding him, and the boys took his watch, money and clothes and ran away. Watmough was able to crawl to a nearby house and mumble a few words before dying. His killers were arrested within minutes.
George, although he insisted it was Gustave who'd struck the fatal blows, was convicted of first-degree murder on December 6. Gustave was convicted on December 13. On December 31, both were sentenced to death. George went to his grave saying he was innocent, but his partner-in-crime refused to cinch his clemency argument by taking full responsibility.
According to the Stark County Democrat, while awaiting their deaths, George and Gustave were both able to obtain "many luxuries" by selling copies of the gallows ballads they supposedly wrote themselves. (Mann's | Ohr's)
John Sammett, like George Mann, lost his mother at a very early age and lived with his father and stepmother at the time of his crime. Like the Bavaria-born Gustave Ohr, he was of German parentage, although John was born in Ohio. He developed a reputation as a petty thief and was arrested several times, but his relatives always bailed him out of trouble.
In August of 1879, John and a sixteen-year-old friend, Christopher Spahler, broke into a saloon. They were arrested, and Spahler agreed to turn state's evidence and testify against his erstwhile friend. The burglary trial was scheduled for November 26; the day before, John tracked down Spahler and tried to get him to change his mind. Spahler would not relent, and John shot him in the chest.
People heard the shot and came running; Spahler died a short time later without speaking, but both John and the murder weapon were still at the crime scene. He was arrested immediately, and on March 2, 1880 he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Meanwhile, in a different hanging circus … (widely reprinted wire story via the Milwaukee Journal of Commerce of (despite the dateline) June 23, 1880.
This Akron Law Review article notes,
The public hanging of Mann and Ohr, along with John Sammett, was the occasion for a community-wide extravaganza. People came to the small town of Canton in eastern Ohio by excursion train from as far away as Chicago and Pittsburgh to witness the event. A circus was part of the extravaganza [literally, Coup's circus was in town at the same time -ed.] and the night before the hangings included much music, cannon firing, speech making and similar merriment. The next morning, Mann and the other two teenaged boys were hanged in the city square of Canton before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people!
After the triple hanging, sheriffs deputies placed the three bodies in the jail corridor and permitted the entire crowd to file through and view the bodies. The public viewing lasted almost four hours, with the doors being closed at 3:30 p.m.
This was the first time the state of Ohio had executed minors.
These three young killers were featured in Daniel Right Miller's 1903 book The Criminal Classes: Causes and Cures, which remarks (speaking of Ohr specifically) "that parental neglect, impure literature, and vicious companions were all responsible for this ruined life and forced death."
On this day..
1950: The Martyred, at the outset of the Korean War - 2020
1999: Eduardo Agbayani, omnishambles execution - 2019
1942: Gordon Cummins, the Blackout Ripper - 2018
1942: Evzen Rosicky, athlete - 2016
1483: Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers - 2015
1646: Jan Creoli, for sodomy in slavery - 2014
2003: He Xiuling, Ma Qingxui, Li Juhua and Dai Donggui - 2013
10 executions that defined the 1980s - 2012
1804: Georges Cadoudal, Chouan - 2012
1790: Thomas Bird, the first federal execution under the U.S. constitution - 2011
1591: Euphane MacCalzean, witch - 2010
1579: Hatano Hideharu, en route to the Tokugawa Shogunate - 2009
1959: Charles Starkweather, Nebraska spree killer - 2008
Possibly Related Executions:
1861: Paula Angel … but why?
1866: Anton Probst, "I only wanted the money"
1890: Otto Leuth
1828: James "Little Jim" Guild
1837: The slave Julius, property of John and Rebecca Matthews
1833: A 13-year-old slave girl
1838: The slave Mary, the youngest executed by Missouri
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Children,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,Milestones,Murder,Ohio,Other Voices,Public Executions,Theft,USA
Tags: 1880, 1880s, canton, george mann, gustave ohr, john sammett, june 25
3 thoughts on "1880: Three juvenile offenders in Canton, Ohio"
Greg Artzner says:
9 October, 2021 at 12:22 pm
I found 2 mistakes in this account. I researched this story for months with my father in the archives of the Stark County Courthouse sixty years ago. We had a keen interest since one of the young perpetrators was my great grandfather's brother. John Sammet is correctly spelled with one T. (It was my grandmother's maiden name!) The boy he murdered was named Christopher Spuhler, not "Spahler." Kimberly A. Kenney's account in MURDER IN STARK COUNTY has that right. Sammet's name was misspelled in some newspaper accounts, but is actually spelled with one "T". My father wrote a novel based on the story entitled "The Black Minute."
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Bterclinger says:
25 June, 2020 at 6:04 am
We should bring this back. Only make all the high school kids watch it.
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Meaghan says:
25 June, 2017 at 10:32 pm
It looks like Mann and Ohr, or whoever actually wrote their gallows ballads, ripped them off the 1874 ballad for Christopher Rafferty (or the 1858 ballad for James Rodgers that Rafferty's ballad was ripped off of). If you compare all the ballads side by side the plagiarism is obvious.
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