Athens Weekly Review
July 2, 1936
County Man, Who Once Faced Death Penalty Himself,
Was Maker of the Electric Chair at State
Penitentiary
The man who built the electric chair at Huntsville which
may claim the life of Elmer Pruitt, Athens negro, as its second
Henderson County victim, was a Henderson County man who himself
remained under the shadow of the death penalty for eight long
months until a higher court reversed a death sentence given him
by a jury here.
He was Belton Harris, now deceased, whose sensational trial here
in 1914 was widely quoted in the state newspaper and who later
served fifteen years of an indeterminate sentence of five years
to life, for the murder of his wife. The family lived in the
Payne Springs community.
Attorney E. A. Landman, employed to represent Harris, fought to
gain a new trial for his client, successfully basing his fight
for a reversal on an error in the judge's charge. Joe Bishop,
deceased, then district attorney; Earle Adams, acting as a
special prosecutor, and Defense Attorney Landman were the
principals in a bitter court fight here. Landman then took his
cause to the higher courts, won a reversal, and later saw his
client escape the death penalty.
The defendant, Harris, a highly skilled mechanic, quickly gained
recognition of his ability within the walls at Huntsville and
when the electric chair was adopted as a means of administering
the death penalty in Texas he was selected to construct the chair
which still remains in use.
Asked Tuesday morning for details of the Belton Harris case, Mr.
Landman quickly recalled the trial, now forgotten, but which then
was widely quoted in state newspapers. A lengthy account of the
trial and the Athens lawyer's long fight in behalf of his client
is preserved in copies of the Southwestern Law Reporter for the
years 1914 and 1915, the reversal in the death penalty having
come in January of the latter year.
Freed after serving 15 years of the sentence imposed at a second
trial, Harris accepted employment at a sawmill near Huntsville.
There he found an outlet for the mechanical skill which had
caused him to be selected as the maker of the state's electric
chair. He died two years ago while working at the mill in Walker
County.
If and when Elmer Pruitt, convicted of the slaying of Mrs. Martha
Jane German, reaches the electric chair, he will be the second
individual in the history of this county to meet death by capital
punishment.
Robert Giles, negro, is the only other person to ever have the
sentence meted out in this county. Giles was executed at a public
hanging in Athens on the 14th day of October, 1887. He was
convicted of killing Albert Williams, another negro, and
partially burned his body. The murder occurred on October 1, 1886
and Giles was indicted at that term of court. The late J. J.
Faulk was district attorney and Joe A. McDonald was county
attorney. J. M. Warren was foreman of the jury that indicted the
negro.
Giles was granted a new trial and again given the death sentence.
Many of the present day Athenians saw the public hanging. A. F.
Wood says he remembers it distinctly as do Will Lee and Tom P.
Faulk.
Travel in that day was almost wholly by wagon and when the news
spread that there was to be a public hanging the trek of wagons
started toward Athens. Many of them came three days ahead of time
and pitched camp and remained to witness the execution. The
scaffold was erected near where the present Reierson home stands.
Those who witnessed it say it was one of the largest crowds that
ever gathered in Athens.
It fell to the lot of George Osborne, early day resident of
Athens and sheriff at the time, to spring the trap. Senator J. J.
Faulk related that a day or two before the execution Sheriff
Osborne came to him very excited and much wrought up and said he
wanted to talk to him about hanging the negro. He said he dreaded
the job so badly that he did not believe he could do it; that he
had asked his deputies and they had all refused. He wanted to
know if there was anyway to get him relieved of the job. Senator
Faulk related that when he told him that he had to do the job
that Osborne threatened to resign. "I dont feel like I
can go through an ordeal of that kind," he said. The Senator
said that Osborne finally promised to go through with it if he
would assist him but that he flatly refused to even witness the
execution.
The next day Osborne, he related, told him he had decided to go
through with it. Will Lee related that Osborne sat near the
scaffold with his knife and when the time came to spring the trap
that he simply reached behind him without looking and cut the
rope.
Only four men have been executed in the history of the third
district. Ed Rushing, Negro, was hanged in Palestine for assault
and murder and two were hanged at Crockett about the same period
as the hanging here.
Submitted by Aaron Freeman
Old Newspaper Articles of Henderson County
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