The Hanging BEE

1908 July 28

Young Ah Hing / Yung Ah Hing / Jim Ah Hing 

b.1848 China - 27 July 1908 South Vancouver. age 60.  Jim was a vegetable gardener, killed with an axe by a business partner, his head was almost chopped off.

Thirty-three year old, labourer, Lee Chung / Lee Chong / Lee Ching  b.1875 China - 18 December 1908 New Westminster; was the culprit.  Went to trial on October 30, 1908; the papers were poor on reporting this case, as was typical during this era.

1908 November 7 the District Ledger:
Triple Hanging in Vancouver.
A Chinaman, a Negro and a Mulatto to be executed.

Vancouver, Nov., 4 —  Lee Chung, A Chinaman, charged with killing his partner, Yung Hing in a quarrel in South Vancouver, last July was proved guilty, yesterday afternoon, and sentenced by Justice Clement to be hanged on the 18th of December.

       Lee Chung and Yung Hing were partners in a pig ranch, and the evidence showed they had quarrelled as to the ownership of some of the pigs.

        Yung Hing's body was found in the bush fearfully hacked, and a trail of blood led to the door of Lee's shack and on his clothes were found stains.

           This makes three prisoners to be executed on December 18—Pertella, a negro, for murdering Mrs. Jenkins, a negro woman of Vancouver; Jenkins a mulatto, for murdering Mrs. Morrison of Hazelmere, and also Lee Chung.

Dec16: confessed to the murder.

 

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Mahaly Jenkins / Mahala Jenkins  née  ?    b.1884 USA - 24 August 1908 Vancouver; she is buried apparently in the Mountain View cemetery. Cut throat  was the official cause of her death. 

    On Monday August 24, 1908, shortly after 1:00pm,  24-years-old, Mrs. Mahala Jenkins, a boarding house operator on Prior Street at 740 Westminster Avenue in East Vancouver, was brutally murdered by a tenant after a quarrel over room rent. Multiple stab wounds to the chest and face were delivered with such force that her head was almost severed from the rest of her body.

740 Westminster Avenue; Today: part of 780 Main Street.
  In May of 2015 an empty lot

25 August 1908

26 August 1908  Los Angeles Herald

26 August 1908

28 August 1908

2 September 1908      The Chilliwack Progress

So this fellow Chief Constable Edwin Pope  caught Pertella in Port Hammond.

 photo:   Maple Ridge Museum  P01236

23 October 1908

Judge:  William Henry Pope Clement 1858-1922

23 October 1908
The warden was  James Greenshields Brymner 1861 - 1930

John Pertella / Jack Pertella     b. 1864 ?  —  18 December 1908 New Westminster.; age 44

         Various conflicting reports on this fellows ethnicity, Negro, black, Filipino. All we learn from the media is that he and Mahala’s husband James B. Jenkins were prospecting partners for a short time, and were previously living in the Dalles, Oregon state area.

         Detective David Scott investigated the murder scene. Mrs. Jenkins husband John B. Jenkins, lived at 125 Lansdowne Avenue; today 125 E. 4th Ave. ; and kept a shoeblack stand at The Atlantic Hotel 79 Cordova W; today part of 65 W. Cordova. Witness to the crime was Genevieve Montgomery

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Mary Morrison  née Mary Higgins
b.3 November 1865 Old Luce,  Wigtown, Wigtownshire, Scotland
Killed   9 June 1908  Hall's Prairie.  Age 43. cut throat-haemorrhage; just where the old railway tracks crossed the North Bluff Road.
     Her parents: William Higgins, and Jane"Jean" McCrindle.
8-year-old daughter Mary was a witness to the crime.
Siblings:
Maggie Jane Higgins 16 Oct 1867
Julia Higgins 17 Oct 1869
Elizabeth McCormick Higgins 21 June 1871
Robina McCrindle Higgins 19 April 1873
William (1874-)
Hugh (1876-)
John (1878-)
Annie Sloan Higgins 27 March 1881
Married to John Morrison: 30 December 1887 Elrig Village, Mochrum, Wigtown, Scotland.
The first record of a child (Jane Morrison) appears in 1890 in Minnesota. There may have been another child born between 1887 and 1890 who died in a fire that destroyed Sandstone,  Minnesota in 1894. The child may have been born in Scotland, enroute to the USA or perhaps in Minnesota.
The family immigrated to Canada in 1895, and was captured in the 1901 and 1911 Census: Hall’s Prairie, Surrey:
Husband and Father:  John Morrison ( 1848 – 1925 )
Jane Barton née Jane Morrison ( 1890 – 1964  )
Susan Paulson née Susan Morrison ( 1893 - 1949  )
Matthew Morrison ( 1897- 1966 )
Mary Burden née Mary Morrison ( 1900 – 1985 )
                     Husband: Francis Henry ( 1888 – 1942 )
John Morrison      October 1904
Annie Morrison ( 1906 - 1923  )
So the father John, must have had a very rough time through all of this; the children were roughly in ages 2, 4, 7, 11,15, and 18.

10 June 1908

11 June 1908

12 June 1908

12 June 1908   REWARD

13 June 1908

13 June 1908

18 June 1908

21 June 1908

24 June 1908    Edmonton Bulletin

24 June 1908

14 July 1908

24 October 1908   Pleads Insanity

26 October 1908

26 October 1908   Little Witness Failed

27 October 1908

4 November 1908    Appeal is Granted

4 November 1908

18 November 1908

24 November 1908   Appeal Denied

James Jenkins / Jim Jenkins    b. 1834 USA — 18 December 1908 New Westminster
Age 34, labourer; coloured.
Convicted on circumstantial grounds. He would not admit to the crime of rape and murder.  

Chief Justice: Gordon Hunter ( 1863 - 1929  )
photo: John Savannah (1868-1925) ca.1910.  A-02236 

Prosecutor was, Robert Cassidy, K.C. ( 1857 - 1947 )

William Garland McQuarrie, ( 1876 - 1943  ) was the court-appointed defence lawyer.

W. G. McQuarrie, M.P. ca. 1920
photo: Steffens-Colmer.  B.C.Archives: A-02324

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Seven people were hung in Canada during 1908.  And three of those were on the 18th of December 1908. This would be the only time during Canada’s capital offence years 1860 to 1976 that three people were hung on the same day, and in this case all three at the same time in the same place.

17 December 1908

Provincial Gaol location in New Westminster in 1908
( Excerpt from 1892 New Westminster map)     Vancouver Archives: MAP617

2015 Aerial view. NOTE: The recently built school and that the John Robson Community School is now gone, which is where at least three large buildings have now stood.
 Unknown what will be built on the old buildings footprint.

New Westminster Provincial Goal.  ca.1886
photo: William Thomas Cooksley ( 1857 - 1913  )   A-03353    
Built in 1885, and completed in June 1886, it was used as a gaol until  the 1st of November 1917, when all the prisoners moved to other Provincial institutions.

T.J. Trapp Technical School from Queen's Avenue & Eighth Street.
 BC Manufactories (box factory) in middle right. ca.1927 IHP7096

In 1919, the Provincial government agreed to lease the building and grounds of the old provincial jail to the City. Trapp Technical School opened in 1920 in the old provincial jail building, after an extensive renovation.

        This building proved to be not very adaptable to the school’s needs, so a new school was built on the property in 1928 (see "British Columbian" Dec. 19, 1928). Later, the new building became John Robson School. Both the old and new buildings were used on the same property.
          By the 1950s both Trapp Tech and Duke of Connaught High School were too small for the student population. They were replaced by the larger senior high school, Lester Person. June 24, 1955 was the last day of school for Tech students.

Shows the T.J. Trapp Technical School, formerly the Provincial Gaol.
  ca.192-    IHP1530

  

T.J. Trapp Technical High School which later became John Robson School.
ca.192-     IHP8008-199  

photo ca.1955 Columbian Newspaper, prior to demolition 1576_web

John Robson School, 1960      IHP8008-168

The old Gaol / T.J. Trapp Technical School sites  had  the John Robson Community School
 located upon it until 2015, when it was demolished.

Portions of the property are considered to be part of  Simcoe Park (PDF). Although the map above would disagree with that statement.

18 December 1908    Spokane Press

18 December 1908

18 December 1908   La Grande Evening Observer
HANGING BEE IS WELL ATTENDED

23 December 1908   The Chilliwack Progress

The infamous hangman:  John Radcliffe / John Radclive  was active as a hangman from 1892 until the early 1910's  b. England, lived Toronto, alcoholic he died in 1911 in his late 50’s.
Apparently there was a rule, where prisoners were to be buried inside the prison grounds; and there is numerous references to the warden asking the Government to waive that clause, and allow them to be buried outside the walls. This case was no different and the request was put in. 
         No mention of where the bodies were buried; probably in the Fraser cemetery in unmarked graves.
      They are not buried in the B.C. Penitentiary cemetery, since that cemetery only started in 1912.   The Coroner was Captain George Pittendrigh who led a long and interesting life.
Two Salvation Army staff were present at the hanging:  
Captain Charles Henry Quaife ( 1879 – ? )  and
      Captain Herbert Walter Collier ( 1869 - 1938 )

Probation officer Herbert Walter Collier ca.1914-5
photo: A.J. Selset  A62446

H.W. Collier in 1910 was appointed the first probation officer in British Columbia; and was also the Superintendent of the 3-storey, Detention Home, located on 2532 Pine Street, Vancouver. He lived there in a separate home with his wife
  Amelia Baldwin ( 1868 - 1950 ) who was also the matron there.
Today the address is  1695 W 10th Ave.  I could find no pictures of this home.
In 1930 a newer, larger building was bought from the Children's Aid Society, their 1924 building was on Wall Street, Vancouver, in 1934 it became the Juvenile Detention Centre,  this building was demolished 1976, amid much controversy.  photos: ONE  and TWO  in the second image the building on the right still exists, has been restored and is still used by the community.

The following information is from this PAGE

There is also an even older gaol, still standing on the old Federal Penitentiary grounds, in New Westminster:
Gaol Block Building (1878)
65 Richmond Street,  formerly 81 Columbia Street East

The British Columbia Penitentiary has been a prominent landmark in New Westminster for more than 100 years. Work on the penitentiary began in 1874, and proceeded at full speed. Unexpected delays slowed construction and delayed completion to October of 1877. The first building, known as the 187 Block, had a mansard roof and was constructed of heavy stone. It served as the prison and hospital until 1980 when the federal penitentiary was phased out. The Gaol Block building is now part of the Fraserview lands, including over 800 units of housing and the historic Glenbrooke Ravine as parkland. Also retained are the stately gatehouse with its twin towers, a corner guard house, a commemorative cairn, Royal Engineers survey monument, and the 1878 original Gaol Block.

B.C. Provincial penitentiary, under construction 1878
     photo: Maynard.     BCArchives

I wonder if any folks are buried on this property?