A Morbid Excursion

Country Fox went on a morbid excursion this weekend. We visited the Cambria County Historical Society in Ebensburg. The Historical Society has brought back a fascinating display: Morbid Curiosity. The display opens just in time for the spooky and dark time of year.

What can one expect?

The exhibit is located on the second floor of the museum. Inside, visitors will find examples of Victorian mourning clothes, nooses, historical Halloween items, Victorian hair art, execution tickets, and more.

What on Earth is ‘Hair Art’?

During the 17th and 18th centuries people began to craft art and jewelry out of human hair. The infant mortality rate was high. Teens and adults died of illness and work accidents at high rates. They were surrounded by death. Photographs were not as available as they are today.

Families did what they could to remember and honor their deceased loved ones. One of the ways they did this was with artwork and jewelry made of the deceased’s hair.

Sentimental Keepsakes

Another trend that started was the capture of posthumous portraits and photos of corpses. Yep, that’s right families would take photos of the dead. Sometimes they were posed as though they were still alive. Other times they took photos of them in their caskets.

Victorians were notoriously sentimental. Hair would be collected from the deceased loved one and crafted into intricate works of art. These works of art were meant to be worn or to adorn a wall in the home.

Hair art was often used as a memento mori. That is Latin for “remember that you must die”. This was a way to remind themselves of their own future death and also to remember their dearly departed loved ones.

Hair art was also used in a non-morbid fashion. Some families would design family trees out of the family hair. Sweethearts would exchange locks of hair to show their love and devotion to each other. Even today, some parents will keep a lock of their babies’ hair.

Mourning Clothes

Queen Victoria, the British ruler from 1837 to 1901, began some of the Victorian Era’s mourning trends. When her Prince Consort died in 1861, she went into a formal state of mourning for the rest of her life. She wore specific clothes to represent this fact.

Like many famous people, she set trends. Many in England followed her example of wearing mourning attire for set periods of time. Eventually this fashion jumped over to America. Entire sets of rules regarding what a person should wear and for how long developed.

Funeral Cards

Victorians went a long way to show their respect for the dearly departed. During the Victorian Era, Mourning Cards and Funeral Cards became quite popular. At one time people would show their status with paper products such as fine stationary, calling cards and cabinet cards.

Calling cards would announce when someone was in town, how long they planned on staying, and if they were accepting visitors. This was quite useful in the days before phones and social media. Mourning cards or funeral cards morphed from the practice of leaving calling cards.

Funeral Cards would be plain or intricate. Some had photos on the back. After the funeral, they were kept as a memento of the deceased.

Executions

In the morbid exhibit, visitors will find a couple of nooses. Each noose is labeled with the person executed. Along with the nooses are tickets sold to the public for the public execution of criminals.

Wait! Tickets to watch the condemned hang? Here in Cambria County? That’s right! Ebensburg was founded in 1797. Their first jail was a two-story log building. The ground floor was the jail, and the second story was the courthouse. Eventually, a separate building was constructed next to the courthouse to serve as a jail. This was the “Old Red Jail”. Later, in 1872, the Gothic Revival sandstone jail was built up the road.

History of Cambria County Executions

Eleven men were executed by hanging between the years of 1866 and 1909. All were executed for murder. In 1906 the Sheriff’s office sold four to five hundred tickets for an execution. By 1915 there was a transition to execution by electric chair. Cambria County sent their death row inmates to Rockview State Prision for execution. Sixteen men were executed via electric chair from 1916 to 1956. The two most infamous condemned were Michelo Bassi and Anthony Pezzi. These two were convicted of robbing a train in Belsano, PA and killing a guard. To read more about their story, visit my blog post here. As an interesting side note, the museum has a seat from this train. It is found in the next room.

Hanging in History

Public executions and hangings have been in existence for a long time. Examples can be found in Homer and the Bible. Executions used to be public because it was believed that it would encourage “good and moral behavior” in society.

The Salem Witch Trials of the 1690’s witnessed seventeen women and two men executed by hanging. Eventually, society shifted what it considered a legally hangable offense. Gone were the days of hanging for reasons such as adultery.

However, public executions had always been a sort of community event. Like Romans in the Colosseum, crowds gathered to watch those convicted of rape and murder hang. Merchants could be found selling souvenirs and alcohol. Occasionally, fights would break out over spaces that provided the best view of the event. People would sometimes fight over pieces of the dead’s clothing or the noose.

With the introduction of the electric chair in 1890 and the gas chamber in 1924, hanging as an officially sanctioned method of execution started to phase out of practice.

The Last Public Hanging

Public execution was brought to an end after the public execution of Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky. In 1936, Bethea was convicted of rape and was sentenced to hang. What drew a lot of attention to this execution was the fact that the sheriff was a woman. She was going to be the first female to execute a prisoner. This drew national attention.

The media helped to sensationalize this event. Over 20,000 people showed up to watch the execution. The sheriff however did not pull the lever. She appointed someone else to do the job and the crowd was quite displeased. After the event, many began blasting the state and officials for making this a ‘carnival in Owensboro’. Eighteen months later, legislation was passed to end public executions.

Billy Bailey was executed in Delaware in 1996. He was the last person in the US to be executed by hanging.

A Morbid Season

Halloween draws near and we have entered into the dark time of year. Spooky and creepy abound. So why not go visit a morbid exhibit? Touring the museum and the exhibit are free. The curator mentioned that the exhibit will be available for a few months and will continue to grow. Interested? Visit the Cambria County Historical Society website or Facebook page for times.