The Violent End of Edward Gallagher
A condemned man fought officers for three minutes on the gallows before his execution in Vancouver.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Edward Gallagher, the murderer of Louis Mar, was hanged at Vancouver yesterday. He fought like a demon to get away from the officers, creating an awful scene on the scaffold. Gallagher was poorly dressed in a common working suit, heavy shoes, and a hat full of holes. At the foot of the gallows, he made a feeble attempt to get away. When Sheriff Flemming and other officers attempted to handcuff him on the platform, Gallagher went into a violent struggle, showing superhuman strength. He kicked and wriggled until he was finally subdued and strapped to the trap. His last words were, 'None of your damned business,' spoken in response to a final question about his guilt.
“He fought like a demon to get away from the officers, and created an awful scene on the scaffold.”
This account reflects the grim, often sensationalist nature of 19th-century criminal reporting. It captures a moment of intense public spectacle that was a common, though brutal, facet of judicial punishment in the territory.
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