3 months ago
"It's one of those little obscure known things," said Sandy Starks of Forest Lawn Cemetery.
To tell the story we went deep into Forest Lawn Cemetery. Behind other monuments and headstones we found one that read, Alfred P. Southwick, 1826 to 1898. He was an engineer turned dentist in the 1800's and dabbled in a new fad; electricity.
"One day in Buffalo they had a demonstration on electricity and it fascinated him and he thought, hmm, maybe I could use this to create some painless dentistry," said Starks.
But something happened at another demonstration in 1881 that sparked an idea.
"Someone who was slightly intoxicated fell into some live wires and he was killed immediately," said Starks.
It was then where Southwick's idea came to light. And he had his dentist's chair in mind.
"They were looking at the time for alternatives for execution and capital punishment because hanging sometimes was very slow," said Starks. "If it wasn't done correctly it could be very excruciating. So I guess they were looking for a more humane ways. Southwick thought this could be it."
So after some researching, testing then lobbying to the state legislature and even the governor, death by electrocution was established as an official form of capital punishment in 1889.
The following year, "Old Sparky", as it came to be known, was put to use at Auburn State Prison.
In this report, we show video from the Library of Congress detailing the electrocution of Leon Czolgosz, the man who shot President William McKinley in Buffalo. It was done right at Auburn. But before that execution was the first person to die in the electric chair, another Buffalo man, William Kemmler.
"Someone who had killed a woman here on South Division Street, a woman by the name of Tilly Ziggler and it was for her murder that he was executed," said Starks.
Electric chairs have been used for corporal punishment in more than 25 states since then with nicknames like Sizzlin' Sally, Old Smokey and Gruesome Gertie. The chair isn't used in New York since capital punishment was outlawed in 1985. But Buffalo will always be home to the man who thought of the idea, created it and pushed for it and who still remains in Buffalo at rest in Forest Lawn.
Nine states still use the electric chair as a form of capital punishment not including the federal government and the U.S. Military. But by far, lethal injection is still the method most states use.
