Posted on 10/04/2021 7:05:47 AM PDT by CheshireTheCat
The story behind Coleman Gillespie’s execution on this day in 1900 actually begins on February 21, 1856: on that winter’s day, a small group of hostile Rogue River Indians murdered more than half of Christina Edson’s family at their home in what would become the state of Oregon.
The victims included John Geisel, Christina’s husband of 13 years, and their sons Andrew, 5, Henry, 7, and John, 9.
Christina, her three-week old infant Annie and her thirteen-year-old daughter Mary were spared and force-marched into captivity at an Indian camp twelve miles away. Along the way they had to pass the burning houses and dead bodies of their neighbors. 24 people were killed and 60 homes burned in all.
The pioneers wanted vengeance and they got it: the rebellious Indians were defeated in May 1856 and mobs lynched more than a dozen of them, including the man who betrayed the Geisel family. In July of that year, more than 700 Indians were forced to relocate to two different reservations.
All in all, it was a terrible tragedy.
And four decades later, indirectly, it claimed its last victim.
Christina, somehow, put her life back together after surviving two weeks in captivity with her daughters. She never had any more children, but she remarried three times (divorcing twice, and being left a widow with her final husband’s death in 1883).....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Oops. Damn. I thought today was the 5th. I took Friday, today and tomorrow off work.
Man, this is a grisly story. O.o
Some people need killing.
How the West was settled.
Wasn’t an easy process....
I kinda don’t have sympathy for the Indians. Back in the day (1780s), they attacked and murdered several in one branch of my family.
6 weeks after being found guilty, till he was hanged? Justice was slow in them days.... /s
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