The Montgomery Advertiser
- Pig Woman Moved From Hospital by Simpson's Orders
- Family Cremated When Kerosene Is Poured Into Stove
- Wayne B. Wheeler Declares Prohis Won Clear Victory
The Montgomery Advertiser's front page of November 8, 1926 carried an AP dispatch from Somerville, New Jersey, on the Hall-Mills murder trial: special prosecutor Alexander Simpson personally escorted his ailing star witness Jane Gibson, the "Pig Woman," by ambulance from the Somerset hospital to Jersey City over the protests of a hospital physician who said she could not testify for weeks. A report from a dairy farm near Nashville described how a cattle foreman poured coal oil into a small heater, setting off an explosion that set his house on fire and trapped his family. From Washington, Anti-Saloon League leader Wayne B. Wheeler claimed dry victories in Ohio and Delaware in the previous week's election, saying Delaware voters had defeated candidates who wanted whisky available on prescription.
Translation
PIG WOMAN MOVED FROM HOSPITAL BY SIMPSON'S ORDERS
SOMERVILLE, N. J., Nov. 7. - (AP) - Summary removal of Mrs. Jane Gibson from the Somerset hospital here to Jersey City today contributed a chapter to the Hall-Mills case when court was not in session. Mrs. Gibson's 30-mile ambulance journey was taken with her approval, but over the vigorous protests of Dr. A. A. Lawton, house physician at the hospital. Dr. Lawton has insisted since she became a patient at the hospital, after collapsing in court last Thursday, that she will not be able to testify for several weeks. She is suffering from a kidney disease. Alexander Simpson, special prosecutor in the case of Mrs. Frances Stevens Hall and her brothers, Henry and Willie, charged with the murders of the Rev. Edward W. Hall and Mrs. Eleanor Mills, personally conducted his star witness on her cross-country trip between hospitals. The prosecutor was accompanied to the hospital by three members of the state police.
FAMILY CREMATED WHEN KEROSENE IS POURED INTO STOVE
Mr. Johnson, foreman of the cattle herd on Walter E. Gasser's big dairy farm, six miles east of Nashville, had just completed his early morning work at the barns and returned to his home at 6:30 a.m. Mrs. Johnson was preparing breakfast for him in the kitchen, and the children, with their grandmother, were asleep in another of the three rooms of the little frame bungalow. Johnson, just after entering the house, picked up a large can of coal oil and started to pour it into a little sheet iron heater. As the liquid hit the flames, a terrific explosion tore the whole side of the stove away, igniting the house and trapping the family.
WAYNE B. WHEELER DECLARES PROHIS WON CLEAR VICTORY
WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 7. - (AP) Dry victories in Ohio, "home of the Anti-Saloon league," and in Delaware, home of William H. Stayton, founder of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, were claimed from returns of last week's election in a statement made today by Wayne B. Wheeler, of the Anti-Saloon league. "There are only three counties in Delaware," he said. "In the northern county the wets concentrated against four representatives who stood for the enforcement of the present liquor laws. Large advertisements were published, urging a vote for wet candidates so that the people might have whisky on prescription now forbidden by law. The medicinal delegation was overwhelmingly defeated.
Context
Why a 1922 double murder was on trial in 1926
The bodies of the Rev. Edward W. Hall and Eleanor Mills were found by a young couple on a lane outside New Brunswick on September 16, 1922. A grand jury then spent five days hearing 67 witnesses, Jane Gibson among them, and took no action. The case came back in 1926. The New York Daily Mirror, a new Hearst paper competing for readers with the established Daily News, kept pushing the story, and Governor A. Harry Moore ordered a second investigation and a trial. Alexander Simpson, called the special prosecutor in this dispatch, ran the reopened prosecution. He asked for a separate trial for the defendants' cousin Henry Carpender, so only Mrs. Hall and her brothers Henry and Willie Stevens appear as defendants in the Advertiser's report. Simpson's personal escort of Gibson shows how much this four-year-old case, which already had a failed first investigation, depended on her account.
How the Pig Woman's testimony fared, and the verdict
Jane Gibson was a widow of about 50 who raised hogs near the murder site, which is why the press called her the Pig Woman. She was the prosecution's key witness. The Advertiser shows Simpson moving her against her physician's advice, and when she did testify she was so ill that she was brought to the courthouse by ambulance and lay in a bed before the judges and jury. Her value to the state was limited by her record. She had told her story differently to the police, to newspapers and at the trial, and defense attorney Clarence Case worked to destroy her credibility while the defense portrayed her as uneducated. After hearing 87 witnesses for the state and 70 for the defense, the jury deliberated for five hours, and all three defendants were acquitted on December 3, 1926. The murders have never been solved.
Wayne B. Wheeler and the 1926 claim of a dry victory
Wayne B. Wheeler was the attorney who led the Anti-Saloon League for many years. He became acting superintendent of the Ohio league in 1903. His method relied heavily on mass media to persuade politicians that the league's position had wide public support, and a statement drawing a clear victory from scattered election returns fits that method. His position in 1926 was weaker than in earlier years. Members of Congress were criticizing him by then and questioning the league's financing and campaign contributions. The same year also brought a setback for the drys. When Time listed the states that did nothing to enforce Prohibition in 1932, it dated Montana's withdrawal to 1926. The details about Delaware's northern county and the defeat of the medicinal-whisky candidates are Wheeler's own account as reported in the dispatch.
Original
PIG WOMAN MOVED FROM HOSPITAL BY SIMPSON'S ORDERS
SOMERVILLE, N. J., Nov. 7. - (AP) - Summary removal of Mrs. Jane Gibson from the Somerset hospital here to Jersey City today contributed a chapter to the Hall-Mills case when court was not in session. Mrs. Gibson's 30-mile ambulance journey was taken with her approval, but over the vigorous protests of Dr. A. A. Lawton, house physician at the hospital. Dr. Lawton has insisted since she became a patient at the hospital, after collapsing in court last Thursday, that she will not be able to testify for several weeks. She is suffering from a kidney disease. Alexander Simpson, special prosecutor in the case of Mrs. Frances Stevens Hall and her brothers, Henry and Willie, charged with the murders of the Rev. Edward W. Hall and Mrs. Eleanor Mills, personally conducted his star witness on her cross-country trip between hospitals. The prosecutor was accompanied to the hospital by three members of the state police.
FAMILY CREMATED WHEN KEROSENE IS POURED INTO STOVE
Mr. Johnson, foreman of the cattle herd on Walter E. Gasser's big dairy farm, six miles east of Nashville, had just completed his early morning work at the barns and returned to his home at 6: 30 a. m. Mrs. Johnson was preparing breakfast for him in the kitchen, and the children, with their grandmother, were asleep in another of the three rooms of the little frame bungalow. Johnson, just after entering the house, picked up a large can of coal oil and started to pour it into a little sheet iron heater. As the liquid hit the falmes, a terrific explosion tore the whole side of the stove away, igniting the house and trapping the family.
WAYNE B. WHEELER DECLARES PROHIS WON CLEAR VICTORY
Opposition WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 7. - (AP) Dry victories in Ohio, " home of the Anti-Saloon league, " and in Delaware, home of William H. Stayton, founder of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, were claimed from returns of last week's election in a statement made today by Wayne B. Wheeler, of the Anti-Saloon league. " There are only three counties in Delaware, " he said. " In the northern county the wets concentrated against four representatives who stood for the enforcement of the present liquor laws. Large advertisements were published, urging a vote for wet candidates so that the people might have whisky on prescription now forbidden by law. The medicinal delegation was overwhelmingly defeated.
Source: Holding institution