In the late night hours of Monday, Sept. 3, 1883, while most were asleep in the city of Bath, a history-making tragedy was about to occur on Broad Street.
Sketch of Constable William Lawrence. Artist and date unknown. Courtesy photos
Two men, lurking in the evening shadows of the Commercial Wharf, began to pry and finagle their way into the D.C. Gould Chandlery, a general store. Suddenly, Bath Policeman George A. Kingsley startled the burglars when he spotted them and began blowing his whistle.
The ne’er-do-wells dropped their tools and quickly fled while Policeman Orrin A. Kittredge, patrolling Commercial Street, came running. But the thieves soon slipped into the darkness.
While Kingsley and Kittredge searched the shadows, 63-year-old Officer William Lawrence, patrolling Broad Street, was nearly knocked over by a man running toward him. Lawrence grabbed the man and held on tightly. Lawrence’s detainee suddenly lifted his hand, pointed a cocked pistol to the officer’s head and pulled the trigger.
Officer William Lawrence lost his grip and fell to the ground as his murderous assailant ran, once again, into the night. Hearing the gunshot, Kittredge and Kingsley ran to their comrade’s side, but Lawrence was already dead.
Off-duty officers were awoken and summoned to duty as a manhunt began. Evidence was gathered and questions were asked. When evidence was matched to other area investigations, police finally realized who they were looking for.
Daniel Wilkinson, 40, had been arrested for burglary before, the last time in Woolwich in 1880, but he had escaped and was already a wanted man.
For nearly two weeks, police in Maine searched high and low for Wilkinson, a former British sailor living in Maine since 1867. Then, after many faded leads and played-out clues, police located Wilkinson at a lumber camp in Bangor. When police searched Wilkinson’s belongings, they discovered burglary tools and the murder weapon.
Wilkinson was transported back to Bath, jailed and charged with murder in the first degree. Wilkinson soon admitted guilt and identified his accomplice as John Elliot, another former British sailor, but Elliot was never found.
Image of Daniel Wilkinson, who was hanged to death for killing a Bath police officer, making him the last person to receive the death penalty in Maine.
Maine Attorney General William Cleaves prosecuted the case in Bath on Jan. 2, 1884, and since this case was a capital crime, Cleaves pressed for the death penalty. By Jan. 7, Cleaves got his wish.
By Aug. 27, 1885, Wilkinson’s appeals were exhausted and Gov. Frederick Robie had refused to commute the sentence of Wilkinson, who was now housed at the Maine State Prison at Thomaston and was soon scheduled “to swing” for the murder of Officer Lawrence.
Wilkinson had been working in the paint shop of the prison, living a normal prisoners’ routine, when word came that his hopes were dashed and Wilkinson was placed in solitary confinement to await his fate.
On Friday, Nov. 20, 1885, at exactly noon — before approximately “30 spectators” — a rope was placed around Wilkinson’s neck, the trap was sprung and he fell “seven feet.”
Wilkinson’s body jerked at the unmerciful end of the rope, but the slipknot of the hangman’s noose suddenly shifted and a clean snap of the neck didn’t happen. Instead of instant death, Wilkinson was slowly strangled.
With no intervention attempted by officials, all 30 spectators watched squeamishly while Wilkinson jerked, writhed and struggled for a long and brutal “17 minutes” before finally relenting. A prison physician pronounced him dead, and Wilkinson’s body was taken to the prison cemetery and placed in his grave.
Newspapers throughout Maine, and the nation, soon told the story of Wilkinson’s botched hanging. Though sympathetic to Officer Lawrence’s murder, Mainers couldn’t stomach the nasty way his murderer had met his maker.
In all, nearly two dozen convicted murders, rapists and robbers were lawfully hanged in Maine; the first being a woman, “the Good Wife Cornish,” in 1644. Others included 14 Caucasians, two Native Americans, three Black men and one man executed by the state for treason. But this botched execution of Wilkinson would be the last.
By 1887, just two years after the flimsy execution at Thomaston, the State of Maine forever outlawed the death penalty in the Pine Tree State.
Since 1808, 100 police officers have died in the line of duty in Maine. William Lawrence was the first of two Bath police officers to die in the line of duty. On May 29, 1961, 10-year veteran Sgt. Merle D. Niles died of complications from being shot in the chest during a domestic disturbance on Pleasant Street.
In the end, the events of Sept. 3, 1883, would become legendary in the lore of the city of Bath and would add to the diverse history of the Pine Tree State, in this, one of our saddest Stories From Maine.
Lori-Suzanne Dell is a Brunswick author and historian. She has published four books and runs the “Stories from Maine” Facebook page.
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