And Speaking of Presidents…
November 7th, 2012 by slangon

So apparently, there was some kind of election or something yesterday or the day before. And apparently some guy or the other got hired for something. I’m sure you heard about it. It was all over the news. And the interwebs. One of the more interesting things that I read wasn’t about one of the fellers that were trying to get hired for that job. It was about one of the fellers that had that same job a long time ago.

Like most guys who’ve held down the job, before he was POTUS, Grover Cleveland had a bunch of other jobs, most of which were somehow involved with politics. In 1870, Cleveland secured the nomination for the sheriff of Erie County, New York and won the position. Apparently, in those days in New York, the law stated that anyone convicted of first degree murder must be hung by the neck ’til dead. Furthermore, in those days the sheriff was responsible for either carrying out the execution personally, or hiring a deputy to perform the duty at the going rate of $10 per hanging.

On September 6, 1872, a man by the name of Patrick Morrissey was scheduled to be hung for stabbing his mother in a drunken altercation. Despite having reservations about being directly responsible for the death of another human being, albeit a convicted murderer, Cleveland chose to carry out the duty himself.

Old Grover also hung one other unfortunate soul during his stint as sheriff. On Valentine’s Day of 1873, he sprung the trap on a man by the name of John Gaffney, who was condemned to death for the shooting of one Patrick Fahey in a drunken bar brawl.

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