A striking piece of Houston history sold earlier this week on eBay, a reminder of how criminal justice was once meted out in Harris County.
The medal, about the size of a quarter, depicts a hooded, suit-wearing figure hanging from the gallows. Inscribed on the front is the name Henry McGee, his ethnicity is described as "colored" and the date of his execution is provided: Aug. 12, 1892.
Also inscribed is the name of McGee's victim, Houston police officer James Fenn. We then learn the time it took for McGee to die on the gallows, 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
The back of the medal reads, "Presented to R.E. Sutton by J. Warfel." A city directory from that period lists a Robert E. Sutton as deputy sheriff and assistant jailer. There are 2 Warfels listed in the directory, one of whom was a watchmaker.
The medal, which came from a Houston-area estate sale, baffled some Texas historians.
"I never came across anything like that," said Mitchel P. Roth, professor of criminal justice and criminology at Sam Houston State University and co-author of "Houston Blue: The Story of the Houston Police Department."
At the time of McGee's execution, the Houston Daily Post looked back on the case and noted "there was strong talk of lynching" after he was jailed.
4 men are known to have been lynched in the county in the 1800s and early 20th century. No doubt that when McGee was arrested, the mob-fueled slaying of John Walton, suspected in a burglary and attempted rape the previous year, was on many Houstonians' minds. A brother-in-law of the burglarized homeowner, also a Houston cop, took part in the lynching.
McGee's arrest came at time when the South was experiencing a rising number of lynchings that continued for decades.
Patricia Bernstein, author of "The First Waco Horror: the Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP" said it was amazing that McGee was not lynched and that he was tried twice for Fenn's death.
"It was almost like there were 2 separate systems of justice, for blacks and whites," she said, noting that wealthy, well-placed whites tended to fare better in the criminal justice system than poor whites. The system, though, was always going to be worse for African Americans, she said.
Cary Wintz, distinguished professor of history at Texas Southern University saw the medal as a personal item, given its rarity.
"To me, the issue is how many did he make?" he said, speculating that there could have been some personal connection between Sutton and Fenn that led Warfel to create it. He and other historians also wondered what was it about the case that prompted this.
"This one is just off the wall," Wintz said.
Bernstein found the medal appalling, even if it depicts a lawful execution.
"It's a medal that celebrates the murder of somebody," she said.
Roth said badges, and even ball-and-chains, will appear in police and criminal justice collections, but he had never seen anything like this object.
Here's what is known about the crime:
On March 14, 1891, Fenn was at a gathering spot known as the Broom Factory where alcohol and music mixed in the Second Ward. Fenn was sent there by the chief of police to maintain order, according to a decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. This was not his first time there as he was considered popular in the African-American community.
McGee, who once worked as a waiter at the Capitol and Grand Central hotels, apparently held a grudge against Fenn over an earlier arrest for shooting a pistol and threatened to kill the officer if he "was ever sent to the poor farm in consequence of an arrest."
"Very soon afterwards a pistol was fired, and Fenn and another officer, Frank Michael, went in the direction of the pistol shot, where a man stood flourishing a pistol in his right hand," according to the appeals court. "As they got close to him, he deliberately lowered the pistol in front of him, and holding it (in) both hands, fired upon Fenn and killed him."
McGee fled but was captured a few days later at a home occupied by 2 women in the First Ward.
McGee soon went on trial and was convicted and sentenced to death. That conviction was reversed on appeal and sent back to the trial court because of the admission of improper testimony. The following year, McGee was tried and sentenced to death again.
At 7 a.m. on Aug. 12, 1892, a crowd of Houstonians gathered outside the Harris County Jail for McGee's execution.
"Men, women and children of all conditions congregated about the jail and gazed with renewed interest at the iron-girded pile of brick and mortar which barred their morbid curiosity by shutting out sight of the condemned man," the Houston Daily Post noted. "As time worn on the [motley] crew increased, until the sidewalks could no longer hold them."
About four hours later, inside the jail, McGee made his way to the gallows assisted by the Rev. Jack Yates and the Rev. Henry Watts. He asserted his innocence and instead put blame on an unidentified person for killing Fenn. McGee also talked openly of his religious conversion and offered goodbyes to Sheriff George W. Ellis and his jailers, including Sutton.
After his execution, relatives took McGee's body to Lynchburg for burial.
Fenn is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.
Source: Houston Chronicle, J. R. Gonzales, April 18, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
