JACKSON HISTORY: 1838 execution victim was posthumously exonerated

In continuing the stories of Jackson and Madison County that have mostly been forgotten, let’s look at two from the 19th Century. 

Way back in 1838, a man only recorded by history as Reilly was arrested for killing someone. He was drunk when he was taken into custody and confessed. When he sobered up the next day, he denied he had committed the crime. After he was convicted, he was sentenced to hang. 

Back in those days, they didn’t have a very lengthy appeals process, and the day for his execution came rather quickly. Once taken to the gallows, which was somewhere to the west of the city, he was placed on the trap door and the noose placed around his neck. When he was asked if he had any final words, he appealed to his deity to send a sign from heaven to prove he was not guilty. 

A large black cloud appeared out of nowhere and it began to storm. The large crowd ran for shelter and left the convicted man on the gallows. Apparently, the “sign” did not convince anyone, and they returned once the storm abated and carried out the hanging. 

Several years later, a man in Obion County was in the process of dying and confessed that he had killed the man that Reilly was executed for. That’s irony! (Historic Madison, Emma Inman Williams, 1986)

Another interesting character from Jackson’s history is Tom Gaston. Back in the 1800s, Jackson had a Town Marshall, not a Police Chief. He was basically responsible for enforcing Town Ordinances, not state laws. The Sheriff enforced state laws. 

In 1888, Gaston discovered a plot to free a gang member from the jail. The gang caught up with him, and he ended up taking a shotgun blast to the face, which he lost use of one eye, but survived. 

He killed one of the gang and wounded another. Then on Sunday, Dec. 21, 1892, W.C. Strickland defied the ordinance of having a bar open on the Sabbath Day. 

Gaston went to confront him and was ambushed by the suspect and his brother. I believe this occurred on East Lafayette Street just to the North of where City Hall is now. 

Gaston shot the suspect in the head, and it turned out the suspect was wearing a brass bullet-proof vest. Bullet proof vests were popularized by soldiers during the Civil War, by those who could afford them.  (Tales of Madison, Harbert Alexander, 2002)

Tom Gaston passed away in 1918 and is interred in Riverside Cemetery. 

Captain Jeff Shepard retired from the Jackson Police Department after 32 years. He is currently the president of the local Fraternal Order of Police and an avid historian.