![The Execution of Joseph J. Sager [Mainely Histories and Mysteries]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jZIFz0HRiBg/hqdefault.jpg "The Execution of Joseph J. Sager [Mainely Histories and Mysteries]")
Joseph J. Sager and Phoebe Sager
Joseph and Phoebe Sager were a middle aged couple residing in the city of Gardiner when the unfortunate incident involving Phoebe’s death, occurred. Phoebe was a 48 year old milliner and dressmaker at the time of her death, and 36 year old Joseph was a saddle and harness maker, and a shop worker. While Phoebe was often sick, she was also known to have a drinking problem that wasn’t at all under control. On the day of her death she fell violently ill after drinking a wine and egg mixture Joseph prepared for her, to have with her breakfast. A local doctor was summoned to help her, but despite his best efforts to help her over the course of the following 6+ hours, he could do nothing to alleviate the excruciatingly painful episodes of unstoppable vomiting, including “bloody vomit”, and she eventually died; the date of her death was October 5, 1834.
Phoebe repeatedly told people who were present with her, during her final few hours, that her husband made her drink the wine concoction. He insisted she drink it, and finish it. This caused the physician to become immediately suspicious. He then noticed a white powder residue in the wine decanter she drank from that morning, and also in the container that held the cream that was added to the wine. His suspicions would eventually lead to a startling discovery.
Another very important person in the murder case against Joseph Sager was a young woman named Ann Rafter. Ann Rafter was a Catholic servant of the Sager household at the time of Phoebe’s untimely passing. During this time in Maine’s history anti-Catholic sentiment was at its height. Catholics were persecuted, ostracized, vilified, and openly discriminated against.
Irish Catholic, Ann Rafter, became the principal witness in the case.
Joseph Sager accused Ann, their house servant, of poisoning Phoebe and there was rumored to be an actual confession by Ann, herself, to that effect but it was never found in any of the documentation or evidence.
But… … another compelling rumor was floating around that she never went to confession again after the trial.
Determining Phoebe was murdered
After Mrs. Sager died her body was sent off for an autopsy. The Doctor present at the time of her death had collected the cream container that had the white residue in it and requested the medical examiner send the contents of Mrs. Sager’s stomach to be analyzed, along with the residue, to Professor Cleaveland at Bowdoin Medical School.
Both contained arsenic.
Trial and Execution
The case of the ‘State of Maine vs. Joseph J. Sager’ started on Tuesday October 23, 1834 when Sager pleaded “not guilty” to the charges of murdering his wife.
The facts of the case were presented as follows;
Joseph Sager, aged 36, was accused of killing his 48 year old wife – Phoebe – by poisoning part of her breakfast – a drink he prepared for her made of wine, an egg, and white sugar. The visiting Dr. sent to treat Phoebe noticed the wine carafe she drank from at breakfast had a white sediment in it. The cream container on the dining table also had this sediment in it so the Dr. saved it and had it tested. The sediment was found to be arsenic, leading to a charge of murder against her husband Joseph.
Two Judges presided over the trial simultaneously, as Maine law at the time stated if the life of a person was at stake during a trial it was to be done with 2 Judges sitting on the bench. The 2 Judges were; Chief Justice Nathan Weston and Judge Albion Paris, who had also served as Maine’s 5th Governor.
Prosecuting attorneys on behalf of the state were; Attorney General – Nathaniel Clifford (a future Justice of the US Supreme Court) and County Prosecuting Attorney – James W. Bradbury (a future US Senator).
The Legal Defense Attorneys on behalf of Joseph J. Sager were; the Honorable Peleg Sprague, who was the Primary Defense attorney and a current, sitting, US Senator from Maine, at the time; Frederick Allen; and George W. Bacheldor. Court proceedings were held in the old South Church in Augusta, Maine. Oliver Bean of Readfield was the jury foreman.
Joseph J. Sager was found “GUILTY” of the murder of his wife Phoebe Sager by a jury of his peers on Monday October 27, 1834, just 22 short days after her passing. Judge Weston sentenced Sager to death by hanging with the date of the execution to be carried out on Friday January 2, 1835 at the corner of State Street and Winthrop Street in Augusta.
The Trial was a full-house sensation every single day. The courthouse was mobbed with people and no seat was left open. The balcony was full, too.
Joseph J. Sager collapsed into his chair when the “guilty” verdict was read. He was sweating, shaking, and sort of hyperventilating. His representation filed a motion for a new trial based on the claim that material evidence had been suppressed at the trial but the motion was denied
The day of Joseph Sager’s execution, Friday January 2, 1835, was a very cold, snowy, and windy one.
The hanging took place at the gallows in Augusta on the corner of Winthrop and State Streets near the Southwest corner of the jail. Sager was Llkely walked from the jail, across the street to “Winthrop Street Square” where the gallows was erected.
His very last words were “Gentlemen, I am innocent” with a little hitch in the word “innocent” when they tightened the rope around his neck.
The Controversy
The controversy surrounding Joseph J. Sager’s execution had a lot to do with his persistent claims of innocence. Sager claimed his innocence until the very end, even blaming Ann Rafter, the family’s Irish servant for the murder of Phoebe; anti-catholic rhetoric was all the rage among certain political groups during this time, and so blaming an Irish Catholic girl was seen as quite the tactic of desperation. His claims of innocence persisted even though he had been caught pre-meditating his wife’s death on a number of occasions. One example of this was when he told a Kennebec River Steamboat crew member he knew that he’d be a widow soon. Not only did he say this with an odd sort of exciting anticipation, he actually handed this friend a hand written list of women he thought he might be interested in once his wife passes.
Another curious bit of circumstantial evidence that didn’t bode well for his case was that Joseph encouraged Phoebe to drink all of the liquid mixture he mixed for her, telling her “the goodness being all at the bottom” in the carafe the arsenic was found. The only witness to this act, however, was by their servant, Ann Rafter which, of course, Sager had a vested interest in discrediting. Another subject of controversy was that most newspaper articles and historical documentation said the Dr. who tended to Phoebe, as she lay dying, took a container with the arsenic in it with the intent of having it tested and studied by proper authorities, but curiously, there was also the rarer mention that it was Ann Rafter who was said to have carried out this deed. And one doesn’t likely need to be told how much of a conflict of interest it would be if Rafter actually *was* the one in possession of the carafe with the white powder in it, as she was considered the prosecution’s star witness and her influential testimony led to the hanging of Joseph J. Sager.
The Hanging of Joseph Sager
The gallows was constructed near the Southwest corner of the Kennebec County jail. There were between 8,000 and 12,000 people present to view the hanging. To give you a rough idea of what this might look like, in person; in 1830 the population of Augusta was 3,980. In 1840 the population of Augusta was 5,314. This was 1835. So, this singular area of the city of Augusta was a convergence point of 8,000 to 12,000 people – which is easily two, to three times, the population of the entire city at the time – all standing in one small space at the same time.
That day the weather was horrible – snowy, windy, cold, and raw. The crowd was belligerent – men were drinking until ‘plastered’ and treated this execution like it was some sort of entertainment. There were also lots of women, elderly, sick, and children present. People traveled from great distances and spent the night to see the hanging.
There were armed soldiers present – the Augusta Light Infantry – surrounding the gallows. The day was chaotic and at many times, a dangerous place to be. A sea of 8,000-12,000 people pushing forward toward the gallows, to the point the soldiers had to get under the platform for safety. In one instance, someone hollered “FIRE!” which caused the mob to panic.
Militia situated themselves to guard the gallows and then the Sheriff and 2 deputies went to Sager’s cell to bring him to the hanging spot. The Sheriff saluted Joseph Sager at his cell – it’s said to make him feel better about this situation. Joseph didn’t put up any kind of fight and when they led him to the gallows he was carrying the noose on his own right arm.
When this all started just 3 and a half months earlier in October of 1834, Sager was ‘built’ physically. He was a man with physical stature. But, by the day of his hanging he’d lost so much weight he was almost unrecognizable.
Sager’s last words proclaimed his innocence. He wrote them down but had to have been in a state of utter panic when doing so, and so the words were just a mash-up of incoherent gibberish basically pleading for his life. They were read by Reverend Benjamin Tappan who then turned to the crowd and warned them, basically, not to live a life that would lead to this. To look at Joseph Sager and to understand that life choices can have serious life consequences.
Joseph Sager’s mother was in the courthouse begging Governor Dunlap and his advisors to stay the execution, to no avail. Where they were situated inside the courthouse offered them a vantage point with a good view of the gallows when the execution was taking place. Joseph firmly believed his mother’s pleas would save his life.
A Quaker from The Society of Friends in Fairfield also made his way into the Governor’s presence to beg for Sager’s life but the Governor was too busy watching the crowd and the gallows that he didn’t even make eye contact with the gentleman.
George W. Stanley was the Kennebec County Sheriff at the time, and he was responsible to drop Sager where he stood on the platform.
Stanley led Sager to the platform, let his last words be spoken, then put a black hood over Sager, adjusted the noose, took his hand and humanely said “goodbye”. When Sager proclaimed his innocence Stanley told him “this is now a matter between you and your god”. Stanley then walked down the gallows steps and slashed the rope holding Sager in place.
When the trap door was released the words “sickening thud” were used to describe the ‘drop’ and it’s thought he died instantly.
Sager dropped over 10 feet and then just hung, twirling around lifeless, as people gawked – for 20 minutes before his friends and family were allowed to cut his body down and carry it off to be given a proper burial. Dr. Franklin Gage declared him dead. He was lowered onto a horse sled and driven as fast as possible to Hallowell.
The Mystery
Joseph Sager’s body was rushed off in a hurry, to Hallowell, where his friends had a master plan of electrocuting him back to life. The concept they planned to use on him was a much misunderstood version of “galvanism”. Galvanism is named after an Italian doctor named Luigi Galvani – a man who hooked up a dead frog to an electrical charge, and witnessed the legs moving. It was the basis for the plotline in Frankenstein when the mad scientist brings the monster to life by electrocuting it into reanimation.
These efforts failed, of course, and Sager was buried in a secret location on an island in one of the ponds in Winthrop. 50 Years later, January 2, 1885 a newspaper article printed by the Daily Kennebec Journal specified Joseph Sager was buried on Horse-Shoe Island in Cobbosseecontee Pond.
But still, there were people who persisted in their belief that he was brought back to life and ushered out of the state by friends & family, escaping to Texas to live out the remainder of his natural life.
Some say if you go to the spot Sager was hung and you ask aloud “Sager, for what were you hanged?” a voice would reply “nothing”. So this question of his innocence or guilt was clearly in the collective conscious of the local community.
This hanging bothered people and was ultimately the last execution ever conducted in Kennebec County.
