Six Miles to Charleston (10 page)

Whatever their plans were, the escape sealed their fate with the authorities of Charleston just four months before they were to appear in court again. Then again, their fate may have been already predetermined before they ever reached court and that is why they chanced escape.

There was great complaining of the condition of the Old City Jail with this escape following so closely on the heels of the Toohey escape. Charleston architect Robert Mills was commissioned to create plans to reinforce and redesign the jail. His additions would be completed in 1822. Mills was perhaps one of the greatest architects of his time. He was well-known for his works in designing courthouses, jails and other buildings in South Carolina. He was known for his expertise in “fire-proofing” buildings in their designs. One of his projects in Charleston is known as the Fire-Proof Building and houses the historical records and documents of the South Carolina Historical Society. In later years, Robert Mills would design the Washington Monument, perhaps his most famous work.

With this botched escape one begins to see a different John Fisher emerge than what the legend has taught us. It shows a man desperate to save the life of his wife and his commitment to her even at the risk of his own life. Starting with their arrest in the very beginning, his devotion toward Lavinia never waivers. He was a man very dedicated to his wife. John Fisher may have been many things, but he was far from being a coward and he is not the blood thirsty butcher of legend. It is the turning point in the story on a multitude of levels.

C
HAPTER
6

The Sentencing

C
OLONIAL
J
USTICE
E
QUALS
C
OLONIAL
C
ORRUPTION

On January 17, 1820, John and Lavinia Fisher appeared before the constitutional court. The following day, the
Charleston Courier
reported that John and Lavinia Fisher were convicted of highway robbery at the last court of sessions and now had been brought before the constitutional court and received their sentencing under the law. After a motion for a new trial had been rejected and “admonitory addresses” from Judges Colcock and Bay were given, the Fishers were condemned to be hanged on Friday, February 4, 1820.

What is most notable is the fact that their charges have now been changed from what they were originally convicted of. Remember that they were charged for the crimes of assault with intent to murder and also common assault? They were indicted for those crimes, and they were convicted and sent back to jail to await sentencing. Remember that this was all for the assault on David Ross? Now, sentencing day has come, and they were now being sentenced for a different crime altogether. They were being sentenced for the highway robbery upon John Peoples.

What had transpired here? They were tried and convicted for one crime against one victim. It was appealed. Their appeal was rejected at this hearing and now, at this same hearing, they are being sentenced to death for a crime against a different victim. They were never tried or convicted of the crime in which they were now being condemned to die for.

In all the research, there is nothing to show that they were ever formally charged for the crimes against John Peoples. Now all of a sudden they are condemned to die for those crimes?

Now, if you recall in Chapter 3, they were all brought before Peoples and identified, although they were never formally charged with that crime. What happened there and why will become an issue, but we will get to that shortly. For now, let's explore another element that is as equally troubling. Our villains, the source of the most vile and despicable crimes ever to have occurred in Charleston, are beginning to appear to have been railroaded and may be the actual victims themselves.

By the time February 4 rolled around, a brief respite in the carrying out of the execution was granted. After he had received a petition from John Fisher and Lavinia Fisher, several clergy members and a number of respectable citizens “imploring an opportunity for repentance, and asking but for time to prepare to meet their God,” Governor Geddes, “for these special purposes,” granted a respite in the execution of their sentence until Friday, February 18, 1820.

During this time, John and Lavinia were visited by numerous clergy officials attempting to prepare their physical bodies for the execution and their souls for the judgment thereafter. One of the clergy, an elderly Baptist pastor, spent much time there. Despite his wife having died the previous year, leaving him to care for a large family, he felt called to assist the couple. His congregation was also busy building a new church that needed his attention, but he still managed to find the time to minister to the couple in prayer. This man was the Reverend Dr. Richard Furman.

Dr. Furman had led a very active life in the Baptist ministry and had greatly influenced the development of the Baptist denomination. He had been converted at the age of sixteen in 1771 because of the influence of a pastor, Joseph Reese, in the Santee area of South Carolina. By May 1774, he had been ordained and was pastor of the High Hills Baptist Church. That year he was married to Elizabeth Haynsworth. Together they had four children until her death in 1787. The distraught minister left High Hills Baptist Church that same year and found himself in Charleston as pastor of the Charleston Baptist Church. Two years later, in 1789, he would marry Dorothea Burn. Together they had thirteen children. Now she had died and Dr. Furman began to identify with the condemned couple and the agony they faced at the thoughts of not only losing each other, but the thoughts of losing their own lives.

The sixty-five-year-old pastor could also identify with John and Lavinia on another level. When he was much younger, he had volunteered for duty in the Revolutionary War only to be halted by Governor John Rutledge. Rutledge wanted Furman to plead the patriot cause to the South Carolina Loyalists, those loyal to the crown. When Dr. Furman's efforts began to succeed on a large scale, he came to the attention of the British general lord Charles Cornwallis, who after capturing Charleston in 1780 put a bounty on Furman. Although he had never faced imprisonment, he had indeed lived with the fear of capture and hanging at the hands of the redcoats.

In life, Dr. Furman was a kind and caring pastor. Later, after his death in 1825, he would become a very controversial figure. He would later be glorified for his stand on education and an educated ministry and Furman University would eventually be founded and named for this man. He would also be vilified for his reversal on his stand in support of slavery. His work titled “Exposition of the Views of the Baptist Relative to the Coloured [
sic
] Population of the United States” in 1822 supported slavery as economically necessary and morally justified. It would become, literally, a bible in which supporters religiously and intellectually justified slavery for the next forty years and throughout the Civil War.

Dr. Furman worked hard with the Fishers in preparing their souls for what lay ahead. He found it much easier to reach John than Lavinia. When engaged with prayer, Lavinia would jump at any movement or noise by her captors. She was convinced they were coming to her with a pardon. When it proved not to be the case, Lavinia would burst into profanity laced tirades and the elderly reverend would have to start his efforts toward her salvation all over again. Dr. Furman built a strong rapport with John Fisher that would eventually lead John to address his final letter to the pastor to be read at his execution. Lavinia, on the other hand, was consumed with only one thought: a pardon. She professed her innocence and believed she would be exonerated. She also believed that the governor would not hang a woman.

Lavinia was more concerned with her life than her soul and put her faith in the governor's pardon more than God's mercy.
Courtesy of Kayla Orr.

There are many opinions to the reason behind the respite in the execution other than the governor's concern for the Fishers' immortal souls. One resource claims the reason for the respite was because February 4 fell during Race Week. Race Week was the most important sporting and social event of the new calendar year. A hanging just could not detract from a horse race. Beggar Girl beating Envoy and Corvisart in two out of three heats was exciting, and the competition with a hanging of a married couple would conflict. The decision was made to move the hanging to another date in order to create two separate major events to draw in crowds—and commerce—to Charleston.

Although this may have partially been the case, further research has found a possible third and more serious reason. There was question of their guilt.

Within a pamphlet printed by Nathaniel Coverly in 1820 are the first indications that another individual had admitted to the crimes. According to the pamphlet, as their execution date approached, there was a respite in execution granted by the governor, of which we are already aware. The reason Coverly gives is a man was arrested for a different crime, and as he was brought before the magistrate, he declared he was the perpetrator for the crimes in which John and Lavinia Fisher were sentenced. His confession seemed quite compelling because he was able to furnish the exact time and place of the robbery, the exact amount of money taken and several other significant elements of the crime. Apparently this information had been provided to Governor Geddes and the respite was granted. There was hope, according to Coverly, that further information might be obtained to exonerate the Fishers so they would not be executed for a crime of which they did not commit.

A letter from “G.-S.” to a friend in Boston also makes claim that there was a person that came forward: “The whole city has manifested a deep interest in the fate of Fisher and his wife ever since sentence was passed upon them. The public papers have doubtless informed you of the reprieve granted them in consequence of the confession made by another person.” The city hoped that this would make a difference to the condemned Fisher couple and their execution would not be carried out. The Coverly pamphlet and the letter from G.-S show a different perspective of the citizens of Charleston than what the legacy of the legend has taught us. The people of Charleston, South Carolina, supported the Fishers and even hoped their innocence could be proven.

Lavinia had also begun to receive additional support from another source—“the most fashionable ladies of Charleston.” These ladies felt that the execution of a “white female” would be a reflection on all women. In other words, it would set a precedent that would now include “white women” under the umbrella of colonial law and punishment that covered everyone else. They prepared petitions for the governor; Governor Geddes avoided them at all costs.

Apparently the new reprieve did not last long, and the confession of the person that admitted his guilt did little to change things. In his pamphlet, Coverly went on to say that the man who had confessed to the crimes for which the Fishers were condemned was reexamined and his statements became contradictory. His sanity was also called into question. Perhaps the crane of pain changed his mind at confessing to the crimes. The respite was not extended and the execution was to be carried out on the appointed date.

John and Lavinia Fisher had been convicted of a crime against one man and sentenced to die for a crime against another man. This was a crime they never went to trial on and were never convicted of as far as the records reflect. We have a person coming forward—knowing he will be sentenced to die for this crime—admitting to the crime. This person was later reexamined (we have learned how colonial authorities examined their prisoners) and deemed insane. We have clergy and citizen groups standing behind the Fishers. What does the governor decide to do amid all this chaos surrounding the Fishers? Governor Geddes leaves the city to avoid the hoopla.

What had occurred painted an entirely different picture of the Fishers and what had transpired. It plants that seed that takes us into the realm of reasonable doubt. Surely a jury would have a reasonable doubt. The problem is that there was no jury. Judge Colcock and the senile Judge Bay disregarded the previous matter and deemed them guilty of another crime without a trial. They sentenced them to die for that crime.

One now begins to have a sense of uneasiness and actually disdain for what happened to the Fishers. This was exactly what the citizens of Charleston were feeling in 1820. It was a feeling of doubt in their justice system; it was a sense of corruption.

In February 1820, a question began to form in the minds of Charlestonians because of the events they were watching unfold in regard to the Fishers. That same question is now forming in your mind some 190 years later.

Could they actually have been innocent?

C
HAPTER
7

The Execution

I
N THE
W
ORDS OF
T
HOSE
W
HO
W
ITNESSED
I
T

Behold the husband and the wife
Pay the dear forfeit of life:
In bloom of youth they meet their end,
And none can now their cause defend.
O may this sight a warning be,
To shun the paths of misery,
And when we die, O, may we prove,
The gifts of Heaven's pard'oing love.
—From a pamphlet by Nathaniel Coverly 1820