Jereboam O. Beauchamp - Execution By Hanging

Execution By Hanging

While imprisoned and awaiting execution, Beauchamp wrote a confession. He accused Patrick Darby of perjury with regard to the alleged 1824 meeting between Darby and Beauchamp. Many believed Beauchamp's accusation was meant to curry favor with New Court governor Joseph Desha – who considered Darby a political enemy – and to secure a pardon from him. When he finished the confession in mid-June 1826, and Beauchamp's uncle, Senator Beauchamp, took it to the state printer for immediate publication. An Old Court supporter, the printer refused to publish it.

Anna Beauchamp joined her husband in his cell. During their incarceration, they tried to bribe a guard into allowing them to escape. When that failed, they tried to pass a letter to Senator Beauchamp asking him for help in an escape, an attempt which likewise failed. Both the senator and the younger Beauchamp asked for a pardon from Governor Desha, but to no avail. Beauchamp's final request to Desha for a stay of execution was rejected July 5, 1826. With the last hope exhausted, the couple attempted a double suicide by drinking a vial of laudanum which Anna had smuggled into the cell. Both survived the attempt. The following morning, Jereboam and Anna were put on suicide watch and threatened with separation.

The night before the execution, Anna took a second dose of laudanum but was unable to keep it down. On July 7, 1826, the morning of the scheduled execution, Anna asked the guard to give her privacy to dress. Once the guard left, Anna revealed to Beauchamp that she had smuggled in a knife, and she and her husband stabbed themselves. Anna was taken to a nearby house to be treated by doctors.

Too weak to stand or walk, Beauchamp was loaded onto a cart to be conveyed to the gallows. He begged to see Anna, but the guards told him she was not seriously injured. The guards finally allowed him to see his wife. When they got to her, Beauchamp was angered that they had underplayed her critical condition. He stayed with her until he could no longer feel her pulse; then the guards took him to the gallows to be hanged before he died of his stab wounds.

Beauchamp asked to see Patrick Darby, who was among the assembled spectators. Beauchamp smiled and offered his hand, but Darby declined the gesture. Beauchamp publicly denied that Darby had any involvement with Sharp's murder, but accused him of having lied about the 1824 meeting. Darby denied the death march accusation and tried to get Beauchamp to retract it, but the prisoner moved on to the gallows.

Two men supported Beauchamp as the noose was put around his neck. He asked for a drink of water, and the band to play "Bonaparte's Retreat from Moscow". At his signal, the cart moved out from under him, and he died after a brief struggle. His father requested his body. Following Beauchamp's earlier instructions, he had the bodies of Jereboam and Anna arranged in an embrace and buried them in the same coffin. A poem written by Anna was etched on their double tombstone.

Senator Beauchamp eventually found a publisher for his nephew's Confession. The first printing ran on August 11, 1826. Sharp's brother, Dr. Leander Sharp, attempted to counter Beauchamp's Confession with Vindication of the Character of the late Col. Solomon P. Sharp, which he wrote in 1827. In this book, Dr. Sharp claimed to have seen a "first version" of the confession in which Beauchamp implicated Darby. Darby threatened to sue Dr. Sharp if he published Vindication, and John Waring threatened to kill him if he did so. Consequently, the manuscript was never published, but was found years later during a remodel of Sharp's house.