(CRIME.) Commutation of a death sentence for a Black Pennsylvania man who had nearly been lynched. Letter Signed by William A. Stone as Governor of Pennsylvania and by the state secretary, to warden William McC. Johnston of the Western Penitentiary. One page, 21 x 16 pages, on official letterhead with partial state seal, docketing on verso; folds, 2-inch closed tear, minor wear and soiling. Harrisburg, PA, 8 January 1902
William Fairfax (1868-1923) and his wife Ella were implicated in a murder in Connellsville, PA near Pittsburgh on 18 May 1901. They knocked a man unconscious with a brick and took his watch; the man then fell or was pushed over a wall and broke his neck. The Fairfaxes were soon brought into custody, and an angry mob descended upon the police station. Some managed to gain access to the holding area and fired shots toward the cell before police drove them off. Next a telephone pole was used as a battering ram, and the prisoner's cell wall was breached, but again the police were able to save the prisoner, placing him aboard a train to a neighboring town's jail.
In the ensuing trial, Fairfax was sentenced to death for murder in the first degree. This document explains that Fairfax had been sentenced to "be hanged by the neck until dead," but that on the recommendation of the Lieutenant Governor and other officials, he has "commuted the sentence of death upon the said William Fairfax to a sentence of imprisonment for life." He then commanded the warden to confine Fairfax "during the entire term and period of his natural life."
Fairfax spent at least 19 years in prison, making him the longest-tenured inmate in Western Penitentiary, when a state congressman petitioned for his pardon (Harrisburg Evening News, 23 September 1921). He died in South Fayette, PA in 1923.
