Cornelius Hammond (Execution of)

Cornelius Hammond was hanged at Bentonville (Benton County) on January 14, 1876, for killing a fellow member of a band of horse thieves, which he claimed he did in self-defense.

Cornelius Hammond was born on October 7, 1854, in Cherokee County, Georgia, and moved with his family to Arkansas when he was young. By 1875, he was part of a gang of horse thieves based in Clarksville (Johnson County) and led by A. M. Hope, whose lieutenants included Columbus Hancock. In August 1875, Hammond, Hancock, and a woman named Samantha Stout were staying at the home of G. P. Hoyt in Benton County near Van Winkle’s Mill. Hoyt went to the mill one morning, and Hammond and Hancock went to a pasture where two mules and a horse they had stolen in White County were corralled. A newspaper reported that “about an hour and a half after leaving, Hammond returned very much excited, with blood on his face, and on one of the mules.” He and Stout left, and Hoyt’s wife went to a neighbor’s home, saying “she believed a murder had been committed.” A posse, which included employees of Peter Van Winkle, who closed his mill so his workers could help, was formed to search for Hancock’s body, and a magistrate issued a warrant for Hammond and Stout’s arrest; they were captured about three miles east of Berryville (Carroll County).

The Arkansas Gazette reported that “the murder was most sickening and brutal, the victim having been shot in the back of the head, his scalp beaten off with a club and his throat cut from ear to ear.”

The Fayetteville Weekly Democrat reported that Hammond confessed to the crime, saying Hoyt had pressured him into helping him kill Hancock. Hoyt, who “stoutly denies his guilt,” was also arrested. (Hammond’s account of the incident was published in the Fayetteville Weekly Democrat a week after his execution; unfortunately, most of what appeared in the newspaper is illegible, but he did write that “I state, in view of meeting my God in a few days, that G. P. Hoyt, now in arrest for complicity with me in killing Hancock, knew nothing about it and is wholly innocent.”)

Hammond was tried and convicted of first-degree murder in late 1875 and sentenced to hang on January 14, 1876; a newspaper account said that “he heard his doom coolly, and manifested great indifference.” When the Arkansas Supreme Court refused his request for a rehearing in early January, a paper reported that he “has completely broken down.” A petition was apparently sent to Governor Augustus Hill Garland, who declined to intervene.

The condemned man joined the Catholic Church while in jail and told a reporter on the day of his execution that he “believed in that faith, and had perfect confidence in being saved.”

Lawmen escorted him from the Benton County Jail at 1:05 p.m. on January 14, 1876, to go to the gallows, which were set up about a mile and a half from town. A crowd estimated at from 8,000 to 10,000 people had gathered to witness the hanging, and “from the time of leaving the prison every foot of ground was occupied and disputed by the immense crowd; men, women, boys, girls, young and old, on foot, horseback, in wagons, carriages, and every other way, filled up the acres of humanity present.” A newspaper said that people from the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), Kansas, and Missouri, as well as from Washington, Madison, Franklin, Johnson, Newton, Carroll, and Boone counties in Arkansas were in the crowd.

As Hammond ascended the scaffold, he “seemed to be unnerved” and said, “I am dying innocent; all I have to say I have said,” an apparent reference to the account that would appear in the newspaper a week later, adding, “Farewell! God bless everybody! I owe everything to my blessed Saviour!”

Hammond then kneeled and prayed with a priest who accompanied him. After the black cap was placed over his head, he “uttered a half audible prayer to God to save him in the hereafter” and then said “ready.” The trap door was opened at 1:25 p.m., and “all that was mortal of Pinckney Cornelius Hammond put on immortality.” He was declared dead eighteen minutes later. The Fayetteville (Washington County) newspaper concluded: “Hammond died game, and claimed to the last that he killed Hancock in self defense.”

Hoyt was tried for Hancock’s murder and found not guilty in May 1876. There were no further newspaper accounts mentioning Samantha Stout, and the outcome of her case is not known.

For additional information:
“Arkansas.” [Springfield, Missouri] Southwest, January 18, 1876, p. 4, col. 1.

“The Benton Bounty [sic] Murder.” Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, August 21, 1875, p. 3.

“Hammond Hung.” St. Louis Republic, January 24, 1876, p. 5.

“Hoyt’s Case.” Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, April 22, 1876, p. 3.

Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, January 22, 1876, p. 3, col. 1–2; p. 4, col. 3.

Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, March 18, 1876, p. 5, col. 2.

Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, May 13, 1876, p. 3, col. 2.

“Robbery and Murder.” Arkansas Gazette, August 21, 1875, p. 1.

Russellville Democrat, December 2, 1875, p. 1, col. 6.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas