MURDEROUS MARY

September 14, 1916--A day that will live in infamy in eastern Tennessee. "Mary" (with no known last name), an Asian immigrant of unusual strength and size who did not speak English, was passing through the sleepy town of Kingsport. Mary was attacked on the street by a white man named Red Eldridge. Mary, in a fit of rage, killed Eldridge. Mary was shot by a witness but was only superficially wounded.

The citizens of the county were riled to a blood-lust and almost everyone, including the Sheriff, concluded that justice for Mary should be both swift and public. In light of what was perceived as her obvious guilt, an official trial was deemed wasteful and unnecessary. In what could be termed a circus atmosphere, it was decided that Mary would be dispatched dramatically in full view of as many persons as possible. Electrocution and a firing squad as well as some other even more sadistic methods were considered as options, but the traditionalists won out and decided that Mary would suffer death by hanging the following day.

The problem was that Mary was so large that it was feared that she would not fit through the ordinary trap door on the county's scaffold. Mary was therefore transferred to the nearby town of Erwin to be hanged from a railroad crane. On the first attempt, the noose broke and Mary plummeted to the ground and fractured her hip. She was rehanged with a large chain and finally succumbed.

Her body was buried in an unmarked grave on the railroad yards, and the exact location is unknown today.

At the time of the unfortunate incident, Mary was the top-billed elephant for the traveling "Sparks World Famous Shows" circus. She weighed 10,000 pounds and was probably larger than even the infamous Jumbo. She was a talented and highly regarded performer (who worked for peanuts) until her new handler Eldridge jabbed her with a sharp hook and she crushed his head like a watermelon.

[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Accounts differ on Mary's prior criminal history. Some versions allege that she was a gentle giant who had been treated with the utmost kindness until she was paired up with Eldridge and lashed out in shock and awe when he jabbed her on an abscessed tooth; others state that she was a vicious rogue who had killed before while working for other circuses and was employed by Sparks Circus under an assumed name. In any event, the owner of Sparks Circus figured that he could no longer display her due to her notoriety and decided instead to capitalize on that same notoriety by making her available for a dramatic execution. 

For additional information, read this article from the Blue Ridge County Magazine or acquire Charles Edwin Prices's famed tome on Southern pachydermicide, The Day They Hung the Elephant.

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