Whelan prays as he's `launched into eternity' for murder of McGee
A regular weekly look-back at some offbeat or interesting stories that have appeared in the Citizen over its 175-year history. Today, the last public hanging:
The Ottawa Citizen added a onepage supplement — not insignificant when you consider the paper consisted of just four pages back then — on Feb. 12, 1869, the day after Patrick James Whelan was hanged for the murder of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, a member of Parliament and Father of Confederation.
Notwithstanding the single advertisement for the Citizen's Stationery and Printing House on Rideau Street, the entire supplemental page was a grey wall of text devoted to the country's most infamous crime and last public hanging. Oddly, perhaps, the headline itself was barely noticeable, a three-word, single-column pronouncement: “EXECUTION OF WHELAN!”
Whelan had spent much of his last full day at the Carleton County Gaol in the company of his wife, the Sisters of Charity, and Dr. O'Connor, an Irish priest whom Whelan had asked to stand with him on the gallows.
And while historians have debated Whelan's role in McGee's murder, the Citizen at the time indicated little doubt, noting that “to all of them he expressed great regret for the part he had taken in the foul crime,” while telling another that he was satisfied “with the justice of his sentence.”
Speaking with the jail's governor, Mr. Powell, the Citizen reported, Whelan “expressed wonder at his own folly in having been made such an easy dupe by designing men, and said he saw the mistake he had made in acting as he had done.”
On the morning of his execution, he woke at around 7 a.m. and put on a plain black suit and green tie. An hour later, as snow began to fall outside, he headed to the prison chapel, where he heard Mass and received the Eucharist.
The execution was scheduled for 10:30 a.m., and by 10 a.m. a small crowd of about 200 people had gathered to witness the event. Soon, however, the onlookers swelled in number to close to 5,000, “a large proportion of which was composed of women.”
There was, the paper noted, “a total absence of that levity and rowdyism which, in general mars such events.”
Whelan indicated he had no plans to give a final speech, “as he wished to do nothing which might create a bad feeling in the community.
“His fate, he knew, was a just one, and he was resigned and prepared to meet it.”
Whelan had said prayers and had a cup of tea shortly before 11 a.m., then was met by four clergymen, the sheriff, jail governor, county attorney, court clerk and jail physician, whose hands he shook, then said: “I part from you in peace and good will, I bear no ill will to any man. I wish God to bless me and God to bless you.”
Despite his earlier intention to not address the assembled crowd, he nonetheless did.
“Friends and fellow-countrymen,” he said, “I humbly acknowledge the sins and wrongs that I have committed. I ask all whom I have injured to forgive me. I have got nothing further to say. God save Ireland and God save my soul.”
Immediately after his speech, “the executioner drew the cap over the felon's eyes. Again he joined in prayer with the Rev. Dr. O'Connor, the last rites of the church administered, and with the words of Jesu Maria on his lips, the bolt was drawn, and the murderer of Mr. McGee was launched into eternity.”