The only execution ever taking place in Pike county was that of Bartholomew Barnes, Dec. 29, 1871, in the Pittsfield jailyard, for the murder of John Gresham in Calhoun county. The suit was first instituted in that county, and a change of venue being taken to this county, the case was called at the session of the Pike county Circuit Court Nov. 27, 1871; and after a thorough trial the traverse jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, and that he should suffer death by hanging. The particulars of the murder are well condensed in Judge Higbee’s sentence given Dec. 6, as below. The courthouse was crowded to overflowing with ladies and gentlemen to hear the sentence of death pronounced upon the young convict. At 10 A. M. he was brought in to receive his sentence. Death-like stillness reigned within the room, as the Judge, in a solemn and impressive manner, addressed him, broken only by the prisoner, who, standing with brazen effrontery, gave vent occasionally to protests of innocence. The Judge said:

In discharging the unpleasant duty required of the by the law, it seems proper that I should place on the files of this Court a brief statement of the facts and proofs which render it the duty of the Court to pronounce a judgment which is to deprive a human being of his life.

By the record in this case it appears that you were indicted at the May term of the Calhoun Circuit Court, 1871, for the murder of John Gresham, and the case was brought here on a change of venue fur trial; that there is no prejudice in this county which would injuriously affect your rights is sufficiently manifest by the fact that the crime for which you have been tried was committed in another county; and of the twelve jurors selected for your trial every one has stated under oath that he never heard of the case until called into the jury box.

“From the evidence it appears that somewhere about the first of February last, for some cause (which is not apparent) you became very much enraged against the deceased in the town of Pleasant Hill and threatened to whip him. When told by the town constable that that would not be permitted and that he would arrest you if you did not keep quiet, you said that you would see the deceased at some other time and tear his heart out. On the 27th day of February the deceased, his son ( 15 years of age) and yourself, were in Clarksville, Mo., and crossed the river on your return in the afternoon in the same boat, the deceased and his son within a wagon; and after the boat landed, as they were leaving the river for home, you asked the privilege of riding with them, to which the boy objected, his father being quite drunk at the time. You then said to them that if they would let you ride you would be quiet and peaceable; whereupon the deceased consented, and you got into the wagon and seated yourself on a board beside the deceased, the boy standing up in front driving. You had gone but a short distance when some words passed, but no blows or attempts to strike ensued, and you jumped out, saying, ‘You d——d old son of a bitch!" At the time you jumped out the board on which the deceased was sitting tipped up and he fell out on the other side on his back near the wagon and near to a fence. You ran back to the wagon and to where the deceased lay, and turning your back to the fence, you seized the rails with which to steady yourself, and with the deceased still lying on his back immediately in front of you, with the heel of your boot you stamped his thee, head and breast until you killed him. The evidence shows that in this brutal manner, and when the deceased was lying on his back perfectly helpless, in the presence of his son and another witness who was near by, you stamped from eight to ten times, breaking his nose, cheek-bone and jaw, and crushing out one eye, and forced the heel of your boot through his skull into his brain, more than an inch in depth, and so crushed and disfigured his face that it could not be recognized by Dr. Thomas, who had lived a near neighbor to deceased for 20 years.

“While engaged in this work of death, Mr. Oyler, who was a short distance off and saw it all, hallooed and started to run to you. On seeing him you jumped over the fence and started to run. You were pursued and captured in a few minutes, and blood was found all over the heel of your boot, with hair and whiskers still adhering to it. Soon afterward you declared that you had not seen deceased on that day.

“In answer to all this proof you produced a single witness, your brother, who testified that in the fall of 1869 deceased made some threats against you, which, so far as the evidence shows, he never attempted to execute. Beyond this you offer no explanation or justification of this dreadful crime.

“Upon this proof the jury have found you guilty of murder, and their verdict declares that you shall suffer death by hanging. You have been well defended by able attorneys, fairly tried, and, as it seems to me, properly convicted; and it only remains now for the Court to pronounce the judgment of the law, which is, to deprive you of your life. Unpleasant as this duty is, I am not at liberty to shrink from it. You have deprived John Gresham of his life by a foul and brutal murder, and the law demands your life as the penalty. As the time which can he extended to you to prepare to meet this dreadful punishment is limited by law, let me admonish you not to spend it in vain efforts to arrest your doom, but rather devote every moment of the time allotted you to prepare for the final trial wherein injustice is never done and where all must answer for every act of his life. It is the order of this Court, Bartholomew Barnes, that you be taken from here to the county jail of this county and there confined until Friday, the twenty-ninth day of December, 1871, and that between the hours of 10 o’clock A. M. and 3 P. M. of said day, in said jail, and in the presence of the witnesses required by law, hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

We take the following account of the execution from the Old Flag of Jan. 4. 1872:
“The dreadful day having arrived, a large crowd gathered around the jail, which increased constantly as the hour of execution approached. There was no disturbance, however, the anxiety of suspense seeming to pervade the throng and keep them quiet, and waiting almost with suspended breath until the tragedy was over. The execution was delayed until afternoon in order to give the prisoner all the time possible. About half past one, or later, in company with the physicians, the jury and others, we were admitted to the Sheriff’s room and waited the last preparations for the final scene. The leave-taking of the brother and sister and relatives of the prisoner we did not witness. At about a quarter past two the great iron door leading from the Sheriff’s room into the hall of the jail was unbarred, and those in waiting entered the hall and took (One page is missing -- )

I pray thee to forgive my sins, to save any soul and take me to heaven, repeating the petitions, as we thought, twice or more. He then arose and stepped forward on the trap, and the rope was put over his head and adjusted about his neck, and the black cap drawn over his face, his hands and feet having been previously tied, he all the while praying ‘ 0 Lord, save my soul.”

“This was the most solemn and anxious moment of the execution, both to the doomed man and to the spectators. There stood a man on the immediate confines of two worlds, just ready to step into eternity and know the grand secret; only one moment more to live in this life.

“The cap was drawn over his head at twenty-five minutes past two; the elapsing seconds now seemed as long as minutes; the Sheriff arid an attendant were the last to come down from the steps. The fatal lever which should spring the trap was at the bottom, concealed by a piece of carpet. ‘What time is it now?’ said the reporter to us. Twenty-five minutes and fifteen seconds past two, and quick as a flash the man who was standing on the scaffold and still saying, ‘ 0 Lord, save my soul,’ dropped till his head hung more than six inches below. There was no noise more than the sudden tightening of the cord with a heavy weight would occasion. A trap door swung into a niche prepared to receive it and remained there. The rope had been perfectly tested and did not stretch the least. The fall was more than six feet. His neck had been instantly broken and all pain was over. The victim did not struggle at all. At the end of the first minute there was a slight motion of the feet and limbs, swaying slightly, which was continued until after the end of the second minute, and evidently caused by muscular contraction. At the end of three and a half minutes there was one violent and last contraction of muscle; shoulders heaved and the whole body was lifted up, and then relapsed and hung motionless; at the end of twenty minutes the doctors pronounced Barnes dead, and at the end of twenty-five minutes the body was cut down and laid out, while a further examination was made by the doctors, who pronounced his neck broken and his life to be extinct; at the end of thirty minutes from the time of the drop and within about five minutes of 3 o’clock he was placed in a coffin and at once carried out and delivered to his relatives to be taken to Pleasant Hill for burial.”

The preparations for the hanging had been very complete, and there was not a single mistake or slightest failure iii an particular; and Sheriff McFarland deserves praise for the manner in which he bore himself and performed his melancholy duties.

Barnes made a “confession “ in which he insisted to the last that he did not mean to kill Gresham, and claimed that he was drunk and did not know what he was about. The warrant was printed it a very large plain hand by the pen of doctor J. J. Topliff, who was Circuit Clerk at the time.