Jealousy is a Harsh Mistress
The Stalking of Maggie Lehman

September 19, 1891

     Home Avenue was considered the best way to get to back and forth from downtown Dayton to the National Soldiers Home, a trolley car line both depositing and picking up the ex-soldiers directly from the Home’s grounds. Federal ruling prohibited the selling of liquor within a certain distance of Soldiers Home, but it was common knowledge that Home Avenue was lined with places that served liquid refreshment that contained alcohol.
     One place in particular had grown a reputation for getting anything you wanted when your pension check was cashed, and that was the ex-residence of Nelson Driggs. Driggs had built his home in a dense forest that later became part of Home Avenue. It was here that Driggs had a run-in with the law, not so much over serving liquor, but for counterfeiting money. Driggs was found guilty and sent to the Ohio Penitentiary. The house then became the property of Lib Hedges, a woman of charm and wit. She renamed the house ‘Hedgewood’, started calling herself ‘Madame Hedges’ and began offering things that men wanted as much as they did alcohol, including gambling and companionship. But when the police began keeping a closer eye on the place, Lib sold out to George and Louise Werry, from Cincinnati. It wasn’t long before the police wished that Lib still owned the place.
     Hedgewood soon became known as ‘The Abbey’. Needing a chambermaid, Louise hired Maggie Lehman for the position, paying her the princely sum of $3 a week. What Mrs. Werry didn’t know was that Maggie also had a side job, as an entertainer for lonely men.
     Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Maggie was once unflatterringly described as being rather stout. But that didn’t seem to slow the steady stream of men that visited her apartment on Sixth and Tecumseh Streets, where she lived with her four children. It was common knowledge that several men a day called on her, many of them married. One of the more frequent visitors was Jacob Harvey.
     Jacob was well known to the police. When asked, he would give his occupation as a railroad man, but the law considered his real living came from being a pimp and a thief.
     Neighbors began complaining that Maggie’s children were constantly being left alone, sometimes all night, and that many times their only meal consisted of a slice of bread with lard spread on it. On February 4, 1891 ten-year-old Calvin, eight-year-old Walter, six-year-old Henry and four-year-old Pearl were taken from their mother’s care and placed in the Children’s Home.
     Distraught, Maggie decided that she would try and turn her life around so that she could get her children back. When she told Jacob about the plan, he became upset, stating that she was better off without the children, as that would give the two of them more time together. When she continued to seek permission for her children to be returned to her, Jacob began physically and verbally abusing Maggie. His conduct finally became unbearable and she had him arrested for assault. He was sentenced to the Dayton Workhouse for sixty days.
     Maggie’s conduct was rewarded. On April 26, 1891 Pearl was allowed home. Two weeks later, mother and sons were reunited as well.
     Meanwhile, a very angry man was coming close to having served his time. The day that Harvey left the Workhouse he immediately went to Maggie’s apartment. She tried to fend him off by stating that she had a new boyfriend, Newton Chubb, who worked as a bartender at The Abbey. She warned Harvey that he had better never cross her path when Chubb was with her, as Chubb had threatened to kill Jacob if he interfered with them.
     Harvey protested bitterly against her leaving him, and asked that she quit seeing Chubb. When Maggie refused, he flew into a rage and nearly beat her to death. Maggie had Jacob arrested a second time and again he was sentenced to the Works.
     While serving his second sentence Harvey swore to the officers and other prisoners that he planned to escape and kill Maggie and her new boyfriend. They only laughed at Jacob, which enraged him even more.
     Early in September Harvey was finally able to escape. He immediately left town, taking a job as a brakeman on the train line that ran from Springfield to Sandusky. On September 17, Jacob stopped at his brother Edward’s house in Springfield and asked for a gun. Arriving in Dayton two days later, Jacob took off towards The Abbey to wait for his victims.
     At about 10:20 pm, William McLaughlin, an inmate of the Soldiers Home, was passing by The Abbey when he heard a scream and a pistol shot. He turned just in time to see Jacob dragging Maggie onto the porch, where she gasped out "Oh, Jake, don’t, don’t!" Harvey placed his revolver behind her left ear and fired a second shot, killing her.
     McLaughlin called out to two men to follow the murderer, then stopped a streetcar and told the driver to notify the police of what had occurred.
     After the shooting, Jacob walked to the Point saloon and asked the owner, Al Bloch, for a glass of beer. Then, lighting a cigar, he remarked, "I just killed a damned bitch down there. I shot her twice." Harvey then went on to relate the rest of the particulars of the crime to the astounded barkeeper.
     The police were soon summoned and Jacob was under arrest within an hour of the murder. He submitted quietly, turning over the murder weapon to them and muttering that he did not care whether they hung him by law or whether they took him out right then and strung him up. Police Officer Charles T. Freeman decided that he’d do it the lawful way and carted Harvey off to jail.
     Coroner Peter Myers made an examination of the body and found that one of the bullets had entered the top of the woman’s nose, the other striking her just back of the right ear. Her jawbone and front teeth were also badly shattered.
     Jacob confessed to the crime, stating that, though he had given Maggie money to help provide for her children, she had continued to sleep with men for money. Jacob claimed that it was for that very same reason her first husband, William Lehman, had left her.
     After the autopsy, Coroner Myers applied to the City Infirmary Directors for an order to have Maggie buried. He was refused on the grounds that there was no money available to do so. After some pressure from Myers, it was agreed that she could be interred at Woodland, but only if the cemetery agreed that the burial expenses would not have to be paid until the following March. Maggie was buried with a simple ceremony on September 19, with her two sisters, Sarah E. Green and Martha Reedy in attendance.
     In the months before his trial, Harvey was said to repeat again and again that he was "glad that I killed the bitch", and deeply regretted not having killed Newton Chubb as well.
     All of this was very unpleasant to Chubb, who was married and had a child. Newton visited Jacob in jail, telling the prisoner that he had never had anything to do with Maggie. Unconvinced, Jacob began yelling the most terrific profanities at Chubb and begging to be let out of his cell so he could kill the man who had come between him and his love.
     In order to prove his innocence, Newton asked that a newspaper reporter accompany him to the Children’s Home. There they met with Maggie’s son, Calvin, who stated for the record that he had never seen Chubb at all, let alone with his mother.
     Jacob’s murder trial was held in front of Judge Henderson Elliott at the new Court House on Main Street, which had been completed in 1884. John C. Patterson acted as the Prosecuting Attorney, and was assisted by John M. Sprigg. Since the prisoner showed no signs of obtaining any legal council, the court appointed Attorneys Warren Munger and Elihu Thompson to defend him.
     On February 13, 1892, nearly five months after the fact, Jacob Harvey’s trial for the murder of Maggie Lehman had finally begun. As he had confessed his crime to several people, including the local newspapers, Jacob’s lawyers had to settle for an insanity defense.
     The public clamored to hear every detail of the trial. Because of the immense interest in the case, many people who had wanted to attend found themselves outside the courthouse, due to lack of seating. On the third day of trial, after the jury had returned from lunch, the doors to the trial room were opened to allow the public in. The crowd, in their effort to be sure to get a seat, sprung the hinges and smashed a heavy plate of glass out of one of the doors. The falling glass severed the arteries of one man badly enough that he fainted and had to be carried out of the room. After the dust settled, the group received a blistering speech from Judge Elliot, who threatened to lock out the whole mob of them if better order was not obtained.
     Edward Harvey testified that his brother Jacob had been about eighteen years old when he began "acting like a man that’s not altogether right." Jennie Eckert, his sister, added that Jacob liked to talk to himself when alone.
     Dr. A. C. Lichliter claimed to have treated Jacob in November 1890 for acute rheumatism and yet again in May 1891 for the same cause, plus valvular disease of the heart. These diseases, the doctor claimed, would have caused his patient an excessive amount of pain, which in turn would affect his nervous system. The only thing that would have eased the pain was the use of stimulants, such as alcohol. Unfortunately, the use of such stimulants caused Jacob to become nervous and irritable. This combination, along with the worry and excitement of loving a troublesome woman, had caused Jacob to lose all mental control.
     The defense then called up Charles Repp, a bartender who claimed to have served Harvey a drink the day of the murder. It was quickly made clear that Repp was no regular bartender. Before his present position he had, in fact, spent eight years taking care of the insane at the County Infirmary. Repp stated that, in his semi-professional opinion, Jacob was suffering from ‘jealous insanity.’
     During cross-examination Repp was asked why he was no longer employed at the Infirmary. After hedging a little, Repp admitted that while at work one day, he had downed over two gallons of whiskey and then smashed $500 in furniture. He was adamant in the fact that all the others at the Infirmary were just as bad as he was, but that he had been chosen to be the scapegoat. As he left the stand he muttered that it would be good for the taxpayers if the whole place burned to the ground.
     Jury deliberations began on the fourth day. Even having been told of Harvey’s confession to Al Bloch, the jury carefully considered all aspects of the case for over nineteen hours. In the end, however, they had no choice but to find Jacob Harvey guilty of murder in the first degree.
     On March 7, the court ordered that Jacob be taken to the Ohio Penitentiary, where he was to be kept until his execution there on June 24, 1892.
     This change of location took place due to a law passed by the Ohio Legislature in 1885, which restricted all executions in that state to be held in the penitentiary in Columbus. Up until then it had been customary to execute each condemned prisoner in the county in which he had been convicted. The Cleveland Plain Dealer applauded the passage of the law because it would put "an end to the scandalous scenes that so frequently attend the bungling performance" of county sheriffs at executions. It stated that:

The murderer will have no opportunity to go into heroics on the scaffold and make fine speeches before he is swung off, and the whole population of the surrounding country will not be given an opportunity to make the occasion of a murderer’s being hanged a cause for a holiday.

     The law also marked the beginning of nighttime executions in Ohio. Prior to that time, executions were scheduled for between 10 am and 2 pm. One of the proposed amendments to the bill that didn’t pass would have required penitentiary inmates to be forced to watch executions "so as to strike terror in their hearts." Another would have mandated that the executions take place at the Columbus Fairgrounds, with railroad companies selling train tickets at one-half the usual rate to anyone desiring to attend the public hangings. 
     Jacob’s attitude towards the murder, and people in general, didn’t change much during his imprisonment at the penitentiary. It was reported that, though Chaplain James M. Triffit labored "zealously" to convince Harvey to accept any spiritual advice, it wasn’t until the night before the execution that there was any sign that it had been worth the effort. About 6 o’clock that evening, after a prayer by the chaplain, the prisoners began singing "Shall We Meet Beyond the River." Jacob then requested that they sing his favorite hymn, "Whosoever Will May Come." Harvey greatly gratified the chaplain by joining in the singing of the song.
     "I would not say that Harvey died a Christian," Chaplain Triffit said later, "but I will say there was a decided change in him."
     A few hours before his execution, Jacob was taken to the "death cage", a cell which was situated just outside the room where the hanging would take place. A stairway led up to a door in the right hand corner of the room, opening on to the hangman’s platform.
     In his book Palace of Death, author H. M. Fogle described a typical hanging at the Ohio Penitentiary, a scene he had personally witnessed several times during the 1890s.

Silence is everywhere, everybody is flushed with eager expectancy. Suddenly, the little upper door opens silently and the form of an attending officer appears with slow measured tread as though marking time - another officer follows - then the spiritual adviser - then the condemned man. Haste is made, though to the onlooker every second seems an hour. The officers quickly fasten and adjust the straps, all is ready, the spiritual adviser inaudibly whispers his last words of comfort to the man on the trap - suddenly a clear, sharp voice, as if one from stern duty rings out: "Have you anything to say before the sentence of the court shall be finally carried out?" Perhaps no answer; sometimes a few muttered words – all is again quiet. Suddenly, with a sharp decisive ring: "Ready!" The lever is shot over to the far side - the doors swing open in center falling down and one-half to each side – a body shoots through and brings up with a crack! within a few inches of the floor - and with a deathly stillness broken only by the dying gurgles of the convulsive body it dangles there until pronounced dead by the prison physicians. Then the spectators file slowly out, heads bowed, almost overcome by the horrible spectacle.