On this Day in History: Double homicide known as the ‘The Manheim Tragedy’ occurred

On December 15, 1857, a horrific crime struck the quiet countryside of Manheim Township. Two women were robbed, possibly raped, and beaten to death in a home along Buch Avenue, just north of Blossom Hill. Two black men were captured and executed for the crime. The female victims were buried in a cemetery on Kissel Hill.

This is the story of “The Manheim Tragedy.” The narratives in the newspaper and the 70-page booklet published the day following the execution shed light on social norms nearly as surprising as the crime itself.

The location was the home of one of the victims, Anna Garber, and her husband, Conrad Garber, who was also one of Manheim Township’s elected Supervisors. Mrs. Elizabeth Ream was the other victim found at the scene. Not only neighbors but the ladies were related by marriage as the Garbers’ daughters had married a son of the Reams. It was the young Mrs. Ream who left her home at one o’clock on the afternoon of December 15 and found both her mother and mother-in-law dead inside the one-and-a-half-story log farmhouse.

The ghastly crime was shocking for its time, and the gruesome details of such events are still so salacious as to distract us from learning about and pondering matters that are more historical in nature. I intend to leave those sordid specifics to your examination (if you’re so inclined to read on your own elsewhere), as there’s been ample written about such things.

But, could it be that the two Black itinerant chimney sweeps (Henry Richards and Alexander Anderson) arrested later that same day, incarcerated, prodded, tried, convicted, and executed were also victims in this tragedy? What do the several conflicting narratives and deplorable machinations of our legal system back then have to teach us today as we consider our principles of justice and fairness?

Just before the Civil War, racist attitudes toward Blacks were still fueled by fear and loathing. In reaction to a fatal crime, it helped to calm the community to be told that the perpetrators had indeed been apprehended immediately. Initial reports indicated that one of the sweeps was yellow and the other was white. Yet, it was two Black men who were ultimately executed for the crime. Our community was incredibly quick to pin the deed on these two, as evidenced by the Intelligencer newspaper reporting that “For the last week or ten days, the neighborhood of the murder has been infested by gangs of negroes, prowling about begging and stealing. It is said that a gang numbering from thirty to forty were in the habit of rendezvousing near the scene…”

The published booklet and local press repeatedly reported the frenzied reactions of the populace. Those reactions turned into the dreaded hysteria resulting in testimony that influenced the final judgment and execution. “The perpetrators of this double murder are beyond doubt the two persons arrested yesterday. No human eye saw them do the dreadful deed, but there is a chain of circumstances pointing to them so direct that not a single link is imperfect.” Witnesses came out in droves, reporting both to the newspaper and in court a host of conflicting and impossible details about who saw Anderson and Richards, where, and doing what. They seemed to be able to move with super-human speed from Roseville Road to the murder site at Buch Avenue to the site of today’s Stockyards Inn, east to the railroad bridge over the Conestoga, and back to the center of the City where they were apprehended all in a matter of eight hours. Other Blacks were arrested by the police and held simply as witnesses in the case.

The Anderson confession tells a somewhat different story as to their whereabouts that day.

Incarceration took place at the ten-year-old prison on East King Street. Clergy reached out from the brand-new Saint John’s Episcopal Church. Theodore Hopkins was the rector (1857-1860) and was assisted in these prison visits by his ultimate successor-rector Edward Appleton (1860-1861).

I must admit some questions in my mind as to whether or not there was an attitude of collaboration between the clergy and law enforcement. Most certainly, they supplied the booklet publisher with text purported to be the “Reflections of the Condemned in Prison,” receiving awkward praise in the booklet’s closing paragraphs.

The voicing styles presented in the booklet as the actual words spoken by Anderson are so incongruous as to insult the intelligence of any discerning reader. A highly contrived and self-decrying “Life and Confession of Alexander Anderson” is so rife across 15 pages with nothing but descriptions of crimes and ill intentions that it seems impossible for the words to be actually spoken by someone about themselves. The subsequent six pages of “Reflections of the Condemned in Prison” read more like a sermon than a testimony.

Nonetheless, the booklet was produced in both English and German (Das Manheimer Trauerspiel) with a purchase price of 25 cents per copy. It was so popular that a second edition was also released. You can read the entire booklet as a PDF on LancasterHistory’s online collection. In addition to the text and images that pertained to the Manheim Tragedy, an Appendix was included that revisited and cataloged all the “Murders and Executions in Lancaster County Since its Inception.”

The trial of Alexander Anderson commenced on Thursday, January 21, 1858, with jury selection, testimony, and conviction all being concluded by 6 pm that same day. The trial of Henry Richards took place with similar dispatch the following day. The sentencing of both prisoners took place that Friday evening. Death warrants were then returned from the Governor on February 8.

The execution itself took place on April 9, 1858, following a 1834 prohibition against such events being made public. This hanging was to occur within the brand-new walls of the prison complex on East King Street. That gave rise to a local entrepreneur, Joseph Swartz of East King Street, responding to market demand by erecting a structure of bleachers tall enough to peer inside, although his tickets were for a time several hours after the hanging. Other makeshift vistas (e.g., trees, rooftops, chimneys, and ladders) were utilized to gawk at the hanging.

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