Giovanni Ferraro -- 1 of 12 Men Convicted of
Murder in Cattaraugus and Executed

At the crossing in Cattaraugus, Ferraro killed track boss William E. Dunbar, 35, of East Aurora, after the supervisor had demoted Giovanni from track crew foreman back to common laborer. Dunbar had been supervising the double tracking of the Pennsylvania Railroad route between Buffalo and Olean. He was dissatisfied with Ferraro's performance as crew foreman and served him formal notice of demotion by letter.

A beautiful replica of a Pennsylvania Railroad Co. Railway Police Detective shield appears on the website of Historical Reproductions of Logan, Utah. Something very similar likely was carried by PRR Detective Captain Ralph Mullen killed in the capture of Giovanni Ferraro for the murder of track work supervisor William E. Dunbar. Click image to access Historical Reproductions' fascinating website.

Accompanied by his teenage son, Giovanni arrived at the crossing on a track handcar, pulled the letter from his pocket, confronted Dunbar and asked what it meant. Dunbar responded that when Ferraro had been made foreman, the clear understanding was his keeping the position depended upon his performance. But, the supervisor contended that Giovanni had been unreliable and that his crew had not met the production goals expected. The letter set July 15th as the date for termination of his foreman status and resumption of laborer status.

According to witnesses, Ferraro persisted in disputing the matter, using language that seemed to indicate he was vowing to stop working immediately and not wait until for the date set for ending his foreman's role. At least, Dunbar appeared to take Giovanni's remarks in that vein and terminated the foreman's employment with railroad completely.

As Dunbar walked away, Ferraro sent his 14-year-old son back to the work camp by the handcar, the father first removing his own coat and jacket from it. Taking a gun from a coat pocket, Giovanni came up behind Dunbar, pointed the weapon at him, and fired three shots, two hitting the boss, one of them in the man's back.

Giovanni fled the scene. First, he went south of Franklinville to Cadiz, then southeast to Olean where he stayed the night. From there, he made his way further south and east out of the county and out of the state to Galeton, Pa., where he found work in a sawmill. After about a week, he left that area and continued moving in a southeasterly direction until finding work at a Scranton mine. After about a month there, he again moved on, this time more southerly than easterly, landing in Philadelphia.

Pursuing him were railroad detectives determined to capture the fired rail crew foreman who had murdered the track supervisor on the railroad's right-of-way. Clearly, the Pennsylvania Railroad was not about to let the suspect slip through the law enforcement cracks created by jurisdictional limits imposed on state and county police by borders and boundary lines.

The above image is based on an illustration of Allan Pinkerton on a Library of Congress American Memory web page about the founder of the Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, a precursor of the Secret Service and FBI. The agency whose logo of an all-seeing eye (below) led to "private eye" becoming synonymous with "private investigator" specialized in tracking and capturing train robbers but performed other security services for the railroads as well as for other major national companies. Click the image above for the American Memory web page. Click the logo image below to access one of the many web pages that include it: Bowling Green State University (Ohio) American Culture Studies student Cheri Goldner's 1997 presentation on the 1892 Homestead Strike in which the Pinkertons played a significant role.

To fill the security needs of railroads for protection, investigation and law enforcement services all along their routes through multiple states and counties, various private agencies had emerged in the 19th Century.

The most famous among such agencies retained by the railroads was founded by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. His agents became known as Pinkertons. His logo icon, the all-seeing eye, forever made "private eye" the synonym for "private investigator."

Some rail companies created their own police forces rather than continue contracting that job to outside agencies.

The railroads obtained from state legislatures various police powers for their hired and/or their in-company security agents.

In 1865, the Pennsylvania legislature passed the Railroad Police Act that is considered the first such statutory sanctioning of railroad police activity not just on railway land, but statewide. The law became the model adopted and adapted by other states.

As the hunt for Giovanni proceeded elsewhere, Pennsylvania Railroad Detective Captain Ralph Mullen kept watch in the Philadelphia area on the brother of Ferraro's wife, Edna.

The veteran railway detective considered as a strong possibility that the fugitive would eventually contact his in-laws to ask their help. The hunch paid off but at a high cost for Captain Mullen.

Giovanni had written to his brother-in-law to meet him at a certain saloon on 8th Street in Philadelphia. The tavern was frequented by an Italian-speaking clientele.

Capt. Mullen learned of that arrangement and, accompanied by a railroad detective of Italian descent who also spoke the language, went to the saloon where they spotted Ferraro, and engaged him in conversation.

When Mullen reached for his own gun to arrest Ferraro, Giovanni detected the movement and ran from the saloon into a nearby alley, pursued by the two rail agents firing their weapons at him. One of their bullets wounded their prey slightly but not enough to stop him.

Newspaper reports said that, after running from the 8th St. saloon and fatally stabbing the railway detective pursuing him, the fugitive Ferraro hid in the basement of "a hospital" nearby but was captured. It was likely Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th & Pine Sts. Thus, in a hospital Ben Franklin helped found was ended, ironically, Ferraro's 6-month flight from a murder near Franklinville, the Cattaraugus village named for the Founding Father. In 1751 Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond founded Pennsylvania Hospital -- regarded as America's first public hospital -- for the sick-poor and insane wandering the streets of Philadelphia. Jesus' Good Samaritan parable was chosen by Franklin and Bond as the hospital's official mission seal and motto "Take Care of Him and I will repay Thee." In 1755, the cornerstone, written by Franklin, was laid for the east wing of the building at the hospital's current location of 8th and Pine. The graphic pen sketch below is based on a Robert Newell photo of the hospital circa 1870 at the northwest corner of 8th and Pine Sts. The photo, shown on the Bryn Mawr website, is in a Library Company of Philadelphia collection. The graphic pen sketch above is based on a bust of Ben Franklin in the hospital's library. Click sketches to access respective websites.

In his flight from them, he climbed over a fence around the grounds of a nearby hospital.

When Mullen followed him over the hospital fence, Giovanni attacked him with a stiletto, stabbing him repeatedly in the abdomen and neck.

Then the fugitive climbed through a basement window of the hospital.

When a uniformed officer who had joined the pursuit encountered Ferraro in the hospital basement, Giovanni attempted to use the stiletto on him too but the policeman knocked the knife away with his night stick and subdued him.

Word of the fugitive's capture in Philadelphia Sept. 10, 1917, prompted Sheriff Charles B. Nicholas to seek Ferraro's immediate return to Cattaraugus to stand trial for the Dunbar murder. But Pennsylvania authorities declined to turn him over to the New York justice system until he was first adjudicated for the Mullen homicide. In that case, Giovanni claimed he thought the two railway detectives in civilian clothes were gunmen set to rob him, so he fled and fought in self-defense.

After Ferraro's conviction in Philadelphia Jan. 25, 1918, for "involuntary manslaughter," Giovanni was brought back to Cattaraugus. For the Dunbar killing as well, Ferraro claimed self-defense.

The defendant's account differed markedly from the version that District Attorney Archibald M. Laidlaw of Ellicottville sought to establish through prosecution witnesses.

Under direct examination by defense attorney, J. J. Inman of Salamanca, Ferraro said that. after being fired, he demanded back pay from Dunbar, but the track boss refused and knocked him down with a fist blow.

The defendant testified that then, armed with a rock in each hand, Dunbar came at him as he struggled to his feet. Giovanni said that as he got up, he drew from a pocket in a coat he was carrying a gun in self-protection. Ferraro maintained that was when and why he shot the advancing Dunbar.

The self-defense claim clashed with medical testimony that the mortal wound had been caused by a shot in the back.

Rail workers testified that, from a distance, they saw Dunbar walking away from Ferraro, saw Giovanni raise and extend his arm, heard gunfire saw pistol smoke puffs, saw Dunbar turn and fall, and Ferraro flee into the woods.

Under the DA's cross-examination, the defendant denied he had changed his name because he had killed a man in Pittsburgh and denied he had stabbed Captain Mullen to death in Philadelphia, even while acknowledging his manslaughter conviction for railway detective's death.

Ferraro said that Dunbar cited as one reason for firing him a report the foreman had filed concerning the handcar death of a railroad laborer. The defendant said Dunbar accused him of lying in the report about that death.

The Giovanni Ferraro case began during the term of Charles S. Whitman, left, as New York State Governor and concluded early in the first year of the first term of Alfred E. Smith, right. Whitman named former DA George W. Cole to the State Supreme Court in 1916 under a law allowing such gubernatorial appointments to order to add more justices to the bench. Cole would eventually serve as the trial judge in the case. Whitman was governor when state police and their bloodhounds were involved in the initial hunt for the fugitive in mid-July 1917. Whitman signed the extradition documents to bring Ferraro back after capture in Pennsylvania. The decision by the state's highest court affirming the trial court judge came during the first month of the first term (January 1919) of Whitman's successor, Al Smith who three months later rejected Ferraro's bid for clemency.

The jury deliberated just about an hour before arriving at the guilty verdict. Ferraro's family, including his Edna and their children, huddled together crying in the court corridor rather than hear the expected conviction verdict read.

When the trial judge State Supreme Court Justice George W. Cole asked whether there was any reason why sentence for the first degree murder conviction should not be imposed, Ferraro exclaimed, "I do not understand."

After explaining to the Italian immigrant that the judge's question was part of standard American court procedure, lawyer Inman, made the pro forma motion that the verdict be set aside as against the weight of the evidence and that a new trial be ordered.

Justice Cole denied the motion and set the date of Ferraro's execution at Sing Sing for the week of May 13th that same year.

However, the appeal process pushed the execution date into the following year.

On Jan. 28, 1919, the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals in Albany, affirmed without a written opinion the trial court's March 29, 1918 first degree murder guilty verdict and death sentence.

Joining Chief Judge Hiscock in the per curiam decision were Justices Collin, Cuddleback, Cardozo, Pound, Crane, and Andrews. Representing Ferraro on the appeal was Edward J. Riley of Brooklyn. Representing Cattaraugus County was District Attorney Laidlaw.

As a result of the Court of Appeals' affirmation of the trial court's judgment, the Ferraro execution that had been stayed pending the appeal was rescheduled for March 20, 1919.

From Guy Cheli's excellent Images of America: Sing Sing Prison comes the above photo of the "old death house." The small stone building served as such until 1922. The "last mile" walk (it wasn't anywhere near that long and must have seemed even shorter than it actually was) took the condemned man passed the death row cells of the other inmates awaiting execution. Click image to access this web site's presentation of excerpts from Guy Cheli's book.

On March 19, the day before both he and another killer were scheduled to be electrocuted, the other -- Antonio Verrino of Monroe County -- had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by Gov. Alfred E. Smith. But Ferraro's clemency bid by one of his trial attorneys, Jesse M. Seymour of Salamanca, was rejected.

Apparently, that news triggered the attack made by Giovanni upon death row guards. The New York Times framed Ferraro's violent outburst as "a daring but unsuccessful bolt for freedom."

But since the inmate lacked any means to get over or through or under the prison walls to the streets or railroad tracks outside, the assault seems to have been more an attempt to commit what today is called "suicide-by-cop" and, in the process, take with him as many guards as he could.

The Times saw in his possessing a crude weapon the basis for declaring his attack had been pre-planned:

"He made his plans beforehand. Out of a strip of heavy metal plate, which it is thought he either ripped off death house plumbing or some one smuggled into the death house for him, he fashioned a knife.

"He made a handle by tearing strips of cloth from his clothing and binding these tightly around one end of the improvised knife. This left a blade about four inches long. This he ground down to a very sharp edge, presumably by filing it on the steel bars of his cell or on the stone floor. . . .

"Every day condemned prisoners are led out of their cells, in pairs, for a few minutes exercise. This is necessary to prevent their muscles stiffening in the cells. There were three guards in the death house: Edward O’Toole, on the ground tier; Michael McCarthy. on the upper tier, and H. P. Thacker was just inside the entrance door.

The above photo of the death chamber in the old death house can be found in Guy Cheli's Images of America: Sing Sing Prison. The room had been remodeled circa 1900 to mitigate the some of the problems associated with its original design such as its unintended transmitting to other inmates on death row the upsetting sounds of the electricity generator. Click image to access this web site's presentation of excerpts from Guy Cheli's book.

"As O'Toole opened Ferraro's cell, Ferraro made a swing with his right arm. In his hand, he clutched the knife he had concealed up his sleeve. It was aimed straight for O'Toole's eye, but [the guard] warded the blow somewhat and the knife cut the corner of his eye.

"As O'Toole, solidly built, tried to grab Ferraro, he struck out again with his weapon. This time the knife penetrated the guard’s cheek, and opened an ugly wound from which blood spurted profusely.">

Fellow death row inmate Alessandro Vallero, a Brooklyn murderer, shouted to the other guards to come to O'Toole's aid, and advised Ferraro against killing O' Toole, for whom many of the inmates had high regard. Nevertheless, Ferraro made another attempt on O'Toole who was able to deflect the blade thrust sufficiently that it cut only into the back of his neck, not into the jugular where it had been aimed.

Despite his wounds, O'Toole had been able, by some well-placed blow, to hold off his knife-wielding assailant long en ought for McCarthy and Thacker to arrive. They subdued Ferraro but not before the inmate fastened his teeth on one of McCarthy's fingers, completely biting it off.

Before rushing to O'Toole's rescue, Thacker had hit a button sounding an alarm in the Principal Keeper Martin Deeley's Office to signal a disturbance in the Death House. But by the time the main building's guards arrived in force, O'Toole, McCarthy and Thacker had Ferraro under full control.

Dr. Amos O. Squire's autobiography, with an introduction by Warden Lewis E. Lawes, Sing Sing Doctor was published in London (Rich & Cowan, 1935), the cover image above, and in New York (Garden City Publishing, 1937).

The above photo of Dr. Amos O. Squire can be found in Guy Cheli's Images of America: Sing Sing Prison. He had been associated with the prison from 1900 and its chief physician from 1915. An advocate of prison reform, Dr. Squire opposed the death penalty but his prison post required him to certify the deaths. Click image to access this web site's presentation of excerpts from Guy Cheli's book.

The two injured death row guards received medical attention at the prison hospital. Sing Sing's official prison surgeon, whom the Times identified as Dr. Amos O. Squire, a retired Navy Lieutenant, dressed their wounds.

Interestingly, the next night the same Dr. Squire attended Ferraro after electricity had been applied to Giovanni in the chair. The doctor had to determine whether the condemned man's heart had been stopped. He certified the murderer's death. Before Dr. Squire died Feb 11, 1949 in his home, 36 South Highland Ave., Ossining, NY, at age 72, the number of Sing Sing execution deaths he had certified numbered 138 and the number of death certificates in all other kinds of cases that carried his signature as Coroner or Medical Examiner surely ran into the thousands, if not tens of thousands..

One of Westchester's coroners from 1907 to 1912 inclusive, Amos Osborne Squire, M.D., had been chief physician at the prison since the 1890s and continued in the capacity until 1925. That's when he became Westchester County Medical Examiner, a post he would hold nearly a quarter century. Even so, he still maintained a relationship with the penitentiary as a consulting physician.

The above detail showing Dr. Amos O. Squire standing left and Warden William H. Moyer seated right was extracted from a 1916 group photo that can be found in Guy Cheli's Images of America: Sing Sing Prison. Click image to access this web site's presentation of excerpts from Guy Cheli's book.

Dr. Squire authored a book about his prison experiences. Entitled Sing Sing Doctor, it included an introduction by Warden Lewis E. Lawes.

After Ferraro had been subdued by the three Death House guards and before the doctor certified Ferraro's death by electricity the next evening, Warden William Moyer took extraordinary measures to make sure the inmate didn't cheat the Electric Chair.

Prior to his December 1916 appointment at Sing Sing, Moyer had been warden of the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for 16 years that included supervising its construction by its inmates.

He focused on Ferraro the kind of attention to detail that likely served him well in construction the federal prison.

Because in remarks after his attack on O'Toole, Giovanni had vowed not to die in the Electric Chair, Moyer had the condemned man placed in the old Death House, kept in handcuffs even in his cell, assigned a two-guard around-the-clock watch, and fed only water and liquid foods, no solids lest he attempt to choke himself on them.

For his last steps on earth, from his death cell to the death chamber, he was handcuffed to a guard until securely strapped into the Electric Chair.

At least one account (Daniel Allen Hearn's Legal Executions in New York State) described Ferraro being "carried to the chair, more dead than alive," from having been "been beaten into unconsciousness" during the previous day's attack and its immediate aftermath.

Charles B. Nichols Sheriff 1916 - 1918

Shakespeare's line that "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones," seems all too true in Sheriff Nicholas' case.

He undoubtedly performed many positive services while in office in Cattaraugus as well as before and after holding office there.

But his misdeeds in office are what surface quickest in researching his checkered career.

In early 1920, the former sheriff served a 60-day sentence in the Erie County penitentiary on a conviction for grand larceny to which he had pled guilty in October 1919 and for which he had made full financial restitution.

Accusations of malfeasance in office were raised against Sheriff Nichols during the 1918 re-election campaign, resulting in an official investigation being undertaken by the County Comptroller Travis.

That, in turn, resulted in a grand jury investigation and an indictment formally charging the by-then former sheriff with first degree grand larceny.

Specifically, the indictment alleged he had kept for himself

1. a total of $1,785 in monies paid by the state for his transporting prisoners to Auburn State Penitentiary and Erie County Penitentiary, which funds should have been turned over to the county, and
2. a total of $1,960 in fines collected that also should have been turned over to the county.

About five years after ex-Sheriff served his 60-day sentence in Erie prison, Nichols began serving as Police Chief of Anaheim, California. Prior to that Feb. 18, 1925 appointment, he had worked for Los Angeles County as a deputy marshal, according the Anaheim PD's official history.

The above sepia image -- showing a 1930-ish Ford Model A coupe parked near the "1880 jail" -- is based on a B&W image on one of the copy machine sheets from the Cattaraugus County Historical Museum and Research Center vertical files. Another of the sheets provided by the museum for this project notes: "Charles Nichols was Sheriff when the change to cars was made, from horse and buggy."

Chief Nichols' reorganization of the Anaheim PD into an effective and efficient crime-fighting force quickly won him wide-spread appreciation among Anaheim citizens but that high regard soon suffered a severe setback. Anaheim's local leader of the Ku Klux Klan, the Rev.Leon Myers came into possession of a Cattaraugus Republican Press newspaper clip detailing Nichols' downfall back in New York only a half-decade earlier.

In what now in retrospect appears to have been the first blow of a one-two punch promoting the local KKK's effort to regain some of the power it previously had exercised in city affairs, the Rev. Myers in a May 10, 1925 "sermon" quoted from the newspaper clipping.

Soon thereafter a suit was filed to oust the city council, alleging that its members knowingly hired an ex-convict as sheriff.

To spare the council "embarrassment" Chief Nichols submitted his resignation. The lawsuit against the council was later dismissed by the court for lack of evidence.

The above sepia image -- showing Charles B. Nichols in his Anaheim PD Chief uniform -- is based on a B&W image on a page in the Anaheim PD's web presentation of its departmental history. Click image to access.

The administration testified it had made inquiries concerning Nichols' credentials as Cattaraugus 1916 - 1918 sheriff and as Los Angeles deputy marshal 1923 - 1924, received back favorable reports, and also had required Nichols obtain a $5,000 bond covering his service as Anaheim PD Chief.

According to the official Anaheim PD history,

"Nichols did not remain unemployed for long.

"Offers of employment besieged the former Chief.

"In one offer, a telegram was sent to Anaheim requesting that Nichols accept the job of Police Chief in his old hometown of Olean, New York at a salary of five thousand dollars a year.

"Two days before the trial [on the suit against the city council] began, Charles Nichols left California to begin his new job as Police Chief in a Massachusetts town."

Nichols' successor as Cattaraugus sheriff was Raymond T. Mallery who had been a deputy sheriff. One of the most notable events during Mallery's term took place in August of 1919. The workers of the Western New York and Pennsylvania Traction Co. (WNY&PTC), which operated a financially-troubled trolley line between Olean, N. Y., and Bradford, Pa., had gone on strike for union recognition, more money and fewer hours.

Management of the line, that had previously experienced receivership, attempted to break the strike by bringing in non-union workers from outside the area.

A riot ensued in Olean where the strikebreakers took refuge in the company's huge trolley barn.

Shots were fired as well as rocks and heavy metal objects thrown. Hundreds of men were involved.

About two dozen suffered gunshot wounds, including Lawrence Page, son of the company president, Wilson H. Page, or were otherwise injured and required hospitalization or medical attention.

Above is an image of the cover of Benson Rohrbecks' book Western New York and Pennsylvania Traction that appears on Ronald G. Taylor's USGennet web page about "Allegany County Trolley History." Taylor gives "full credit" to Rohrbeck's book as his information source and provides the address for obtaining the book. Click image to access Taylor's trolley history page.

Sheriff Mallery and his deputies participated with other law authorities in rescuing the non-union workers from the mob attacking them in the trolley barn.

They were taken to the Olean jail then being used as a kind of temporary "fort/sanctuary" in what had become a labor war zone.

Citizens were deputized.

These special deputies, the sheriff's regular deputies, and local police managed to hold off and "move along" the bands of angry strikers and sympathizers milling about near the jail, keeping the crowds from forming into a mass too large to disburse.

Finally, late in the evening of August 19th, a detail of the state police arrived and cordoned off the jail.

Later, in the very early morning hours of August 20th, Sheriff Mallery organized a caravan of automobiles with the non-union men as passengers, escorted by a convoy of law agency vehicles, that sped out of Olean and deposited the strikers' targets in the safer and more secure county jail in Little Valley.

Then he had them sent, singly or a few at a time, back from when they came. For some, that was as far away as New York City.

One old timer, Del Nutt, recalled for an interviewer many years later that period in Olean trolley history:

“Finally, the trolley company conceded. The Union got a raise of 26 cents per hour and the work day was shortened from 13 hours to 8 hours. That’s what ruined the company. They didn’t have the money to carry on and those were the days before subsidies.”

Above is detail from a larger map of Western New York and Pennsylvania Traction routes that appears on Smethport, Pa., Mayor Ross Porter's excellent Smethport history site. Click image to access the full map image..

The riotous strike so crippled the line -- having undergone 100 days without income being generated and with its trolley barn and trolleys heavily damaged -- that it lacked the financial reserves and the revenue producing capacity to survive adverse economic forces such as increasing use of motor vehicles and declining lumber and oil resources to spur local industry.