The Mountain Sentinel

Execution of Dr. John White Webster at Boston.

Boston, Aug. 30.

This morning, Professor John White Webster suffered the extreme penalty of the law, for the murder of Dr. George Parkman in the Boston Medical College, on the 23d of November, 1849.

The execution took place in the yard of the Leverett street Jail, in presence of about three hundred persons, who were invited to attend by Sheriff Eveleth.

Long before the time fixed for the execution, the streets in the vicinity exhibited an extraordinary excitement, and thousands congregated on the roofs and in the windows of all the buildings in the vicinity, in the hope of getting a view of the prisoner, either as he stood upon the scaffold, or as he passed through the yard to it. Premiums were freely offered and given for choice places where the scaffold might be viewed.

Strangers poured into the city by thousands, and vied with the citizens in exertions to get a good view of the last sad scene. A large awning was erected over the scaffold, which to a considerable extent obstructed the view. It was announced that the execution would take place at nine o'clock, though the persons admitted were notified to be present at eight o'clock.

Among those admitted to the jail yard were several reporters for the press of this and other cities.

The prisoner was attended in his cell, before the execution, by Rev. Dr. Putman and few others, and appropriate and deeply affecting religious services were held.

Considerable time was consumed by these and other causes of detention.

The prisoner was at length conducted from the jail through the yard to the scaffold, walking firmly and conducting himself with the composure that he has all along exhibited.

He ascended the scaffold, the rope was adjusted by Sheriff Eveleth, and at precisely twenty minutes before ten o'clock, the drop fell, and he was swung into eternity.

He died without a struggle, and after being suspended for some time, the body was taken down and carried into the prison again.

Professor Webster's bearing up to the time of the execution was firm as ever. He expressed the deepest penitence for his crime, and his sense of the full justice of his sentence and execution.

No new confession was made, as was reported would be the case, and no new statements have come to light as yet, since the execution. The report that he left any other statements, to be opened after his death, is not believed.

In compliance with one of the last requests of the unhappy man, his body will be laid out in the prison, and remain there until to-night, when it will be removed to his late residence in Cambridge, from whence it will probably be interred privately at Mount Auburn.

Mrs. Webster and her daughters are as yet unacquainted with the fact of his execution. Their last visit to the prison was on yesterday the usual day for their visits, and as they always parted as if they were never to meet again, nothing unusual occurred to indicate to them that the day of execution was so near. The sad intelligence will be communicated to them as quietly as possible, to-day, to prepare them, in a measure, for the reception of the corpse to-night.

—Evening Bulletin.