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Corner of First and Main Streets, Cañon City, Colorado.
In 1871, George Witherell, 22, was convicted of murdering a man from Douglas County, Colorado. He allegedly shot him with a gun, hacked him into pieces with an axe and then stole his possessions. However, at his trial, there were some traces of doubt in the minds of the jurors, as he received a life sentence rather than death by hanging. He was sent to Cañon City's newly-built Colorado Territorial Penitentiary. He was inmate number 23.
Two years into his sentence, Witherell escaped from the prison. He hid in the nearby mountains for twenty days until his eventual capture. When he was returned, he was beaten and placed in solitary confinement. He attempted escape repeatedly and frequently found himself confined in both arm and leg shackles.
Witherell found sympathy from Warden W. B. Felton, who bought into Witherell's story of being wrongly imprisoned and passed these manipulated thoughts on to Governor Alva Adams, and helped convince him to pardon Witherell, now age 37, in April of 1888, after serving only fifteen years of his life sentence.
Soon after his release, he met Charles McCain, a young rancher and freighter from Beaver Creek, who, along with his wife, was hoping to start a moving business in Cañon City. McCain and Witherell became partners in October of 1888 and traveled to Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo to do moves for families and businesses. But when Mrs. McCain received a suspicious letter written in an unusual hand supposedly from her husband stating that he was selling his wagons and horses and never returning to her, she grew alarmed and summoned the law.
A posse was formed and soon caught up with Witherell, who was in possession of McCain's wagons and horses at Goulding's Stables on the outskirts of Denver. See the photograph in the picture gallery of the posse taken before they headed out. The next day they found the lifeless body of Charles McCain in a ravine near Turkey Creek. He had been shot in the head and hacked with an axe. Witherell again declared his innocence, but he was taken to a jail in Denver to await his fate.
Fremont County Sheriff Morgan Griffith began hearing talk among the citizens that Witherell "would not survive the ride back" to Cañon City to stand trial. He decided to wait until tempers cooled before attempting to bring Witherell back to town.
Some two months later, Sheriff Griffith quietly made his long trek to Denver alone, and quickly returned with Witherell to the county jail just before midnight on December 3, 1888.
The sheriff had thought he had made the return undetected, but within an hour, a small group of men knocked on the jailhouse door and demanded that he turn over his prisoner. When he refused, the group suddenly turned into an angry mob and threatened to harm the sheriff. At that point, Griffith drew two pistols and offered to shoot the first man that entered the jail. None obliged and the crowd dispersed.
A couple hours later at about 3:00 a.m. on December 4, 1888, there once again was a soft knock on the door of the jail. When the very tired and drowsy sheriff unhooked the latch, he was overwhelmed by two large men who wore masks. Suddenly the jail was filled with a dozen masked men, and the sheriff was bound and carted away unharmed.
George Witherell was anticipating an attack from overhearing the talk from earlier and prepared himself with a makeshift club that he had broke off from the leg of the wooden bunk in his cell. When the masked men stormed his cell, he put up a fight. Suddenly a shot rang out, and Witherell's left arm went limp from a wound to his shoulder.
No longer able to defend himself, he was dragged out to a telegraph pole at the corner of First and Main Streets and was quickly and unceremoniously lynched. See the photograph in the picture gallery taken later that morning of Witherell hanging from the pole as townsfolk look on.
The coroner declared that Witherell's death came from a person or persons unknown. Sheriff Griffith claimed he could not determine who had bound and gagged him that night. A local pharmacist removed Witherell's brain for examination to see if it was of normal size (it was), then pickled it in a bathtub and charged admission to those desiring to view it. Another man cut off Witherell's upper lip in order to display his impressively large handlebar mustache, along with his suspenders, part of the rope that hung him, his mustache comb, four spent revolver cartridges and a photo of the lynching in the lobby of his hotel.
No person was ever charged or convicted for taking part in the lynching of George Witherell. His guilt or innonence for the murder of Charles McCain was never established since the case never went to trial. It is unknown where his remains were buried.
The old Fremont County Jail was built in 1876 and still stands today as a private residence at 104 Greenwood Avenue just around the corner from this cache.
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