04 Apr 2011

Lost Capitol Hill: "Colonel" Robert Strong

On June 30, 1882, Charles Guiteau was executed for the assassination of President Garfield. It was just under a year since he had pulled the trigger, and the trial had held public attention for most of the intervening year. The execution took place on Capitol Hill, and the executioner himself was not only a Hill resident, but one whose connection to the Hill went back 30 years: “Colonel” Robert Strong.

Robert Strong was born ca. 1816 in Albany, New York. As a young man, he joined a whaler and spent several years traveling the oceans in search of those large marine mammals — as well as learning how to tie knots, something that would come in handy in later years.

After the discovery of gold in California, Strong made his way there to seek his fortune, and when that came to naught, moved to the nation’s capital to find work building the Capitol. He spent several years working on the House extension, and when that was completed in the mid 1850’s, found himself in search of new opportunities.

He eventually became a guard at the city jail, the infamous ‘Blue Jug’ in what is now Judiciary Square, and when the new jail at 19th and B Street SE opened in 1875 he made the move there. Long before the move, however, Strong had become the jail’s executioner when a certain James Grady had been sentenced to death in 1871. Of all the guards, Strong was chosen to do the deed because of his skill in tying knots. As the Washington Times wrote in his obituary “His noose for the neck was simply perfection, and so far as the attachment was concerned there was no fear of failure in the operation.”

Strong was also known for his cheerful good nature, and was quoted as having said — to a man who seemed despondent about his imminent demise — “Now, my dear fellow, if you don’t cheer up you’ll never learn how to look on the bright side of life.”

Strong’s personal life does not seem to have been as smooth. He had married Sarah in the late 1860s and they had a child, Samuel Robert Strong together, but their son died in at age 3 in 1871, and his wife died two years later.

The scene in the DC jail just before Guiteau's execution. From the Washington Times (LOC)

Robert Strong’s most famous work came with the execution of Charles Guiteau in 1882. The execution went off without a hitch, with Guiteau’s neck breaking from the drop. The newspapermen of the time thereafter gave Strong the title “Colonel” to go with the “Lord High Executioner,” which others had bestowed on him.

Strong lived in various places on the Hill, on the 200 block of 1st Street SE, later on East Capitol Street, and finally on 119 Carroll Street SE, which is now covered by the Madison building of the Library of Congress.

On June 30, 1895, Robert Strong passed away. The obituaries that ran for him did not shy away from his grisly profession, rather they listed all the executions he had performed over the years, but also spent a fair bit of time describing his genial good nature. He was buried in Congressional Cemetery.

 

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