-
The Bergin House hotel was run in the 1860s by Billy Bergin’s father, William B. Bergin. Billy grew up around the hotel, and would later commit there the murder that sent him to the gallows.
-
It was outside the hotel office door that the murder took place at 7:30 am on June 15, 1877, in full view of numerous witnesses. Bergin made no attempt to escape.
-
The site of this infamous murder, which led to the only execution of a murderer by hanging in Knox County history, is today the parking lot across the street from Paragraphs Bookstore.
-
The approximate site where Tom McBride was sitting when Billy Bergin walked up behind him and shot him through the back of his head was here, between the hedge and the streetlight.
-
The 1871 Caldwell and Starr Atlas of Knox County includes a map of downtown Mount Vernon that shows the location of the Bergin House hotel, at the corner of South Main and what is today named Ohio Street, then known as Front Street.
-
This 1887 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the layout of the Bergin House hotel, likely unchanged from ten years previous, with the manager’s office located in the northeast corner of the building, near the intersection.
-
The pistol that William Bergin “borrowed” from a downtown gun shop was a Hopkins & Allen Blue Jacket No. 2 .32-caliber revolver with a spur trigger.
Newspack Team More by adminnewspack