Part I: Billy Bergin earns an appointment with the Knox County hangman

Author’s Note: I am indebted to the research assembled by John Chidester for the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, where he did a presentation about this case about five years ago, and to the reference department staff who shared it with me. Next week, we will examine the events that so twisted William S. Bergin, Jr., that he could turn into the kind of monster who would shoot a man in broad daylight on the streets of Mount Vernon, a crime which would lead to his infamy as the only man ever hung for murder in Knox County history.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a five-part series on a murder committed by Will Bergin and his ensuing botched hanging. Part I (the shooting). Part II (Bergin’s disastrous Civil War years). Part III (eyewitness to the aftermath of Custer’s Last Stand. Part IV Bergin’s shooting of McBride defied explanation. Part V the botched hanging.

MOUNT VERNON — Billy Bergin left lawyer H.H. Greer’s office, seething, and crushed. It was the second lawyer he had tried that morning, June 15, 1877, but the first one wasn’t yet in his office, and Greer wouldn’t write him a writ of replevin.

With such a writ, Bergin could threaten legal action against T.J. McBride, the scoundrel who wouldn’t return the satchel that held his legal papers, including his army pension documents.

Greer had told him to go back to the hotel — the Bergin House, which still mockingly held his family’s name, even though his father had turned the hotel over to the McBrides to run — and ask for the valise back. But Billy Bergin had already argued with the obtuse manager, who continued to deny any knowledge of the satchel.

Billy had tried to explain to the lawyer that McBride didn’t even want to listen to him because of a stupid little bill.

“What bill?” Greer wanted to know.

What business was it of his if Billy had sometimes ended his nights drunk, and flopped down at the hotel for a room because he didn’t want to stumble into his father’s apartment on Vine Street past midnight? And so what if in the morning, he woke up not quite sure where he was? What did it matter if he left without paying?

That damned fool McBride ought to be grateful to have an original Bergin still making use of the Bergin House. And he ought to return a man’s satchel, especially one with pension papers. Separate a one-armed man from his pension, and he would be in a world of trouble.

Lawyer Greer had unwelcome advice: “Pay your bill, then discuss the valise.”

“If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone else who will,” Billy said, although he couldn’t think of anyone else, since Hart wasn’t even open yet. He stepped out of Greer’s office and began heading down South Main Street, feeling hopeless.

At the corner of South Main and Gambier Streets, Bergin found himself looking in the window at C.P. Gregory’s gun shop. It seemed fitting. He stepped inside and looked at the firearms on display. Finding one particularly to his liking, a No. 2 “Blue Jacket” .32-caliber revolver with a spur trigger, he didn’t even pause to consider paying for it, for he had no money.

“I’m interested in this pistol, but I’m not sure if this is what I need,” Billy said. “Is there any way I could take a couple of test shots?”

“Of course, sir,” the proprietor said.

It was by no means rare for a gentleman customer to want to experience the gun before purchase, and though Billy Bergin was getting a wayward reputation, he was still the son of a prominent family.

“I could load a couple of rounds in it and you could take it down to the river to test fire it. I think you’ll find it a very satisfactory piece,” the shop owner said.

Gregory loaded two rounds into the gun and handed it to Bergin, who was calm, cool, and collected. Bergin thanked him and said he’d be right back. He put the revolver in his left jacket pocket with his one good arm.

Billy Bergin stepped out onto the busy Friday morning sidewalk and continued south. His notion was to walk down to the viaduct over the river and test the gun by placing it against his temple.

After the shot — two if he was still conscious and found it necessary — his body would plummet into the Kokosing River.

But as he crossed Front Street, he glanced across the road and noticed Tom McBride sitting in a chair on the sidewalk outside his office at the Bergin House, talking with a salesman. McBride and the salesman noticed Bergin, but said nothing. Bergin walked past them, then crossed the street and entered the hotel lobby.

Turning right in the hallway, he went down to the interior entrance to the hotel office, and walked through it to the door where Tom sat, chatting with Jesse T. Underwood, a lightning rod agent from Cleveland.

Billy pulled the revolver out of his pocket with his left arm as he walked up behind Tom McBride, and shot him.

“There, take that!” Billy shouted.

Tom slumped to the back of his chair. The bullet had passed through his skull and out the front.

Underwood leaped up in shock and confusion.

“What in the name of God does this mean?” Underwood bellowed.

“I shot him, God damn him, and did it like a man,” Billy replied.

Underwood was aghast. He ran past Bergin, through the office and door and into the hotel to fetch Tom McBride’s father.

According to several witnesses on the street, William S. Bergin, Jr., shot the second round into the gutter, then stepped past the dead man, and sat down in the chair just vacated by the lightning rod salesman, waiting for the arrest that would come as soon as someone ran to wake up the town’s policeman, who wasn’t yet on duty for the day.

Two witnesses, Albert Rose and Charlie Lauderbaugh, had been sitting in chairs in front of Cotton’s saloon, across the street. They watched the entire crime take place, and quickly crossed to make sure Bergin didn’t flee, though he made no attempt to do so.

“I got my man,” Bergin said to them with what was later described by a newspaper reporter as “satanic braggadocio.” They kept an eye on the offender as they heard approaching steps.

The elder McBride had met the salesman in the hallway, having instinctively moved toward the sound of the shot, though his advanced age slowed him down. Stepping out the door with Underwood close behind, McBride saw his son, Tom, sitting in the chair, thick blood pouring out of the ragged wound in the back of his head.

“Did you do this?” the old man said, his voice shaking.

“I shot him,” Billy said. “I killed him with this.”

He weakly flourished the pistol in the air. Old McBride grabbed the weapon from Billy, who did not resist. With a force belying his years, McBride struck Bergin across the face with it. None of the surrounding people made any attempt to stop the old man.

Bergin didn’t seem to care. He sat and took it. He knew that his future was likely to be short, and at the end of a long rope. He wasn’t entirely sure why he did what he did, or so he later claimed, but he knew he was ready for something to break, even if it was his own neck.