John McCaffary

John McCaffary (1820 – August 21, 1851) was the only defendant to be executed by the State of Wisconsin. He was executed by hanging for the murder of his wife.

On 23 July 1850, Bridgett McCaffary (née McKean) was drowned in a backyard cistern in Kenosha, a newly incorporated town in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. John McCaffary, an immigrant farmer from Ireland, was arrested and charged with the first degree murder of his wife. His trial began on May 6, 1851, and on May 23, 1851 the jury convicted him of willful murder. The judge sentenced him to death by hanging and the death warrant was signed by Governor Nelson Dewey.

McCaffary was hanged from a tree on August 21, 1851 before a crowd of 2,000 to 3,000 people in front of the Kenosha courthouse and jail. The hanging was initially unsuccessful, and McCaffary remained alive and struggled on the end of the rope for approximately 20 minutes as he was slowly strangled. McCaffary was buried in the Green Ridge Cemetery in Kenosha. He was the first person executed by Wisconsin after it became a state of the United States in 1848.

The spectacle of McCaffary's slow death in front of thousands led reformers in Wisconsin to press for abolition of the death penalty. On July 12, 1853, Wisconsin Governor Leonard J. Farwell signed a law that abolished the death penalty in Wisconsin and replaced it with a penalty of life imprisonment. The law is still in effect and no one has been executed by Wisconsin since McCaffary's death.