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Quadruple ax murder once was considered worst case in county

SUN-GAZETTE FILE PHOTO This is a portrait of William Hummel that was included in the special “Hummel Edition” of the Gazette and Bulletin. The edition was a comprehensive look at the murders from start to finish, released on the day Hummel was hung on June 5, 1900.

The discovery of a newlywed and her young children bludgeoned to death with an ax spawned local hysteria at the turn of the 20th century. The brutality of the quadruple murder made some consider it the worst case in the history of Lycoming County, according to newspaper reports at the time.

William Hummel married Sarah F. Delaney only one week before he murdered her and her three children near Montgomery on Nov. 17, 1899.

Hummel, about 50 years old, was known locally as a rag peddler.

Delaney, 30, was a recent widow with three children — Johnnie, 6, Ollie, 4 and Frances, “barely 1 year old,” according to a Nov. 27, 1899, article in the Grit.

She and Hummel married on Nov. 10, 1899. But sometime a week later, people started to notice she wasn’t around.

Hummel’s notorious temper and jealousy created thin rumors of foul play around town, but news of murder officially broke on Nov. 23, 1899, when a farm worker found three bodies under a haystack close to what now is the Montgomery Area Athletic Complex, according to an article that ran a day later in the Gazette and Bulletin, a forerunner to the Williamsport Sun-Gazette.

The bodies of Delaney, Johnnie and Ollie were all there. The baby still was missing, and so was Hummel.

He was the likely suspect from the beginning. When investigators checked his house a little over a mile from where the bodies were found, blood covered some key spots of the bedrooms.

They later found an ax covered with remnants of blood and hair and an ash pile with human bones thought to be those of baby Frances.

The baby’s body wasn’t found until Jan. 18, when it was located buried in Hummel’s stable.

After the three bodies were found two months earlier, “Montgomery was thrown into a state of the wildest excitement,” according to the Gazette and Bulletin.

Investigators learned that in the six days before the bodies were found, Hummel was acting strange.

“He appeared to have something on his mind,” according to the Gazette and Bulletin.

It was reported that he wouldn’t sleep in his home. He even asked someone to go get some of his clothes.

Hummel caught

A search party for Hummel was formed around 1 a.m., hours after the bodies were found.

Hummel was taken into custody at a friend’s farm 1 1/2 miles north of Allenwood at about 6 a.m.

He maintained generally the same story throughout the investigation and prosecution — that a man named Harry Smith had a wife who was sick. Smith asked Sarah and her children to come help take care of her, he said.

A drastic dynamic was added later when Hummel said that Smith was the actual father of the infant daughter and that he murdered the family and took his child away.

But blood was found on Hummel’s carriage and on a blanket in the carriage, and evidence of attempted tampering was clear.

‘State of wildest excitement’

The brutality of the murders stirred a lot of attention.

Between 1,000 and 1,500 people visited the scene of the murder a few days after the bodies were found, according to the Gazette and Bulletin.

Crowds of people were waiting in Montgomery when Hummel was taken into custody and even more were in Williamsport when he got off the Pennsylvania Railroad train the same day.

When the trial started in early March, the hype began with new fervor.

Sentenced to death

Hummel’s trial began on Wednesday, March 7, 1900, to crowds flooding the sidewalks, leaning out of windows and standing on roofs, said Doug Snyder, former president of the Montgomery Area Historical Society, who has researched the Hummel murders.

The trial went through the weekend.

Specifics of the murder were shared in gruesome detail and testimony became strange in spots.

On March 10, 1900, a guard at the county prison testified that Hummel asked him, ” ‘Do you believe in these things which go up and come down and back? … Well, my wife came back to me the other night. She made an awful noise. She told me I was in a tight place. Every man has a downfall and this is mine. Yours will come.’ “

The prosecution argued that the strange conversation was a loose form of a confession. The defense objected.

But even without a confession, the testimony from experts and eyewitnesses was enough to win a conviction.

A jury deliberated for less than two hours and came back with a guilty verdict on March 12, 1900.

The district attorney asked the judge if Hummel could be sentenced immediately.

He was given the typical, mandatory sentence for homicide — death by hanging.

‘Hummel edition’

Three months went by between Hummel’s conviction and his execution in the courtyard at the old county prison.

The sheriff charged admission to the hanging at 10 cents a person, Snyder said.

Hummel’s last haircut, his attitude each day before and his two last meals were all reported in the media.

On June 5, 1900, he finished his first last meal and then asked for a second, saying he still was hungry, according to the report.

The Gazette and Bulletin advertised a “Hummel Edition” a week before the hanging. The special edition was a comprehensive report on every known aspect of the murders, including portraits of the key players, including Hummel.

“Two hundred boys are wanted at the Gazette and Bulletin office this morning at 10 o’ clock to sell this special Hummel edition,” an advertisement read.

Hummel was executed at 10:59 a.m. on June 5, 1900.

He was one of 11 to be hung in Lycoming County from 1836 and 1914, according to DeathPenaltyUSA.org.

Beginning in 1915, Pennsylvania began executions using electrocution.

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