James Was So Proud of His Guillotine Design, He Used It to Chop off His Own Head
Sunday 11th June 1876 James Moon, a Quaker farmer from Lafayette, Indiana, lay on the floor of a hotel room and decapitated himself, with his home-made guillotine.
A chambermaid got no response from room 41 that morning, and went away assuming the guest was sleeping in. Later in the evening she returned and had to gain access through an adjoining door in the next room. What she saw caused her to scream in terror, bringing fellow staff and guests to her aid. A mechanical device lay across the floor. A man’s head had been severed from his body and an axe was embedded in the floorboards. The 6ft 1inch guest’s body lay with his legs extending under the bed of the narrow room.
The 37 year old farmer and blacksmith lived nine miles north of town. He had a well equipped workshop and, like his father before him, was renowned for his mechanical and engineering skills. A Civil War veteran, he vowed someday to, do something that will cause people to talk about me. He liked to experiment with inventions and machinery to impress friends and family, but many found him socially awkward. James had married Mary, a local girl. They had five children, and lived in a two-storey timber framed home on their farm.
Early the day before, James loaded up his horse-drawn cart with a heavy trunk and parts for his latest, and what was to be his last, invention: Five 30" lengths of 6" x 1" timber, a wooden soapbox, a collection of wood screws, leather straps, a dowel rod, brace and bit, a wrench, screwdriver, candles, thin cord, a pencil, and some matches. He arrived at Lahr Hotel, a travellers’ boarding house, and requested a room overlooking the quiet alleyway. It was a simple 12 x 14 ft. room sparsely furnished with a bed, washstand and table. The porters struggled with the excessive weight of his luggage, and were told it was for an important patent he was working on.
After a while James locked his room and left the hotel. Strangely, he visited a barbershop to get a shave, then called into a hardware store for a 12 inch broad axe head. After selecting two heavy pieces of 2 inch flat iron stock at a foundry, he requested that holes be drilled in them and the axe so all three pieces could be bolted together. When asked its purpose he explained he was working on an invention for making fruit baskets. He spent the rest of the sunny afternoon around the Tippecanoe Courthouse Square meeting up with old Civil War comrades. Before heading back to his room, he purchased a 2 oz bottle of chloroform from a drug store.
About 8 o’clock James returned to the hotel and worked into the night assembling his instrument of death. It comprised two lengths of the 6" x 1" timber fixed to the floor at one end by heavy hinges to the floor. Between them at the other end the assembly of iron and axehead was bolted. It was estimated to weigh about 50 lbs. and would have supplied enough falling force to cleanly remove a man’s head from his body. A length of string was attached to a ring at the top of the beam that led to a hook on the window sill. It held the beam and axe almost vertical and acted as a trigger for the device. Beneath the string James positioned a table upon which he placed a candle holder. When ready to die he would light a candle and let it burn through the string allowing the beam and axe to fall with deadly menace.
Marks on the floor boards showed he had carefully gauged where the axe would fall. At that point where his neck would lay, he screwed a piece of timber into place to serve as a block for the axe. To reduce noise and avoid arousing suspicion, James used only screws and bolts throughout his assembling.
A wooden soapbox was fixed to the floor. In the sides were two holes through which a wooden dowel could be inserted. This served to keep his head up to avoid contact with his chin when the blade came down. Inside the box he placed cotton wool ready to soak with chloroform, presumably to render himself unconscious when the string finally burned through.
So that he didn’t move while comatose, he screwed broad leather straps to the floor for his legs and chest. He must have calculated the burning rate of the string to be sure of having sufficient time to light the candle, lay on his back, buckle himself to the floor, place his head inside the soap box, insert the dowel under his chin, soak the cotton wool in chloroform to render himself unconscious, before the axe fell. So meticulous was his preparations he had even thought to fix paper over the window to prevent any draught from blowing out the candle.
If James simply wanted to kill himself he could have used the chloroform. But his disturbed mind and manic pride in his inventive prowess drove him to such elaborate means. It must have taken weeks of planning and proving of his invention before finally putting it to the test. For it worked perfectly first time. In one fell swoop he demonstrated his engineering skill despite being unable to appreciate the success.
On the wooden beam James had pencilled Kari Kari. Patent Applied For and For Sale or To Let. He probably meant Hari Kari, and as for his joke of Patent Applied For, had he tried, he would have been unsuccessful in that quest, for it is not possible to patent items, that are contrary to the public good, suicide then being illegal. One newspaper did however report his death with the headline, Death by Patent Rights.
Suicide was no stranger to James Moon. His mother had ended her own life, and James had tried once before in the same hotel using chloroform. The coroner, Dr. Vinnedge, estimated the time of death as 7 am that morning, and a jury’s verdict was suicide owing to mental instability.
What drove James to go to such elaborate lengths to kill himself, or his state of mind, is open to speculation. But perhaps a clue can be found in his military experiences. He served in the Union Sixteenth Indiana Battery Light Infantry, under the command of Captain Haggard, enlisting for three years in 1862, He suffered no injuries and enjoyed discussing inventions and mechanical devices with fellow soldiers who found him obsessive. The Industrial Revolution, bringing new machinery to factories and farms, likely inspired him. He had told his brother-in-law that he could invent a machine for suicide that could cleanly take off a man’s head. Being considered eccentric nobody would have given any credence to his boast.
The Sixteenth Indiana Battery saw action in Memphis and took part in the siege of Vicksburg in 1862. Following that they were involved in the first and second unsuccessful Bayou Tech campaigns in April and October of 1863, when the Confederate States Army sought to prevent the Union from gaining control of northern Louisiana. There was significant loss of life in the treacherous river environment before retreating. James would have witnessed horrific scenes of deaths from rifle and gunboat cannon. Soldiers returning from those battles would have struggled adjusting to normal life. It is not surprising then, that on his last day on earth, James still found comfort in reminiscing about the war in the company of fellow veterans, even after thirteen years. It is reasonable to presume that his experiences in battle contributed to his mental state.
Photographs were taken of the guillotine in the room before James’ remains were removed by the undertaker, Caleb R Scudder, who persuaded Mary Cox Moon, now a widow with five children to feed, to allow the guillotine to be displayed at his premises. Rumours of the execution soon spread, and scores flocked in morbid curiosity to view the deadly apparatus. After the funeral the undertaker took the guillotine on a tour of Indiana. Whether that was for selfish greed or to raise funds for Mary is unknown, but certainly macabre. It was last heard of in 1886 although its fate is not known.
James Aaron Moon was laid to rest in the Farmers Institute Cemetery in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Twenty six years later Mary married William Duddleston who died 5 weeks before her in 1913. Curiously, although married to William for 11 years, Mary shares a grave with James Moon, her tragic and troubled first husband of 18 years, and father of her children.
There are many accounts of bizarre ways in which people have chosen to end their lives. The innovative manner in which James Moon chose is certainly worthy of recognition — if not for its folly, certainly for its ingenuity.
