James Alfred "Jim" Allison

1880 - 1898  (17 years)

• Name	James Alfred "Jim" Allison
  Born	20 May 1880	South Dumfries Twp., Brant Co., Ontario, Canada   [1, 2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Crime	Murdered Emma Orr
  	ALLISON, James Male, age 18 Crime: Murder Victim: Orr, Emma 1897/08/09 Trial: 1897/12/02 Assizes; Berlin, Ont. Judge: Meredith, William Execution fixed to: 1898/02/04 Recommendation for mercy: yes Result: O. in C. of 1898/01/27, PC 190 Hanging: 1898/02/04; Berlin, Ont. Reference: RG 13, vol. 1432, file 289A; 1897-1898 Content: Correspondence, petitions, order-in-council, transcript of evidence and judge's charge, report to Minister of Justice, coroner's inquest.
  Interesting	life story, murder, crime
  Misfortune	Murdered Emma Orr
  	ALLISON, James Male, age 18 Crime: Murder Victim: Orr, Emma 1897/08/09 Trial: 1897/12/02 Assizes; Berlin, Ont. Judge: Meredith, William Execution fixed to: 1898/02/04 Recommendation for mercy: yes Result: O. in C. of 1898/01/27, PC 190 Hanging: 1898/02/04; Berlin, Ont. Reference: RG 13, vol. 1432, file 289A; 1897-1898 Content: Correspondence, petitions, order-in-council, transcript of evidence and judge's charge, report to Minister of Justice, coroner's inquest.
  Residence	1891	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	United Brethren
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-102560
  Died	4 Feb 1898	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  	Cause: hanged for the murder of Emma (Borland) Orr
  Buried	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  Person ID	I102560	Generations
  Last Modified	7 Nov 2024

  
  

  Father	Alexander W. Allison,   b. 17 Sep 1855, North Dumfries Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 11 Dec 1910, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 55 years)
  Mother	Elizabeth A. Hance,   b. 12 Apr 1856, , England ,   d. 10 Jan 1907, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 50 years)
  Married	27 Aug 1879	Freeport (Kitchener), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2, 4]
  Family ID	F17002	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  Allison,JamesAlfredJim-0001-WaterlooRegionRecord2021.jpg One Of The Most Sensational Crimes In The History Of The Province: Waterloo Region's First Murder Led To A Media Frenzy And The Hanging Of A 17-Year-Old". 2021. Therecord.Com. https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2021/12/30/one-of-the-most-sensational-crimes-in-the-history-of-the-province-waterloo-regions-first-murder-led-to-a-media-frenzy-and-the-hanging-of-a-17-year-old.html?rf.

  
  

• Notes

  Killer's body found after 6-year hunt KITCHENER, Ont. (CP) Eighty-six years ago, James Allison was hanged for shooting his employer's wife, whacking her on the head with an axe and burying her in a swamp because his boss denied him a trip to Niagara Falls. But the memory of the savage 17-year-old who made headlines in 1898 still lives on his remains have been unearthed at the historic Waterloo County Jail. "I've been looking for him since February, 1978," said a jubilant Connie Giller, assistant solicitor for the Waterloo Region government. However, regional authorities still have to find the misplaced corpses of two more executed murderers before they can proceed with a plan to use the site for a new regional government headquarters. Under Ontario law, the bodies must be removed before the prison, last used in 1978, can be torn down or renovated. Still missing are Stoyko Boyeff, a Bulgarian immigrant hanged in 1920 for stoning a Russian immigrant to death, and Reginald White, hanged in 1940 for a double axe murder. Both Mr. Boyeff and Mr. White were buried in unmarked graves and nobody knows exactly where to look. Mr. Allison's coffin was found last Thursday by student Kevin Shanahan and, using dental instruments and a small brush, co-workers and supervising archeologists[sic] carefully moved chunks of lime until the fully preserved skeleton was exposed Monday. Scientists will examine the bones and then have the body buried in a public cemetery. Old newspaper accounts said the execution could be seen from the second-floor window. The body was found in an excavation in a small courtyard below one of two possible windows after a dig in the main courtyard failed. The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, August 22, 1984 _______________________ Young Murderer Hanged Berlin, Ontario, Feb. 4 - James Allison was hanged here for the murder of Mrs. Anthony Orr near Galt on August 9th. Allison, a dull-witted lad of 18 years employed on Mrs. Allison's, confessed to having killed Mrs. Orr with an axe while attending to his morning chores, and hiding the body temporarily in a corn patch until he should have an opportunity to carry it to a neighboring swamp. The motive for the murder advanced at the trial was revenge for Mrs. Orr's refusal of his improper attentions, but this Allison in his confession stoutly contradicted. The Deseret News-8 Feb 1898 _______________________________ SIMPERING JIM ALLISON from Memoirs of a great detective: incidents in the life of John Wilson Murray (1904) compiled by Victor Speer OVER the hill from Galt, in the county of Waterloo, lies North Dumfries. The road that climbs the hill sweeps round in a big curve on the other side, as it enters the alley. Up a lane, leading from this valley road, stood a little white farmhouse, with a big unpainted barn near by. It was screened from the main road by a clump of trees, although the house stood in open ground with its door fronting on an orchard, its kitchen window opening on a cornfield. The woodpile loomed up at the end of the house nearest the barn. Rain-barrels stood in a row against the house. Milking pans shone in the sunlight. A dog dozed in the lane. Chickens scratched and pecked, and lazily fluffed their feathers and settled in the dust. It was a hot morning August 9th, 1897. Out of the house stepped a woman. She was a beauty. The freshness of girlhood had been supplanted by the charm of full womanhood. Her complexion was pale pink and white. Her big eyes were laughing and merry. A tot toddled after her, yawning drowsily, then turned back indoors. The woman shaded her eyes and looked toward the barn. The shrill squeals of an angry pig rang out. A man's gruff voice sounded, and then around the corner of the barn came Anthony Orr, the farmer, with a big sow in his waggon. "Going, Tony?" called the woman. "Yep!" shouted Tony Orr. "Back in a couple of hours." He drove away with his nine-year-old son, Norman. A moment later the hired boy, Jim Allison, appeared with two cows, and started them down the lane. They were to go to the Barrie farm near by. The woman watched her husband until the bend in the road hid him from view. She saw the Allison boy in the lane with the cows. She began to sing softly, so as not to disturb her two children - Maggie, aged ten, and a-year-old baby, still asleep upstairs. Half an hour passed. Two days before, a buggy, with an easy-going horse, had come up the lane. A stout, jolly-faced man had alighted, and had hitched his horse and had sat chatting and laughing with the handsome woman. They seemed to know and understand one another well. The man had entered his buggy and gone away, as he had come, alone. He was nowhere in sight on this morning, although he was half expected. The woman had been sitting with dreamy eyes and gentle smile, her hands clasped and lying idly in her lap. She was a pretty picture in the sunlight. Tony Orr had reason to be proud of his wife. There had been gossip of her fondness for travel and for clever companions. There even had been a tale of an elopement and a penitent return to Tony's arms and forgiveness. Neighbours had known of men callers at the white farmhouse. But Tony said all was well, and on the Orr farm that meant all was well. The woman sat still in the sunlight. Two hours later Tony Orr returned. The farm boy, Jim Allison, was standing at the side gate of the house fence, laughing. "What's the matter?" asked Orr. "Oh, nothing," said Allison, laughing all the louder. "What's the matter?" demanded Orr. "Oh, nothing," laughed Allison. "What's up?" roared Orr. "Your wife's gone," said Allison. The baby was lying on the front steps. The little girl, Maggie, was sitting on the porch. Orr hurried to the kitchen. The breakfast dishes had not been touched. Orr ran out of the house, and saw Harry Blair, an agricultural implement dealer from Galt, just getting. out of his buggy. Harry Blair was stout and jolly faced. "My wife's gone!" shouted Orr. "Gone! Gone where?" exclaimed the disappointed Blair. Orr and Blair searched for her, and then got into Blair's buggy and drove to Galt, thinking she might have gone with Weldon Sidney Trevelyan, a medical student who was spending the summer in Galt, and who had been calling on her. They found Trevelyan, and he knew nothing of the woman. Orr returned home, and organised a search for his wife. The authorities were notified. "Many believed there had been an elopement," says Murray. "Mrs. Orr was good-looking, a great favourite with men, but had a reputation. Her maiden name was Emma Borland. Her parents were well-to-do and lived at Bright. She was thirty-seven years old, and was born in Innerkip. She was first married to John Arnott, of Innerkip, who died when she was twenty-two, and three years later she married Anthony Orr, to whom she bore three children. To her children she was a loving, careful mother. To her husband she was said to be an indifferent wife. About two years previous to this she had run away with a hired man named Mulholland, but her husband caught her and her two children at Niagara Falls, and took them home again. Tony Orr was a nervous, excitable man, who had trouble with other men on account of their frequent calls on his wife. A week passed, with no trace of the wife's whereabouts. "At first, before traces of blood were found, the elopement theory vied with the suicide theory. On the day before Mrs. Orr disappeared, Tony Orr's father was buried. Mrs. Orr attended the funeral, and some of the Orr family treated her coldly. The Orrs were an old family of good standing. On the way home from the funeral Mrs. Orr remarked that 'she was no use and guessed she'd get out of here.' This remark was the basis for the suicide talk. "I went to the Orr farm. The boy Allison and the medical student Trevelyan had been held in Galt, and Harry Blair, the agricultural implement agent, was under surveillance. I looked the house over, a one and a half story white brick house with a frame kitchen. It was situated in a tract of country that, owing to the swamps and marshes in which it abounds, is most desolate. About two hundred yards from the house was a swamp or marsh of about one hundred acres, and above the wet and rank grass and weeds and thick soil grew almost impenetrable shrubs and trees. In this swamp was an excavation eighteen inches wide and six feet long and eighteen inches deep. It was newly dug, and clearly was an unfinished grave. I visited it in the night, and carefully took from the upturned surface the print of a man's foot, a precise clue to the digger of the grave. In order to get this, I turned back the overturned earth after digging under it so as not to break its surface and destroy the footprint I knew must be there. I took this to my hotel in Galt, unknown to anyone in the affair. "I returned to the Orr house. A picket fence separated the patch of garden from the corn patch adjoining the house. One of the pickets of this fence was gone. The paling mark was not of long exposure. I saw this was on a line between the house and the swamp, with the corn patch lying between. One of the furrows in this corn patch was raised slightly. John Orr, Tony's brother, poked it with his stick. Six inches beneath the surface lay Mrs. Orr, face down, buried amid the corn within thirty feet of her house. That put an end to elopement or suicide theories. When I saw the half-dug grave in the swamp I knew there had been murder. The grave in the corn patch was but temporary. The murderer intended to hide the body for ever in the swamp. "Back to Galt I went. Trevelyan proved an absolute alibi. Harry Blair, agitated over the whole affair, was not at the farmhouse when the deed was done, and had nothing to do with it. Tony Orr was five miles away at a neighbour's, with his son and the sow. Allison - I went to see this boy. I had his old shoe, and it fitted the footprint by the grave in the swamp. He looked almost a freak. He was about seventeen years old, big for his age, and tremendously stocky in his build. His bow legs were big and muscular. His hands and feet were enormous. His shoulders were broad, his neck was thick, his arms were long and powerful. His features reminded me of the features of a frog. The forehead was low and retreating, and the face was very full at the sides. The hair was brown, cut close, and thc eyes were a greenish brown - large, watery eyes, uneasy, shifting, catlike. The mouth was very large, and the lips were full and seemed to simper, giving the face a cat's expression. He walked with a peculiar, rolling motion, as if he would have preferred to be on all fours. He wore heavy, clod shoes, blue jeans, a calico shirt, and a faded, slouch hat pulled well over his eyes. "I sat down and faced this boy. "'What do you know of this murder?' I said. "'Nothing,' he answered, with a grin. "'Tell me where you were on that morning,' said I. "'I left Orr's, with two cows, about 7.20,' he said. 'I got to Barrie's farm about eight o'clock, and I left there about 8.50 and got back to Orr's about 9.40. When I got back Mrs. Orr was gone.' "'How did you know she was gone?' "'She was not anywhere around,' said the boy. "'Where is your shot gun?' I asked. "'Just before I left with the cows, Mrs. Orr asked me to show her the gun, and she asked me how it was used, and I explained it, and then put it back and went on with the cows,' he lied glibly. "His gun, which always was kept in the house, was found hidden in the hay-mow in the barn. It had been discharged. There were blood-stains on it. "'Allison,' I said slowly, 'you killed Mrs. Orr.' "He started up, white as flour, shaking like a man with ague. I waited for his confession. He mumbled, hesitated, and - sat down and grinned. For four hours I worked with him. He grinned and lied. "An idea previously had occurred to me. Allison's father, Alex Allison, was city scavenger of Galt. The father had seen the boy alone. That night the father was followed. It was before the finding of the body was generally known. The father had gone to the swamp to finish, for his son, the half-dug grave. The boy had told him of it. "'Allison,' I said to the boy, 'your father says you dropped your knife at the grave in the swamp.' "'No I didn't, for I left it when I went - - ' "He stopped. It was on the tip of his tongue trembling, quivering, almost out. "'That's enough,' I said. "Some newspapers declaimed against my examination of this boy, and talked of a sweat-box system, and asserted the boy's innocence. In due time their mistake was revealed. "The evidence was overwhelming when it all was collected. There was no need to use the footprint by the grave. Allison was proved by neighbours and folk on the road to have the exclusive opportunity to do the deed. His blood-stained gun had been fired, and the empty cartridge found in it was one he had taken from a box in the house. John Orr and his family on the next farm had heard a gunshot after Tony left with the sow. Allison had called out Mrs. Orr from the house, shot at her, clubbed her to death, then buried her temporarily in the cornfield, and at night dug the grave in the swamp. He had importuned her, and she refused him, and the murder followed. "The grand jury found a true bill on November 29th, and Allison's trial followed at once. Chief Justice Meredith presided. H.P. O'Connor, K.C., prosecuted, and J.R. Blake and J.J.H. Weir defended. On Friday, December 3rd, 1897, this seventeen-year-old murderer was found guilty, and was sentenced to be hanged in Berlin gaolyard on Friday, February 4th, 1898. His father fell in an epileptic fit when he heard the verdict. "Smiling serenely, Jim Allison went up to his death. He mounted the scaffold unaided at eight o'clock on a raw, snowy morning. He shook hands politely with the guards, the hangman, and the minister, waited quietly while the black cap and noose were adjusted, stepped on to the trap at 8, and dropped into eternity. "Allison had learned to read and write a little in his six months in a cell, and he had scrawled laboriously the following on a piece of paper: "'I am sorry for my crime. I did it out of ill-will. I hope those whom I wronged will forgive me, and that no one will turn this up to my people. My sentence is just, and I hope God will have mercy on me.' "He signed this, and read it to them when they came to take him out and hang him." ____________________ Paid the Penalty The Boy Murderer, Allison, Atones for the Death of Mrs. Orr With His Life. Friday, Feb. 4th, 1898, was a red letter day in the annals of Waterloo county's criminal history. It was the final winding up of the last chapter in the celebrated Orr murder case, in which James Alfred Allison, the buy murderer, rendered up his own life that the law of the land might be vindicated and to atone for the life of Mrs. Emma Orr, which he so deliberately wiped out on the morning of August 9th, 1897. The ending of this grave affair, was in one particular sense a great relief to the people, who have been almost daily from the moment the terrible crime was committed until the last act, furnished with about every trifling incident in the prison career of the condemned young man. Frequently intelligent remarks put forth in publie print as coming from the lips of the prisoner seemed almost incredible to people of ordinary common sense when they were confronted with the stern fact that he was a person intellectually. incapable of such productions, being a youth of a depraved mind and entirely devoid of the simplest rudiments of a common school education. I am inclined to think that the kind and accommodating officials of the jail somewhat overstepped the bounds of propriety in permitting energetic reporters to have too free access to the murderer's cell. However, these discrepancies can be overlooked in this case as it was the first instance in the history of the Waterloo County jail that a murderer awaiting execution was confined therein. They are also to a certain extent to be exonerated. for any oversight for the extraordinarily humane manner in which the execution was conducted. My long newspaper career on the other side of the border, and as a reporter on leading dailies, has frequently brought me in contact with such gruesome events, but I must candidly admit that not in all my experience have I witnessed an execution in which such great care was exercised in robbing the affair of its ghastliness as that which occurred last Friday morning. It seemed that every detail was looked after by the officials to bring this about, and that they succeeded most admirably will be admitted by every newspaper man present. HIS LAST NIGHT According to all accounts Allison passed his last night upon earth with calm indifference as to the morning when his soul would be launched into eternity. During the lonely hours of the death watch he slept soundly, after his spiritual adviser, Rev. Atkinson, had left him, which was about 10 o'clock. Some time about midnight be awoke and remarked to Otto Gastmeier, the death-watch, "I am hungry; can you get me something to eat His request was granted, and after partaking heartily of the food given him be again retired and slept until six o'clock without any apparent signs of restlessness. He then partook heartily of a breakfast consisting of eggs, toast and coffee. "Before seven o'clock most of these who had permits to witness the execution were on hand, eager to get inside The piercing cold atmosphere of the early morning was somewhat over looked by those present on account of the gravity of the occasion. High constable Klippert, who represented Sheriff M. Springer, (the latter bring indisposed by a severe cold) and deputy Cyrus Moyer guarded the doors of the jail kitchen through which the privileged spectators would first be permitted to enter in gaining access to the jail yard. Mr. Klippert showed consideration for the newspaper men by announcing that they would be allowed to enter first. The latter room was a small apartment in which the spectators were rather uncomfortably crowded for about ten or fifteen minutes, awaiting admission to the jail yard and the vicinity of the small stone woodshed in which the grim death apparatus had been constructed a day or two previous. Once in the jail yard the crowd had room for expansion, and, despite the weird and solemn aspect of the occasion an occasional joke would be indulged in by members of the newspaper fraternity. At about four or five minutes to eight o'clock, Radcliffe, the executioner, entered the cell of the condemned man and with a strap bound the prisoner's arms to his sides. During this ordeal the latter did not utter a word but calmly followed his executioner into the corridor, where the solemn death march to the scaffold was formed. Mr. Alfred Boomer, J. P., of Linwood, and jailer Cook headed the solemn procession, followed by Dr. Webb, coroner, Dr. Bowlby, the jail surgeon, Rev. Atkinson and Otto Gameier, the death watch. As they entered the jail yard, the spectators formed a lane, and with uncovered heads watched the approach of the doomed youth. While it appeared to some who were evidently worked up to a pitch of excitement over the sad spectacle, that Allison did not show. symptoms of faltering, to the more cool-headed and experienced he gave evidence of nervousness and deep concern. As to the smile on his countenance, referred to by some, the writer failed to notice anything of the kind. When the procession was marching to the scaffold, Rev. Atkinson slowly and solemnly uttered the following words: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions," The last minute of Allison's life was while he stood upon the deadly trap and Radcliffe drew the back cap over his head and placed the fatal noose around his neck, the knot being under the left ear. Just before the bolt was drawn that ushered his soul into eternity, Rev. Atkinson began to pray: "O, Almighty God, we humbly pray thee to receive the soul of this, one of thy children, for whom thy Son". It was but a second after the last syllable was uttered and the head of Allison, which could only be seen by a few who were fortunate enough to have a place near the wood shed door, shot out of sight,and save a heavy-like thud, nothing further occurred to indicate that the executioner had not made a clean and successful job. Dr. Bowlby, the jail surgeon, pronounced death almost instantaneous, the neck being broken, although the heart continued to beat about eight minutes after the drop. The official report was that "death resulted from compression of the spinal cord in the cemical region." The jury empanelled brought in the usual verdict, "that James Allison died from process of law." The body was placed in a plain. black coffin and buried in a deep grave in the jail yard. H. N. Waterloo County Chronicle, 10 Feb 1898, p. 8 ______________ Young Murderer Hanged \endash Berlin, Ontario, Feb. 4 \endash James Allison was hanged here for the murder of Mrs. Anthony Orr near Galt on August 9th. Allison, a dull-witted lad of 18 years employed or Mrs. Allison's farm, confessed to having killed Mrs. Orr with an axe while attending to his morning chores; and hiding the body temporarily in a corn patch until he should have an opportunity to carry it to a neighboring swamp. The motive for the murder advanced at the trial was revenge for Mrs. Orr's refusal of his improper attentions, but this Allison in his confession stoutly contradicted. The Deseret News 8 Feb 1898

  
  

• Sources

  [S336] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1881, Galt Division 2 Page 43. [S1800] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1891, Section 2 Page 143. [S57] Vit - ON - Birth Registration. Name:James Alfred Allison Gender:Male Birth Date:20 May 1880 Birth Place: South Dumfries, Brant, Ontario, Canada Father:Alexander Allison - laborer Mother:Elizabeth Hance [S4] Vit - ON - Marriage Registration. Alexander W Allison Born: Dumfries Township Age: 23 Father: Abraham Allison Mother: Sarah Allison Born: abt 1856 Spouse: Elizabeth Ann Hume Age: 23 born: England Father: John Hume Mother: Elizabeth Ann Hume married 27 Aug 1879 married: Waterloo, Freeport

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 20 May 1880 - South Dumfries Twp., Brant Co., Ontario, Canada Residence - United Brethren - 1891 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - Cause: hanged for the murder of Emma (Borland) Orr - 4 Feb 1898 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Buried - - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  = Link to Google Earth