Enslaved, hanged twice: The horrifying treatment of Rockbridge County man Isaac Chaney

When the executioner sprung the trap on the third-floor gallows at Libby Prison in Richmond on July 16, 1866, the brand-new rope snapped.

The condemned prisoner tumbled 14 feet down to the second floor.

Hooded, with his hands bound, Isaac Chaney, sat up, stunned but seemingly unhurt from the fall. He struggled to his feet, exclaiming “I [didn’t] mind the hanging, but I didn’t like being choked in that way.”

Chaney was born a free Black man in Xenia County, Ohio, in 1834, and spent his early years as a boatman on the Ohio River.

Read more: https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/local/history/2021/04/07/free-enslaved-hanged-twice-sad-story-rockbridges-isaac-chaney/7134864002/
(Staunton News Leader)