(PHOTOGRAPHY.) Condemned murderer Alfred Mayhew in the electric chair at Sing Sing. Silver...

(PHOTOGRAPHY.) Condemned murderer Alfred Mayhew in the electric chair at Sing Sing. Silver print, 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, on plain mount; minor wear. [Sing Sing, NY, 1897]

The doomed man was Alfred Mayhew, executed at Sing Sing on 12 March 1897 for clubbing a Manhattan shopkeeper to death. Sing Sing was the first prison to use the electric chair for execution, starting in 1889; Mayhew was their 20th customer. The photograph was published in James S. Metcalfe, "Death by Electrocution," in Royal Magazine, December 1898, page 155.