Article taken from the The Courier, Savannah, Tennessee, Thursday, November 3, 1983

”Justice Was Swift in '20s Brutal Murder”

     In 1920, three Hardin County men were electrocuted for the murder of a well-liked county merchant. A third man connected with the murder was sentenced to life imprisonment in the state penitentiary. As far as a county official can remember, these have been the only persons from this county to be executed by electrocution and the only one to be put to death before this time was a Mrs. Hughes, who was hanged on a gallows by the riverbank for the hideous murder of her husband. 

     The killing of Harry Allen, a store owner in the Hooker's Bend community, brought about great excitement and disturbance in the neighborhood, and the three adults and two juveniles involved were quickly brought to justice, court records show. Chesley Graham and Will Allen were electrocuted in Nashville on July 9, 1920. George Allen was imprisoned for the rest of his life. The juveniles were found not guilty after they testified for the prosecution. However, many of the county people felt that the "brains" behind the scheme to rob and murder Harry Allen was never punished.   

     On the morning of April 22, 1920, Harry Allen, a prominent county merchant in Hooker's Bend, was found dead in his store. Authorities said his skull had been crushed like an egg shell, and there was money scattered around on the floor. Allen had been counting eggs, preparing a shipment. His body was found in the early morning hours; crouched on the floor of the store, between two counters and by an egg case. His head was on the blood stained egg case. Allen lived with his wife and several small children near the store. He usually made deposits in the bank at the town of Saltillo two or three times a week, but the backwaters had been up for some time before the killing and he had not made a deposit for several weeks. Allen had kept his money at his store, a fatal mistake.

     According to records, on the night of April 21, 1920 Allen went to his home, ate supper, played with his baby, then informed his wife that he had to go back to the store to crate eggs to be ready for the peddler early the next morning. Allen lighted his lantern and went to his store. Later in the night, Allen's wife, who had fallen asleep, awoke with a feeling that something was wrong and went part of the way from her residence to the store. She heard a noise and concluded that her husband was still engaged in crating eggs and returned to her home. In a short time she went to her front door and heard someone walking in the store. Assuming that her husband was finishing up his work and was about to return to the house she retired and awoke about daylight the next morning to find her husband still absent from the house.

     She ran to the store where she discovered the deceased's body in a kneeling position with his hand in one end of a partially filled egg crate. When she turned him over, she found his "head completely mashed and his face bloody." In her testimony, she said she knew he had been dead some time. Three doctors who were called testified that the deceased's skull was "crushed like an egg shell."

     The men accused of the murder were arrested the next day.

     The killing of Harry Allen brought about great excitement in the county, and five persons involved were quickly brought to trial, their sentences pronounced, their punishment carried out.

     In fact, they were arrested the next day, April 23, indicted April 27, and their trial began April 30, nine days after the killing. Two of the men-Chesley Graham and Will Allen-were electrocuted at the Nashville State Penitentiary on July 9, 1920.

     The state militia was called in to protect the prisoners, as general chaos broke out after the killing was discovered. During the trial, everyone who went into the courthouse was searched for weapons.

     Bloodhounds had been called in to search for the killers and the weapon. Officers approached one man they thought might be involved, and he ran from them and was shot. He was not badly injured, and it was discovered that he had no part in the killing of Allen, but just "got scared" when the officers started toward him.

     Chesley Graham was a farm hand for Abe Blankenship. He worked for the farmer and lived upstairs in the barn.

     Miss Josephine Bain, retired Savannah schoolteacher, was just a little girl, living in Hooker's Bend when the murder took place. In fact, the men had taken a sledge hammer, the murder weapon, from her uncle Sam Watson's barn.

     "In fact," said Miss Bain, "one of the men probably wore Uncle Sam's boots when he did the killing. He took them off Uncle Sam's porch, then after he wore them, put them back on the porch because the blood hounds used in the investigation came straight to those boots." She said that the stolen money was found buried in a corner of her uncle's hog lot. "All of us children always thought a lot of Ches (Chesley Graham)."

     Miss Bain lived with her parents, the Jim Bains', in a house about a half a mile from the store where Allen was killed. There were two other houses in that area, the Abe Blankenship house and the Sam Watson house, all less than a half a mile from the store. Miss Bain said that for years after the murder, she was frightened of the dark. "I could always envision men coming in and killing me," she said.