On Valentine’s Day of 1863, George Lindenmuth of Germantown traveled to Dayton to sell his tobacco crop. Sadly, his return to town would be for internment in Germantown Union Cemetery.

And his drinking companion would dance on the scaffold before becoming the third person hanged in Montgomery County.

A Night Out

Lindenmuth (sometimes called Lindemuth in accounts) was a 53-year-old farmer who, according to the Daily Empire newspaper out of Eaton and research on Ancestry.com was unmarried. Some news accounts said he met up with acquaintances and planned to head to the theater, and got lost. Other accounts say he was too intoxicated and was left behind by his friends.

By all accounts, he was seen drinking in Jacob Altherr’s saloon on South Jefferson Street with John Dobbins, a Civil War Army deserter from West Virginia. Lindenmuth, who had around $50 in earnings and a nice watch, was last seen, highly intoxicated, leaving the bar with Dobbins.

Around 11pm Dobbins showed up alone at Thomas Wise’s barbershop on Market Street in Dayton for a shave. The barber noticed his pants were muddy and bloody.

At 7am the next morning, Lindenmuth’s body was found on the riverbank near Monument Avenue with his throat cut. Dobbins, who had traveled to Cincinnati, was quickly apprehended and brought back to stand trial.

Family

George Lindenmuth was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania in November 1810. His parents, Jonathan and Susana (Emrick), had seven sons and two daughters, Jacob, John, Michael, George, Daniel, Joseph, Thomas, Susan and Catherine. It’s unclear when they settled in Germantown, but the family and George’s maternal grandparents, Michael and Christina Emrick, are buried at Germantown Union Cemetery.

Lindenmuth’s probate records show his estate was charged $25.15 to transport his body back to Germantown. The executor of his estate was his brother Jacob Lindenmuth.

Justice Served

In an era where news traveled by telegraph, Lindenmuth’s murder became statewide news, covered in newspapers from Portsmouth to Sandusky.

After being found guilty, Dobbins was scheduled to be executed on April 15, 1864. His hanging was the third in Dayton history. Dobbins gave a speech on the gallows detailing his crime, and, obviously intoxicated, he also “attempted a hoe-down step” while the Sheriff was preparing the scaffold.

Dobbins had sold his body for $30 to Dr. Albertus Geiger for dissecting purposes and had apparently been paid in liquor.

After dissection, where Dobbins was described as “one of the finest built men they had ever seen,” he was buried “without ceremony” in a pauper’s grave in Dayton.

Dayton executed five men, 1825-1877, with additional men hung at the state penitentiary in later years. According to the Dayton Daily News, officials in Dayton stored the gallows beneath the County Jail, and they were later discovered in 1955.

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