On October 3, 1890, Raleigh County carried out the only hanging in its history. William I Martin, sometimes recorded as W J Martin, was executed for the murder of his wife. Close to three thousand people gathered to watch, crowding into what is now the intersection of Robert C Byrd Drive and Piney Avenue in Beckley. Sheriff W T Shumate oversaw the hanging, and the scaffold itself was built by his deputy, Otis A Tench, a detail passed down through local historian Catherine Chilewski. It was a gri