Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian anarchists convicted of the 1920 South Braintree payroll murders after a trial now widely judged unfair, were executed in the electric chair of the Charlestown State Prison death house just after midnight on 23 August 1927. Celestino Madeiros, a condemned prisoner who had confessed to taking part in the crime and said that neither man was there, went first: he entered the chamber at 12.02 and was dead by 12.09. Sacco followed at 12.11, crying "Viva l'anarchia" as he sat, then "Farewell, my wife and child and all my friends", and was pronounced dead at 12.19. Vanzetti entered at 12.20, declared his innocence, said he wished to forgive some people for what they were doing to him, and was dead at 12.26. Several hundred police guarded the prison that night, and its walls were lined with machine guns and searchlights. An Associated Press reporter, the sole press witness, telephoned each death from the death house to the prison switchboard, from where it was telegraphed to reporters waiting in the prison recreation hall. The prison closed in November 1955, and Bunker Hill Community College occupies its site.
Getting there
42.3749, -71.0690
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
