Putnam County's Only Public Execution

Joseph and George Brassell were hanged after nearly two years of legal continuances. One retelling says the brothers and two companions, drinking whiskey from the Brassells' own still, set out to rob a lodging where they believed a tax collector was staying. He was not there. Russell Allison was shot and died the next day, and when the Allison family's posse reached the Brassell home, his brother was shot too. The case stayed notorious in the Upper Cumberland, and a family-history site now gathers testimony from the trial.

What the plaque says

Putnam County's Only Public Execution On March 27, 1878, in gallows erected near here at the foot of Billygoat Hill, Joseph and George (Teek) Brassell were hanged in Putnam County's only publicly held execution. The justice system tried, convicted, and sentenced the brothers to death for the slaying of brothers Russell and John Allison during a robbery attempt on November 29, 1875. News of the event made national headlines. Two days after the hangings, The New York Times reported that 10,000 people came to the execution.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cookeville Depot Museum — 0.4 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Cummins Falls State Park — 7.3 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 9.4 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.
• Standing Stone State Park — 22 mi
  A New Deal park on Mill Creek named for a vanished stone that Native peoples revered and railroad builders blasted, with a lake, 1930s cabins and a marbles championship.

More markers nearby

• Town Spring — 0.5 mi
• Israel Putnam 1717 - 1790 — 0.5 mi
• Capshaw School — 0.7 mi
• Darwin School — 0.9 mi