The Forgotten Story of Regina’s First Executions
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When it comes to famous executions in Saskatchewan, you can probably name a few. Louis Riel is the most famous, perhaps you might even know about the ones in North Battleford. The Gallows Canada is a YouTube channel hosted by my great friend Warren James, who deep dives into stories of executions across Saskatchewan and Canada. Melanie Cole is another great local researcher and blogger that both Warren and I reference a lot. Both are excellent sources on these stories.
However, this story hasn't been covered by either of them. I believe Barb Pacholik and Jana G. Pruden refer to this story in their book, Paper Cows: & More Saskatchewan Crime Stories, a sequel to their famous Sour Milk: & Other Saskatchewan Crime Stories, but I haven't had a chance to read it.
With all that in mind, I will do my best to piece together this incredibly bizarre story of murder, magic, ghosts and bones.
To start, we should set the scene. Regina's first execution occurred on April 3, 1884. It was for brothers John and George Stevenson, charged with the murder of John McCarthy. The two brothers would kill McCarthy at his his residence and cabin, just outside Troy, which has since been renamed as Qu'Appelle. Because the two men were Metis, and spoke mostly Cree and French, their final confession would be translated by Father Joseph Hugonnard.
The McCarthy farm was located in SE 1/4 32-18-14, or approximately at this location.
When the trial began six months earlier, The Leader-Post reported: "The prisoner John asked in the Cree language that the meaning of the proceedings be fully explained to him before the trial proceeded. A long parley then took place between the interpreter and the prisoner John, in which the Judge participated, the effect of which appeared to be that the prisoners understood that they were to be placed on trial for murder, and that the result would rest in the hands of six men called a jury, who would render a verdict either of guilty or not guilty.
The newspaper also said that prisoner George appeared to be possessed of some "dramatic power", and had been taught from his childhood that there was a great spirit above, and that he had always had the fear of God, therefore he could not have committed the crime.
This "dramatic power" that George possessed was the ability to use playing cards to seek the guidance of spirits. Later, when speaking to Father Hugonnard privately leading up to his execution, George would say that these spirits that guided him were malicious.
On June 26, 1883, neighbours of McCarthy, George Hewston and Austin English, were driving some logs past McCarthy's place when they saw the door was open and broken. McCarthy lived in a 10x10 shanty, that was a little over five and a half feet tall. He had very little furniture, seemingly only a fireplace, a bed and a table with some wooden logs for stools. English stayed behind to take a look at McCarthy's house, and Hewston went a few miles up the road to the place of Patrick Uniack. Uniack and McCarthy had a recent argument earlier this year about grain, and Hewston suspected Uniack was responsible for breaking open McCarthy's door. However, Uniack claimed he knew nothing about it, and went back with Hewston to the McCarthy residence to help investigate.
English had been searching the grounds when he found the body of McCarthy in some bushes, wrapped up in a fur blanket. "I was the person who found the body around 9 o'clock in the morning; no one was with me at the time. Hewston [...] had gone to Uniack's in search of deceased and I went to the trail about 200 yards distant and waited for him."
When Hewston and Uniack returned, English told them that he had found the body, but Hewston would say in court later: "I did not care about looking at it as I thought it would upset me; I therefore did not see it at that time." However, English would end up taking Hewston and Uniack to the body, and they would request the examination of Dr. Charles Carthew.
The body was in a state of decomposition, and had the arms stretched over the head, and the legs straight behind him. It was believed the body was pulled there by the assailants. The side of the head was knocked in and the jaw broken.
English, Hewston and Uniack all have similar testimony to the condition of the shanty; it was a blood bath. Blood was splashed across the wooden table, on the buffalo overcoat on the bed, across the walls, and a large pool of blood was in the center of the room. Hewston said some of the bread had fallen into the blood, and that there was a piece of a candle with a bloody finger and thumb print on it. They also all agreed that several artifacts were missing: McCarthy's coat, his axe and his valise, which was a term used for a luggage bag.
The Indian Department would get involved in the investigation, and they would bring in the services of Louis Lavallee, a Metis man, and Louis Riel's brother-in-law, who was used as a Cree interpreter. Lavallee began the investigation alongside the Commissioner and first spoke with Mary Stevenson. Mary Stevenson directed Lavallee to her son, George Stevenson.
(I am not sure of the relationship between the Stevensons and Lavallee, as Lavallee said he "met the prisoners that spring", but The Leader-Post article states that the Stevensons were nephews of Lavallee.)
George Stevenson said he would help Lavallee for the price of a deck of cards and some liquor. Later reports show that Lavallee offered much more, $3 (~$100 in 2026) for reading and $50 (~$1,600 in 2026) if he could solve the crime. After getting these, Stevenson asked Lavallee to come back later that night. When Lavallee returned, Stevenson was there with five other men. Stevenson spread the cards out over the ground and said that the cards would reveal the location of the axe and the valise, and the men would go out to find them together in the morning.
From here, Stevenson recounted the man who killed John McCarthy. He showed Lavallee the Jack of Spades and said the killer looked like the card, and he would be able to identity him in a line of of one hundred men. Stevenson described the killer of having a mustache and red eyes.
He would go on to explain that on the night of the murder, John McCarthy was sitting in his cabin reading. A guest arrived, but McCarthy gave them no notice, as his back was facing the door. This guest would then swing an axe and kill McCarthy, knocking him to the floor. McCarthy would get up twice, fall twice, and ultimately get hit with the axe four or five more times. The murderer would then drag Stevenson out of the house and to the bushes, where he was found much later. The murderer would return and find McCarthy's valise, but after only finding $3 in it, threw it into a bluff.
When asked if the murder was about money, Stevenson consulted the cards and said "No; the murderer and the old man had a quarrel with each other about some business and when the murderer saw the time was near where the old man would sue him and get the better of him in Court he went ahead and murdered him."
The next day, Lavallee, Stevenson and one of his sisters left and headed towards the former McCarthy residence. When they arrived, Stevenson said "I will try and find the tracks the dead man had been taken". Within a few minutes, Stevenson called the group over to a nearby bluff. When Lavallee arrived, Stevenson said "I have found the valise, but did not touch it." Lavallee would find McCarthy's missing purse not far away, and put it in the back of their cart. Later court examination would so that there as no money in the valise, just as Stevenson said.
Stevenson would then say: "We will not be able to find the axe in this bluff; I told you last night the axe would be in a different bluff; let us look and see if we cannot track up this person." Shortly after, Stevenson would find the trail -- even though Lavellee saw nothing, no footprints or otherwise. "Follow me a little distance; don't come too close to me" Stevenson said, and Lavellee followed.
Stevenson would say later in a testimony that he was actually following a third individual at this time. According to Stevenson, this third person was a shadowy figure, floating above the ground, and leading them from artifact to artifact. Perhaps Stevenson thought Lavelle would be a distraction and he would lost his concentration on the spirit if he got too close.
Two bluffs later, Stevenson would find a tree and tell Lavelle the axe would be found there. Lavelle looked and found it, placing it in the cart and headed back into town.
Once they got back to Troy and the evidence was secured, Lavelle would have several conversations with Stevenson, including one when Hewston was present. Lavelle translated Stevenson's story to Hewston, and Hewston wrote it down in English. Once complete, Lavelle would place George and his brother Adam Stevenson under arrest for the murder of John McCarthy.
One of the justifications for the arrest was because of Corporal Edward W. Much of the Northwest Mountain Police. Corporal Much would find a suspicious coat on display at Maddison's store in Fort Qu'Appelle and bring it to Troy, and give it to David Hewston, possibly in relation to George Hewston who had found the body. Several witnesses said the coat looked like the missing coat of John McCarthy, but some were not confident on this. If David and George Hewston were related, this would be why Hewston was assisting Lavelle with the investigation, as he had evidence that the Stevenson's did not know about.
Two Metis men were then brought as witnesses to identify the coat. Mw Fox ("a handsome half-breed") and Joe Jett ("very intelligent and appeared to be able to compute time") both said they saw a black coat that belonged to the Stevenson brothers the day after the murder. Adam Stevenson, brother of George and John, wasn't able to say when or how George got the jacket, but thought it had been about a week and a half prior. However, no ties could be made between Adam and the coat, and he was ultimately released.
Mary Stevenson, mother of George, John, and Adam said she recognized the coat, as George brought it to her to trim after getting it from his brother John. However, she "does not want to tell any falsehood and hopes that God will help her tell the truth". John, in turn, said he got the coat from a man who he had met on the road. The man wanted to sell John the whole suit, but John only had $10 so he just bought the coat.
After the arrest of George and Adam, their dad approached John about the coat. John said he was confident everything would be okay, as there was nothing wrong the with coat he had bought. However, after Adam's release, John would be arrested too. The cause for this was the blood stains found on his clothing. John claimed these blood marks were from a sore on his body, but John C. Holmes, a surgeon for the NWMP in Regina, said the amount of blood on the clothes could not have come from a sore. Mrs. Stevenson said she and her daughter had washed the bloody pants of John Stevenson, twice, but this only aroused suspicion they normally only washed clothes "once every five years", according to The Leader-Post.
The evidence against the Stevenson brothers was circumstantial at best: a coat that looked like that of John McCarthy's, but was said to purchased off an unknown traveller, suspicious blood stains on a pair of pants that supposedly came from an unremarkable source, and George Stevenson's ability to find the evidence of the crime while being aided by spirits. However, on October 11, 1882, the jury's decision was simple: guilty, and the Stevenson brothers were sentenced to hang one month later on November 28.
However, that was not the day they finally met their fate. Instead, that would happen many months later.
Following the conviction, John and George both claimed to be innocent, but George said he knew who the killer actually was: a white man named Jack Smart. This claim caused a respite in the execution until November 14, 1884. If what George said was true, it would match John's description of the man who he had bought the coat from on the road.
By November 14th, however, no such man fitting the description could be found, so a new date of December 14th was chosen, and then March 14th was chosen after that. However, on March 6th, George was once again respired, as the search for Jack Smart continued. On March 3rd, John was also respired, pushing the day back another two weeks to March 28th.
On March 20th, 1884, the execution was once again delayed, this time until April 3rd. The Winnipeg Times reported the reason as saying "Indians Prepare to Raid Town if Hanging Takes Place" and claims that a "large number of redskins are hovering around town". The Morning Leader wrote a piece that dismissed these claims, saying "None of us were aware of this impending danger until the [Winnipeg] Times reporter one way or another discovered" the rumour. They continued that it would be best that the reporter does not come back to Regina on April 3rd for "fear that his evil prediction should be fulfilled as it would be a pity if such a prodigy should be scalped."
The Morning Leader however said the real reason for the delay was because these two men were "half-breeds", the police and court system wanted to make sure enough investigation was done due the claims of a different potential killer.
On the day of their execution, the two men believed until the end that they might still be found innocent. However, according to The Leader, after seeing their caskets, they confessed to the crimes. Their final testimony explained what happened that fateful day.
George and John Stevenson had broken into the McCarthy house around noon. George said "he had not expected the door to burst open so easily", as all he had done was punch the door. Once inside, they took some tobacco and ate some bread and pork. They returned around six in the evening to find McCarthy, and told him that they had broken the lock, but had no evil intent. John McCarthy grew angry with them, threatening to call the police. When John Stevenson removed his coat, John McCarthy saw that as a threat and lunged at them. George said to his brother "I have a notion to hit him with my axe", in which John replied "If you don't, I will".
George swung twice, hitting John Stevenson both times across the head, nearly killing him. John then took the axe from his younger brother, told George to go outside, and he finished the job. The two brothers then dragged McCarthy out of the house and to some bushes. They returned to the house, and John took the valise and some money, and George took the axe. Inside the valise, John would find a black coat, and keep it, along with $4. The two brothers split the money, and threw the valise and axe into two separate bluffs before heading home.
The next day, John Stevenson would go to Fort Qu'Appelle with the coat. When it was discovered the coat was a piece of evidence, John was approached by a white man named Jack Smart (or Jack Thompsom), who said the coat might get them into trouble. He then wrote up a fake receipt to show they had bought the jacket from him instead. John does not believe Jack knew they were the murderers, just that the coat looked similar to the missing coat of McCarthy.
Father Hugonnard, who visited the two men nearly a dozen times, also shared a bit more about the crime. He claimed that George told him that the supernatural situation began around five years prior. George claimed he had made a contract with an evil spirit while visiting Pelly, Saskatchewan, and it was through this evil spirit that he was able to read the cards. This was the same evil spirit he followed while leading Lavelle through the crime scene. George claimed that a third man was part of the murder too, and that's when he mentioned Jack Smart. However, George had also previously identified Joe Jett -- who had been deemed innocent. Because of Jett's innocence, any beliefs to George's claims were cast in doubt.
During John's final confession to Father Hugonnard, he also mentioned an encounter with Jack Smart. Smart told the Stevensons to kill whoever was going to arrest them, and pay somebody else to take the blame. However, one hour before the execution, John asked Hugonnard to remove that from his confession, saying it was a fabrication.
In John's confession letter he stated: "I am about to quit this world to appear before another tribunal where I hope I shall be judged favorably. No one else but my brother and myself is guilty of this crime, therefor look for no accomplices. Adieu."
Father Hugonnard stayed with them that night, and walked them to the gallows on April 3rd. He prayed with them, and was responsible for putting the ropes around their necks. George and John both made statements that they were the sole parties responsible, and acted alone. George's final words, whispered to Father Hugonnard were: "Put it tight, don't fear.". They fell together at 8 o'clock a.m. Their bodies were sent to Troy and then to Fort Qu'Appelle for burial.
I had some trouble finding the final resting place of George and John Stevenson. The oldest cemeteries in Fort Qu'Appelle were established in 1890, several years after the execution. However, there is one spot in Fort Qu'Appelle that would make for a good possibility. Squeezed between the RCMP detachment to the north and the Saskatchewan Provincial Court along Segwun Ave is the Memorial Cemetery. This cemetery contains no headstones, and I have not been able to find a record of those buried there. However, it was used as the final resting place for Cree, Saulteaux, and Assiniboine First Nations during the Treaty 4 negotiations between 1874 - 1890. If the Stevenson brothers were buried here during that time, it would have been forgotten to time had an excavator not pulled a skeleton from the ground in May of 1985.
Eight skeletons were extracted from the cemetery in May of 1985, and twenty additional bodies were discovered. The land was originally used by an Anglican Church Missionary Society, and the cemetery was created by Charles Pratt, a catechist who was preparing the locals Indigenous people for the arrival of an ordained minister. Although the area was used by the Anglican Church, some of the caskets had square-shaped nails and medallions of St. Joseph, signs of it being a Metis or Catholic grave. Dr Ernest Walker said at the time that it was common for Indigenous people to be baptized by both churches. Dr. Walker only examined the eight skeletons removed, determining their possible ages and genders, and cataloging their possessions. Some were 50-year-old men, some were young men, some were expecting mothers, and one was buried on their side, instead of one their back. Some had guns buried with them, knives, forks, and arrowheads. However, D. Walker made no mention of any skeleton with a broken neck -- something he would have seen had he found the graves of the Stevensons.
A memorial was erected in honour of these graves, and is owned by The Touchwood, File Hills, Qu'Appelle District Chiefs. A park was created over where the bodies were found, and a courthouse was built south of. Today the land is a shared state between the T.F.H.Q. D.C.C. and the province, with a 99-year agreement that is renewed every 11 years.
For now, and possibly forever, this is where the forgotten story of Regina's first executions ends. The gallows where the Stevenson brothers were executed was torn down, the house where McCarthy was killed is long gone, and even the graves themselves were forgotten for nearly a century. Nothing is left to mark this chapter in our city's history, unless you know where to dig.
References:
The Leader-Post: "The Murder of John McCarthy / The Half-Breeds John and George Stevenson on Trial" Oct 4, 1883
The Leader-Post: "The Murder of John McCarthy / Conclusion of the Trial of John and George Stevenson for Murder" October 11, 1883
The Leader-Post: "The Qu'Appelle Muder / Reprieve of George Stevenson" March 6, 1884
The Leader-Post: "The Execution of John Stevenson Postponed" March 13, 1884
The Leader-Post: "Execution of John and George Stevenson / At the Police Barracks in Regina, for the Murder of John McCarthy Near Troy / On the Fourteenth Day of June Last / Prisoners Make a Full Confession of Their Guilt" April 10, 1884
The Leader-Post: "Bizarre pile of bones found at worksite" May 23, 1985
The Leader-Post: "Sacred grounds and politics" November 30, 1985
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Categories: Canada, History, Regina, Saskatchewan
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