Whipping posts, stocks, and pillories were used in the sentences imposed by the early courts of Pennsylvania around the time of the American Revolution. In the Susquehanna Valley, the first courts in Northumberland County were located in Sunbury.    

Northumberland County covered a large area in Pennsylvania when it was formed from five others in 1772. Accused criminals from throughout the Susquehanna Valley were tried in Sunbury, and if found guilty, punishment was meted out.

The whipping post which stood in Sunbury’s middle square at the corner of Center and Market Streets was described as “a stout piece of timber firmly planted in the ground with a horizontal cross-piece across the head; to this the hands of the defendant were tied, while the sheriff administered the lashes on his bare back. The pillory was erected under a walnut tree on the riverbank at Sunbury and consisted of an upright frame with openings through which the head and hands of the offender protruded and the low platform upon which he stood.

“Custom and also custom law permitted each passerby to throw one stone at the culprit's head. In the stocks, the offender sat upon a platform with his hands and feet protruding through the framework.” No regular facilities of this nature having been provided, the stocks were improvised by throwing the legs of the offender through the rails of a fence near the MacClay House.

A Philadelphia newspaper and others across the Commonwealth carried a story in the late 1890s describing the punishment imposed on an incorrigible criminal named Joe Disberry. It was also published some years later in the Lewisburg Journal in September of 1917. Be forewarned, details of Joe’s punishment are gruesome.

“About the close of the Revolutionary War, a notorious character named Joe Disberry lived about Selinsgrove and Sunbury, on the Susquehanna. Whence he came is unknown, but he is supposed to have been of Connecticut origin. He is reputed to have been possessed of great physical strength and powers of endurance, could excel in running and jumping, and in thieving and lying, had no equal along the river. He was of a humorous disposition also, and frequently indulged in amusing pranks while plying his vocation.

"It is related of him that on more than one occasion he was known to slyly enter the kitchen of a family when all were in bed, start up the fire, and cook himself a meal and leisurely eat it. If discovered, he relied on his swiftness of foot to escape. Finally, his thefts became so numerous that the whole neighborhood arose against him, and he was arrested and confined in the rude jail at Sunbury. But as it was not very secure, he escaped, and Sheriff Antes offered a reward for his apprehension. Joe took refuge on the "Isle of Que,' and concealed himself in a dense thicket.

"He might have eluded pursuit but for his inordinate love for perpetrating jokes. When lying in his place of concealment near the road which crossed the island, Joe heard the footsteps of a horse, and shyly peeping from his covert, discovered the Sheriff's wife approaching on horseback on her way to Selinsgrove. Quickly stepping onto the road, he pulled off his hat, made a polite bow, and quickly disappeared into the bushes. The astonished lady, who knew him, hurried on to Selinsgrove and gave the alarm.

"A party headed by George Kreamer (afterwards a member of Congress) was hurriedly made up and went in pursuit of the refugee. He was captured and returned to the custody of Sheriff Antes at the jail in Sunbury. He was tried and convicted, and his sentence is one of the strangest found in the annals of criminal history in Pennsylvania.”

Poor Disberry received thirty-nine lashes from the Sheriff, stood in the pillory for one hour, and had his ears cut off, which were nailed to the post. He was also required to return the stolen goods, was imprisoned for three months in Northumberland County's jail, and ordered to pay a fine of thirty pounds.

But Joe’s propensity for a life of crime continued after his release. In August of 1798, a judge imposed a combined sentence of twenty-one years in the state penitentiary in Philadelphia for burglarizing several homes in Northumberland County. That sentence included two years in solitary confinement.

After being released from the Penitentiary in 1819, the Philadelphia paper that carried the 1897 story reported: “He returned to his old haunts about Sunbury and Selinsgrove, an old man, but as merry as ever. His long and frequent punishments failed to make an honest man of him, and he continued to pilfer wherever an opportunity offered. The date of his death is unknown, but it is said that he went one night to a mill in Union County to steal flour, and falling through a hatchway, sustained injuries which finally killed him.”

An article published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2008, entitled Criminal Sentencing in Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania, offered this description of Philadelphia courtrooms in that period.

“Historians describe nineteenth-century criminal courtrooms that little resemble the popular modern image. Philadelphia courtrooms were described as almost circus-like. Court day was a popular form of lower-class entertainment as people crowded into small courtrooms to jeer and cheer the procession of vagrants, drunks, prostitutes, and more dangerous felons brought before the court. Certain groups, such as blacks or Irish immigrants, sometimes attended in unusually large numbers when one of their own appeared. Some came to witness the drama, others came to offer support or to influence the outcome. Not only were the courtrooms crowded and unruly, but judges also conducted business at a pace that would astonish the modern observer. Defendants were shuttled in and out. Pleading and testifying were minimal. Most cases, even those involving serious felonies, lasted a few minutes.”

Lewisburg Journal, September 14, 1917, Page 06; Berwick Enterprise, June 26, 1936, Page 14; NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH: CRIMINAL SENTENCING IN NINETEENTH CENTURY PENNSYLVANIA, Howard Bodenhorn, Working Paper 14283 http://www.nber.org/papers/w14283; Photo Credit: Pearson Scott Foresman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons