State electrician
The state electrician was a title given to some early 20th‑century American executioners who operated the electric chair. In New York, the job was done by trained electricians, not untrained sheriffs who had carried out hangings before electrocution began there.
Edwin Davis was New York’s first state electrician. He carried out the world’s first electric chair execution, William Kemmler, and the first legal female electrocution, Martha Place. Davis held patents related to the chair and trained two successors, Robert G. Elliott and John Hulbert, who assisted during executions. In New York, these electricians were not full‑time workers; they were hired for each set of executions.
Because Sing Sing prison housed the death row and the execution chamber, the warden would notify the state electrician about an execution about a week in advance. The electrician would report a few hours before the execution to test the equipment and would typically place the head electrode while guards adjusted restraints and the leg electrode was placed on the prisoner’s calf.
Robert G. Elliott, who carried out nearly 400 executions in six states, including New York, developed an electrocution method known as the “Elliott method,” which was used by his successors at Sing Sing. After each execution, the state electrician filled out a form with the prisoner’s name and number, the times of entry and exit from the chamber, and the amperage used. Some of these reports still exist, and one was published in a book about Sing Sing’s death house. (The brackets indicate the time period when each known state electrician was active.)
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:16 (CET).