<P> William Kemmler was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . Both of his parents were immigrants from Germany and both of them were alcoholics . After dropping out of school at age 10, having learned neither how to read nor write, Kemmler worked in his father's butcher shop . His father died from an infection that he received after a drunken brawl and his mother died from complications of alcoholism . After his parents died, he went into the peddling business and earned enough money to buy a horse and cart, although at this point he was becoming a heavy drinker . In one episode involving him and his friends after a series of drunken binges, he said he could jump his horse and cart over an eight - foot fence with the cart attached to the horse . The attempt was a failure, and his cart and goods destroyed in the incident . He was known to friends as "Philadelphia Billy" due to his drinking binges that were very well known around the saloons in his Buffalo neighborhood . Kemmler was reportedly slender, with dark brown hair . He spoke both English and German . </P> <P> Kemmler was accused of the March 29, 1889 murder of Matilda "Tillie" Ziegler, his common - law wife, who had been killed with a hatchet . He was tried and convicted of murder on May 10, 1889 . On May 13 he was sentenced to death . As of January first of that year New York had instituted death by electrocution, the first such law ever . Kemmler's sentence was to be carried out at New York's Auburn Prison via the new electric chair, a device invented in 1881 by Buffalo, New York dentist Alfred Southwick which, after nine years of development and legislation, was ready for use . Kemmler's lawyers appealed, arguing that electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment . </P> <P> The attempt to carry out Kemmler's execution was pulled into the AC / DC war of currents between George Westinghouse, the largest supplier of alternating current equipment, and Thomas Edison, whose company ran their equipment on direct current . The alternating current that powered the electric chair (a current standard adopted by a committee after a demonstration performed at Edison's laboratory by anti-AC activist Harold P. Brown showing AC's lethality) was supplied by a Westinghouse generator surreptitiously acquired by Brown . This led to Westinghouse trying to stop what seemed to be Brown and Edison's attempt to try to portray the AC used in Westinghouse electrical system as the deadly "executioners current", actively supporting Kemmler's appeal by hiring lawyer W. Bourke Cockran to represent him . However, the appeal failed on October 9, 1889 and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the case on the grounds that there was no cruel and unusual punishment in death by electrocution . </P> <P> On the morning of his execution, August 6, 1890, Kemmler was awakened at 5: 00 a.m. He dressed quickly and put on a suit, necktie, and white shirt . After breakfast and some prayer, the top of his head was shaved . At 6: 38 a.m., Kemmler entered the execution room and Warden Charles Durston presented Kemmler to the 17 witnesses in attendance . Kemmler looked at the chair and said: "Gentlemen, I wish you all good luck . I believe I am going to a good place, and I am ready to go ." </P>

Who was the first person to be executed by the death penalty