Author Craig Brandon recounts Smith’s unfortunate interaction with this newfangled thing called electricity in his 1999 book “The Electric Chair: An Unnatural American History.” Just after 10 p.m. on the night of August 7, 1881, a tipsy Smith decided to have a little fun at the Brush Electric Light Company. Buffalo was one of the first cities in the world to light up its night skies with high voltage arc streetlights, and the Brush plant proudly displayed a 4,800-pound generator just inside the front door of its lobby. People had found that if they held the railing around the generator and then joined hands, they could feel the electric current running through their bodies. Technicians at Brush obviously discouraged such activity, so people had to do it while they weren’t looking.

Smith snuck into the plant and tried to have a little fun, but was run off at first. He managed to make it back in and place a hand on the generator. He didn’t feel anything. Then he put his other hand on it and his body went rigid. Technicians tried to pull him off the generator, but his hands were stuck to it. They had to turn it off before they could pull him free. Dr. Southwick got the idea of execution by electricity when he heard the coroner state that Smith had died painlessly, and the United States has executed over 4,000 people using the electric chair since.