Delaware is notorious for being the last state in the union to use the whipping post as corporal punishment for crimes. Between 1900 and 1942, over 1600 prisoners were whipped with a cat-o'-nine-tails, 22% of the total prison population. William Frank was a journalist who worked for the Morning News in Wilmington beginning in 1923, earning $18.50 a week plus expenses. One of his assignments was to cover whippings and hangings

Frank may have gotten used to seeing whippings, but he was anxious about witnessing his first hanging in Georgetown in 1928. "I remember we were getting drunk because we didn't know how we were going to take it the next day," he recalled. "Then the fellow hanged and they let us take pictures of him. I didn't take pictures of him…dangling." When the hanging was over, the sheriff cut up the rope and gave it away as souvenirs to the jury and the reporters. The noose, he kept to give to his Boy Scout son.

The whipping post was last used in 1952 for a breaking and entering case, and was not officially cast aside until 1972. Between 1902 and 1946, 25 people including three women were hanged in Delaware. Hanging is still legal in Delaware-although lethal injection is now the default method-and was last carried out in 1996, the first hanging in 50 years.