The First Execution by Electric Chair William Kemmler was killed on August 6th, 1890 The electric chair was invented by employees at Thomas Alva Edison's works at West Orange, New Jersey in the late 1880s. The inventor's involvement has embarrassed many of his biographers and an entry for 'electric chair' in their indexes is a rarity. Edison wanted to see capital punishment abolished altogether in the US, but meantime he thought electrocution would be quicker and less painful than hanging. A commission organised by the governor of New York State agreed with him and it was the Edison chair that was used in 1890 to end the life of a street pedlar called William Kemmler, a German-American who had killed the woman he lived with in a drunken rage. The death sentence was carried out at Auburn Prison in New York State. Awakened at five o'clock in the morning in his cell, Kemmler dressed neatly in a suit, white shirt and tie. He ate breakfast and said prayers ...