From the October 7, 1907 New York Times:

“Trenton–With the completion of the death house at the State prison here, and the going effect of the State law abolishing hanging and substituting electrocution, will pass the Jersey hangman, who is James Van Hise of Newark. Van Hise, as State hangman, always offers his services whenever a man is to be hanged, and does his work in a matter-of-fact way.

There are only two men in Jersey to be hanged, if they do not succeed in getting pardons. John B. Schuyler, convicted of killing Manning Reilly at Califon, Hunterdon County, and Fredrick Lang, who killed his niece. Lang lives in Middlesex County, and that county will be the last to employ Van Hise, the aged hangman.

When the bill changing the method of execution to that by electricity was passing, Van Hise appeared in the State House and lobbied hard against the bill, urging that death by the rope, and the way he put the noose about the victim’s neck so that it would surely break the neck, was the most humane method of execution.

Van Hise is 71 years old, and his trade almost all his life has been that of a hangman. The State allows a Sheriff $500 for performing an execution. Few Sheriffs have done the work themselves, but have hired Van Hise, giving him the whole $500 or half of it. When there were two or three men on hand to be executed at the same time, Van Hise gave bargain rates.”