Strang Shooting Whipple.

 

1n 1827, Elsie Lansing lived with her husband John, in Cherry Hill, the stately mansion overlooking the Hudson River near Albany, New York. Jesse Strang was a servant living in the basement. When Elsie and Jesse fell in love, their torrid affair led to the murder of John Whipple.

Read the full story here: Albany Gothic.

Murder of Col. Sharp.

Jereboam Beauchamp stabbed Col. Solomon Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke Beauchamp. The story of the murder—known from the start as The Kentucky Tragedy—was viewed by the Beauchamps as one of love, treachery, vengeance, and tragic heroism; all the elements of the romantic novels they both so dearly loved. But in reality, Jereboam and Anna were enacting another familiar American narrative: two troubled misfits lashing out at a world they both disdained.

Read the full story here: The Kentucky Tragedy.

Illustration from:

Confessions, trials & biographical sketches of the most cold blooded murderers, who have been executed in this country from its first settlement ... compiled entirely from the most authentic sources; containing also, accounts of various other daring outrages committed in this & other countries .. (1837). Boston: Thomson.

Michael M’Garvey.

The evening of November 21, 1828, Michael M’Garvey violently chastised his wife, Margaret, in the room, they occupied on the top floor of a house at the corner of Pine and Ball Alleys, between Third and Fourth Streets, and between South and Shippen Streets in Philadelphia. He tied her by the hair to a bedpost and began beating her, unmercifully with a whip, continuing at intervals for the next hour and a half. When she passed out, he attempted to throw her out the window but pulled her back in when someone outside saw him and cried out.

The Murderous 1820s.

The 1820s were indeed murderous with most of the country still frontier and the forces of justice barely able to contend with a violent population. The stories of these murders have survived nearly 200 years through murder pamphlets published at the time but the facts they contain cannot always be trusted. The incidents are often exaggerated and where more than one pamphlet was written for a murder, they seldom agree on names and events and can even take opposing views on the guilt of the accused. In some cases, such as the murder of William Morgan, what really happened is the subject of heated debate to this day. In spite of—or maybe because of—the uncertainty of their facts, the stories of murder from the 1820s still resonate.

	The Notorious Patty Cannon. -1820 Patty Cannon was, by all accounts, among the most barbarous and amoral women in American history. In antebellum Delaware, Patty Cannon led a gang who kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery further south. She would indiscriminately murder any man, woman or child—including her own husband and baby— who stood in her way. An1841 murder pamphlet sums it up, “And we can truly say, that we have never seen recorded, a greater instance of moral depravity, so perfectly regardless of every feeling, which should inhabit the human breast.”
	The Indiana Hero -1820 In 1819, when the State of Indiana was still frontier country, Amasa Fuller, a prominent and popular citizen of Lawrenceburg, was courting a young lady of that town. While Fuller was away on business, the young lady’s heart was stolen by a younger man, named Palmer Warren. Fuller returned to find that his true love had agreed to marry her new suitor. When Warren refused to fight a duel with Fuller, Fuller shot him in cold blood. But Amasa Fuller was so popular in Lawrenceburg that, when a ballad was written about the murder, the young lady was cast as the villain, and Fuller was “The Indiana Hero.”
	The Thayer Brothers -1824 The year 1825 was a momentous one for Buffalo, New York. The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River, a celebration honoring the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution was held in Buffalo, and the city held its first and only public hanging. At least 20,000 witnesses gathered in Niagara Square to watch thee brothers—Nelson, Israel, and Isaac Thayer—hang from the same gallows.
	The Kentucky Tragedy -1825 Jereboam Beauchamp stabbed Col. Solomon Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke Beauchamp. The story of the murder—known from the start as the Kentucky Tragedy—was viewed by the Beauchamps as one of love, treachery, vengeance, and tragic heroism; all the elements of the romantic novels they both so dearly loved. But in reality, Jereboam and Anna were enacting another familiar American narrative: two troubled misfits lashing out at a world they both disdained.
	William Morgan - Revenge of the Freemasons -1826 In the summer of 1826, William Morgan of Batavia, New York, announced his intention to publish a book exposing the secrets of Freemasonry. On September 11 of that year he was abducted and never seen again. Morgan was considered a traitor by the Masons and a “Christian martyr” by their opponents. 54 Masons were indicted for his abduction and 10 were found guilty. Morgan’s disappearance led to the formation of America’s first “third party”, the Anti-Masonic Party. But was it Morgan's body that washed ashore on Lake Ontario a year later, and were the Masons responsible for his death?
`	The Sheriff's Mistress -1828 In the summer of 1827, George Swearingen was a hardworking, upstanding, young family man. He and his lovely wife, Mary, had a new baby daughter. Working as clerk and deputy to his uncle, the sheriff of Washington County, Maryland, George was being groomed to take his uncle’s job. Everything was going George Swearingen’s way; then he met Rachel Cunningham. In September the following year, George and Rachel were fugitives, running from the charge of murdering Mary Swearingen.

The Kentucky Tragedy.

Jereboam Beauchamp stabbed Col. Solomon Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke Beauchamp. The story of the murder—known from the start as the Kentucky Tragedy—was viewed by the Beauchamps as one of love, treachery, vengeance, and tragic heroism; all the elements of the romantic novels they both so dearly loved. But in reality, Jereboam and Anna were enacting another familiar American narrative: two troubled misfits lashing out at a world they both disdained.

The Notorious Patty Cannon.

Patty Cannon was, by all accounts, among the most barbarous and amoral women in American history. In antebellum Delaware, Patty Cannon led a gang who kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery further south. She would indiscriminately murder any man, woman or child—including her own husband and baby— who stood in her way. An1841 murder pamphlet sums it up, “And we can truly say, that we have never seen recorded, a greater instance of moral depravity, so perfectly regardless of every feeling, which should inhabit the human breast.”

The Indiana Hero

In 1819, when the State of Indiana was still frontier country, Amasa Fuller, a prominent and popular citizen of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was courting a young lady of that town. While Fuller was away on business, the young lady’s heart was stolen by a younger man, named Palmer Warren.  When Fuller returned to find that his true love had agreed to marry her new suitor, he challenged Palmer Warrant to a duel. Warren refused to fight so Fuller shot him in cold blood. Though guilty of murder, Amasa Fuller was so popular in Lawrenceburg that, when a ballad was written about the murder, the young lady was cast as the villain, and Fuller was “The Indiana Hero.”

The Sheriff’s Mistress

In the summer of 1827, George Swearingen was a hardworking, upstanding, young family man.  He and his lovely wife, Mary, had a new baby daughter. Working as clerk and deputy to his uncle, the sheriff of Washington County, Maryland, George was being groomed to take his uncle’s job.  Everything was going George Swearingen’s way; then he met Rachel Cunningham. In September the following year, George and Rachel were fugitives, running from the charge of murdering Mary Swearingen.

The Trial & Conviction of Richard Johnson

This one has the potential to become a big murder and I will dig deeper when time allows. But for now all I have is the front page of an 1828 murder pamphlet and a brief summary of the crime.


Uncorrected text from the pamphlet:

“A correct copy of the trial & conviction of Richard Johnson for the murder of Ursula Newman, on the 20th Nov. 1828, by shooting her with a pistol loaded with buck shot or slugs, nine of which entered her body; together with the charge of the court, and the confession of the prisoner of his entention to have added suicide to the horrid and appalling murder for which he is to suffer an ignomenious death, and his letter to a friend in Philadelphia previous to his conviction. New-York, printed and sold wholesale and retail, by Christian Brown, No. 211 Water-street, N. York”

Summary of the crime from The Annals of Murder:

“Johnson had been living with Mrs. Newman for several years. He had urged her to marry him, and, although she had had a child by him, she refused to wed him, nor would she even acknowledge that the child was his. Apparently distracted by this and business worries, Johnson shot and killed her. He was hanged on Blackwell’s (now Welfare) Island at the same time as Catherine Cashier.”

---

McDade, Thomas M.. The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders From Colonial Times to 1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

The Thayer Brothers

The year 1825 was a momentous one for Buffalo, New York. The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River, a celebration honoring the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution was held in Buffalo, and the city held its first and only public hanging. At least 20,000 witnesses gathered in Niagara Square to watch thee brothers—Nelson, Israel, and Isaac Thayer—hang from the same gallows.

The Confession of Manuel P. Garcia

In January 2011, I posted a story on the 1821 murder of Peter Lagaordette by Manual Phillip Garcia from the Torch Light and Public Advertiser, Hagerstown, Maryland. At the time I doubted that I could find any additional information, but I have since found a picture and summary of a pamphlet on the murder printed and sold in 1821. Here is the summary from The Annals of Murder by Thomas M. McDade:

In an empty house in Portsmouth, Virginia, the police found the butchered body, the head, hands and feet partially burned in the fireplace. In an early use of laundry marks, the initials “P.L.” and “M.P.G” helped identify the people involved. Lagoardette had been courting a girl in Baltimore; Castillano was himself interested in her. The three men all were criminal characters.

William Morgan - Revenge of the Freemasons

In the summer of 1826, William Morgan of Batavia, New York, announced his intention to publish a book exposing the secrets of Freemasonry. On September 11 of that year he was abducted and never seen again. Morgan was considered a traitor by the Masons and a “Christian martyr” by their opponents. 54 Masons were indicted for his abduction and 10 were found guilty. Morgan’s disappearance led to the formation of America’s first “third party”, the Anti-Masonic Party. But was it Morgan's body that washed ashore on Lake Ontario a year later, and were the Masons responsible for his death?

Date: September 1826

Location: Batavia, New York

Victim: William Morgan

Cause of Death:  Drowning

Accused:  Freemasons

Synopsis:
Nearly two centuries after his death, it is still difficult to find an impartial rendition of William Morgan’s story. In the 19th Century, several books were written and published by Masonic organizations that depicted Morgan as a drunk, a thief and generally a man of low moral character.

They denied that he ever was a Mason and that Masons had anything to do with his murder. In fact they denied that William Morgan was murdered at all. This tradition continues today on Masonic web sites. Another tradition that continues on the internet is the belief that Freemasonry has a sinister influence on all facets of world politics going far deeper and wider than their public face would suggest. To these adherents, William Morgan was a hero who died for free speech. Even the portraits of Morgan used by the two groups are different. Anti-masonic groups tend to use a portrait depicting Morgan as studious and refined (above), while the Masons prefer a portrait of Morgan as a disgruntled old man in tattered clothes (left).

We know that William Morgan was born in Culpepper, Virginia in 1774 or 1775. He married Lucinda Pendleton of Richmond, Virginia in 1819 and they had two children. Morgan claimed he was a Captain in the War of 1812, fighting with Andrew Jackson, but that has never been verified. He later moved to Little York, Ontario (now Toronto), where he opened a brewery. It was there, Morgan claimed, that he was inducted into the Freemasons. When his brewery burned down, he left Canada and moved to Rochester, New York, then to Batavia, New York. The Masons question whether he was ever a Mason in Canada, and in fact question whether he ever owned a brewery.

In New York he attended a Masonic lodge in Leroy and there became a Royal Arch Mason, though the Masons claim there is no record that he had ever received the preceding degrees. When a new chapter was proposed in Batavia, Morgan signed the petition, however before it was presented to the Grand Chapter, his name was removed and he was not allowed membership in the Batavia chapter.

This, presumably, was the event that prompted Morgan to write a book exposing the secrets of Freemasonry. He teamed up with a printer named David Cade Miller, and two other men, John Davids and Russel Dyer, to publish the book. In the summer of 1826 Morgan published an advertisement saying that a book would soon be available revealing the secrets of the Masons for a dollar a copy.

Soon after, there were mysterious fires at Miller’s print shop. It was alleged that the fires were set by freemasons, though they accused Miller of starting the fires himself as advertisement for the upcoming book. On September 11, 1826, William Morgan was arrested for stealing a shirt and tie, and taken to a jail in Canandaigua, NY. He was soon released for lack of evidence, but immediately re-arrested for failure to pay a $2.69 debt to an innkeeper. On September 12, a group of men came and paid Morgan’s fine. As they took him away Morgan was heard hollering “Murder!” William Morgan was never seen alive again.

Trials:

54 Masons were indicted for Morgan’s kidnapping. In 15 separate trials 10 Masons, including Niagara County Sheriff, Eli Bruce, were convicted and given sentences ranging from 30 days to 28 months. Because Morgan’s death could not be confirmed, murder charges were never brought.

Verdict:  Guilty of kidnapping

Aftermath:

In October 1827, a body washed up on the shore of Lake Ontario. Three inquests were held for the corpse. The first said the body was unidentified. In the second, the corpse was shown to William Morgan’s wife who identified her husband primarily by his distinctive teeth--Morgan had two rows of teeth and several of them were broken. His doctor also identified the body as Morgan. Thurlow Weed, a New York politician opposed to the Masons was on the inquest committee. The Freemasons accused Weed of mutilating the corpse to resemble Morgan. At the third inquest, the body was shown to the wife of Timothy Monroe, another unrelated missing man. Mrs. Monroe positively identified the corpse as her husband and that is the ruling that stood.

The Freemasons (then and now) admitted that a misguided group of their members did kidnap William Morgan but did not kill him. They claimed he was given $500 and set free in Canada. Morgan was supposedly seen alive in such exotic places as Smyrnia in the Ottoman Empire, and the Cayman Islands. New York Governor DeWitt Clinton (a Mason) offered a $1000 reward for information proving that Morgan was alive. It was never collected.

Shortly after his disappearance Morgan’s book, Illustrations of Masonry, was published (It was republished later under other titles, e.g.: Morgan’s Freemasonry Exposed and Explained, The Mysteries of Freemasonry). The publication, together with outrage over the light sentences given the kidnappers fired up a wave of anti-Masonic sentiment that spread across the country. Thurlow Weed and others formed the short-lived Anti-Masonic Party and ran a candidate in the 1832 presidential election won by Andrew Jackson (a Mason). In that election the Anti-Masonic party carried the state of Vermont. The Anti-Masonic party was eventually absorbed by the Whigs and some of their members were instrumental in the founding of the Republican Party.

In 1881 a monument to William Morgan was erected in Batavia, New York, with this inscription:

“Sacred to the memory of Wm. Morgan, a native of Virginia, a Capt. in the War of 1812, a respectable citizen of Batavia, and a martyr to the freedom of writing, printing and speaking the truth. He was abducted from near this spot in the year 1826, by Freemasons and murdered for revealing the secrets of their order. The court records of Genesee County, and the files of the Batavia Advocate, kept in the Recorders office contain the history of the events that caused the erection of this monument.”

Freemasons refer to this as the “Lie in Granite”

Resources:

Websites:
The William Morgan Homepage
William Morgan Last Seen in Lewiston

William Morgan Notes (pro-Masonic)
The Abduction and Murder of Captain William Morgan (anti-Masonic)
The Morgan Affair (pro-Masonic)
Freemasons Kidnapped; Murdered Capt. William Morgan in 1826 (anti-Masonic)

Books:

Morgan, William, The Mysteries of Freemasonry , BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008

Bentley, A. P. History of the Abduction of William Morgan and the Anti-Masonic Excitment of 1826-30. Van Cise & Throop, 1874

Morris, Robert,  William Morgan; or Political Anti-Masonry, Its Rise, Growth and Decadence . R. Macoy, 1883

Cross, Whitney R. The Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850. New York: Cornell UP, 2006.

Monument:
Morgan's Monument