"Gross" Hardenburgh
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Another composed and sang an obscene and irreverent song, in which he described the death of Hardenburgh, the feeding of birds on his body, and other indelicate details. This greatly pleased the assembled multitude, and was repeated so often, that some can yet recite parts of the composition.
Quinlan, from whom we glean most of the preceding, says that a woman of the neighborhood, whose descendants are among the most respectable citizens of Fallsburgh, declared that “Grow had gone to----, to fee more lawyers.” One of the witnesses, on being asked if he knew who shot Hardenburgh, answered that he did not; but expressed regret that he did not himself do the deed, as “Doctor Benjamin had offered two hundred acres of land to have his father put out of the way.”
These remarks evoked shouts of merriment from the crowd. Vain were all efforts to preserve order; decorum and decency were set aside; the rejoicing of the settlers, inflamed by the all-potent rum, took the form of the revels of Pandemonium.
From evidence elicited at the inquest and from subsequent developments, it is supposed the assassins were three in number, and that they were posted behind a tree about eight rods from the road, where they had cut away some laurels that had obstructed their view. The ball had entered the victim's shoulder, and passed through, breaking the back-bone; and the shock to his nervous system was such as to instantly deprive him of sensation. This accounts for the circumstance of his not hearing the report of the gun.
Several were suspected of being implicated in the murder, some of them being arrested either as principals or accessories; it is probable that a number of individuals in the “infected” district could tell more than they were willing to disclose. When the fatal shot was heard in the valley, one of the men who was at work on the chimney at the “Dug-way,” slapped his hands and remarked, “That's a dead shot! An old fat buck has got it now!”
A tradition is current in the neighborhood that a suspected person moved west, who, on his death-bed, confessed that he assisted at the murder, but stubbornly refused to disclose the name of any of his accomplices. If the death of Gross Harden-burgh was the result of a conspiracy involving a number of persons, the secret has been well kept; and guilty souls, blackened with the horrible crime, have gone down to the grave with the burden of their unconfessed transgression. After the assassination, such of the settlers as had not removed from the valley, found no difficulty in making satisfactory terms with the heirs of Hardenburgh. Thus was ended what the old settlers termed the “Hardenburgh war,” a term by which it is usually spoken of to this day by the residents of the valley.
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