First Murder Trial

“On the 16th of April, 1828, the public was aroused by the report of a murder, committed near the Perch River settlement of this town, by Henry Evans upon Joshua Rogers and Henry Diamond, in an affair growing out of an attempt to forcibly eject Evans without legal formality from premises leased by a brother of Rogers. The parties had been drinking, and were quarrelsome. Evans had shut himself up in his house, which was forcibly entered, with threats and abusive language, upon which he seized an axe and mortally wounded two, and badly a third, who recovered. He was immediately arrested, and at the June term of the court of Oyer and Terminer in 1828 was tried, the court consisting of Nathan Williams, circuit judge; Egbert Ten Eyck, first judge; Joseph Hawkins, judge; Robert Lansing, district attorney; H. H. Sherwood, clerk; H. H. Coffeen, sheriff. The district attorney was assisted by Mr. Clarke, and the prisoner defended by Messrs. Sterling, Bronson, and Rathbone. The vicious temper and abandoned character of the prisoner, who, whether drunk or sober, had been the terror of his neighborhood, outweighed the extenuating circumstances, and the jury, after a half-hour’s deliberation, returned a verdict of guilty, and he was sentenced to be hung August 22. The sentence was executed at the appointed time, in the presence of an immense crowd from this and adjoining counties. The gallows was on the north bank of the river, nearly opposite the court-house.” Objections were raised against the body being buried in the Brownville cemetery, and his friends, after repeated attempts at his burial, were obliged to take his remains three or four miles back from the village, and bury the corpse at night.

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Transcribed by Holice B. Young from Jefferson Co. History by L. H. Everts.