sidered him then "a being of very low, degraded intellect; hardly above a brute, and treated him accordingly," (vide his testimony ;) "that he was a man of very quick passions; would fly in a moment at any thing he thought an insult" that another convict changed the position of a pole on which yarn was hung, for which he fought him, was reported for so doing and was flogged; that he had greased a pair of shoes and set the same on a pile of wood, which another convict caused to fall, when Freeman struck him, and for which he was also flogged. After this he went to Captain Smith, crying, and represented that he had been flogged very severely; that a hole had been cut between his ribs which he could lay his fingers in. He also told Captain Smith that the flogging pained him so at night that he could not sleep.

As to his capacity at this time, it appears from all the witnesses sworn on his trial, that it was very limited; that commands had to be repeated several times before he could understand them sufficiently to obey them. Some represent him as being weak and child-like; some thought him a little shattered, but all were willing to keep him at work at such things as he had capacity to execute. In this condition he remained until the expiration of his sentence, in September, 1845.

His mother never saw him during the time he was in prison, but occasionally sent some one to see him, that his condition might be reported to her. This was generally done by John Depuy, her son-in-law, who says he saw William five times during his confinement; that his mother had heard that somebody had struck him on his head and that it was going to kill him, whereupon he went in to see him. He testified on the trial, that he found Freeman with a knapsack on his back, walking back and forth in the yard; "that he would walk a little way and turn round." Depuy considered him deranged, and so told his wife and mother-in-law on his return.

On the morning when Freeman's sentence expired, Depuy went to the State Prison for him and took him home. Thus ended his imprisonment on the charge of stealing Mrs. Godfrey's horse.

During the fall and winter he lived most of the time with his brother-in law, but occasionally at the houses of other colored people. He was sometimes employed at sawing wood, but was generally sluggish, stupid and indolent. He talked but little, and gave but a confused relation of occurrences in the prison when he was there. The injustice of his imprisonment and the rencontre with Tyler seemed to be uppermost in his mind, and formed about the only topics of his conversation when he said any thing. He frequently inquired for Jack Furman, and upon being told by Depuy that he was a convict in the State Prison, replied, "he had not seen him." He said he had been there five years for nothing, and he wanted pay for it.

After enquiring for magistrates, he told Depuy that he must go down and get a warrant for the folks, and that they must pay him; that he could not make any gain so, and could'nt live. He then applied to two magistrates,

Bostwick and Paine, for warrants against the folks that sent him to prison, but the request was refused. He then returned to Depuy's, where he said that he could'nt do any thing with them; that he could not get any thing; would have to lose it all. After working about at sundry little jobs of work, from which he received but a trifling compensation, he went to board with a colored washer-woman named Mary Ann Newark, at a place called New Guinea, about a mile south of the village of Auburn. She had known him before he was imprisoned, and had seen him in the street after his discharge, but she was apparently unnoticed by him. She took him to board, that he might help her carry her baskets of clothes to and from those in the village for whom she worked. Her account of him is, that he did not hear very quick; would put down his ear and want her to speak louder; that he never said much, and spoke only when spoken to; that he never asked any questions himself, and answered those put to him very briefly.

Whilst living with her, and between the hours of six and seven o'clock on the evening of the 12th day of March, 1846, William went away, she knew not whither, nor for what purpose.

On the western border of the Owasco lake, in the town of Fleming, and about three and a half miles south of the village of Auburn, there lived a very respectable and worthy farmer, whose name was John G. Van Nest. He was a man of good education, of considerable wealth-had held various offices of honor and profit--was extensively known, and highly esteemed by all who knew him. He was very exact in all his dealings, correct in his deportment, and exemplary in all his varied relations to the society of which he was a member, and to the community in which he lived. His family consisted of Mrs. Sarah Van Nest, his wife; Mrs. Phebe Wyckoff, his motherin-law; Julia Van Nest, his daughter; Peter Van Nest and George W. Van Nest, his sons, the latter about two years old, and Helen Holmes, a young woman who lived with them in the capacity of help; there was also at his house, on the night of the 12th of March, a Mr. Van Arsdale,—all being respectable and very estimable persons. Any violence, therefore, to such a family, could not have failed to arouse the community far around, and to have caused the offender to be condignly punished if within their reach. And when popular indignation for a trespass upon the rights, the property or the lives of worthy citizens does not overleap the boundaries of that propriety which the law establishes, it betokens well for the character of the persons injured, and the virtue, the morals and the peace of society.

As the family of Mr. Van Nest were about retiring to rest on the 12th day of March, a tragedy was enacted at his dwelling which is without a parallel in the history of crime; an event that was horrid beyond all description, dreadful in its character and shocking to the community. Without the least premonition of, or provocation for the act, John G. Van Nest, Sarah Van Nest his wife, and George W., their son, were slain and left weltering in their gore; Mrs. Phebe Wyckoff mortally and Van Arsdale severely

wounded, by the hand of an assassin. The occurrence happened at about half past nine o'clock, when all the family had retired to their rooms for the night, except Mr. Van Nest, who was in his sitting room, and Mrs. Van Nest, who had stepped into the yard in rear of the dwelling. At that point of time, Mrs. Van Nest received a mortal wound inflicted with a knife, guided by a negro, and shrieking, ran to the window of the room occupied by Helen Holmes, who opened the door in that part of the house, through which Mrs. Van Nest came in and died. Hearing the shriek of his wife, Mr. Van Nest at once opened the door, when he received a fatal stab from the same hand, and fell without a struggle. Mrs. Wyckoff, in her attempt to escape, received a mortal wound as the assassin passed to the stairs ascending to the chamber. After stabbing an infant boy who was sleeping near them, he attempted to ascend the stairs, when he encountered Van Arsdale, whom he severely wounded. But after a severe struggle, the assassin was expelled from the house, and procuring a horse from the stable hard by, he mounted, and made rapid flight from the scene of desolation and of blood. That horse soon failing him, he procured another, with which he continued his flight to the county of Oswego, a distance of forty miles, where he was taken the next day by the officers in pursuit. He was found to be William Free

man.

The officers returned him, fettered and bound, to the house of Van Nest, to which the magistrate repaired to take the proof of his identity and guilt, from the lips of the survivors. Tidings of the awful affair having, meanwhile, been widely spread, the inhabitants of the country far around rushed, en masse, to the scene of slaughter. After beholding the lifeless forms of the father, mother and son, and at the same time learning that Mrs. Wyckoff had died from her wounds at a neighboring house, they were so shocked and exasperated, that an irrepressible and tumultuous indignation burst forth from every mouth, and nearly overbore the authorities who had in charge the wretched assassin. The excitement of the occasion was unprecedented in this section of the State. It was thought the course of justice marked out by the law was too slow for the punishment of such an offender-that the death of the family of Van Nest must be at once avenged. The populace sought his blood, and madly and loudly called for the victim of their fury that they might tear him to atoms. The gibbet, rack and flame were each proposed for his immediate destruction. The rope and the lasso were ready for snatching him from the officers of the law. But by a diversion artfully contrived by the officers, they escaped with their prisoner, and although pursued, succeeded in lodging him in the county jail.

Such an extraordinary excitement of such an immense concourse of people, as might have been expected, did not immediately subside. The crowd dispersed only to fan the flame in other quarters. The blood of wives and children ran cold at the recital, so that whole families, from the prattling child to the tottering grandsire, spontaneously joined in the popular indignation.

A jury in another capital case (that of Henry Wyatt) having disagreed about the sanity of a prisoner, that was brought into the excitement and vehemently discussed in connection with this. Judges, jurors and counsel were alternately upbraided, reproached and defended. The lives of the people were considered in jeopardy. The mention of insanity in connection with Freeman was rebuked as presumptuous, and dangerous to the safety of the community.

Next in the order of events, came the funeral obsequies over the bodies of the slain. That was truly a mournful, a thrilling occasion. The presence of the four encoffined dead; the deep and pervading anguish of the mourning relatives; the mighty concourse of anxious friends and acquaintances in attendance; all contributed to render it as extraordinary as was the event which had occasioned the exercises. The sermon was delivered with great effect by the Rev. A. B. Winfield, pastor of the church of which the deceased were members, from 1 Phillipians, i. 21; concluding with the following peroration:

"If ever there was a just rebuke upon the falsely so-called sympathy of the day, here it is. Let any man in his senses look at this horrible sight, and then think of the spirit with which it was perpetrated, and, unless he loves the murderer more than his murdered victims, he will, he must confess, that the law of God which requires that he that sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,' is right, is just, is reasonable. Is this the way to prevent murder, by sympathy? It encourages it. It steels the heart and nerves the arm of the assassin!

"But capital punishment is said to be barbarous, cruel, savage. What does this amount to? Why, that God commands that which is barbarous, cruel and savage! Most daring blasphemy! But all punishment is for the good of the culprit, or else it is tyrannical! The wretch who committed this horrid deed has been in the school of a State Prison for five years, and yet comes out a murderer! Besides, it is an undeniable fact, that murder has increased with the increase of this anti-capital punishment spirit. It awakens a hope in the wretch, that by adroit counsel, law may be perverted, and jurors bewildered or melted by sympathy; that by judges infected with it, their whole charges may be in favor of the accused; that by the lavishment of money, appeals might be multiplied, and, by putting off the trial, witnesses may die. Why, none of us are safe under such a false sympathy as this; for the murderer is almost certain of being acquitted! If I shoot a man to prevent him breaking into my house and killing my family, these gentlemen will say I did right. But if he succeeds, and murders my whole family, then it would be barbarous to put him to death! Oh, shame, shame! I appeal to this vast assembly to maintain the laws of their country inviolate, and cause the murderer to be punished."

However inappropriate such an appeal may have been for the day and occasion, it was nevertheless responded to by the excited auditory, and a

copy thereof solicited for publication. The request was granted; the sermon printed, and thousands thereof gratuitously circulated throughout the body of the State. The press announced the murder in glaring, startling capitals, and did its part in awakening the community to the awful consequences of sympathy for such an offender. Nor was this excitement local. As the tidings of the affair went forth in the public prints, the people of the whole State, in very considerable degree, partook of the feeling that pervaded the masses in Cayuga.

Such had been the tragedy; such the excitement; such was the condition of the public mind, when, at the May term of the Cayuga general sessions, four indictments for murder were found against Freeman, and presented by the grand jury. That for the murder of John G. Van Nest, being the one upon which he was tried, was in the words and figures following.

THE INDICTMENT.

AT a court of general sessions of the peace, held at the court house, in the village of Auburn, in and for the county of Cayuga, on the eighteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and fortysix, before Joseph L. Richardson, Isaac Sisson, Elisha W. Sheldon, Esquires, and others, their associates, judges and justices, assigned to keep the peace in the said county of Cayuga, and to hear and determine divers felonies, trespasses, and other misdemeanors, in the said county, committed:

CAYUGA COUNTY, ss: The jurors for the people of the State of New York, in and for the body of the county of Cayuga, to wit: Samuel S. Coonley, Ezra Willits, Phineas F. Wilson, William Beach, Henry H. Cooley, William Bidwell, James Congdon, Charles Paddock, Leonard D. Harinon, John O'Hara, John A. Carter, Charles Lester, Jacob Cuykendall, Daniel R. Rooks, William Moore, Jacob Sharpsteen, Thomas E. Loomis, good and lawful men of the same county, being then and there sworn and charged upon their oath, present: That William Freeman, late of the town of Auburn, in the county of Cayuga, laborer, on the twelfth day of March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and forty six, with force and arms, at the town of Fleming, in the county aforesaid, in and upon one John G. Van Nest, in the peace of God and the people of the State of New York then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, and from a premeditated design to effect the death of the said John G. Van Nest, did make an assault; and that the said William Freeman, with a certain knife, of the value of twenty-five cents, which he, the said William Freeman, in his right hand then and there had and held, the said John G. Van Nest, in and upon the breast at the left side of the breast bone, between the third