USA > New York > Saratoga County > The bench and bar of Saratoga County, or, Reminiscences of the judiciary, and scenes in the court room : from the organization of the county to the present time > Part 9
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right of appeal from their judgments first to the Supreme Court at General Term, and ultimately to the Court of Appeals, by bills of exceptions, writs of error, or certiorari. The jurisdictions of the Court of Appeals, Supreme, Circuit and County Courts will be noticed in the succeeding chapter devoted to civil causes tried in our county.
Hon. Augustus Bockes of Saratoga Springs, having been elected county judge at the special election held June 7, 1847, to elect the new judiciary of the state, the first County Court and Court of Sessions was held by appointment September 20, of that year, with justices William T. Seymour and Abel A. Kellogg assisting in the latter. John Law- rence, the newly elected district attorney, appeared as public prosecutor. No criminal trials were held at this term. Neither were there any had at the first Oyer and Terminer held by Justice Alonzo C. Paige, County Judge Bockes and Justice of the Ses- sions Seymour, in November following ; or, at any of the succeeding terms of these courts until the August Oyer, 1848. This term was presided over by Hon. John Willard, who had been elected a justice of the Supreme Court, for the Fourth dis- trict, along with Daniel Cady, Alonzo C. Paige and Augustus C. Hand. Thomas Hynde was brought to trial for arson in the second degree for setting fire to and burning the cotton mill of James V. Bradshaw, on the Anthony's kil, near Mechanic- ville. District Attorney Lawrence appeared for the people, and Messrs. Amos K. Hadley and W.
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H. King, of Troy ; Deodatus Wright, of Albany ; and G. W. Kirtland, of Waterford, for the prisoner. It was a case of circumstantial evidence against the prisoner, who was a discharged employee. He succeeded in proving a satisfactory alibi, and was acquitted. At the February Oyer, 1849, the Water- ford and Whitehall Turnpike Company was in- dicted and convicted for maintaining a common and public nuisance. The conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court, and its opinion is reported in 9 Barbour 160. This company was subse- quently indicted for the same offense by several grand juries, but continued to neglect to observe the statute in all respects, except the collection of tolls, until in 1863 a mob tore down their remain- ing toll gate, near Waterford, and then it yielded its ghost of a claim to exact taxes from wayfarers for passing over a highway they entirely neglected to keep in proper repair. In its later years it was known as the Stillwater and Waterford turnpike.
The October term of that year was held by. Jus. tice Amasa J. Parker of Albany. The Talmadge murder trial next in the chronological order, demands our attention. John Talmadge in May, 1849, and for several years previously owned a farm in Malta ; the Round Lake Camp Ground Association now owning a portion of said farm. A highway from Maltaville to the East Line pass- ed through his farm and by his residence, inter- secting the Rensselaer & Saratoga railroad about twenty rods north of the house. The railroad ran
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through the length of his farm, and a previous owner had agreed with the original directors to build the fences along the track, in perpetuity. This obligation Mr. Tahnadge resisted, and the courts subsequently upheld the position taken by him. (The legislature passed an act March 27, 1848, directing that all railroad companies should fence their tracks and maintain cattle guards at the high- way crossings. In the Saratoga county court in 1849, Judge Bockes held in the case of Waldron against the Rensselaer & Saratoga railroad, re- ported in 7 Barbour 390, that said act was not inconsistent with existing charters, and that rail- road companies were liable for cattle killed by their locomotives where they had entered upon the track by reason of the failure of the company to comply with this law. This principle was confirmed in the Supreme Court in 1850.) His cattle wandered on the railroad, through the fences, which neither party would repair, and were killed by the locomotive. He brought suit and recovered judgments for their value. This naturally led to acrimonious dis- putes between him and Leonard R. Sargent, super- intendent, and Asher Young, track master of the railroad. Such was the state of affairs, when on the morning of May 22, 1849, a locomotive attached to a northern bound train ran off the track at Tal- madge's crossing. - The engineer, William L. Dodge, of Green Island, sustained injuries to his head, which caused his death, at the residence of his uncle, David Cory in Ballston Spa, June 1.
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The cause of the accident was at once attributed to the owner of the farm by one Joseph Phayre, a forner laborer for Talmadge, but who had been discharged by him. He told Young that Talmadge had threatened to run the cars off the track. On his oath and other circumstances surrounding the case, Talmadge was indicted for the murder of Dodge at the August Oyer, 1849. He was brought to trial the following December before Hon. William B. Wright, justice of the Supreme Court of the third judicial district ; Judge Bockes and justices Kellogg and Seymour. District Attorney Lawrence was assisted in the prosecution by Henry G. Whea- ton and William A. Beach. George G. Scott prepared the defense, and was assisted at the trial by James B. McKean, William Hay, John K. Por- ter and Nicholas Hill, jr. So great an array of legal talent is seldom gathered in a court house to conduct a trial, even when the momentous issue of life and death is pending. After an exhausting search a jury was impanneled. The witnesses sworn for the people were L. R. Sargent, Thomas Collins, George Balfrey, William B. Harris, James Swartwout and Joseph Phayre. The important wit- ness was Balfry, who testified that he had landed in Quebec on a certain day and was on his way to Troy in search of work. On the twenty-second day of May, 1849, he was walking on the railroad near Talmadge's crossing, and feeling tired, had sat down in a clump of bushes to rest. While there he saw Talmadge drive a stone into the space allotted for
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the flange of the wheel between the rail and the planks in the crossing. Before he could give the alarm the accident happened. This made a direct case for the plaintiff, it being supplemented by the testimony of Phayre that he saw Balfrey on the track near East Line on the day in question. But Judge Scott had been indefatigable in his efforts to save Talmadge from his perjured accusers. During the time that had elapsed after the sitting of the grand jury, he had been to Quebec, and ascertained at the quarantine that no such person as Balfrey had landed there at the time specified. He then went to New York and found that a man of his personal statistics had landed at Castle Gar- den three days after the accident. He traced him to Albany, and there found him in communication with Phayre. He had the evidence in court to establish that this was one of the most glaring attempts to secure a judicial murder by perjury that ever disgraced a calendar, not excepting the trials of the Irish rebellion cases of '98. To the credit of Messrs. Lawrence, Wheaton and Beach, it should be stated that as soon as they became con- vinced of this during the cross examination of Phayre by Mr. Porter, they refused to be parties to the infamous outrage on a citizen of hitherto un- blemished reputation. The following is the entry on the minutes : "The counsel for the people having abandoned the prosecution, the jury under the charge of the court, without retiring, say that they find the prisoner not guilty." This was done
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amid the plaudits of the large andience which was not restrained by the court for some minutes. Judge Scott, also, had evidence at hand to prove a com- plete alibi.
District Attorney Lawrence immediately ordered the arrest of the perjured Balfrey, alias Parker, and Phayre. They were indicted in February, and at the October Oyer, 1850, Parker plead guilty and acknowledged that he was suborned by Phayre and Asher Young. Phayre plead not guilty, but was convicted. They were each sentenced by Judge Paige to ten years at Dannemora. Young, fearing a trial and conviction for subornation of perjury on the confession of Balfrey, committed suicide by getting on a hand car at East Line, September 10, and running it toward Ballston Spa in front of an approaching train. He was struck and killed instantly. Dodge, the dying engineer, stated that the accident was owing to the speed at which he was running the engine at the time, causing it to bound on the track. The locomotive was after- . wards named the "Wm. L. Dodge" and ran on the road for many years. Mr. Talmadge was nearly ruined, financially, by this dastardly attempt on his life, but is now a prosperous manufacturer of chemicals in the city of New York.
John S. Clarke, the counterfeiter, was again indicted in 1849, but as before escaped conviction, by some undefined process ; but at the June Oyer, 1851, before Judge Hand, Luther Cole, one of his pupils, was convicted and sent to states prison for
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a term of five years. Suffering, as did several other young men, for an alleged association with this slippery manufacture and wholesale dealer in the "queer."
At the June Oyer, 1850, an individual who had stolen a pony team, wagon and harness from Wil- liam H. Wendell in Ballston Spa in the autumn of 1848, was brought to trial. He was arrested with the team near Kingston, N. Y. He gave only the name of "Unfortunate Johnny." So he was in- dicted and convicted, on a plea of guilty, under the alias of "John Misfortune." Judge Hand admin- istered to him a five year's sentence to states prison, with the advice to never again disgrace the name he had so effectually endeavored to conceal. Other and unimportant trials occupied the attention of the criminal courts until in 1854, when District Attorney William T. Odell secured the indictment of Henry J. Chandler for the murder of John Hall at Saratoga Springs, January 31, by stabbing him ' with a knife. He plead guilty to manslaughter in . the first degree at the June Oyer. The plea was accepted,and Judge Had sentenced him to a fifteen years term in states prison.
Nearly all of my readers will remember the case of Sol Northrup, a colored man. whose kidnap- ping from Saratoga Springs, March 10, 1840, his sale in the slave pen at Alexandria, Va., and his twelve weary years in bondage in Avoyelles parish, Louisiana, are graphically described in his book, "Twelve Years a Slave." In the summer of 1854,
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Alexander Merrill and Joseph Russell were arrest .. at Gloversville and confronted with Northrup, who had recently been released through the efforts of Hon. Charles Hughes and Henry B. Northrup of Sandy Hill. They were indicted by our grand jury in October, 1854. Their counsel, Messrs. John S. Enos, William Wait, Clark B. Cochrane and Wil- liam A. Beach, interposed a demurrer to those counts in the indictment which alleged the selling of Northrup as a slave, as having occurred at a place foreign to the jurisdiction of the state. The demur- rer was sustained by the General Term, which held by Judge C. L. Allen, that to attempt to give the state jurisdiction on those counts was repugnant to the sixth amendment to the constitution of the United States. This decision is reported in 2 Par- ker's Criminal Reports, 590. This narrowed the the issue down to the kidnapping charge, but, be- fore the indictment was brought to trial, Northrup again disappeared. What his fate was is unknown to the public, but the desperate kidnappers no doubt knew. A nolle pros. was entered in their case in May, 1857, by District Attorney John O. Mott.
The Conrt of Sessions had had plenty of business sent to it from the Oyer and Terminer for several years, about this time, by numerous indictments being found by the grand jury, through the efforts of the Carson League, to destroy the trade in ardent liquors. The so-called " Maine Law," which took effect July 4, 1855, led to an increased effort to
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suppress the sale of intoxicating drinks. The con- stitutionality of this law was attacked by liquor dealers. It was sustained by the Supreme Court at several General Terms, noticeably at that held in our court house in December, 1855, by Justices Allen, James and Bockes. One Frank Quant came into court, on a writ of error from the Montgomery county Special Sessions, appealing from a convic- tion. The court affirmed the constitutionality of the law, and the opinion of Judge James is given in 2 Parker, 410. The principle was reversed and the law annulled by the decision of the Court of Appeals in the "People agst. Wynehamer," ibid 421, and "People agst. Toynbee," ibid 491.
Hon. Augustus Bockes having resigned the office of county judge, Gov. Seymour, February 6, 1854, appointed John A. Corey of Saratoga Springs to fill the nnexpired term. In the November following, James B. McKean of the same town was elected to succeed him. At the first Oyer held in this county by Justice Bockes, in October. 1855, an indictment was found by the grand jury against Joseph Glas- ser, charging him with the wilful murder of Patrick H. Breen, at Galway, August 24, 1855. This homo- cide grew out of a chararari party. Several young men had serenaded a newly married couple and, at the instigation of one E. O. Smith, the bride's mother had caused their arrest. This angered them and they foolishly determined to burn Smith in effigy, on the public square, at midnight of August 24. They met on the night in question in the barn
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of the elder Breen. While preparing the effigy a man was seen in the garden, as if watching them. Young Breen went ont, masked, to see who it was, when the man presented a pistol and fired at him. Breen fell, mortally wounded (the ball entering his left breast and lodging in his spine), and cried out " Joe Glasser has shot me." The man fled through the darkness, but was recognized by several of the young men. He was arrested the same night at his residence. He was tried at a special term of the Oyer and Terminer, which commenced Febru- ury 24, 1856, just six months after the tragedy. Justice C. L. Allen presided, with County Judge McKean and Justices of Sessions A. E. Brown and A. Hannay on the bench. District Attorney Odell and Hon. Lyman Tremain conducted the prosecu- tion, it being the latter gentleman's first appearance in our courts. The prisoner was defended by Geo. G. Scott, E. F. Bullard, and Deodatus Wright. It was shown on the trial that Breen and Glasser had previously been friendly, that the latter had exhib- ited no malice toward him, and though it was urged that he had been hired to shoot another of the mas- queraders, it was not susceptible of direct proof, so the trial resulted in a verdict of manslaughter in the second degree. He was sentenced to states prison for a term of four years and six months. This result caused much excitement in Galway, and E. O. Smith was forced to yield to public sen- timent and remove to the West.
Justice Enoch H. Rosekrans held his first court
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in this county in September, 1856. At that Oyer, James M. Quillot of Mechanicville was indicted for uttering counterfeit meney. He was ostensibly a merchant tailor, but bore the reputation of being one of the most expert forgers of the signatures of
bank officers in his day. He was too shrewd to expose himself to conviction, and escaped punish- ment for his alleged crimes through the technicali- ties of the law. Justice Platt Potter held his first term in this county in January, 1859. At the May Oyer, 1859, the grand jury presented the dogs of the county as a public nuisance Their action was, however, ineffectual, for the nuisence remains un- abated.
At the February Sessions, 1857, before Judge McKean, Patrick Mckinney was convicted of per- jury in a suit tried before Justice John Cramer, 2d, in Waterford, August 26, 1856, in which Patrick Larkin was plaintiff and Platt R. Doughty was defendant. The alleged perjury was his testimony that he was present when Larkin bought twenty lambs of Doughty, for which he was to pay $44, that four of them were then delivered to Larkin, and the balance were to be taken when he (Larkin) called for them. Although it was otherwise suffi- ciently proved that the price and terms were as he testified, it appeared that he was not present when the bargain was made. Upon this proof Judge McKean charged the jury that if the prisoner did not know the truth of his evidence of his own knowledge, although it might be true, if it was
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wilfully and corruptly given to affect the result of the action pending, it was perjury. He was con- victed, and a writ of error was taken to the Supreme court, where it was argued for the prisoner by William A. Beach, and for the people by District Attorney Mott. The conviction was affirmed, and Mc Kinney was sentenced to states prison for two years. The case is reported in 3 Parker 510.
In the June Sessions, 1858, Daniel O' Leary was tried and convicted on an indictment charging him with an assault with intent to kill with a deadly weapon Margaret Collins, at Waterford, September 22, 1857. Isaac C. Ormsby, his attorney, removed the case to the Supreme Court on i writ of error in which he insisted that it was necessary to prove an assault and battery and an intent to kill with a deadly weapon; that the verdict of the jury, as rendered, to wit: "The jury find the prisoner guilty of an assault and battery with intent to kill," was a special one, and not in accordance with the indictment; nor was it a conviction of a crime either against the statute or the common law. He also insisted that the prisoner was entitled to a discharge, having once been legally tried for his offense. The district attorney resisted, but the court held that it was a special verdict. A general verdict of "guilty" would have been sufficient, but when the jury went further and sought to convict him of an offence not laid down in the statute, nor held at common law, the prisoner was in effect acquitted; and it directed his discharge." This case,
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reported in 4 Parker 155, should teach jurymen to be cautious in attempting to word their verdicts specially, when they intend to convict on the direct offense charged in the indictment.
At the September Oyer, 1859, before justice Henry E. Davies, of the first district, a New York pickpocket who gave the name of John Thomas, was tried and convicted of having robbed the per- son of Mrs. Margaret P. Millard at Saratoga Springs, July 22, 1858, of property valued at $1,935. He was sent to Dannemora for five years. After he had served his time he again returned to his old field of "striking," and was detected on the train near Saratoga changing a check from his valise to a lady's trunk. While in jail on this charge he and Corydon Rose, another prisoner, sought to burn a hole through the floor of their cell and thus effect their escape. They were discovered by jailor Fred. T. Powell, who, smelling the smoke, went to the corridor and asked Thomas if he had a fire in his cell. He answered: "Yes, but it has got the best of me." On their trial for arson in the January Oyer, 1867, Mr. Powell's evidence to that effect was contended by the prisoners' counsel to show that they had not intended to burn the jail, and they were acquitted. He also escaped convic- tion on the other charge by the absence from the state at the time of the trial of a material witness for the people. Since then he has absented himself from this vicinity.
At the September Oyer, 1860, two indictments for
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murder were found : viz. one against John H. Price for the shooting of James Cox, in Wilton, and the other against William Vanderwerker for the shoot- ing of Harrison Sherman. The first indictment was tried at the term it was framed. District Attorney Charles S. Lester appeared for the people, and the defense of the prisoner was conducted by Clement C. Hill. It was shown on the trial that Price, then a boy of eleven years. had gone into the residence of Mr. Cox, in Wilton, took up his gun, pointed it at the head of little Jimmy Cox, a boy of four years, and in the presence of the mother, deliberately shot and killed him. He was convicted of manslaughter and sent to the Western House of Refuge. Subse- quent developments prove him to be a sort of com- pound of Jesse Pomeroy and Piper, the "belfry murderer," for since his release from the house of refuge, at the October Sessions, 1868, he was con- victed of a deadly assault on George W. Harder, at Wilton. July 1 of that year, and sentenced to the county jail for three months. At that trial he was defended by Lewis Varney. He is now serving a term of one year in the Albany penitentiary for an assault with attempt to kill with a deadly weapon (a pitchfork) James S. Taylor, at Wilton. July 23, 1875. He was defended on this trial at the Novem- ber Sessions by Jesse S. L'Amoreaux and Jesse Stiles. The shooting of Sherman by Vanderwerken was an act of drunken frenzy. Sherman was track- master of the Rensselaer and Saratoga railroad, and on the morning of July 27, 1860, as he left his
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house to go to his work, the drunken Vanderwerker emerged from his house, on the opposite side of the street in Waterford, with a shot gun, which he raised to his shoulder and shot his victim through the heart, killing him instantly. Sherman was much beloved by the railroad men, and Vanderwerker twice escaped lynching at their hands only by the by the vigilance of sheriff George B. Powell. At the January Oyer, 1861, he plead guilty to the crime of murder in the second degree and Judge Platt Potter sentenced him to imprisonment for life At the time of his incarceration he was fifty-seven years of age.
December 23, 1860, one Charles Harvey, formerly a " gift book " dealer, made his advent in Ballston Spa. He went into the Railroad hotel, kept by Lewis Sickler, where he met the author of this book, who had previously known him in Mechan- icville. While in conversation he spoke of an encounter he had had with the Albany police the night before, and exhibited a bullet hole in the skirts of his coat. He hired, the same day, a horse and cutter of Stephen B. Medbery to go to Sarato- ga lake, but drove to Castleton, below Albany, where he disposed of the rig. Mr. Medbery recov- ered his property after a few months, but nothing more was seen of Harvey until a few days after the battle of Bull Run, in July, 1861, when he was dis- covered by officer Mitchell at Congress Hall, Sara- toga Springs, in the full uniform of a major of Penn- sylvania volunteers. He was arrested, plead guilty
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at the December Oyer following, and was sent to states prison for two years. He i's now serving a five years' sentence in the Albany penitentiary for a "confidence operation " on a Nova Scotian in the Albany depot, a year or so ago.
At the September Oyer, 1862, John R. Packard and Mary A. Packard, his daughter, were convict- ed of manslaughter in the second degree for causing the death of officer William W. Mitchell, and sen- tenced to four years imprisonment in states prison. The facts were in substance as follows: Packard was a physician in very reduced circumstances, and he and his two daughters lived very secludedly in Saratoga Springs. They had been subjected to annoyance by evil-minded persons, and when, on May 22, 1862, officers Vibbard and Mitchell went to the house to serve legal process they were refused entrance. They burst open the door, when a pole with a knife attached was thrust out inflicting a mortal wound on the person of Mitchell. They were defended by James P. Butler and Joseph A. Shoudy, while District Attorney Lester maintained the interests of the people. Mary was accordingly taken to Sing Sing and her father to Dannemora. Mr. Butler, their counsel, believing them unjustly convicted, continued his gratuitous labors in their behalf and a year later secured their pardon from Governor Fenton. They then went to the far West.
At the May Oyer, 1863, William Dougherty was tried for the murder of Thomas Martin at Schuyler- ville, October 31, 1862. District Attorney Isaac C.
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Ormsby and Edward F. Bullard appeared in behalf of the people, and John Lewis and Edgar L. Furs- man for the prisoner, who was convicted of man- slaughter in the second degree and sentenced to seven years in states prison. At the January Oyer, 1866, Cornelius S. Huyck was convicted of man- slaughter in the fourth degree for causing the death of Susan H. Rogers, a little girl, at Mechanieville, by an act of culpable negligence, being the careless use of fire-arms, and he was sentenced to the county jail for six months. This was followed by the trial in the November Sessions, 1864, of Abraham C. Bentley, indicted for an assault and battery with a deadly weapon upon Henry Evans. District Attor- ney Ormsby and J. S. L'Amoreaux appeared in behalf of the people and the prisoner was defended by D. B. Carver and W. B. Litch. Bentley and Evans were at work in the woods, in the town of Providence, June 20, 1864, when an altercation arose and Bentley stabbed Evans with a knife, in the abdomen. Although nearly disemboweled, he walked about two miles before he could get aid. He subsequently recovered. Bentley was convicted and sentenced to states prison by Judge Hulbert for four years and six months.
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