Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County Read online

  Published by The History Press

  Charleston, SC 29403

  www.historypress.net

  Copyright © 2011 by Cheri L. Farnsworth

  All rights reserved

  Front cover images: Woman in center, portrait of Mary Farmer, 1908. Printed with permission from the Watertown Daily Times. Electric chair at Auburn Prison. Published by W.H. Zepp, circa 1914. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Photograph of carriage. From the collection of Robert and Jeannie Brennan, Sackets Harbor.

  First published 2011

  ebook edition 2012

  ISBN 978.1.61423.433.3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Farnsworth, Cheri, 1963-

  Murder and mayhem in Jefferson County / Cheri L. Farnsworth.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-867-5

  1. Murder--New York (State)--Jefferson County--History--Case studies. 2. Murderers--New York (State)--Jefferson County--History--Case studies. 3. Jefferson County (N.Y.)--History, Local. I. Title.

  HV6533.N5F38 2011

  364.152’3097475709034--dc22

  2011007655

  Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is dedicated to:

  Joshua & Wilbur Rogers

  Henry Dimond

  Charles Wenham

  Emma Baritau

  Sarah Conklin

  Julia Powell

  Ella Allen

  Mary Ward

  Mary Crouch

  Mary Daly

  Mary & William Ockwood

  Sarah Brennan

  Roy & Jessie Burlingame

  Rest in peace.

  Panoramic view of Public Square, Watertown, taken by Haines Photo Company, circa 1909. From the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1. The Axe Murders on Slaughter Hill: Brownville, 1828

  2. Man Below the Ice: The Wenham Murder: Great Bend, 1873

  3. Dying to Be Good: Antwerp, 1873

  4. The Brutal Slaying of Little Sarah Conklin: Rutland, 1875

  5. George Powell’s Problem with Women: Sterlingville, 1876

  6. The Spineless Shooting of Mary Ward: LeRay, 1893

  7. The Mary Crouch–Mary Daly Double Homicide: Sackets Harbor, 1897

  8. The Suspicious Passing of Mary Ockwood: Henderson, 1897

  9. The Gruesome “Watertown Trunk Murder”: Hounsfield, 1908

  10.The Burlingame Murder-Suicide: Chaumont, 1922

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  While every effort was made to obtain original photographs or sketches of the individuals mentioned in this book, many of the images used in news articles written one to two hundred years ago have long since been destroyed or lost. And, while the vast majority of the county’s voluminous newspaper archives have now been stored on microfilm or digitized, oftentimes the pages I found with photographs pertinent to this book did not scan well enough to republish. I was fortunate, however, to find some gems that did scan quite nicely, thanks to Lisa Carr, the Watertown Daily Times librarian, who assisted me in those efforts. Photographs and newspaper images in this book with captions that read, “With permission from the Watertown Daily Times,” were taken from issues of the Watertown Re-Union and the Watertown Herald and are part of a collection held by the Watertown Daily Times. They were photographed and printed here with permission from the Times.

  Because there were no photographs available for some of the stories, in a few cases, I improvised. From my personal collection, I carefully chose original antique photographs of unidentified locations and individuals who resembled what I perceived the victims and killers looked like based on obscure newspaper images and descriptive newspaper accounts. In the few cases where neither of those was available (like the first story from 1828), I had no choice but to use my imagination (and a bit of artistic license). The caption for such images simply says: Courtesy of the author.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to thank my commissioning editor at The History Press, Whitney Tarella, and my project editor, Amber Allen, for their continued enthusiasm and expertise; the New England sales rep, Dani McGrath; Jamie-Brooke Barreto of sales and marketing; and my publicist, Katie Parry, and assistant publicist, Dan Watson. They’ve all been a joy to work with on this and earlier titles.

  Many thanks to Watertown Daily Times librarian Lisa Carr, for helping me find a number of images used in this book and for making it so fun (laughing about the big mess we were making). It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it, right? Another excellent photograph was kindly provided by Jeannie and Robert Brennan, the Sackets Harbor village historians—a big thank-you to them for taking the time to locate it (and to Connie and Larry Barone for seeing that I got it). I’d also like to thank Town of Brownville historian June McCartin, Village of Antwerp historian Jean Hendrickson and Jefferson County historian James Ranger for responding to my queries. The Jefferson County Historical Society calls the Paddock Mansion in Watertown, New York, its home. If you haven’t visited, you must. I wrote about the Paddock Mansion in Haunted Northern New York, Volume 4, after visiting several times with the WPBS Folklore & Frost Tour and finding myself in awe of the many displays. The mansion is a wonderland for history buffs and researchers, and I’d like to give the staff a thumbs-up for their efforts in preserving county history. I look forward to future visits, when I research Wicked Northern New York and North Country Disasters.

  Most of all, I thank my husband, Leland Farnsworth II, for his encouragement, love and support. With all of the unexpected, emotional ups and downs this line of work sometimes brings, he remains calm, cool and collected, where others would cave; I would be lost without his strength. I thank my lucky stars every single day (not just each time I write a new book) for my beautiful daughters: Michelle, Jamie, Katie and Nicole. And I can never thank my parents, Tom and Jean Dishaw, enough for everything they do and have done, nor will I ever stop trying. (Special thanks for the you-know-what [wink] that helped make this book a reality.) Other essential shout-outs go to my in-laws, Carol and Lee Farnsworth; my siblings, Tom Dishaw, Christina Walker and Cindy Barry; and their families: Ed, Rachel and Ryan Barry, Danon Hargadin and Heather, Amanda, Bryan, Lindsey and Cade Alexander Walker.

  INTRODUCTION

  I like to think that we’re a pretty tough lot up here in the North Country. We joke that when it drops to forty below and even hell freezes over, school might be delayed a measly two hours if we’re lucky. That’s how accustomed we are to extreme temperatures. But it’s not just the climate we have to worry about in the winter months. It’s the shorter days and decreased daylight of that time of year. An estimated one in ten people who live in northern climates like ours are plagued by serious mood changes each year between late fall and spring when the days are shorter. Its proper name is Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but in its milder form, we might call it the winter blues. Severe cases of SAD, which is believed to manifest due to daylight and vitamin D deficiencies, exhibit symptoms such
as depression, ranging from mild to suicidal; lethargy; lack of energy; hopelessness, anxiety, lack of tolerance, irritability; and social problems. Why am I telling you all of this? Because, besides the late summer murder-suicide of Jessie and Roy Burlingame in 1922 and the suspicious drowning deaths of Mary and William Ockwood in May 1897, all other cases in this book involved cold-weather murders. I can’t help but wonder about a correlation between SAD and suicidal or homicidal tendencies in those most severely afflicted by it. But there’s an expression northern New Yorkers have long been familiar with that mimics the symptoms of SAD and perhaps makes even more sense as a possible element in crimes of the past—cabin fever.

  Except for winter recreation, like skiing, sledding and skating, we pretty much hunker down for the winter and stay inside for several months of below-freezing temperatures each year. But houses today are larger than they were one or two hundred years ago. Everyone has their own space. We have television, the Internet, telephones, gaming systems, mp3 players and everything imaginable that one would need to keep oneself entertained for hours on end. And we have nice warm vehicles that we can climb into on a whim to go for a drive—even in a snowstorm—if we get tired of staying in. Our ancestors had none of these things. They were cooped up inside for extended periods in the winter months with nothing to do; and if one person wasn’t happy, I guarantee nobody was—they wanted out. That’s cabin fever. The expression is synonymous with winter blues, as is SAD, and it’s also analogous to going “stir crazy.” According to Wikipedia (the online encyclopedia), it occurs with symptoms of excessive sleep or restlessness, forgetfulness, irritability, “irrational frustration with everyday objects” and “distrust of anyone they are with.” That couldn’t be good for families crammed together in tiny, cold log cabins in the days long before electricity and the automobile. Does it justify killing each other off? Of course not. (If they thought they were going “stir crazy” stuck at home with their families, imagine what serving a life sentence in the state prison system felt like!) I only mention cabin fever and SAD here in reference to the coincidental timing of the vast majority of the county’s most sensational, historical murder cases. Eight of the ten murders described in these pages happened between late November and mid-April.

  Another coincidence that couldn’t be ignored was that half of the stories I wrote about involved women named Mary. Granted, Mary was the most popular girls’ name in those days, but the fact that the name found itself enmeshed in so many sensational murder cases in just one county warrants mention. First, there was Mary Ward, who was shot in the back as she fled a gun-wielding madman named Henry Miles in the town of LeRay in December 1873. Then there was Mary Crouch and Mary Daly of Sackets Harbor, two best friends who were shot and killed (and dragged and burned) by George Allen-Haynes in April 1897 on their return from a pleasant outing. Haynes’s motive for such an atrocity? He had asked Mary Daly to marry him, and they were to be wed that very weekend, but Haynes was already married to someone else and engaged to yet a third woman, and he had to think fast to eliminate at least one of his problems. So he killed the women and attempted to frame Mary Crouch’s ex-husband for the murders. Mary Ockwood met her untimely end under mysterious circumstances in May 1897 after departing by boat from Sackets Harbor with her husband. When her body washed up on shore, authorities were overly confident that she had been beaten to death, based on serious head wounds. So they blamed her husband, who was nowhere to be found—until his body, too, washed up on shore some time later. Last, but not least, was Mary Farmer. Mary Farmer was the epitome of a cold-blooded killer and was ultimately sent to the electric chair for her crime. She hacked her next-door neighbor, Sarah Brennan, to death in early April 1908 and stuffed her body into a trunk to conceal the deed. The next day, she moved into the victim’s Brownville home—trunk and all—kicked the victim’s bewildered husband out and attempted to convince him that Mrs. Brennan had left him and sold his house to the Farmers. You can’t make this stuff up.

  Brownville’s other notorious “hack job,” if you will, occurred in 1828, when Henry Evans took an axe to three men who had entered his home to evict him, mortally wounding two. Evans was subsequently hanged. The location of the murders has since been called “Slaughter Hill.” In 1873, there were two well-publicized crimes. A young woman named Emma Baritau died at the hands of a doctor and spinster after an illegal abortion they performed on her between Christmas and New Year’s Day; and Charles Wenham was beaten to death and thrown in the partially frozen Deerlick Creek following a well-orchestrated robbery. At least it seemed well-orchestrated, until the killers were caught. One snuck a lethal dosage of strychnine on the way to jail and successfully killed himself before the people could get to him; the other, Charles Sutherland, was sent to the gallows to pay the ultimate penalty. Thus, three men lost their lives in the fray—all over a lousy $125.

  Sarah Conklin met her fate in the town of Rockland on November 30, 1875, shortly after school got out. It was one of the rare occasions when her father didn’t come to school to pick her up, so the eleven-year-old was enjoying a rare taste of freedom as she made her way through the woods toward home that day. She was wearing a warm, red riding hood when she walked straight into the trap of killer, and it wasn’t the big bad wolf. Frank Ruttan, the accused, was a brute of a boy at fourteen. He allegedly waited for the victim after seeing her leave school alone from the upper level of the barn where he worked. Then he beat her, choked her and left her for dead. The little girl had rejected his advances and tattled on him several weeks earlier, and he was determined to get his revenge. But revenge is not so sweet when the price to pay is life imprisonment. Although Ruttan got what he deserved, George Powell never did. Powell was implicated in two well-publicized Sterlingville crimes. First, in March 1876, his young wife, according to Powell, walked down to the creek a short distance from their back door and proceeded to “drown herself.” Instead of diving in after her, even though she had just barely turned up missing, he went to find a neighbor to undertake that grim (and chilling) task, telling investigators that he wasn’t good with “that kind of stuff,” meaning dead bodies and such. Everyone, it seems—neighbors, investigators, and even the district attorney—felt he knew far more than he was saying, since his wife’s body was covered with fresh bruises, indicating foul play. Still, he insisted she had been unwell and despondent after having lost a baby two months before. Lucky for George Powell, the investigation was mishandled from the start, and he was never even asked to give a sworn statement for the coroner’s inquest, so he wasn’t charged with anything. That same year, just before Christmas, only six months after his wife’s suspicious death, Powell’s name made the news again. This time, he attempted to procure an abortion on a girl he had recently hired as a domestic servant. He sent Ella Allen away to a doctor in Philadelphia, New York, who performed the illegal procedure for which Powell had already paid. The ordeal nearly killed her and left her suicidal. Powell seemed to have that effect on women.

  Needless to say, Jefferson County—one of seven counties that make up the northern New York region—has had more than its share of historic true crime. Although settlement of the rugged terrain began in the 1790s, the county was officially born in 1805. That same year, its seat—the hub of activity for countywide criminal proceedings—became Watertown, the county’s only city. In August 1828, Henry Evans had the distinction of becoming the first man to be hanged in county history. Today, he has the distinction of being the first killer discussed in this book. In 1862, the third and current county courthouse was built at the intersection of Arsenal and Sherman Streets, just two blocks west of the Public Square historic district (or city center). It was there, in the red brick and limestone courthouse still standing, that every single murder case in this book, except that of Henry Evans, was tried. Think about that the next time you drive through Public Square toward the familiar County Courthouse Complex. Think about the killers taken by horse and buggy along that same route in shackles an
d handcuffs one or two hundred years ago (not to mention the killers driven by squad car in more recent times). The journey to the Jefferson County Courthouse—for those who have done wrong—has always been one filled with dread and uncertainty. It surely was for the people involved in the following stories, for it was there that justice was served, and it was there that they learned their fate, be it freedom, death by execution or incarceration.

  While most locals are familiar with the twentieth-century murders of Patsy Vineyard, Irene Izak, Cherie Dobbin, Christine Vaadi and Bonnie Hector—to name just a few—not many people are aware of the equally sensational murders of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. That’s where this book comes in. You already know the contemptible deviates, like Arthur Shawcross, Stuart Moss and Adrian Rusho. Now, let me introduce you to the worst killers of yesteryear.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE AXE MURDERS ON SLAUGHTER HILL

  BROWNVILLE, 1828

  On a late winter’s eve in 1828, during “an act of savage brutality,” as the Watertown Herald later called it, Henry Evans hacked Joshua Rogers and Henry Dimond nearly to death and seriously injured Joshua’s brother, identified as Nathaniel in one source and Wilbur in another. (I refer to him as Wilbur, the name used in my earliest source.) The carnage took place on Perch River Road, County Road 54, between Brownville and the Village of Perch River, northwest of Watertown, in an old log house that was allegedly being leased to Wilbur Rogers and subleased to Henry Evans at the time. (Either that or the “brute in the shape of a human being,” as the Herald described him, “moved his family into [the] unoccupied log house without the authority of the owner.”) Regardless of how Evans came to live there, Wilbur and Joshua Rogers decided it was time for him to leave. But their mother and other brother, Benjamin, thought it was wrong to evict him. After all, he may have had a temper; he certainly liked his booze, but so did they; and he had a young wife and small children to provide for. Their arguments fell on deaf ears.