Fancestor

    “A man named Peter Yates in Pitts town, who on the night of December 4, 1781, murdered his wife and four children with an ax, the eldest six years of age and the youngest a suckling child. He likewise killed his two horses, his cow and his dog, which was all the living creatures he had about his house.”- Governor George Clinton Papers      From the testimony of most of the witnesses Jack and Dunning might as well be referred to as Drunk and Stupid . Was Jack Hodges always drunk? Was Dunning more clever and cunning than anyone gives him credit for? Or was he actually mentally impaired? These broad strokes do little to hide the implied classism, and racism of the time. I don’t think Dunning was crazy or stupid, just poor, uneducated and definitely unlucky. And Jack? That’s still a mystery.        With Dunning, an insanity plea was a nonissue. He may have been illiterate, but not crazy. This was years before not guilty by reason ...

“Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall become white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall become as wool”- Hon. William W. Van Ness The Report of the Trials of the Murderers of Richard Jennings     There hadn’t been a hanging in Goshen since January 22, 1779, when Cowboys Claudius Smith and James Gordon were finally strung up, ending their reign of terror in Orange County. With Martin Van Buren’s referencing of Richard III, the Jennings tragedy had literally taken on Shakespearian proportions. Four men had been sentenced to die, and one pregnant female was languishing in the gaol. The Goshen gaol had become so busy, and “insecure,” with the curious, that the local militia had to be called out, enlisted to keep guard over the assassins; as everyone queued up for a peek. It was just like the old days when Goshen Sheriff Isaac Nicolls pleaded with Governor George Clinton for the militia to help guard the illusive Cowboys . The Governor denied ...

“No beast so fierce that knows some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore I am no beast.”- William Shakespeare, Richard III       Remarking on the still healthy New Netherland deer population in the 1600’s, Dutch lawyer and patroon, Adrian Van der Donck, marveled that even with unchecked Indian hunting around Wildwyck, the deer were as plentiful as “before the small-pox broke out amongst them.” He postulated that the Indians a hundred years ago “were ten times as numerous as they now are,” and the herd remained healthy.       By 1655 the Indian population had shrunk 90% since first European contact, due to small pox and other diseases. Van der Donck observed, “That then, before the arrival of the Christians, many more deer were killed than there now are, without any perceptible decrease in their numbers.” The point was brutally clear. The aliens misperceived that the land and animals were unlimited, but an increase in Indian population w...

“You have seen the manner in which she [Margaret Dunning] testified, you saw the hysteric laugh which distorted her countenance……and the trouble and anxiety she has experienced has affected her reason and destroyed her memory.”- Martin Van Buren to the court.     The phrenological chart of Belleville, Texas Judge John Patterson Osterhout, drawn up by Prof. Sylvanius Stokes for a charge of $2 says it all. This study of the shape and size of the skull notes (on a scale of 7): Brain size- 3, Activity- 5, Philoprogenitiveness- Parental love, Filial love, and love of pets in general- 6 minus. Perception and memory of colors- 4 Never trust a man who only has half a brain—and doesn’t love pets.      Back streets, small underwater towns, skinny waterfalls, beat-down mountain tops, butcher shops, paper mills, lumber companies and rare loco-weeds would be named for both Osterhouts and Jennings. A local Sullivan County visionary named Asa K. Osterhout...

“….those wonderful regions which are unlocked to the mind’s eye by the wand of the god of dreams.”- Washington Irving     Martin Van Buren guided Washington Irving to this idyllic Catskill spot, unlocked by the “god of dreams,” a few miles east of my house. Stop on Rt. 17K, near Shawangunk Road, and look down the mountain. The view through the morning fog will be the same. You can’t see a thing.     When the fog burns off, the place Washington Irving so poetically mused over will materialize in all its glory. It has at various times been an Indian Village, outlaw den, “the jewel of the Catskills,” and 200 years later is Bloomingburg, New York. This “dream” has devolved into a sad, grimy little nightmare, known for contentious Hassidic sprawl, voter fraud, horrific cases of child abuse, run-down bungalows, and backwoods trailers. This is the manifestation of the alien curse: casinos, quickie-marts, box stores, gas stations, truck stops...

 “Dog’s meat will lie a long time above the ground and not smell.”- Dr. SS Seward     I miss my father. It was unfair, the way I left him behind the locked door of the trailer bedroom in the narrative, ravaging my mother. He deserves better. Richard (Dick) Osterhout was a young sailor, just returned from war, who matured into a loving father and husband. We always had respect for each other, and as we both got older we developed a mutual love. Like the mother and son thing, relationships are just as precarious with a father. But the old man and I found a good balance. Common ground like hunting, and dry humor, kept us close. He taught me a lot about family, probably influencing my life and work way more than I give him credit for. Last night he came to me a dream. Like all these ancestors, he’s hard to shake once roused.         Another botanist in the family, George E. Osterhout, was spotting that precious little milkvetch that would be nam...

    “She might well be considered controlled by her husband,   in yielding the aid she did, to the murder; and although her conduct was deeply criminal, probably the ends of public justice would be better served, by punishing her for the minor offense than in exposing her to a public and infamous death”- Samuel R. Betts, for the People            I’m struggling through scholarly papers like The Theory of Solutions , and the high school textbook Experiments With Plants , written by botanist/physiologist Dr. Winthrop Jon Van Leuvan Osterhout; trying to get a grasp on the significance of electrical conductivity in plant and frog cells. Like the blind doctor, “Ma” Van Vliet Jennings, and my father, I also have glaucoma, and may go blind. It’s in our D.N.A. I don’t understand it, but I can accept it. Having no scientific background whatsoever I’m completely out of my depth with the family scientist, who shares my disease. But, I can app...

“Mrs. Teed was bound to Jack by a chain which could not be dissolved. That son, whom she has brought to prove the innocence of her husband, was put to bed with the assassin of her uncle.”- Martin Van Buren to the jury.     “I’m starting to wonder if James Teed might not have gone from some otherwise low tide indifference (or pleasure) with Anak-Jack clam diggin’ with ex- Hanna to facilitating a double elimination (Dick & fall guy Jack),(also pleasure), lubed and fueled by the still house formaldehyde? Power and dignity may be taller boots indeed, but they seem to sink even deeper into their own shit. Keep it comin’! I’ll winch my ass out when I need to!” This quote is courtesy of my good friend, and loyal reader, artist Ted Rosenthal. Every morning he reads the blog and responds with his helpful exegesis. It’s an invaluable gift that reminds me that at least one person is reading. You think art is a lonely game? Try writing a fucking book.     ...

“The prisoner at the bar gentlemen is an interesting object. The badge of his degradation covers his body. Born and reared in poverty and ignorance; a friendless stranger, the fortune of war, I believe, threw him upon our shore and a day of misfortune brought him into the employment of David Conklin and through him into intimacy with Mr. and Mrs. Teed.”- Henry G. Wisner to the jury.        Having been privy as a child to first-hand oral history of my grandfather Wray Osterhout, and grandmother Mary Ethel Jennings, who were children when cattle were still driven down the dirt road from Cochecton to Newburgh, I have a basic perspective on anecdotal local history, but that’s as far as it goes. They didn’t talk much about their past, preferring instead to enjoy a comfortable present, and promising future. I know my grandfather grew up dirt poor and only received a sixth grade formal education. I don’t think my grandmother graduated from high school either...

MODEL 1803 and

“It deserves notice that had he been silent, no conviction for the murder could have been; but his conscience made him tremble, and forced the confession from him.”- The Report of the Trials of the Murderers of Richard Jennings      The law would have you believe that no matter who shot Dick, or administered the fatal blow, all were equally culpable once the trigger was pulled, before, during and after the fact. And in purely legal terms, this is correct. But this was anything but a formal case of a who-done-it in the woods. This had much larger implications for society as a whole. Who actually killed Richard Jennings was immaterial….to everyone but Jack Hodges.      Two distinct sets of tracks were found in the snow and two sets of wounds were found on the body, from two different sources. One was a bloody, ragged bird-shot wound that ripped Dick’s ear off, admitted to by Jack Hodges during his first confession, and each subsequent trial. But t...

“In such scenes of animosity and contention were engendered those dark and malignant passions, which terminated in the blackest crime that human depravity can commit.”- The Report of the Trials of the Murderers of Richard Jennings             Even the carpenters in the family have had their share of danger, excitement, and minor glories. At the raising of the post and beam Methodist church in Oak Hill, Greene County, NY in 1859, something went horribly wrong, and an Osterhout stepped up to save the day. The local paper reported on the drama:     “One of the chains had been put on the wrong way and tightened instead of loosened as the bent went up…..The whole weight of the bent rested on these two poles. It was a fearful crisis. To let the bent come back was thought to be impossible without endangering many lives.    “There was an awful suspense for a few moments, when one of the builders, Stephen Osterhout, seize...

“There’s one thing I want to ask you. What would you do if it was your brother?”- Jonathan Peter Jackson, “Day of the Gun“ KRON TV 2003     Booze will make you do funny things; not always in your best interest. I can commiserate with Jack’s weakness for the stuff. Late one summer evening, after drinking all day with bunch of old friends, we decided to continue the party at a local bar in Montgomery. Having just returned from years in California, I had forgotten how cold the nights could get this time of year. Someone lent me an old pair of overalls, and we stumbled on our way to Clinton Street.       The street in front of the bar was filled with young people, laughing and drinking, having a great time. I’d been out on the West Coast for years, and thought in my absence that Montgomery had turned into Fort Lauderdale on Spring Break. It sure looked like I’d been missing out on a hell of a lot of fun. So with a bad case of beer goggles and ...

“God for his mercy! What a tide of woes comes rushing on this woeful land at once!”- William Shakespeare, King Richard II        Carpentry, above all other skills, has kept the Osterhouts and Jennings from perishing. I’m sorry to say it still does. My brothers and I all work for wage. I work way less. No matter what my varied creative pursuits, or questionable doorman skills have been, my only real monetary exchange value has been as a carpenter. With age, bad knees and failing eyesight, even that marketable skill is abandoning me. Or more honestly, I’m abandoning it. Once again, genetics are to be blamed for my lack of financial success, while credited for my ability to conveniently ignore my financial obligations, and write this book.  Notifuckation : “Your job is rewarding. Just not financially.”     I can relate to the doomed gold prospectors, lousy cops, conflicted missionaries, rabid communists—and sometimes even the murderers. A...

“In 1865, young Lewis Payne tried to assassinate Secretary of State W. H. Seward. Alexander Gardner photographed him in his cell, where he was waiting to be hanged. The photograph is handsome, as is the boy…”- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida       Another way of looking at all of this could be through the sex/death lens. Why the hell had I not read “Camera Lucida” before this? Both sides of my family, the Osterhout family studio portrait by James VanDerZee, and the handsome, aspiring assassin, Lewis Payne (aka Powell), are represented in Barthes’ book. Roland Barthes knows that the conspirator Payne is condemned to die, just like we know the Sugar Loaf conspirators share the same fate. But that’s not what fascinates Barthes….nor I. It’s the obvious “handsomeness” of Payne that gets Barthes, and “the native dignity and nobel carriage,” of Hodges that pricks me.       In the photo of the black Osterhout family, Barthes waxes poetic — a...

“…when the condemned culprit is an acquaintance, a neighbor, perhaps a friend, or relative, it must convey anguish to the bosom too severe for description, and excite a pang of distress in the most insensible heart.”- The Report of the Trials of the Murderers of Richard jennings Samuel Wilken sworn By Atty. Gen. M.Van Buren: Q. What inducement could the prisoner [Jack Hodges] have, to murder Mr. Jennings? A.  He has stated to me he was bred a sailor, and had acquired habits of intemperance; after the wishes of Conklin and Teed had been known to him continually in a besotted state, for a considerable length of time previous to the event, he had been solicited and hired, and finally was overpersuaded to commit the deed, but did not consent till a short time previous to the murder.        At any time, a man or woman may want to kill another. It’s human nature—another one of those universals. Usually, it’s that person closest to t...