NO MORE GOOD JACK

“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 was an ever present threat. And, if it wasn’t crystal - if native populations were allowed to grow, too many Indians will ruin your deer herd. The future looked promising; just not for the wild beasts, or the Indians. Nits make lice!

Jack Hodges sworn

Cross by Mr. Price: 

Q. Do you know a wench that lived at Ezra Conklin’s

A. Yes, I bought her off Mr. Conklin for 50 dollars.

Q. Was you ever much enraged at her?

A. Yes, I was very angry when I found out she had a white baby.

Q. Did you ever threaten to cut her throat?

A. No, never.

Q. What was done with the reputed father of the child?

A. He was put in the gaol.

Q. Did you ever threaten to take the life of the man who took him out of the gaol?

A. No, I never did.

     When Jack Hodges found out that the woman he had “purchased” from Ezra Conkiln was pregnant by a white man, he admitted that he was angry; but denied threatening to slash his slave’s throat. This was obviously a transactional arrangement, and Jack felt cheated by his “wench” when she brought another mouth to feed into the Hodges household. It didn’t help that the baby was white. Both the woman and infant are only referred to anecdotally, in order to smear Jack’s character. Then the subject is dropped forever.  

    Although Jack denies it, there was another instance brought up (in passing) at trial accusing him of killing a white man in New York City. With Jennings, that makes three white men Jack Hodges has either threatened or killed. If there was any truth to this, Jack could have earned a reputation as a hired gun. Charlie Durland testified to Dunning saying he heard Jack admit to “killing Jennings, and a better man before him.” Evidence was mounting that could contradict the state’s assertions that Hodges was an unimpeachable witness.  

   I suspect Jack Hodges’ participation in this crime (like my own family’s) runs much deeper. There’s something lurking just beneath the surface.Two posses went out in search of Jack Hodges. But it’s only Charlie Durland’s posse who catches Jack. And it is only Charlie Durland and his men who are ever discussed in any of the capture narratives. Where was the other posse?  Who were they looking for? Or, were they helping spirit a family member away?     

         

New York Atty. Gen. M. Van Buren at the Trials of the Murderers of Richard Jennings:

“Richard the third, well knowing that wilst his young nephew were living, the crown would not stand firm on his head. Employed by James Tyrrel, a man of aspiring spirit, to procure his children’s destruction, which he accordingly did about midnight. Tyrrel’s bloody instruments came into the chamber where the young king and his brother lay, and suddenly wrapped them up in their bed clothes, keeping by force the feather bed and pillows hard upon their mouths, till they were smothered to death. Tyrell was then going on to relate the particulars- the unrelenting assault of the assassins- the struggles of the expiring children, when the conscience stricken Richard suddenly interrupted him.

“No more good Tyrrel!” “No more good Jack!” was the language of Conklin.”