COLD CASE FILES

   “On the 1st of January, 1819, [Friday] without notice to him [Dr. S.S. Seward], or any one else, I left Union College, as I thought then forever, and proceeded by stage-coach to New York with a classmate [Alvah Wilson] who was going to take charge of an academy in [Mt. Zion] Georgia. I had difficulty in avoiding observation as I passed through Newburgh, the principle town of the county in which my father lived. Arriving in York for the first time, I would have staid to see its curiosities and its wonders, but I feared pursuit.”- William H. Seward, Autobiography of William H. Seward from 1801-1834

    New Years day 1819, the same day Richard Jennings was scheduled to close on the Sugar Loaf property, was a very busy day for Henry Seward, Jack Hodges, and most of the inhabitants of Goshen. Let’s reestablish a rough time line for the murder of Richard Jennings, and the capture of the “desperado,” Jack Hodges. 

From the testimony of Samuel Pitts: 

“On the 21st of Dec. last he went from his home and did not again return. After about a week the neighbors were alarmed; on Monday morning the 28th December, about fifteen of the neighbors went in search of the deceased and found the body in a wood about one mile from the village of Sugar Loaf, half a mile from the house of James Teed, and forty rods from the highway.” 

    

    Jesse Wood puts the body a half mile closer to Sugar Loaf, but essentially the story is the same. When asked when he saw his brother-in-law’s body, Dr. Samuel S. Seward testified, “On Tuesday 29th of December last.” When asked by the District Attorney “Did you pursue the prisoner [Jack Hodges] after the body was found?” Posse leader Charles B. Durland replied, “Yes, in the company of three gentlemen; I went as far as Newburgh on the evening of the 29th of December….we arrived [in New York] early on the morning of the 31st of December [Thursday]…..the first person I saw was Jack Hodges in the door of the cabin.” New Year’s Day (Friday) Jack was in irons in the Bridewell jail as Henry Seward was supposedly heading for New York City from Schenectady. Richard Jennings’ corpse laid covered with an old canvas tarp in the back of Sam Pitts’ wagon, oblivious to it all.

   Quoting Seward scholar Walter Stahr, “While he was home in December for winter break, however, Seward and his father quarreled about money….Seward returned to college as planned in early January 1819, but later in the month, without notice to his father or the college, he left with a classmate, bound for rural Georgia.” In his footnote (#11 Chapt. 1) Stahr refers to letters written between father and son before the fact in 1818. None of this adds up, and Seward’s own autobiography contradicts Stahr. Most people don’t confuse the dates of holidays, unless they are still too drunk to remember. William H. Seward is very specific in his autobiography: 

“1st of January, 1819….left Union College…I took passage, with my fellow-traveler,[Alvah Wilson] on the schooner which was first set to sail for Savannah; but the vessel was obliged to wait for a wind. I lived on board during this detention, so as to avoid discovery on shore. The last night before our departure, with the permission of the captain of the schooner, I went to the Park Theater, the only one then in NY…..Taking no notice of my surroundings, I wept with Mrs. Barnes in the tragedy until the curtain fell on the first act….” 

    

     The Old Park Theater program notes that Scottish actor Robert Campbell Maywood made his debut in New York on Jan. 4, 1819 as (of course) Richard III. The Mrs. Barnes that made Henry weep was Mrs. Mary Greenhill Barnes, who three years prior made her debut at the Old Park as “Juliet.” Late on the evening of Jan. 4, 1819 the New York Evening Post reviewed Mrs. Barnes performance as she appeared, once more on the New York stage, this time in the role of Queen Elizabeth, in the production of Richard III. Henry Seward, “fearing pursuit,” was in the cheap seats.

    Richard Jennings was missing for a week before his body was discovered on December 28th. Within days, his nephew, William Henry Seward, was also missing—but nobody knows it yet. With Richard Jennings, the excuse for not looking harder for the man was, “he was known to disappear.” Young William Henry Seward had no such habit. If word had miraculously been received in Florida of the student being AWOL from school after January 1st, there may have been reason for Henry to be worried about “discovery on shore.” But mail stages took just as much time as passenger craft. Classes likely did not resume until after New Year’s Day. How could he be missing if he’d just returned to school? After the previous week of disappearances, escapes, murder and a body cropping up, word of Henry’s absence, (or flight) would have been a major event in Goshen; happening simultaneously with the search for Jack Hodges. Had anybody been “in pursuit,” why would they have given up so readily when they couldn’t locate the boy, and returned with just Jack? In recalling these events so many years later, Seward remembers that he is on the run, but forgets that nobody else knows this. After the posse arrested and secured Jack Hodges at Bridewell, they certainly would have continued in search of William H. Seward. If my cat Cheeky stays out all night I’m a nervous wreck and immediately start calling. Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeky!