FUCK ME? FUCK YOU!

“A due regard for public safety would seem to require so dangerous a man [Jack Hodges] should not, at least for some time to come, be set at liberty.” – I am very respectably your obedient servant, W.W. Van Ness, letter to Governor Dewitt Clinton

      Researching this book has been nothing if not on the job training to teach 7th grade New York State history, sue a neighbor, murder a family member, or address afternoon gatherings of the Walden Ladies Auxiliary. The alien ghosts have become my loyal companions as we stumble down the “innocent pavement.” I could draw you a family tree to specifically show the branches of patriarchy, along with the web of matrilineal vines drooping all the way to the ground, with Sewards, Jennings, Millers and Coles, but I’m afraid I’d lose you in a blur of one begat another. Genealogy is for those lovely people gathered in church basements, but not for me. It’s enough to know we all spring from the same ornery misanthrope, Richard Jennings, and the poor kidnapped Anna Osterhout; or as my mother would spin it—“some very nice people.”

      

     On March 31, 1819, New York Governor Dewitt Clinton, in a purely political maneuver, presented before the State Assembly a letter from Judge William W. Van Ness to pardon Jack Hodges (black man) for the murder of Richard Jennings (white man). Henry G. Wisner held his breath. There’s no indication that Jack Hodges (or any of the others) knew what was happening on Jack’s behalf upstate. This is another very grey area in the proceedings. What would make Judge Van Ness so radically change his recommendation of Jack’s sentencing in three weeks? Somehow, between March 10th and March 31, 1819, the tide had shifted in Jack’s favor. On April 6th, ten days before the most infamous four criminals in the history of the state were scheduled to be put to death, the New York House of Assembly took up for discussion a bill to pardon Jack Hodges. And in a unanimous decision, they voted to grant Jack Hodges that pardon. Not so fast.

      Martin Van Buren and almost all of the Albany Bucktails were Free and Accepted Masons. The secret society was outraged that a black man could be pardoned, and one (or two) of their own not spared. Even Dewitt Clinton was a First Grand Master in the Holland Lodge #16 (now #8). Like George Bush, and John Kerry, these powerful men, on both sides of the aisle, belonged to the same secret club. The illusion of a binary system of government remains intact today. In Van Buren’s estimation, this was a Clinton fast one, a slap in the face of his Albany Regency opposition, and their brother masons in general. The legislature realized they could add or subtract names from the bill, and began to carve it up to their liking. The bill to pardon Hodges was voted on again, now with David Conklin’s name added and passed; falling basically along party lines, with a vote of 54 to 43. But they weren’t done yet. In a magnanimous mood, someone made the motion to add James Teed to the bill. There was no mention of the poor, white tenant farmer David Dunning. And that’s where the proceedings ground to a halt.

      The less than spectacular hanging of only one man (David Dunning), a poor white tenant farmer, while a black man and two others were spared the noose, was not looking too good to anybody….. Freemasons or not. What message did it send (or sense did it make) to just hang one man for a murder conspiracy? It negated the whole purpose of the trials. Another vote followed, and James Teed was now denied clemency by a vote of 52 to 46. Not satisfied with these results, blood-lust returned to the august body. Another motion was made to also remove David Conklin’s name, keeping it in its original form—pardoning only Jack Hodges, and hanging the three white men. This motion was agreed upon, carried, and the bill was once again passed by the Assembly, sending it back to the State Senate for approval. Pardoning a black man, and hanging three white men, was never going to fly, no matter how much the politicians professed color blind egalitarianism. They weren’t done yet.

       The Senate would not meet again until April 10th (six days before the scheduled execution). If the bill to pardon Jack Hodges did not please them, they could squelch it, revise it, or once again, send it back to the House for reconstruction. Everything was still fluid. Lives could be saved, or officially snuffed out with the stroke of a pen. David Dunning, whose name was never even brought up in the New York Assembly session, was none the wiser, engaged in conversation with himself, glumly considering his fate, while the gallows construction had already begun in the orchard.

      Phoebe Jennings Teed was dead. Richard Jennings was dead. Hannah Conklin Teed was waiting in jail. James Teed, also in jail, was about to hang. And these were just the ones I’m related to. Teed, Conklin and Dunning had little hope for reprieve, awaiting the noose. While, to everyone’s astonishment, a story began to circulate in Goshen that Jack Hodges would be the only one to avoid execution. As rumors flew and the drunks gathered, lynching was again a very real possibility for Jack Hodges.

    Jack Penney put down his paper and fell asleep outside Jack’s cell. Jack could hear the rustling and low voices outside his cell window. Then the voices went away and Jack also drifted off to sleep. As dire as the prospect of a lynching was, the normal pulse was returning to Goshen and it’s beat was quickening. The influx, once again, of fine carriages, young men on horseback, and whole families in farm wagons, put smiles on people’s faces, distracting the mob. When the early April snow quickly melted, the muddy town came fully to life. Spring was in the air. 

   There was speculation that the timber Dick Jennings was so concerned about losing had been hauled across Knapp’s field, and now provided the raw material for the gallows. They could hang from the same trees that shaded the woodlot where Dick froze to death. In Albany, negotiations continued well into the night. If Conklin was or was not a Mason, the secret society later disavowed him entirely. Months after the hangings, The Orange County Patriot ran a disclaimer for the local Free and Accepted Goshen Masonic Lodge #365: 

 “After diligent inquiry, in which we were assisted by the Grand Visitor, and on the best information, we do not hesitate to say, that the said David Conklin is not nor has ever been a member of any regularly constituted lodge in this county, and that he is not nor ever has been a Mason.” -Sept. 13, 1819, The Orange County Patriot