TERTIARY JUSTICE

“What has suddenly happened is that the white race has lost its heroes. Worse, its heroes have been revealed as villains, and its greatest heroes as arch-villains.”- Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice 1968

     Not all my alien ancestors landed on the wrong side of history. Delaware County down-renters, brothers Elias, David and Cornelius Osterhout, donned the masks and joined Dr. Smith Boughton’s armed insurgency, the Calico Indians, determined to end the feudal manor-lord system in New York. They would succeed, but not without severe consequences. After the “accidental” death of Sheriff Osman “lead can’t hurt” Steele, these Osterhouts ended up in Dannemora, doing time for murder and kidnapping, at the brand new upstate Clinton Correctional Facility. The Osterhout brothers, along with dozens of other rebellious farmers, were prosecuted by New York Atty. Gen. John Van Buren (Martin’s son) only to later be vindicated, pardoned, and freed as working class heroes. Their kin, and some of their generational farms, remain in Ulster, Sullivan, and Delaware Counties today.

       

    “They saw that he had been led into crime by the deep-laid plan of wicked men….” explained the Canandaigua minister Rev. Ansel Doane Eddy, “…..who had been goaded to desperation by repeated disappointments, and whom nothing could satisfy but the violent death of their victim.” Jack may have been guilty as sin in the eyes of the law, but in the clergy’s eyes, maybe he had some wiggle room. As Rev. Eddy points out, “they saw…”  The defense lawyers hoped the jurors, the clergy, and the judge, recognized that Jack was the victim of Teed and Conklin’s “disappointments,” and insatiable wickedness. Jack was the first to confess. His guilt was accepted, and in implicating the rest, he had been forgiven, and eventually would be given all he asked for—a mattress, blanket, and eventual death. The whole county was dizzy with anticipation of a four rope hanging. If a deal had been made behind the scenes for Jack Hodges to take the rap, it hadn’t worked. The black triggerman would hang with the rest.     

     Whiskey flowed in the packed taverns and gin mills across three counties. Even the clergy got in the act. They didn’t steal the booze, or join in the drinking, but the pastors were completely absorbed in all matters pertaining to the execution.This was serious business. During the early “anti-capital punishment” era in New York, a righteous, well planned hanging was a rare occurrence. Crucial pageantry was a necessity. The spectacle had to be adhered to, and there was no way to rehearse the main event. Everybody pitched in and asked themselves, how’d we do it the last time?

     Word spread quickly across the entire state of the hangings about to take place in Goshen. The times were such that this beggar’s opera took on old testament proportions, capturing the curious attention and imagination of the rural countryside. Official hangings had become so rare in antebellum New York, that to witness four men hang simultaneously was, what many considered, an opportunity that may never come again. 

   During the trials, strangers filled every hotel room and boarding house bed in Goshen; their horses and wagons filling the streets. Crowds lined up well before dawn to get a seat in the courtroom. Fine cutters pulled by sleek mares and old buckboards pulled by dusty mules and oxen, joined saddle horses of every color and size, munching in feed bags, tied haphazardly all over the village. The livery was full, and the blacksmiths had never seen such business. 

     They came from up and down the river to Newburgh and overland from every direction. The heavy snows of December had melted and nothing new had fallen since one big storm in January. With temperatures in the teens, the roads were frozen solid and clear. Travel was easy. Nobody knew, or cared, when the next storm would hit. All they hoped for was to get to Goshen and get a seat in the courthouse. Everyone remarked how considerate it was of old Dick to die in December—when there wasn’t much to do on the farm. At least Richard Jennings was more gracious in his dying, than he ever was in living.

      If there was one piece of common ground Church and State co-habited in 1819, it was capital punishment. The ultimate consequence administered by society, could not be left to either separately. Unlike in the cities, anti-gallows reformers had yet to have much of an impact in rural upstate New York. Like questioning slavery, that complicated dialectic was reserved for the urban centers of Albany, Philadelphia or New York City. In the countryside it was much more basic, an eye for an eye—or in this case—eight eyes.  

    The upstate preachers didn’t offer up the churchyard for the hanging, but that doesn’t mean they hadn’t considered it. County officials, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Episcopal clerics were heavily invested in what had already taken place and what would transpire next in regard to the condemned. In many ways they shared the blame and the responsibility for these men. They had failed royally in stopping Richard Jennings’ murder and they all knew it. The clergy, family, bar flies and constables, saw it coming. Why had no one attempted to stop it? They had been impotent in thwarting the conspiracy and murder; and now, they were presented with the duty to determine where these men would go from here. Redemption in this life was impossible. But judgment at heaven’s golden gate awaited. Let us pray.