CHAPTER EIGHT- WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?

  “In surveying the North River, which she could do from her own residence, she would sometimes express surprise and alarm, and a kind of fearfulness seemed to possess her when she looked at the water, as it was dashing along the shore at the bottom of the garden, attached to the house where she lived. On Wed., she was seen to go in haste through the garden towards the river. No particular notice was taken of this at the time. But soon after, she was missing, and was not found until the Saturday following, when her lifeless corpse was picked up below New Windsor.”- Orange County Patriot, Aug. 11, 1823

         

    Four years after her husband James was hanged, her brother David Conklin and Jack Hodges still confined in Newgate, Hannah Teed’s bloated body washed up onto the river bank in New Windsor. The cause of death of the woman who had been crucial to the conspiracy to kill Richard Jennings was officially listed as suicide, bringing the number to four dead and two remaining incarcerated in this tale. The speculative press, directly referenced the Jennings murder and reported that “Mrs. Teed appeared to be discontented and unsettled in her mind and at times would even discover symptoms of partial derangement.” Had my uncle’s murder driven Hannah Teed insane and possibly to suicide, or was this just wishful thinking on the part of the reporter? I have to ask, was Hannah’s death actually a suicide or something more sinister? I can find no record of a coroner’s inquest. 

     On Wed. July 30, 1823, Hannah Teed was seen “dashing along the shore at the bottom of the garden.” The implication, at least in the papers, was that she had lost her mind due to oppressive guilt over the Jennings affair. Because of the penny press and the publication of the “The Report of…,” Hannah Teed was a known commodity to reporters. The “deranged” woman who washed up in New Windsor left behind a son Charles (now 13), and three girls—Arminda, Julia Ann and Sarah. Little attention had been paid to Hannah, or her children since the hanging. A map of Newburgh circa 1820 shows a lot of Ludlow property along the river. My mother always said the Jennings were related to both the Houstons and Ludlows, who still have New York City streets bearing the family names. I don’t know if this is true, or just family lore, but a Ludlow house could have been where Hannah looked out on the North River in fearfulness.   

     Hannah had moved to Newburgh, and been forgotten, until she turned up dead. The ex-cop Michael J. Worden, who wrote The Murder of Richard Jennings, dug no deeper than to reference a musty, unsubstantiated, article by Warwick “historian” Donald Barrell, stating that, “the children were raised by good Orange County families and grew up to become respectable citizens.” I dug just a bit deeper. It’s rocky ground. Hannah died without a probated will. Her other brother Joseph Conklin, and Nathaniel Knapp are both listed as administrators of her estate, consisting of little more than a few unpaid bills and some folded napkins. Hannah Teed’s last child, Sarah Bethiah Teed was born Aug. 25, 1819, never knowing who her father was. If her father was Jack Hodges, there’s no record of Sarah Bethiah Teed being listed as mixed race, mulatto, or “CP” colored person. Three weeks before her youngest daughter Sarah’s fourth birthday, Hannah Teed was dead.    

     Did Hannah Teed commit suicide, or was she pushed in the river? I realize that suicide usually makes no sense to anyone but the one doing the killing; but what would drive Hannah Teed to kill herself so many years after the trials? Was she in contact with her brother, or Jack Hodges in Newgate? There are no surviving letters. Could events in Newgate prison in 1823 have had an impact on her in Newburgh? Coffey writes of a an incident right before he arrived, when an inmate work strike over lack of food, was spun by the authorities as an attempted prison break. “…the convicts were locked up promiscuously…several military companies were paraded before the prison…confusion reigned, in the horrid den, for two entire days; but not a word was heard from the convicts, but bread! bread! bread!”  Conditions in Newgate Prison in 1823 were far from ideal, but they were stable. I don’t think events in Newgate had anything to do with Hannah Teed’s suicide.

    Or, could Hannah have contacted someone in Goshen, hoping to extort money with a threat of some sort and received an unexpected answer? Hannah knew a lot, but was never called to the stand. In return for her guilty plea and a month in the gaol, Hannah Teed was excused from testifying in any of the trials. Knowing what she knew, Hannah Teed would’ve been an even better State’s witness than Jack Hodges. Why was she never called to the stand? Or, I know it’s a stretch…. but what if Sarah Teed was Henry Seward’s child? Nothing would surprise me at this point. I’ve got another pile of questions surrounding Hannah Teed and her suicide, that have no good answers. Lacking any way to confirm or disprove Hannah’s suicide or the D.N.A. of her daughter, we will have to take the newspaper’s word for it and say goodbye to Hannah. Rest in peace Hannah Conklin Teed. We hardly knew ye.