DON'T LYNCH THE DECOY

“Yes Captain, but your enthusiasm has made you forget your glass tower…”- Rev. Charles Rockwell, Sketches of Foreign Travel and Life at Sea 1842

    Finally something clicked in Bill’s head. With his right arm out of commission, he gave up, ran towards the stable, stole Mrs. Wyckoff’s horse and disappeared into the moonlit night. The daughter, Julia VanNest, her brother Peter Van Nest, and Helen Holmes all escaped unscathed, due to the bravery of Mrs. Wyckoff. Without her valor the bloody scene would’ve been much worse. As Bill told many, he had “only just begun his work.” The first men to come upon the scene were so shaken they couldn’t speak. County sheriffs, hard, grizzled lawmen and county doctors who’d seen it all, hadn’t witnessed anything like this since the war.

     Mrs. Wyckoff’s horse was old and slow, but from years of riding other people’s stock, Bill was an excellent horseman. He put his heels into the horse’s belly and reined him north with his left hand, towards New Guinea. He galloped past Mr. Williamson walking on the road, his leg brushing against the neighbor’s shoulder, almost knocking him over as he flew by. Just off the Owasco river the horse stumbled and fell in the sluice. Bill was able to leap free of the tumbling horse, and landed unhurt. Thinking his mount to be on his last legs, with a heavy thrust he stuck his hog sticker glancing off the gelding’s ribs, leaving him to die in the rough. The horse moaned and heaved forward, flopping and kicking in the dirt and loose strife. Harrison Mastin would find the bloody (but still alive) horse. 

   Leaving the horse thrashing, Bill took off running through the streets of New Guinea, heading north by northeast. He ran about three miles before coming upon Mr. Burrington’s barn, where he stole another horse. He rode that horse all night, with just a blanket, and a rope halter; through Syracuse, into Oswego County, ending up at Gregg’s Tavern, where he asked all gathered if anyone wanted to buy a horse? This horse was now almost dead also. Nobody in the bar paid much attention to the ragged looking man and his half-dead horse. That is, until another rider brought news of the murders in Fleming. Bill was eating.

Alonzo Taylor (constable) sworn:

     “I arrested Freeman at Gregg’s Tavern in Oswego County, on the charge of murder. He was at his supper when I arrested him. When accused of the murder, he stated he knew nothing about it. I then told him he did know about it. I said, “You black rascal, you do know about it.” He looked up at me, rolled his eyes and grinned. I raised my cane at him. Someone said don’t strike him. I spoke to him again and alleged the murder, and asked him how he came to kill that innocent child? He said he didn’t know anything about it. I then took my chains out of my pocket. Someone said I’d better stop till he had done eating. I waited at the back of his chair eight or ten minutes. After he finished his supper I told him to stand up. He was then searched thoroughly. We found but one penny in his pocket. I then ironed him.”

      After politely letting William Freeman finish his meal, constable Taylor delivered him directly back to the Van Nest home; where the wounded Helen Holmes and Mr. Van Arsdale were still on the scene. By this time an angry lynch mob had gathered to greet Alonzo Taylor and William Freeman as they rode up. Both Helen Holmes and Van Arsdale positively identified William Freeman as the killer. “Get a rope!” somebody yelled and Alonso Taylor looked for an escape route; fingering his colt, hoping somebody would back him up. On the way back to Auburn, passing directly in front of the Seward house, a group of menacing riders trailed the constable; every one of them armed. 

      The only thing that saved William Freeman from a lynching was one very nervous local justice, who implored the crowd to wait and get the facts straight before killing Bill; because “more than likely others had put him up to the deed.” The seed of doubt planted by that one justice saved Bill’s neck. The mob resisted lynching him, in order to find out if there was a wider conspiracy. Because of The Report of the Trial of the Murderers of Richard Jennings, and the more recently published Black Jacob, the conspiracy downstate surrounding Richard Jennings’ murder and the “murderer” Jack Hodges, were well known in Auburn in 1845. Maybe Bill was put up to the killings. Even after their deaths, Jack Hodges and Richard Jennings were having an effect on society at large—this time saving another murderer from the extra-judicial rope.

      When the crowd broke up, William Freeman was deposited, relatively unharmed, at the Auburn jail. The jailers gave him a sling for his injured arm, chained his right leg to the wall and tipped over a wash tub for him to sit on. Bill’s timid likeness adorned the front page of Auburn’s Daily Cayuga Tocsin, that ran a three page spread inside, detailing the murders. He didn’t look like a monster. 

     The sheriff stationed men round the clock to keep watch over William Freeman for the first couple of weeks. A lynching while in custody would be an embarrassment.

     As the minister delivering the Van Nest funeral oratory at the Sand Beach church on Lake Owasco fanned the flames of revenge, calling for “blood for blood,” the horrific details and nature of the crime were revealed to the general public. As grotesque as the crime was, William Freeman (like the Goshen conspirators) became an instant local celebrity amongst the clergy and populous. He’d finally got someone’s attention. In fact so much attention was paid to Freeman, the annoyed jailers complained that they would have to “get another nigger to keep outside for show.” Realizing that may not work, a jailer admitted in court, “we were afraid the crowd would lynch the decoy nigger.”