The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-07-13
THE MIDNIGHT ESCAPE.
AN INCIDENT OF THE REVOLUTION.

The strip of ground from Broadway
to Centre street, along Chambers, New
York, seventy years ago, was burial
place. The part nearest Broadway was
devoted to the colored people for the
last resting spot of their dead, and the
moiety extending to Centre street was q
kind of Potter's field, and during the
Revolution the spot where most of the
private soldiers of the British army, who
died in the city, were inferred. Gallows
hill, the spot where the Manhattan res.
ervoir is now placed, was decorated with
q gallows, where all deserters and pris.
oners suffered death who came under
the control of the infamous provost
marshal, Cunningham.
1t was customary to execute most o1
the deserters who were native born al
night. Thers was q policy in this.
Public executions of the Americans by
the royalists would have been noised
abroad. and the injury created thereby,
through the manner in which the Cont
nentals them elves wonld have made use
of it, must lave resulted in tho injury
Of the kings csuse. These executions
generally took place after midnight.
The pri-oners condemned to death were
always confined i'll the old Jail, within a
musket shot of the place of execution,
and sergeant's guard of eight men, ac
compani>d by the provost marshal and
his deputy, generally conducted the
prisoners to the gallows.
1t was near twelve o'clock of a night
in October, in the year 1880, that O
young man was reclining among the re-
cent graves that raised their mounds in
the vicinity of the gibbet on Gallows
hill. The hour and the place were sin
gular for lone individual, like the man
in question, TO be reposing. I say lone,
yet he was not exactly so, if human
bodies, divested of their mortality, can
be considered companions for nearly
above his head, swaying to and fro in
the night breeze, hung the remains of
two soldiers of the Fifth regiment, who
had been executed that morning for de-
sertion.
The sky was obs ured with dark,
murky clouds, and the moaning of the
wind, as it swept around the gallows and
through the trees that here and there
reared their branches amid the darkness
of the night, gave desolate and dis
agreeable sound we'll beitting the place
itself. The man scarcely moved, with
the exception, now and then, of raising
his head and peering cautiously above
the mound of earth, behind which he
lay, toward the Jail, dimly visible, with
it's high, massy walls, in the field be-
yond.
At length a light glimmered, the tread
of men was family heard, and the young
man, raising himself from the spot
where he lay, glided along the rude
fence, which skirted the burial ground,
until he stood within few feet of the
execution place. Here he paused and
looked in the direction of the approach
ing light. Family through the haze
appeared two or three files of soldiers,
preceded Ly colored man who carried
a lantern-the only light which seemed
to be in the party. Then walked pris-
oner, with his arms tightly bound be-
hind him, and directly after, Cunning
ham, the provost marshal, and five or
six soldiers with muskets on their shoul-
ders.
"One, two, three" repeated the
young man to himself, as if counting the
number of the men approaching
twelve in all. 'Tis desperate under
taking, but my comrade shall not die if
I can save him. Now for skill and cour-
age. Be cool, Dick Martini You have
been on still more perilous occasions, if
your commanding officers speak the
truth"
He glided back again to his old rest.
ing place, when he stumbled in a grave
that he had noticed before, just in rear
of the gallows. His first impulse was
to leap out, for the depth of the grave
did not exceed three feet but second
thought altered his determination, and
ne murmured:
"This is the best place for me they
certainly will not think of looking for
living man in the grave |" And he
stretched himself at full length in the
narrow house" that he knew one day
or another he should ill. They entered
the burial ground, and proceeded di-
+, city to the gallows, under which they
halted. Forming a circle, the colored
man, with the lantern, Cunningham,
and the prisoner in the center, prepara-
tions were made to go through with the
awful ceremony-that of depriving a
fellow being of life.
The colored man looked up at the gal
lows from which the bodies were hang
ing, and then proceeded very deliberate
ly to cut them down, observing
"These chaps have hung long enough,
1 guess"
The prisoner looked on with glance
of no common interest, for he felt that
his soul was futtering on the confines of
eternity.
The colored man had passed a rope
through the beam where, but few
moments before, hung the inanimate
clods that now encumbered, as it were,
the ground beneath the gallows. This
done, he said:
"There, Mr.. Cunningham, is a rope
that will hold the prisoner long enough,
I reckon"
AS he finished this speech, he very
deliberately kicked the body of one of
the dead soldiers aside, and rolled the
other very coolly into the grave where