Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1876-08-31


dered simple verdict of not guilty,
adding, however, as he dropped into
his seat,
ut was a good thing, though, judge,
for the old Revolutionary chap that
he stormed Stony Point!"
/ THE MIDNIGHT ESCAPE.
~ q An Incident Of the Revolution.
The strip of ground from Broadway
to Centre street, along Chambers,
New York, seventy years ago, was a
burial place. The part nearest Broad.
way devoted to the colOred people for
the last resting spot of their dead, and
the moiety extending to Centre street
was kind of Potter field, and during
the Revolution the spot where most of
the private soldiers of the British
army, who died in the city, were in
TERED. Gallows hill, the spot where
the Manhattan reservoir is now placed,
was decorated with gallows, where
all deserters and prisoners suffered
death who came under the control of
provost marshal, Cunningham.
1t was customary to execute most of
the deserters who were native born at
night. There was a policy in this.
Public executions of the Americans by
the r0yalists would have been noised
abroad and the injury created thereby,
through the manner in which the
Continentals themselves would have
made use of it, must have resulted to
the injury of the kings cause. These
executions generally took place after
midnight. The prisoners condemned
to death were always confined in the
old Jail, within musket shot of the
place of execution, and sergeant's
guard OF eight men, accompanied by
the provost marshal and his deputy,
generally conducted the prisoners to
the gallows.
It was near twelve o'clock of a night
in October, in the year 1880, that a
young man was reclining among the
recent graves that raised their mounds
in the vicinity of the gibbet on Gal
lows hill. The hour aud the place
were singular for lone individual,
like the man in question to be reposing.
I say alone, yet he was not exactly so.
if human bodies Invested of their
mortality, can be considered compan-
ions; for nearly above his head, sway
ing to and fro in the night breeze,
hung the remains of two soldiers of
the Fifth regiment, who had been ex-
ectted that morning for desertiOn.
The sky was obscured 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 dessolate
and disagreeable sound we'll betitting
the place itself. The man hardly
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 beyond.
At length 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 a few
feet of the execution place. Here he
paused and look ed in the direction of
the approaching light. Family
through the haze appeared two or
three files Of soldiers, proceeded by a
colored man who carried lantern
the /. only light which seemed
to be iii the party. Then walked u
prisoner with his arms tightly bound
behind him, and directly after, Gun.
bingham. the provost marshal, and five
or six soldiers with muskets on their
shoulders.
Zone, two, three, repeated the young
man to himself, as if counting the mum.
Der of the men approaching ''twelve
in ALL" lis des@erate undertaking,
but my comrade shall notd if l. can
save him. Now for skill and courage.
Be cool, Dick Martin! You have been
on still more perilous occasions, if
your commanding officers speak the
truth. -
e. He glided back again to his old rest
ing place, when he stumbled in a grave
that be had noticed before, Just in the
rear of the gallows. His first impulse
was to leap out, for the depth of the
grave did not exceed three feet but a
second thought altered his determine.
ton. and he murmured
"This is the place for me; they
certainly will not think of looking for
a living man in the grave - And he
stretched himself at full length in the
s'narrow house" that he knew one day
or another he should fill. They entered
the burial ground, and proceeded d.
rectly to the gallows, under which
they halted. Forming circle, the
colored man, with the lantern, Gun.
ningham and the prisoner in the CEN
ter; preparations were made to 60 on
with the awful ceremony-that of de-
priving fellow being of life.
The colored man looked up at the
gallows from which the bodies were
hanging, and then proceeded very de.
liberately to cut them down observing:
"These chaps have hung long enough
I guess"
! The prisoner looked on with a glance
of no common interest, for he felt that
his soul was auttering on the confines
of eternity. ~ . '.'.s '.5.. s..'.
The colored man had passed a rope
through the beam, where but a few
moments before, hung the inanimate
clods that now encountered as it were;
the ground beneath the gall0ws. This
4 done, he said:
There, Mr.. Cunningham IS q rope
that will hold the prisoner long
enough, I reckon - 's #
/ 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
1 lay the man !; and the dead rested upon
the living! A shudder ran through
the frame Of the youth, as he felt
pressing above him the solid form Of
one who, but q day before,. had been
! "a full Of life "a he now was but not