Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1876-04-01

prosecution of Capon. The latter was
tried and convicted, but the jury having
to fix his punishment, he was not SER
fenced to death, but to Imprisonment at
hard labor for life. ..s ....
The prisoner was overwhelmed with
grief because of his conviction. He
never tired of protesting his innocence,
and his eyes were constantly red and
swollen from weeping. He was taken to
the penitentiary at Columbus, where he
was at first very harshly treated; but his
amiable disposition was not long in max
ing so agreeable an impression upon the
keepers that many privileges were
granted to him. These he never abused; /;
on the contrary, he proved an efficient
assistant to the prison authorities on
more than one occasion, so that they
wondered how this good-natured man
could have been capable of committing
so henious crime.
Five years passed by, when an ovont
occurred which proved beyond doubt
that Capon was after all an entirely in
nocent man.
A cotton broker, named Wilson, at
Savannah, Ga, had long been on bad
terms with his wife. Finally he charged
her with adultery, and sued for a di-
vorce. The wife thereupon accused him
of having murdered man on the
sixteenth of November, 1841, on the
day after leaving Pittsburgh, Pa, and
of having robbed his victim of $4,000
in $500 and 81, 900 bank bills.
She said that she had to wash on the
next day, when he had unexpectedly re-
turned to Pittsburgh, her husbands
shirt, which had been blood stained,
and she charged him with having killed
somebody. He had confessed to her
what he had done, and they had left
Pittsburgh few days later and gone
South.
Wilson was arrested, and the authori-
ties at Steubenville at once communi-
Gated with. The sheriff who had ar
rested Capon, and who was still in office,
came personally to Savannah with a
requisition from the governor of Ohio.
When he had his first interview with
Wilson, the latter, who was terrified be-
yond measure by the prospect of the
scaffold, asked him whether full con-
fession would save him.
eff you are guilty, it will be, maybe,
the only thing that will save your life, !"
replied the sheriff.
Thereupon Wilson made clean breast
of it. He said he had waylaid Sammis,
who had left his horse at house three
miles from Steubenville, and had at
tackled him with knife. Sammis had
offered the most desperate resistance,
and had compelled him to stab him
often before he had succumbed.
When. the sheriff arrived with his
prisoner at Steubenville, the exasper-
ated people could be barely prevented
from lynching Wilson.
The governor of the State, upon re-
ceiving certified copy of Wilson's con-
fession, Immediately granted full
pardon to Capon, to whom the Legisla
ture, which happened to be in session
at Columbus at the time, voted the sum
of $1,000 to idemnify him for the suf
ferings he had innocently undergone.
1t is needless to try to describe Ca
pons JOY at this unexpected change in
his fortunes. He returned to Steuben-
vile, where the people received him
amid manifestations of unfeigned Joy.
At the next term of the circuit court,
Wilson was sentenced to be hanged, the
court saying that the enormity of his
crime had been augmented by his suf-
fering an innocent man to be punished
for it.
Capon gave proof of genuine mag
nanimity by going to Columbus and
asking the governor to spare Wilson's
life; but the governor refused to inter-
fere. So Wilson was hanged at Steu-
benville on the fourth of January, 1S47.