St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-07-18

fancies, formed for each other when
schoOlmates, ripened into love with
their increasing years. They became
engaged, but, with the fickleness of
some of his sex, Buzzell grew restive
under the restriction and, after several
postponements of his wedding day,
threw it off entirely. An unhappy
amour with a girl of half his age re-
suited soon in his forced marriage.
Miss Hanson, the woman scOrned,
sought redress in breach of promise
suit, which was suddenly closed by her
death. Suspicion naturally pointed to
Buzzell as her murderer, but his arrest
and trial brought acquittal by the court,
if not by public opinion. He might
never have been punished had not his
spirit of revenge led him to burn the
his prosecution. A search for the in
cendiaries resulted in the arrest of one
of his tools, young man in his employ,
and the latter's confession, with aecumu
lating evidence, has finally caused his
execution. ..... ..
The hanging in the prison at Con-
cord, yesterday, passed off without un-
usual incident. The gallows had pre-
viously been tested by the murderers,
Pike, Evans, Major, La Page and Pink
ham, and the rope was the same which
stretched Devlin's neck at Cambridge
in May. There was no bungling, and
when Buzzell dropped through the trap
his neck was broken. No confession
escaped from the wretched man, as
some had anticipated. He would not
deny all knowledge of the murder,
though he positively asserted that he
was not in the vicinity of Miss HansOn's
house when she was killed. He ex-
pressed the hope that he had been con-
verted, and on the scaffold his express
sions were: "The Lord be with me.n
''This is not like Jesus.n His body was
returned to his former home at Brook
| field, for burial
The Buzzell case resembled in some
of it's features that of John P. Phair,
the Rutland criminal, and his fruitless
struggles to escape its consequences,
Both men were bad from their youth
up, but in different ways. Phair was
popular among his rough associates, a
reckless, fiery tempered, devil-may-
care sort of a fellow, with occasional
attacks of religion and few good
streaks, while Buzzell was close-fsted
hard hearted and little esteemed, his
crafty nature covering up as far as
possible the baser passions which he
possessed in a marked degree, and he
rarely saw the inside of a church
Their victims were women, but of fal
different characters, and the two mur-
ders were committed the same year, il
1874, a few months intervening. Ava
rice was the motive of one crime, re-
venge of the other In each an assassin
worked mercilessly. But when the
murderers were brought to account
plenty of men and women of high sta
ton were found to beg for the mercy
which had been remoIselessly denied tC
the murdered. Every expedient was
Iesorted to by eminent legal talent tC
save the men from the doom which
overshadowed them, the supreme court
Legislature and governor of their re-
spective states being urged to interpost
their authority, but the moose has finally
claimed its victims.
Public sympathy is easily aroused
for men in distress, even if they are
murderers, and, under the softening
influences of the years which have
elapsed since Mrs. Freese and Miss
Hanson were brutally slain, it is not
strange that tender hearted people
should have wished that Phair anG
Buzzell might have escaped their fate
Upon second thought, however, few
will probably regret that they have re-
ceived the extreme penalty meted out
to them.