Early American Crime

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Stephen Smith was born a slave in 1769 in Virginia. His last name was originally Allen, but he changed it to Smith in order to escape from the master who owned him, William Allen. Smith’s father was a religious man, but his mother encouraged him to steal. With her prompting, Smith committed several small thefts until he stole some leather from Allen, who consequently sent Smith to the West Indies to be sold.

In the Woods

After arriving in the Caribbean, Smith concealed himself in the very vessel that carried him south and returned back on it to Virginia. He snuck off the ship undetected and onto an island, where he lived in the woods until he almost starved. In desperation, he broke into a house to find something to eat and stole some shirts and shoes. After living in the woods for two days more, he approached another house to ask for some food, but he did not receive the cordial welcome he expected. The inhabitants of the house instead tried to capture him, and when Smith ran back into the woods they shot at him and wounded his leg.

Smith lasted in the woods with his wound for a few days, but he was eventually caught and taken back to his master. Allen relinquished his responsibility for Smith by giving him to his son, who sent Smith back to the West Indies. Once again Smith managed to escape the islands and traveled back north. This time he ended up in Nova Scotia, first in St. John’s and then in St. Ann’s, where he was arrested for breaking into a house and a store.

Smith pleaded not guilty to the burglaries and was cleared of both, although later he confessed that he was guilty of breaking into the house. But Smith faced two other indictments that he incurred while in custody: one for striking a lawyer and another for assaulting the gaol-keeper. He pleaded guilty to these two offenses, but was pardoned by the governor in exchange for leaving the province.

Boston

In August 1796, Smith complied with the terms of his pardon and traveled south to Boston. After living there for seven months he was once again arrested and indicted on four charges. This time he faced two counts of house-breaking and two of arson.

While in Boston, Smith had worked as a servant for Samuel Goldsbury and William Turner. After Smith left their employ, both of their houses were burglarized and then set on fire, which partly damaged Goldsbury’s house, but completely destroyed Turner’s. Suspicion fell on Smith, who was traced to the residence of another black man named Kimball who lived on Devonshire Street. Upon searching Kimball’s house, the authorities found a bag that contained some plate and a few other items belonging to Goldsbury and a pair of silver buckles belonging to Turner.

The Boston Gazette reported that while living in Boston, Smith had proved himself to be “an abusive bad fellow.” Even though he regularly paid for his board while living with Kimball, he did so “without any visible means of procuring money.” Smith spent most of his nights out and was not at home on the nights when the burglaries and arsons occurred. Smith tried to convince his girlfriend to give evidence that he was with her on the night of one of the burglaries, but she turned out to be “too honest” to do so.

Smith pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him. In court, he was first tried on the burglary of Goldsbury’s house. The trial lasted throughout the day, but in the end he was found guilty of the charge, which itself was enough to sentence him to die. As Smith received his death sentence, tears welled up in his eyes, but he did not allow any of them to trickle down his face. He later admitted in his Life, Last Words, and Dying Speech that even though he originally pleaded not guilty to the four charges, he was indeed “guilty of the whole.” He also admitted to shoplifting, stealing wine and porter from two men with whom he lived, associating with “bad Women,” and breaking the Sabbath.

The Bottom of the Common

On October 12, 1797, a large crowd gathered at the bottom of the Boston Common near the Central Burying Ground to see Smith’s execution, which was preceded with a public whipping at the post of “several Culprits, convicted of inferior crimes.” At about 1:45 p.m., Smith was led out of jail and escorted on foot to the scene.

After the usual prayers and speeches were concluded, a halter was placed around Smith’s neck and a white cap drawn over his eyes. It was reported that “after an instant’s pause which HE appeared to devote to fervent though silent prayer, HE was led to the scaffold, the supporting line unfastened and the malefactor launched into ETERNITY.” Smith was 28 years old at the time and was the last person hanged on the Boston Common for burglary.

After hanging for a half hour, Smith’s body was cut down, placed in a coffin, and buried. But Smith had not reached his final resting place. Soon after his coffin was covered with dirt, his body was dug up and taken for dissection.

Sources

• [“Albert Gardner”]. Impartial Herald (Newburyport, MA). September 19, 1797, vol. V, issue 369, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• [“At the Supreme Court”]. Western Star (Stockbridge, MA). September 18, 1797, vol. VIII, issue 44, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, Monday, March 27.” Boston Gazette. March 27, 1797, issue 2215, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “By Mail. Boston, Oct. 14.” Commercial Advertiser (New York, NY). October 18, 1797, vol. I, issue 15, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “October 13. Execution.” New-Hampshire Gazette. October 17, 1797, vol. XLI, issue 2134, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• Rogers, Alan. Murder and the Death Penalty in Massachusetts. Amherst, MA: Univ of Massachusetts Press, 2008.
• Smith, Stephen. Life, Last Words, and Dying Speech of Stephen Smith. [Boston: 1797]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank. Documenting the American South version: http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/smithste/smithste.html.

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On Friday, December 4, 1789, William Mooney Fitzgerald and John Clark were scheduled to appear before the court in St. John, New Brunswick. They were to learn their sentence after being tried and found guilty of burglary the day before. That morning, Rev. Charles William Milton entered their prison cell and later wrote that he found “two unhappy men, surrounded with chains, expecting every moment to have sentence of death pronounced on them,” which “together with the disagreeable stench which arose from them, so affected me, that I was speechless for some time.”

After meeting Fitzgerald and Clark, Milton accompanied the two convicts to the court, where at noon the Honorable Judge Upham pronounced a sentence of death on them and ordered that they be held in jail until their execution on December 18.

The Head of the White Boys

William Mooney Fitzgerald was born in June 1763 in the city of Limerick, Ireland. His parents were honest and creditable, but at the age of sixteen he joined the White Boy gang and became their leader.

The White Boys were a band of agrarian Irish-Catholic insurgents who committed violent offences starting around 1759 to protest enclosures of common land, evictions from rented land, and exorbitant tithes. They took their name from the white smocks they wore as uniforms, and they were accused of carrying out “dreadful barbarities” on people who did not follow their orders or join their gang:

they cut out their tongues, amputated their noses or ears; they made them ride many miles in the night on horseback, naked or bare-backed; they buried them naked in graves lined with furze [a thorny bush with yellow flowers] up to their chins; they plundered and often burned houses; they houghed [i.e., cut the hamstring] and maimed cattle; they seized arms, and horses, which they rode about the country, and levied money, at times even in the day (Sir Richard Musgrave, Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland, From the Arrival of the English, 1802).

During the first half of the 1780’s when Fitzgerald headed the gang, White Boy activity seemed to focus on protesting tithe collections, although the institution in general had already begun to decline by this time.

While a member of the White Boys, Fitzgerald carried out several capital crimes. At the age of 19 he was condemned to death for committing rape, but for some reason was pardoned. In 1785 at the age of 22, he and six others broke into the home of Rev. Buckner and stole an astonishing 15,000 guineas without being detected. Justice finally caught up with Fitzgerald when that same year he was caught and sentenced to death under the White Boy Act, but he was reprieved on condition of being transported to Botany Bay.

Fitzgerald boarded a ship with 138 other convicts, but instead of proceeding down the coast of Africa and eastward towards Australia, the captain headed in the opposite direction. He sailed towards Nova Scotia with the intention of selling the convicts as indentured servants. The captain’s scheme was easily discovered, so he dumped his shipload of convicts near Little River in Massachusetts (which later became part of the state of Maine).

Fitzgerald committed two thefts while in Massachusetts before fleeing to St. John in New Brunswick, where he met up with some of his fellow convicts from the ship. They committed several thefts together before Fitzgerald and Clark teamed up and were arrested for the burglary of William Knutten’s house.

An Unusual Pardon

John Clark was also born in Ireland around the same time as Fitzgerald. After displeasing his father through his conduct and actions, Clark joined the army, but then deserted it and became a thief. He rejoined the army, but before he could desert again, he was shipped off to America to fight in the American Revolution. Clark was discharged after the war, but he re-enlisted in another regiment, only to be discharged again after being tried by court martial for thefts and misdemeanors.

In 1786, Clark and two others were tried and sentenced to death for burglary in Halifax. But Clark received a pardon on condition that he carry out the execution of the two other burglars, which he did with their consent. Despite this near miss, Clark continued to commit even more thefts in Nova Scotia.

On October 18, 1788, Clark traveled to St. John, where he met one of the women from Fitzgerald’s convict ship. She and another woman convinced Clark to carry out with Fitzgerald the burglary that led to their arrest.

Regular Visits in Prison

As Fitzgerald and Clark came out of the court room after their sentencing, Rev. Milton handed them a Bible. He later discovered that Fitzgerald not only was brought up as a “rigid papist,” but that he was illiterate, so Clark volunteered to read to his partner. Milton visited the two prisoners every day to discuss the Gospel. On the fourth day, Milton was advised to limit his visits so as to avoid offending the public, but after some reflection he “without hesitation, rejected the advice, as coming from the father of lies.”

On the Sunday before their execution at three o’clock in the afternoon, Milton preached in front of the jail. The convicts stood on a snow bank and Milton on top of a table, and despite the extreme cold, a large group of people turned out to hear his sermon and gawk at the prisoners. Before Milton began his speech, Clark asked permission to read a confession to the public, which was granted. Many tears were shed during the sermon, and afterward the “prisoners appeared very much resigned.”

On Wednesday, the judge ordered Fitzgerald and Clark to hear their death warrant read aloud, and by their own request their coffins were delivered into their jail cell. Milton wrote that the sight of them lying in their coffins was one “which no feeling mind could behold without being affected.”

While in prison, Fitzgerald supplied to the authorities a list of seventeen convicts he knew from the ship that transported him, along with their crimes. Eight of the convicts were transported for shoplifting or theft, and four had committed animal theft. Others were banished for highway robbery, coining, and rape.

Milton’s regular visits must have had their effect, because on the day of their execution he found Fitzgerald and Clark “as much composed as if they were about going a pleasant journey.” The two walked to their place of execution on each side of the Reverend, who took leave of them after they ascended the ladder of the gallows. While moving up the rungs, Milton heard Clark observe that “every step he took was a step nearer to God.”

The two were executed at half past noon. “More solemnity,” Milton wrote, “was perhaps never observed at any execution before.”

Sources

• Milton, Charles William. Narrative of the Gracious Dealings of God in the Conversion of Wm. Mooney Fitzgerald and John Clark. Exeter: Re-printed by Henry Ranlet, 1793. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• Musgrave, Sir Richard. Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland, From the Arrival of the English. Vol. I. Third edition. Dublin: Robert Marchbank, 1802. Database: Google Books, http://books.google.com.
• “St. John’s (N. B.) Dec. 22.” The Pennsylvania Packet. January 25, 1790, issue 3428, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Whiteboys.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Database: Encyclopedia.com, http://www.encyclopedia.com.

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Note: This post continues “Thomas Mount and the Flash Company.”

In his “Last Speech and Dying Words”–a subsection of The Confession, &c. of Thomas Mount–Thomas Mount offers an odd mix of contrition, advice, and rant. Along with the usual declarations of penitence and warnings to young men not to follow his idle ways, Mount provides his interviewer with “the various ways of discovering thieves and house-breakers, so that in future it will be next to impossible to practice the thieving business without detection.”

A Proposal to Fine the Victims

Mount begins his guidelines for detecting a thief by asserting that “all thieves are great cowards (for the bark of a dog will make them run).” He then submits a proposal to fine the victims of highway robbers if they are attacked by no more than two such thieves. “[T]he heroism of one honest man is, or ought to be, sufficient to make two thieves run,” he reasons, so victims who succumbed to only one or two robbers clearly did not make an effort to defend themselves. In Mount’s eyes, the loss of money and property to the robbers apparently is not enough punishment for these cowardly victims.

Mount goes on to disclose “how any man of the least common sense may discover a thief”:

by his often looking back—turning quick up lanes—standing to gaze at signs—and stopping to enquire for the houses of persons who do not live in the place—going into shops and giving the merchant a deal of unnecessary trouble in calling for a sight of one thing and another, and of twenty more, without buying one article. If a thief appears in the day time, you never see him without his rogue’s face on; look at him pretty sharply, and you will see how suspicious and timorous he looks; take him by the hand, it feels soft, and your touch makes him shrink, you may perceive his hand nervous; but in nothing is this nervousness more perceptible than, if he takes a pen at your desire, up to write with—it will therefore be to ask all suspected persons to write, and their hand will instantly tell upon their heart.

Mount’s Rant

After doling out his advice for detecting thieves, Mount goes on a long rant about the receivers of stolen goods. He complains that the thief or highwayman, who “risks his life every adventure he engages in,” only receives from them a tenth of the value of what he steals. He goes on to say, “These receivers being in league with our whores, make them very extravagant in their demands upon us, who, after treating them with the best of our spoils, if we do not promise quickly to get them more, threaten to inform against them.” After the receivers take their share of the booty, he continues, “we have seldom or never enough to buy decent cloaths, wherein to assume the character and appearance of honest men and quit bad company, had we ever so much mind for it.”

Mount concludes his rant by handing out advice that applies both to “good people and bad people, thieves and honest men” and in the process provides a picture of life among the Flash Company:

When I look back upon a company of thieves, with their whores, met after some house or shop breaking match, full of plunder, and recollect the scenes of cursing, singing, dancing, swearing, roaring, lewdness, drunkenness, and every possible sort of brutish behaviour, I detest myself for having so often been one in such companies.—Under these circumstances we are very liable to be apprehended: and therefore, . . . if ye get into the way of thieving, nothing can cure you but the gallows.

The Oath

To give further insight into the inner-workings of his criminal gang, Mount asks that “the language and songs of the American flash company” be published “to inform the world at large how wicked that company is, and how necessary it is to root them up like so many thorns and briers which if suffered to remain would destroy the rising crop of young fellows throughout the Continent.” As partial fulfillment of his promise, Mount appends “The OATH at the Admission of a Flat into the Flash Society” near the end of his Confession:

THE oldest Flash cove takes the Flat by the hand, asks him if he desires to join the Flash Company. The Flat answers, yes. The Flash cove (head man) bids him say thus:—I swear by ___ that to the Flash Company I will be true—never divulge their secrets nor turn evidence against any of them—and if a brother is in distress, that I will hasten to relieve him at the risk of my life and liberty—and if he suffers, endeavor to be revenged on the person or persons who were the means of bringing him to punishment.—After taking the above, or a similar oath, the Flat receives a pall, i.e., a companion, and they two are sent out upon some expedition.

Clearly, William Stanton, who provided the evidence that led to Mount’s execution, either was not a formal member of Mount’s Flash Company, or, as the old saying goes, “there is no honor among thieves”–even if they do take an oath.

Note: The story of Thomas Mount continues with “Thomas Mount’s Flash Songs.”

Sources

• Mount, Thomas. The Confession, &c. of Thomas Mount. Portsmouth, [NH]: J. Melcher, [1791]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.