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- [00:01]
Narrator
There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. Listen with Wondry plus in the Wondery app as a member of Noiser plus at noiser.com or in Apple Podcasts. Or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com a few weeks ago, my wife daughter and I took a short trip to New York City. It was my daughter's first time and she was very excited to see Hamilton live on stage. She's a budding musical theater aficionado and performer in her own right. Last night I watched her on stage in a kids adaptation of Schoolhouse Rock, perhaps the epitome of Gen X nostalgia, but when we were watching Hamilton at the end of act one, there's a song called Nonstop which paints the early careers and growing rivalry of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burke. And in this song, there's a very quick reference Gentlemen of the jury, I'm curious. Bear with me. Are you aware that we're making history? This is the first murder trial of our brand new nation. The first murder trial of our brand new nation. Well, the first recorded murder trial, and it came in 1800 when Levi Weeks was accused of murdering Elma Sands in what came to be known as the Manhattan well murder trial. But this trial wasn't just important for being the first or a rare bit of teamwork by Hamilton and Burr. They were co counsels for the defense. It was also probably the dawn of America's infatuation with true crime. On today's Saturday matinee, we bring you the story of this trial as told by the podcast the Art of Crime, a history podcast about the unlikely collisions between true crime and the arts. I hope you enjoy. While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow the Art of Crime. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you. Hey prime members, have you heard you can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free. That's good news. With Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to Amazon.com ADFreePodcasts that's Amazon.com ADFreeP Podcasts to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. History Daily is sponsored by Audible. What would you do if your most famous work, the one that puts you on the map, was both outrageously popular, quoted everywhere, but reviled by some by being simplistic, productive, too commercialized? Well, if you're Malcolm Gladwell, you write a rebuttal sequel, Revenge of the Tipping, Overstories, Super Spreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering. I'm listening to it on Audible because I find there's more to imagine. When you listen as an Audible member, you choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog. New members can try audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.comhistorydaily or text history daily to 500500 that's audible.comhistorydaily or text History Daily to 500 500.
- [03:18]
Gavin Whitehead
If you get off the subway in Soho, New York, and make your way to 129 Spring street you'll find yourself in front of a COS store. COS is a Swedish fashion brand that specializes in contemporary Minimalist Apparel. Inside 129 Spring St. The decor complements the modern Less Is More clothing on sale. The walls are all white and mostly unadorned, immaculate and lustrous, sort of like an Apple store. But pass by the first floor display tables and take the back staircase down to the basement showroom and you're bound to notice a fixture that clashes with the rest of the interior design. An ancient brick cylinder more than six feet in height, the structure protrudes from one wall, looming behind a pair of smartly dressed mannequins. This enormous eyesore is the Manhattan well constructed 225 years ago. If you care to ask, employees might tell you ghost stories about it. And there's no question why. In 1800, the Manhattan well stood at the center of a murder mystery that captivated New York. Welcome to the Art of Crime, a history podcast about the unlikely collisions between true crime and the arts. This season is titled Crimes of Old New York, and it explores extraordinary cases that could only have happened in the Big Apple. For this, our inaugural episode, we begin with a crime that impacted the lives of multiple artists and craftspeople, including two prominent architects. Moreover, the Manhattanwell homicide truly made history. It led to the first fully recorded murder trial in the United States. Finally, this episode, we're doing something different than we've ever done before. I'm presenting the story of the Manhattan well as something of a puzzle mystery in the style of Agatha Christie. Get ready to meet a large cast of characters, many of whom are suspects. Without further ado, let's hear how the Manhattan well murder became the first cause celeb of the 1800s, how two of the nation's founding fathers got involved in the controversy, and how the trial paved the way to a new genre of crime writing. This is the Art of Crime, and I'm your host Gavin Whitehead welcome to episode one of Crimes of Old New York, the Manhattan well Mystery in 1799, New York Bore little resemblance to the metropolis we know today. It looked more like a 21st century Midwestern market town. The city's 60,000 inhabitants mostly lived in the tiny southwestern corner of downtown Manhattan. Though large compared to other US Cities, New York was smaller than several major urban areas in Europe. For example, Paris was home to 600,000 residents, London 1 million. The streets of New York were lined with buildings of no more than two or three stories and ran along fields, pastures and the occasional lake. By the Beginning of the 19th century, New York had surpassed Philadelphia as the young republic's most important port. The warehouse dotted waterfront of lower Manhattan was always in motion with the loading and unloading of cotton, sugar, timber, tea and eastern perfumes. Two blocks away from the Hudson river and running parallel to it, Greenwich street connected the southern tip of the island to the bucolic pastures of nearby Greenwich Village. Divided from Manhattan to the south by Meadowland, Greenwich Village represented something of a separate locality at this time. Once a dusty, largely empty lane, Greenwich street had morphed into a bustling commercial and residential avenue by the 1790s, complete with storefronts and red brick houses, most of which belonged to artisans and laborers, both white and black. The victim and suspects in the Manhattan well murder all made their home at a Quaker run boarding house at 208 Greenwich Street. The landlord answered to the name of Elias Ring. Elias hailed from upstate New York where he and a friend had founded a flour mill, a 54 acre operation built along the shore of Murderer's Creek. Perhaps only fittingly, given its location, unfavorable conditions conspired to kill the mill. So Elias picked up and moved to Manhattan, a city that hummed with a sense of opportunity. After taking over the boarding house at 208 Greenwich, Elias opened a dry goods store on the ground floor of the premises. At this point in history, it was common for business owners to run their shops out of their own homes. In his free time, Elias dabbled in engineering, designing a water wheel, among other inventions. Never undignified in manner or appearance, Elias dressed in plain Quaker clothing and peppered his speech with these and thous. Elias presided over a full house. He moved in with his loving wife Catherine, also a Quaker. Along with their four children, Catherine ran a millinery shop at 208 Greenwich and employed as many as 20 staff members. Mr. And Mrs. Ring lived with two additional relatives. First there was Hope Sands, Catherine's sister. Then there was Hope and Catherine's cousin, Will Yelma Sands, nicknamed Alma. Alma was the daughter of a single mother whose father had absconded to South Carolina. In their early 20s, Hope and Alma pitched in around Catherine's millinery shop, placing hats on display for customers and ringing up buyers at the till. They also tended to chores around the boarding house, preparing meals, rinsing dishes and tidying up the first floor common room. Ill health and recurring bouts of melancholia sometimes prevented Elma from chipping in, in which case she stayed upstairs in bed. In addition to Elias, Catherine, Hope and Elma, five boarders lived at 208 Greenwich. One of them went by the name of Levi Weeks. A 23 year old carpenter, Levi shared his modest room with his young apprentice, William Anderson. Levi's life was one of honest toil. After a breakfast of bread, cheese and apples washed down with a glass of room temperature beer, potable water was hard to come by. He typically headed over to the lumberyard. Levi worked for his older brother Ezra, a well regarded architect who was never without a commission. Ezra was so trusted that his firm had been hired to combat one of New York's most pressing issues, the water supply. By the 1790s the city derived its drinking water from a single well, the tea water pumped. In 1799, Ezra's business was engaged to build subterranean piping that could carry clean water straight to New Yorkers homes. To this end, Levi Weeks and his fellow construction workers hollowed out hundreds of white and yellow pines and buried them underground. Living together under the same roof and taking meals around the same table, the residents of 208 Greenwich street were bound to form friendships. On his day off Levi hung around with Hope and Elma Sands. One July afternoon found the three of them exploring Baker's Museum, housed in the sky blue antechamber of the Stock Exchange on Wall Street. There they marveled at an array of natural and man made enormous lobster claws, a live bald eagle, waltzing automata and waxwork models of Mendoza and Humphreys, two famous boxers positioned as if they were duking it out. On other occasions Levi and Hope went out together while Alma languished in bed, too sick to come along. On December 9, 1799, just a few days after first frost that winter, Levi and Hope went over to Ezra's house next to the lumber yard before proceeding to a sermon in support of a charitable cause at St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway in Fulton, a well attended event that represented a highlight on the parish's social calendar. Yet frictions were just as likely to arise as friendships. In recent months, an English merchant named Richard David Croucher had moved in at 208 Greenwich. Tall, thin and approaching 40, Croucher walked the streets by day in an effort to sell linens and other textiles. He hardly, if ever, broke bread with the other residents. As a rumor. Instead of a border, Croucher paid only for a place to sleep. Still, he conversed with Elias and Katherine Ring, as well as the three unmarried women who resided in the building, Hope and Elma Sands, along with another called Margaret Clark. It's uncertain what transpired, but Croucher quarreled with Elma in the hallway one day, perhaps putting his hands where they ought not to have gone. Whatever the case, Levi confronted Croucher about his misconduct. An argument erupted during which Croucher called the young carpenter, quote, an impertinent puppy. Croucher avoided Elma and held a grudge against Levi from that point forward. To many observers, the roots of the Manhattanwell murder stretched back to the summer of 1799, right at the height of the yellow fever season. Since the end of the American Revolution, this mosquito borne malady had ravaged New York with increasing frequency. In the most severe cases, eyes yellowed with jaundice while blood ran from ears and other orifices. The afflicted vomiting what looked like coffee grounds. Death followed hot on the heels of these symptoms. One Friday afternoon in July, a local merchant's daughter discovered a sailor gasping for water in the alley behind her house. She and her sister notified a doctor, who immediately sent the mariner to quarantine on Staten Island. This precaution was too little, too late. Contagion had already come to New York. As summer turned to autumn, the death toll climbed. By September, 10 New Yorkers were dying each day. Those who could afford to cleared out of town. According to one townsperson, quote, as soon as this dreadful scourge makes its appearance in New York, the inhabitants shut up their shops and fly from their houses into the country. Those who cannot go far on account of business remove to Greenwich Village, unquote. Greenwich Village remained more or less untouched by the plague because its sandy soil and superior drainage prevented stagnant water from pooling, making the area inhospitable to mosquitoes. The arrival of yellow fever in summer 1799 upended the social and sexual dynamics of 208 Greenwich street in late July, Katherine Ring joined the exodus of Manhattanites fleeing to Greenwich Village and from there to the countryside by way of a bumpy carriage ride. Elias stayed behind to oversee the boarding house, heartened to know that Catherine was safer outside the city, yet saddened to endure the epidemic without her. Catherine was accompanied by her four children, as well as her sister, Hope. For whatever reason, Alma remained at the boarding house. Times of extreme stress like this, one can heighten the need for sexual release while also lowering inhibitions. That was certainly so at 208 Greenwich street as residents testified after the murder, late at night they could hear somebody tiptoe out of his or perhaps her bedroom and into someone else's. By all accounts, there was nothing furtive about the fornication that followed. These midnight trysts were cause for scandal because they were clearly taking place out of wedlock. Apart from Elias and Catherine Ring, none of the residents were married to each other. The fever died down as the leaves turned yellow, red and orange. Little by little, those who had fled Manhattan returned to their homes. Spirits remained high until the end of 1799 and beginning of 1800, during which time New York mourned two losses. The first was the passing of President George Washington, who died at his residence in Mount Vernon, Virginia on December 14th. The second was a murder in the middle of their own city. It was December 22, 1799, and most new Yorkers were seated in pews for all day services grieving the death of the nation's first commander in chief. Levi Weeks was not among their number that morning. Levi went to his brother Ezra's lumberyard where he readied his hammer, nails and planks. He had been tasked with fashioning eight doors of differing sizes for the two story home of a merchant named Mr. Cummings who lived on the bustling thoroughfare of Broadway. While at work, Levi gashed his knee and the injury was serious enough for him to put the project on pause. Back at the boarding house, Alma nursed Levi, a sort of role reversal since the carpenter tended to her whenever she took ill. After helping him upstairs, Elma plastered his knee and put him to bed. By the afternoon he was up and about and had taken a seat beside the fire in the first floor common room. Joined by Elma, she encouraged Levi to leave his work until tomorrow, but he would hear none of it. Mr. Cummings Doors would not build themselves. He wolfed down dinner and prepared to set out for the lumberyard later over Alma's objections. There was plenty of coming and going at the boarding house that night. Both Elias Ring and Hope Sands were attending Quaker meetings. English born cloth merchant Richard Croucher was thought to be relaxing in a coffee house before stopping by at a friend's for a birthday party. Elma was dressing for a night out as well. A rare occurrence, given her precarious health. Which looks best? She asked Catherine Ring. In one hand she held a calico gown and in the other a white dimity petticoat with long sugary ribbons. Picking the calico gown in the end, Alma was slipping into it when Levi entered with his coat on one arm. The changing young woman disappeared behind a folding screen. Where's Alma? Levi asked. She is hid behind the bed, Mrs. Ring explained. Don't mind me, the carpenter replied. I want you to tie my hair. Elma emerged from her hiding place and obliged, possibly tying his hair in a ponytail. Then Levi pulled on his coat, said goodbye, and left for the lumberyard. A little while later, Elias came home to find Catherine lighting a candle in the common room. At around this time, Elma popped over to a neighboring boarding house. While dressing, she had realized that her muff was missing. This pillow, like mitten would keep her hands warm in the freezing cold night, so she went and borrowed one from Elizabeth next door. Once she returned, Alma hung around in the parlor, and Catherine noticed that she kept glancing out the window as if impatient. Shortly after 8:00, Levi came home earlier than expected. He needed to speak with his brother Ezra about his assignment, but Ezra was currently entertaining company. Levi planned to wait at 208 Greenwich until 8:30, at which point he would trudge back over to Ezra's for the third time that day. As time wore on, residents other than Levi and Elma retired for the evening. Catherine Ring was in a downstairs room when her ears pricked up. Somebody was whispering near the front door. She also heard footsteps on the stairwell, possibly Levi's. She held her breath and listened intently. Somebody was definitely whispering in the entryway. The heavy front door creaked open and closed, the latch falling. Afterward, silence descended. Catherine couldn't say why, but a shudder passed over her. Levi came home about two hours later at 10 o'clock. His apprentice was waiting for him outside. Their locked apartment keys were costly and closely guarded commodities, and of the two roommates only Levi could afford to carry one. The carpenter fished it out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and instructed his apprentice to hit the hay. In the meantime, Katherine Ring had emerged from her bedroom and was hovering in the parlor. Levi inquired, is Hope got home? Catherine answered in the negative. Her sister was staying late at the Quaker meeting, it seemed. Is Elma gone to bed? He asked. If not, he could look in on her before turning in himself. No, katherine answered. She has gone out. At least I think I saw her ready to go and have good reason to think she went taken Aback, Levi responded, I'm surprised she should go out so late at night and alone. Catherine pursed her lips before answering. I've no reason to think she went alone at this moment. The meaning of these words escaped Levi. Levi greeted Hope at breakfast the next morning but noticed that Elma was missing from the table. Nobody thought much of her absence that morning. She often slept in when she was feeling under the weather. It was not until Levi came home for lunch and found her seat unoccupied that he expressed concern. I have not seen her, said Catherine. I expect she is upstairs. Searching Elma's room, Levi called back down to Catherine. She's not in the second story. Nonplussed, he hobbled back to work, his knee still aching. The weather must have turned so nasty last night, Catherine thought, that Elma stayed over at Henry Clements's nearby boarding house. An hour or two later, Elizabeth, their neighbor, knocked at the front door. Elma had never returned the muff Elizabeth lent her the previous night. Increasingly worried, Catherine wrote a letter to Henry Clement asking if Elma had sought shelter with him. His response arrived a short while later, and Catherine's heart sank when she read it. Nobody had seen Elma at his boarding house last night. Hours turned into days as Christmas came and went without any sign of the missing woman. Elma was known to have contemplated suicide in the past, and the rings feared the worst. On December 30, Elias enlisted George Walgrove, a grizzled old dock worker, to dredge a stretch of the Hudson river on the hunch that Elma had drowned herself. Elias felt a sense of both relief and dismay when the search turned up nothing. The rings would not unearth a meaningful clue until January 2, 1800. A mixture of marshland and pastures, Lispinard's Meadow separated Manhattan from Greenwich Village. To the north, this tract of land was a favorite location for hunting and sledding in the wintertime. Just a few months earlier, the Manhattan Company had ordered the construction of the Manhattan well in Lispinard's Meadow as part of its project to improve the city's water supply. They even hired Ezra Weeks, who furnished building materials for the well. Upon inspection, however, the company deemed the structure unsuitable and had it boarded up. A Mr. And Mrs. Blanc lived on the verge of Lispinard's Meadow on Christmas Eve, the couple's young son was playing near the well when he noticed that one of the planks was missing from the top of it. Venturing over, he peered inside and discerned an article of clothing in the Water. He fished the flotsam out and saw what it was. A woman's muff. The boy gave it to his mother as a Christmas present. Mrs. Blanc thought nothing amiss until she caught wind of a Quaker lady who had vanished before Christmas. The missing woman had borrowed a muff the night of her disappearance. The discovery soon came to the attention of Elias Ring, who went to the Blanc's house to speak with them about it. Then Elias, his Neighbor Joseph Watkins, Mr. Blanc and several others walked over to the Manhattan well. Removing the remaining snow covered planks that lay across the opening. The men stared downward into the abyss. They could see nothing but dark, still water. One of them lowered a pole into the darkness until it made contact with the sand at the bottom, six feet or more below the surface. He wiggled it back and forth in the muck until suddenly it collided with a large inert mass. A sense of dread came over the men as one of them, an ironmonger, fashioned a set of grappling hooks. They attached them to the pole in hope of using them to hook the object and hoist it upward. To no avail. Finally, the search party procured a few coils of hemp and wound them together to form a crude net. Lowering and wrapping it around the unmoving lump. They lifted it upward. Another piece of clothing came into view. One that Elias knew on sight. The calico gown that Elma had worn on the night of her disappearance. Soon they had recovered her body from the disused well and laid it out on the ground, her dress torn and feet bare. A comb and a ribbon tangled in her hair. Elias Ring had found Elma Sands. The discovery of her cadaver unleashed waves of mourning and outrage across Manhattan. An inquest was held and homicides cited as the cause of death. Doctors carried out an operation to determine whether Alma had been with child. Women sometimes committed suicide or were murdered because of unwanted pregnancies. Nevertheless, the investigation revealed that Elma was not pregnant. The authorities brought the body to 208 Greenwich street where the rings considered what to do next. It was common among Quakers to lay out bodies of the recently deceased in a parlor so that friends and family could pay their last respects. However, public anger over this young woman's senseless murder had risen to such a fever pitch that Elias and Catherine made an unprecedented decision. They displayed Elma's body in a snow blanketed street where it lay in state for two full days. Hundreds gathered to view the site. Finally, Alma's loved ones loaded her body into a plain pine coffin and held a simple funeral. We'll hear about the hunt for Alma's killer after a quick break.
- [25:51]
Narrator
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- [28:06]
Gavin Whitehead
New Yorkers were closing in on a suspect in Elma's murder even before the discovery of her body. Several days after her disappearance, Katherine Ring could no longer conceal what she knew about Levi Weeks Stop Levi, she confronted him. This matter has become so serious I can stand it no longer. Then Catherine revealed what Elma had confided to her the night she went missing. Elma and Levi were going to elope, as Catherine recalled later, Levi went pale, his eyes welling up. I'm ruined. He cried. I'm undone forever, unless she appears to clear me. Levi's apprentice, William Anderson, also had an eyebrow raising story to tell one summer night, the apprentice recalled, back when New York was burning with yellow fever. Levi thought Anderson had fallen asleep and sneaked out of their room in nothing but his shirt. Motionless in bed, Anderson could hear him out in the hall. Levi did not come back until morning. Levi panicked. Quote he soon began to use all possible means to convince me of his innocence, hope recalled. Later, the Sabbath evening after Elma went missing, he came to me saying, hope, if you can say anything in my favor, do it, for you can do more than any friend I have in the world to clear me. He then pressed me very hard to go to the alderman's to see him, unquote. He implored her to sign a statement asserting that, quote, he paid no more attention to Alma than any other female in the house, unquote. Yet Hope refused to lie for her friend. She had watched the attachment between her cousin and the carpenter titan over the summer, had even taken the hint to leave them alone in Alma's bedroom one afternoon. She had lingered and listened in the hallway, however, she could hear nothing, but knew enough about the world to know what they were up to. By the time Alma's body was hoisted out of the well, rumors of Levi's guilt had spread around town. One reached the ear of a police constable who located Levi at Ezra's workshop. Entering the property without Levi's knowledge, the officer walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. Levi spun around and wilted at the sight of the policeman, whose solemn expression rendered further explanation unnecessary. It is very hard to accuse, levi sputtered before trailing off. Then, dropping his head, he uttered a question that would come back to haunt him. Is it the Manhattan well she was found in? His interrogator had not said a word about any well until now. The officer led Levi out to the streets, busy with foot traffic and toward a crowd gathering around Alma's body, still near the Manhattan well at this point. Weeks, he demanded, do you know that young woman that lies there? A corpse? I think I know the gown, the carpenter replied with downcast eyes. My young friend, that is not the question I ask you. The policeman pressed him. Is there no mark in the countenance? You know there is, came Levi's quiet reply. In a few hours, he was locked in a cell at Bridewell Jail. In many cases, a humble craftsman in Levi's position could not have afforded the high caliber lawyers that he would require if he wanted any chance of avoiding conviction. Lucky for Levi, he was the brother of affluent architecture Ezra Weeks. Ezra not only posted Levi's bail, but also retained three of New York's most skillful attorneys. Two of these men remain household names in the modern United States. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Burr served as vice president under Thomas Jefferson, while Hamilton acted as the nation's first Treasury Secretary. U.S. history has witnessed few rivalries as notorious as theirs. Burr would kill Hamilton in a duel a few years later, in 1804. Despite their mutual disdain for each other, they were nevertheless obliged to join forces in the courtroom every now and again. And when they did, they worked well together. Rounding out Levi's legal team was Brockholst Livingston, who later served as a Supreme Court justice. Several months passed as lawyers on both sides prepared for the trial. On March 31, 1800, a very clear day, but very blustery, according to one observer. Hundreds of New Yorkers flocked to City hall, which stood on the corner of Wall street and Broad Street. Washington had taken his first presidential oath here in 1789. New York served as the nation's capital until the following year, and Congress had convened at this location in the early days of the Republic. Now City hall would witness the last murder trial of the 18th century, or the 1st of the 19th, depending on how you looked at it. Spectators huddled together at street level, while others perched on the boughs of a gnarled old buttonwood tree, the better to catch a glimpse of the prisoner when he arrived. Levi must not have felt sanguine about his prospects when he strode toward the edifice, flanked by a cadre of police constables. Crucify him. The multitude roared. Crucify him. Inside, City hall was packed to the rafters with journalists, witnesses, and members of the public. Buzzing with excitement. The crowd fell silent as the proceedings commenced. Prosecutor Cadwalader Colden sought to prove that Levi had killed Elma because he did not want to marry her as he had promised. He wasted no time in establishing Levi's alleged romance with Elma. To that end, he questioned Numerous residents of 208 Greenwich, including Elias, Catherine Hope and Richard Croucher. Levi's team did little of note while cross examining these witnesses, except when Elias took the stand. One day, he testified, he discovered Elma's bedsheets in disarray, her clothing strewn about on top of them. He strongly implied that Elma had recently had sex in the bed. Rather than attacking that flimsy supposition, Alexander Hamilton quizzed Elias about an unrelated topic, the wall that separated Elma's bedroom from the adjacent building, the home and workshop of neighborhood blacksmith Joseph Watkins. What materials is the partition between Watkins House and yours made of? Hamilton asked. It is a plank partition, lathed and plastered. Could you hear the noise of children through it? No, elias responded, not as I could recall. Is Mr. Watkins a clever man and a good neighbor? Yes, he is. The defense attorney left it at that. Many would have puzzled over Hamilton's unexplained fixation on the wall. Others may have sensed that he was laying a trap. Having made much of Levi's plans to elope with Elma, Colden recreated both his and her movements after they left the boarding house. Little was known, it had to be admitted, about what Elma did and where she went. One witness saw her on the street, for example, in front of one man and behind another. However, it was unclear whether Alma was going anywhere with either of them. In contrast, Levi's activities were much better documented. He was known to have visited Ezra and his wife Elizabeth at their home. Colden called Susannah Broad to the stand to shed light on how Levi traveled from his brother's house to the Manhattan well, where he was presumed to have committed the homicide. An elderly Quaker friend of the Ring clan, Susannah lived opposite Ezra's residence and lumberyard, and she remembered an unusual occurrence about the time of Levi's visit to the property. Circa 8 o'clock, she heard one of Ezra's gates swing open, which aroused Susannah's suspicion. Because Ezra seldom made use of that entrance, it dawned on her that a thief might have broken into the lumberyard. She peered out the window and spotted a figure pulling a sleigh into the street. Whoever it was did not appear to be a robber, but a wave of uneasiness washed over Susanna. On dark nights like this one, it was common practice to attach bells to a sleigh so that pedestrians could hear the vehicle coming. There were no bells affixed to this sleigh, making it no louder than the falling snow, at least at a distance, as if the traveler desired stealth. The nighttime sleigh rider returned within the hour, Susannah reckoned, at which point she and her family were getting ready for bed. Other witnesses remembered seeing a woman who might have been Elma aboard a sleigh that night. Colden then questioned Lawrence van Norden and his wife Annetta, who lived on the fringe of Lispenard's meadow. At about 9 o'clock they heard the cries of a woman outside, coming from the direction of the Manhattan well. Oh, Lord, have mercy upon me. What shall I do? Help me. Lawrence threw off the bedsheets and went to the window to investigate. I saw a man walking toward the well, he testified, and in a little time the cry stopped and I went to bed. Still another witness came upon the tracks of a one horse sleigh that passed by the well. So close, in fact, he was surprised the conveyance had not toppled over. The sun went down and midnight passed as the prosecution called one witness after another. Trials rarely lasted more than one day at this point in history, so it was extraordinary when court was adjourned and reconvened the following day, April 1st. On day two, Colden turned his attention to medical testimony. His chief priority was to prove that Alma had died by murder rather than suicide. A controversial letter, printed in the New York Daily Advertiser and signed A.B. whose initials might just have stood for Aaron Burr, disputed the rumors of Levi's guilt and highlighted Elma's depressive disposition. Quote, she had several times been heard to utter expressions of melancholy and thrown out threats of self destruction. Elma had indeed expressed a wish to end her own life by overdosing on laudanum. Witnesses testified to discount the idea of death by suicide. Colden sought the input of Dr. David Hosack, chair of what we might call the pharmacology department at Columbia University, then Columbia College. Dr. Hosack examined the victim's body as it lay in situ on Greenwich Street. He noted scratches on Elma's hands, perhaps defensive wounds, along with the ghastly livid hue of her skin. Most significant, however, quote, upon looking at the neck, I observed three or four dark colored spots, unquote. He viewed these markings as telltale evidence of strangulation, quote, not in an exact line, as if by a cord, but rather the effect of violent pressure. The largest spots, those near the windpipe, were about an inch and a half, unquote. Could any person, in your opinion, colden followed up, have committed such an act of violence on their own person as to have produced such an effect? There was not a doubt in Dr. Hosack's mind. I do not think it could be done, he responded. Colden had presented a clear narrative. It was his Contention that Levi and Alma left the boarding house at 208 Greenwich street at a little after 8 o'clock and walked over to Ezra's. There they obtained a sleigh leaving by way of the lumber yard and eventually drove it to Lispinard's Meadow. Wanting nothing less than to elope with Elma, Levi throttled her and cast her body into the Manhattan well. He then returned the sleigh and hurried back home to 208 Greenwich. Arriving at around 10 o'clock, the prosecution rested. The courtroom was on tenterhooks as Aaron Burr rose to deliver opening statements. Harnessing all of his oratorical prowess, he asserted that rank sensationalism had led much of New York to jump to conclusions about his client. Extraordinary means have been adopted to inflame the public against the prisoner, Burr argued. Why has the victim's body been exposed for days in the streets in a manner most indecent and shocking? Such dreadful scenes speak powerfully to the passions. They petrify our mind with horror, congeal the blood within our veins. Soon thereafter, the defense attorney tantalized his audience with a taste of coming attractions. We will show you that if suspicions may be attached anywhere, there are those on whom they may be fastened with more appearance of truth. Burr and his colleagues were not just going to dismantle Colden's case against Levi. They were going to expose a more probable culprit, one who was seated in that very courtroom. While cross examining witnesses on the first day of proceedings, the defense had spotlighted a number of holes in the prosecution's argument. Nobody saw Levi and Elma leave the boarding house together, nor had anyone seen them in the same place outdoors. Furthermore, the elderly and infirm Susannah Broad could not recall whether she observed the mysterious sleigh writer leaving Ezra's property before or after Christmas, undermining her credibility. Elma, of course, disappeared before Christmas. Perhaps more significantly, Levi had a much stronger alibi than the prosecution led jurors to believe. His brother Ezra testified about Levi's activity on the night in question. Levi stayed at Ezra's house until about 8 o'clock, at which time he headed over to 208 Greenwich. Thirty minutes later, Levi went back to Ezra's house, decidedly unaccompanied by Elma. Levi stayed at ezra's until about 10:00, at which point he wished his brother good night and went home. Levi's verified comings and goings at Ezra's residence undercut the prosecution's case. The carpenter simply would not have had time to make it all the way to the Manhattan well, commit the murder and then pop over to Ezra's at 8:30. Especially without showing even the slightest sign of physical exertion, Levi's counsel had gravely undermined the prosecution's reconstructed timeline. Yet at least one question still needed resolving. How did Levi know that Elma's body was in the Manhattan well? Surely only the killer could have known that. The answer was almost embarrassingly mundane. People talk, and any new clue in a missing person case will set tongues wagging. An acquaintance of Levi's heard about the discovery of the muff in the well before Elias recovered the cadaver and shared the news with Levi, who in turn shared the news with Ezra. Ezra elaborated on the stand. Quote, Levi told me that Mrs. Forster had told him that the muff and handkerchief were found in a well near Baird's Lane. I told him that I supposed it must be the Manhattan well, unquote. How came you to mention the Manhattan well? Colden demanded, as if he were unmasking yet another suspect in this murder investigation. Ezra supplied the self evident answer. I had furnished the wooden materials for that well. Next, the defense assailed the medical evidence. To that end, they questioned Dr. Nicholas Romain, among the most respected physicians in New York, and formerly a trustee of Columbia University. Dr. Romine had formed his own private medical school. He testified, quote, an experienced person of good judgment might perhaps discover upon inspection whether the bruises made upon the body were done before or after death. Unquote. That said, he could scarcely conceal his contempt for Dr. Hozack's appraisal of the blemishes near Elma's collarbone. First, her body had lain underwater for as long as two weeks. Then the inquest doctors had opened it up to determine whether she had died while pregnant. Finally, the corpse had been laid out, decomposing in the open air. It was during this last phase that Dr. Hosack conducted his cursory examination. Romaine declared, quote, a body which had been taken out of the water would assume a different appearance from what it had at first. And every day the appearance of injury done would acquire more visibility as it advanced in putrefaction, Unquote. The good doctor's testimony stung, not least because Hozak, the prosecution's star medical expert, had studied under Romaine. Visibly chastened, the less experienced physician returned to the stand and admitted that he could not state with absolute certainty that the marks on Alma's neck had been caused before her death. They were thus not proof of strangulation. The suggestion was that Alma might have committed suicide. Just as the prosecution had gradually built its case against Levi, the defense slowly but surely cast suspicion on another individual. Their arguments rested on the testimony of an unexpected witness, Joseph Watkins, the blacksmith who lived and worked next door to 208 Greenwich Street. As discussed earlier, Watkins bedroom shared a wall with Elma's. Like the residents of the Ring boarding house, Watkins had overheard raucous midnight lovemaking during the dog days of the fever season. Unlike most of the boarders, however, Watkins knew the lover's identity. One of them was Elma, to the astonishment of all. The other was not Levi. It was none other than Elias Ring, upright Quaker and married man. Do you remember, Alexander Hamilton inquired of Watkins as if laying a stick of dynamite at Colden's feet. Anything in the conduct of Mr. Elias Ring that led you to suspicions of improper conduct between him and Elma? You bet he did. Elias started frequenting Elma's bed in September, right around the time he found his own bed half empty. Remember, Elias's wife Catherine, fled plague ridden Manhattan for the more salubrious Greenwich Village. Mrs. Ring Being in the country, Watkins recalled, I imagined one night that I heard the shaking of a bed and considerable noise in there. In the second story where Alma's bed stood, I heard a man's voice and a woman's. I am very positive the voice was not Levi's. In an instant, judge, jury and spectators grasped why Hamilton had probed Elias about the partition between Joseph and Alma's sleeping quarters. Everyone present was clutching their pearls while leaning in for more. Watkins was more than happy to oblige. He could hear a, quote, rustling of beds such as might be occasioned by a man and wife. It continued some time and it must have been very loud to have awakened me. Then, quote, I heard a man's voice pretty loud and lively, unquote. Watkins recalled turning to his wife and muttering, quote, it is Ring's voice, unquote. So why had suspicion fallen on Levi when Elias was the one having an affair with Elma? According to Watkins, Katherine Ring was to blame. In the days immediately following Elma's disappearance, the blacksmith testified Catherine had spoken highly of Levi. She characterized him as, quote, very kind and friendly to all the family, particularly when sick, but none more so this girl than the rest. He was more like one of the family than a border. Unquote. As the search for Elma wore on, however, Catherine changed her story. She whispered of a love affair between Levi and Elma, implying that he had gotten rid of her to avoid marriage. Watkins Shed light on a possible motive for Catherine's about face. One of Levi's lawyers asked, did you ever speak of this noise which you and your wife heard in the night to anyone else? Indeed he had. Watkins disclosed Elias's infidelity to another border at 208 Greenwich Street. English born cloth merchant Richard Croucher. According to multiple witnesses, Croucher heaped guilt on Levi at every opportunity, especially after Elma's body was recovered. A grocer recounted how Croucher had burst into his shop and ejaculated. What do you think of this innocent young man now? There is material evidence against Levi and he is taken by the high sheriff, sir, and carried to the jail. Croucher predicted that the carpenter would hang once the trial ran its course. He then left without buying so much as an apple. It was obvious that he had come in for no reason other than to incriminate Levi. In one of the most dramatic scenes to unfold in the courtroom, either Alexander Hamilton or Aaron Burr, it's unclear from the transcript, took up a candle, held it to Croucher's face and asked the grocer if he were the man who had stormed into his shop. The grocer believed he was. Little by little the defense wove a narrative in which Croucher had framed Levi for the murder. The cloth merchant was privy to Elias bed hopping and knew that it would spell ruin for the Quaker household if it came out. Croucher blackmailed Mr. And Mrs. Ring, threatening to reveal Elias illicit couplings unless he and Catherine pointed the finger at Levi. Why conspire to destroy the young carpenter? Croucher resented Levi ever since the two of them exchanged harsh words about Elma. The merchant blamed Levi as a way of exacting revenge. If Levi's defense was right about this, it's hard to imagine a pettier motive for slander. Especially when the target would stand trial for a capital offense. By the time the defense called its final witness, the midnight bell had already tolled and everybody was exhausted. In a last minute surprise, Levi's counsel waived its right to a closing statement, confident they had already established their client's innocence. The judge summed up and the jury filed out to seal Levi's fate. After hours of testimony, it took a matter of minutes for the jurors to deliver their verdict. Not guilty. Levi was free. And when he stepped out of City hall that night, surrounded by the lawyers who had saved his life, not a soul was calling for his crucifixion. A writer for the New York Advertiser captured this breakneck u turn in public opinion quote. Everyone had come more or less impressed with the idea that he was guilty, but were, as soon as the verdict not guilty was given, just bursting into involuntary and exulting acclamations. Unquote. We'll hear about the Amazing Race to publish the first account of Levi's trial after a quick break.
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Gavin Whitehead
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Gavin Whitehead
The trial of Levi Weeks became the first fully recorded homicide trial in U.S. history. In his book Duel with the Devil, Paul Collins provides two reasons for why the case set this precedent. First, comprehensive courtroom transcription had only recently become possible thanks to the standardization of shorthand. While stenographic shorthand had existed in various forms since at least the 16th century, none enjoyed widespread usage until the middle of the 1700s. It was during this period that Byron's new universal shorthand gained prominence. Originally conceived by a quick witted courtier as a means of encoding sensitive messages, the new universal shorthand relied on abstract geometric shapes. Many of them consisted of squiggles, dots, or some combination of both. For the sake of transparency, stenographers adapted this framework to publish transcripts of parliamentary and congressional speeches in the press. It was only a matter of time before they used it to record murder trials. Second, and perhaps more compellingly, trial transcriptions had become more desirable thanks to recent evolutions in the litigation process today, we employ an adversarial system, pitting prosecution against defense, with both sides capable of calling witnesses and furnishing evidence. This arrangement is so familiar that we can take it for granted. But crimes were not always tried like this. Until the latter half of the 18th century, there was relatively little regard for the rights of the accused. In consequence, criminal trials came out one sided, giving defendants limited ability to plead their case. One sided trials led to one sided records of those trials that typically hammered home the guilt of the prisoner. In the publishing industry, printers peddled confessions, execution sermons, as well as the last words of the condemned on the scaffold. These moralizing texts presumed the guilt of the criminal and warned readers to avoid a life of sin. For Collins, the introduction of the adversarial system opened the door to more gripping reading material. It, quote, created an argument, a space for uncertainty in the unfolding of the story, and a narrative tension to take the place of old fashioned sermonizing, unquote. Put another way, because of the adversarial system, the courtroom became a setting for dramatic conflict. Since trial transcripts consisted primarily of dialogue, they had the potential to read like well wrought plays. Even before the jury acquitted Levi, printer John Fuhrman made plans to profit on the intense public interest in his trial. He operated his print shop right across the street from city hall and specialized in topical publications. For example, when the first president died, he came out with his, quote, handsome edition of George Washington's will, unquote. Throughout Levi's two day trial, Furman placed advertisements announcing that quote. He had procured the clerk of the circuit court to take down in shorthand the particulars of the evidence, unquote. His obliging stenographer was named William Coleman. A bright young man of considerable athleticism, Coleman became famous for skating 20 miles up the Connecticut river in a single night together. He and Fuhrman had every reason to expect a windfall from their collaboration. What they did not appreciate, however, was that they were just two contestants in a race to the printing press. They were not to finish first. Within hours of the acquittal, man of the theater and rival publisher David Longworth published a pamphlet with the not exactly snappy title of a brief narrative of the trial for the bloody and mysterious murder of the unfortunate young woman in the famous Manhattan well. The text was based on notes, quote, taken in shorthand by a gentleman of the bar, unquote. Longworth and his collaborator worked at top speed. As soon as this unnamed gentleman of the bar filled a sheet with writing, he Handed it to Longworth, who set the type. Given the grueling pace of the publication, it should come as no surprise that the pamphlet left much to be desired. Even the title clues you into the sloppy slap dashery of it. It reads as though Longworth and the gentleman could not even be bothered to name either the defendant or the victim. Little more than a crude summary of the proceedings, the pamphlet came in at 16 pages and omitted the most delicious revelations. Elias's infidelity and Croucher's slanders. Longworth owned up to the pamphlet's shoddiness. Quote, the narrative I published was too hastily written to be anything other than a catch penny, he writes. Catch penny, by the way, is the 18th century word for shameless hack job. The gentleman of the bar listed three reasons for the sorry showing. Quote, first is the excessive fatigue we have undergone in attending the trial, which has deprived us of two nights rest and rendered us unfit for any occupation. The second is the extreme haste. The third is, and this is my personal favorite, our complete indifference to whether our readers are pleased with our style or not. Unquote. Coleman went ballistic when he found out about Longworth's catch penny. The clerk of the court dashed off a letter to Noah Webster, editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser, arranging for an ad in the morning edition. In Coleman's view, Longworth meant to pass off his anemic pamphlet as the meteor report that he and Fuhrman intended to publish. Quote, this catchpenny contrivance is not the report promised to citizens by Mr. Furman. Unquote. Coleman assured readers that his superior report of the trial would come out in four days. Unfortunately for Coleman, Longworth thrived on negative publicity. Longworth paid for an ad directly underneath Coleman's touting his own pamphlet. Coleman's work was sure to be a snoozefest. Longworth snarked boring readers with extraneous information. By contrast, his breezier volume could quote, gratify the public curiosity without entering into unnecessary detail of the tedious and unimportant part of the testimony. Coleman's spat with Longworth had just blown over when another printer entered the foot race. Coleman had made a mistake by broadcasting his intended date of publication. Now his opponents knew they had four days to overtake him. Enter John Hardy, A Scottish born scholar of considerable promise. Hardy immigrated to New York with dreams of becoming a professor at Columbia, only to sink into a sea of drink. Hardy published yet another synopsis of the trial, simply entitled an impartial account Twice as long as Longworth's hack job. Hardy's impartial account incorporated the testimony of all major witnesses and furthermore named every member of the court from judge to juryman. Hardy also disclosed Elias's philandering and Croucher's machinations. Despite his improvements on Longworth's pamphlet, Hardy conceded certain deficiencies. Quote, not being acquainted with the art of stenography, I am incapable of giving verbatim what was said upon this solemn and awful occasion. If only he had mastered the art of shorthand. Coleman had. But it remained to be seen whether he would even bother to publish the promised report now that two others had already come out. Four days passed, and then a full week without another peep from him. Finally, on Monday, April 14, two full weeks after Levi's trial, copies of Coleman's long awaited report landed on the shelves of Fuhrman's Print shop. Priced at 37.5 cents. The Chronicle's thoroughness is conveyed by its title, a Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks on an Indictment for the Murder of Williama Sands on Monday the 31st day of March and Tuesday the 1st day of April, 1800. Taken in shorthand by a clerk of the court. Unlike Longworth and Hardy, Colvin did not merely summarize the proceedings with the occasional quotation. He had transcribed almost the entire trial verbatim, with testimony, questions and objections attributed to the proper speaker. That said, he did not always specify which member of Levi's team had made a given comment. Coleman also included descriptions of key spectacles, for instance, when Hamilton or Burr held the candle up to Croucher's face. The American public had never read anything quite like this document, and in some respects, Coleman owed the uniqueness of his product to Longworth and Hardy. He included every last detail precisely because he wanted to surpass what they had published. There was ample demand for a record like Coleman's. Following his lead, newspapers would publish word for word transcriptions of sensational trials by the mid 19th century. To this day, the Manhattan well murder, if indeed it was a murder, remains unsolved. Some who have reexamined the case insist that Levi actually killed Elma. Others, however, including Collins, have pointed the finger at Richard Croucher. Croucher did have a criminal record. He moved to America after stealing a pair of boots in his native England. He was ruled insane at the time and was therefore found not guilty. Croucher went on to commit violent crimes. In fact, he was sentenced to life in prison after raping a teenaged girl inside the boarding house at 208 Greenwich Street. The very same year as Levi's trial. If Croucher murdered Elma, the theory goes, he incriminated Levi not only to take revenge on the carpenter, but also to conceal his own culpability. This line of reasoning makes a certain amount of sense, but it relies entirely on circumstantial evidence. Despite his life sentence, Croucher offended again. He served a mere three years before receiving a pardon from Governor DeWitt Clinton on the condition that he leave the country. Instead, Croucher relocated to Virginia, where he appears to have committed robbery and gotten thrown in jail. After his release, Croucher was said to have sailed back to England. There, according to one of Alexander Hamilton's grandsons, quote, he was executed for a heinous crime, unquote. Elias Ring fared little better. Disgraced by his extramarital affair, he lost his boarding house within a year of the week's trial and plunged headlong into debt and drunkenness. In 1816, the Quakers expelled him for, quote, the continued intemperate use of intoxicating spirits, unquote. Elias moved with his family to Mobile, Alabama, only to perish of yellow fever there. After his death, his widow, Catherine and her sister Hope relocated to rural New York, far from the sinful influence of cities. Levi Weeks could never quite escape the shadow the trial had cast over him. After several years of living with Ezra, he tired of the suspicious glares and whispered insinuations that followed him on the street. He first moved back to his native Massachusetts, where he gave up carpentry to sell liquor and dry goods. Nearing his 30th birthday and still unmarried, he uprooted himself again, this time making for the western frontier. Levi was fording a tributary of the Mississippi river on horseback when he and all his earthly possessions went toppling into the water. He barely survived the accident and he lost a diary in which he had recorded his travels to the river. His fortunes finally improved when he settled in Natchez, then the capital of the Mississippi territory. Its vicinity is very uneven, Levi wrote in a letter to a friend. You are constantly ascending and descending as you pass through in any direction. The houses are extremely irregular and for the most part, temporary things. Determined to beautify Natchez, Levi followed in his brother's footsteps, becoming an architect. Soon he secured a commission from a well off attorney named Lyman Harding, a Massachusetts native and an army friend of Aaron Burr's. Quote, this is the first house in the territory on which was ever attempted any order of architecture. The site is one of those peculiar situations which combines all the delights of romance, the pleasures of rurality and the approach of sublimity. Unquote. The mansion boasted a stately row of imposing Ionic columns in front. Inside, Levi installed a walnut staircase that spiraled upward from the front entrance. Christened Auburn Mansion, Harding's residence inspired imitations in the area, and Levi went on to clinch contracts to build City hall and academic buildings. Auburn Mansion has since been designated a National Historic Landmark. You can see a picture on the Art of Crime website. Before long, Levi married and fathered four children. After one trial and many tribulations, his story had come to a happy end. The Manhattan well had something of a happy end, too, if a well can be said to have had a happy ending. It vanished from view, obscured by construction work as New York grew upward and outward over the years. But then, sometime around 1980, it was rediscovered in the basement of a restaurant called Manhattan Bistro. The eatery belonged to the DeGrossa family, who had heard about the fabled murder well from neighbors. A growing curiosity prompted them to excavate the basement, leading to the discovery. As word of the unearthing spread, visitors came to Manhattan Bistro just so they could set eyes on the well. When the building was converted into a cos, the ownership clearly appreciated the structure's significance and kept it around. The story of the Manhattan well murdered trial has stuck around too, and if you're a fan of Lin Manuel Miranda, you might already know that there's a brief dramatization of the trial in Non Stop, the closing number of Act 1 in Hamilton. A man of many words in Miranda's musical, Hamilton grandstands during opening statements. Burr, of course, talks less and smiles more than his fellow attorney. Unable to bear the pontificating any longer, he finally interrupts our client Levy Weeks is innocent. Call your first witness. That's all you had to say. In case you were wondering, that line never appears in the courtroom transcript you've been listening to the Art of Crime, created, written and narrated by yours truly, Gavin Whitehead. Liam Bellman Sharp edited sound and composed the score. Last but not least, a thousand thanks to research and production assistant Ken Symphonies. If you like what you heard on the Art of Crime, please tell the world. By which I mean everyone you know, plus the occasional stranger. Also, if you can take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it goes a long way in helping others find out about the show. Finally, all throughout history, artists have relied on the support of patrons to make their work. The same holds true for podcasters making shows about historical artists, so please consider making a donation at www.patreon.com artofcrimepodcast every bit counts and is massively appreciated. As a reminder, be sure to check out the Art of crime website at www.artofcrimepodcast.com. it features all kinds of images relevant to the show, including maps, drawings, paintings, photographs, sheet music and more. You can also follow us on Facebook @ArtofCrimePodcast, Instagram RTFCrimePodcast and Twitter RTFCrimePod. If you have questions, comments or feedback, please don't hesitate to drop me a line@artofcrimepodcastmail.com thanks for listening and until next time.