Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/52



the stump, found it hollow, and, upon search, discovered the cavity to be partly filled with bones. The tidings ran. Murder will find a tongue: Manchester found thousands. The village was on fire. Young men and maidens, old men and children, came forth to gaze upon the bones of the murdered Colvin, and to praise the Lord for this providential discovery. It was suggested, indeed, that they were not human bones. A medical man pronounced positively against them. Wanting a skeleton, the faculty supplied its place by digging up the leg of Mr. Salisbury, which had been amputated and buried four years before, and, upon comparing its bones with the alleged remains of Colvin, it was universally determined that the latter were not human. It did no good. The doctors were in conspiracy. Their scruples were out of place. "Two finger - nails among the remains had been identified as human." This gave universal satisfaction. The bones were the bones of Colvin; and Jesse Boorn was instantly taken into custody.

The examination took place in the meeting-house, Tuesday, May 27, 1819, and continued until the following Saturday. All the testimony, when sifted, was found worthless. The bones were, beyond question, not human. Nothing, by forced construction, could be racked out of the prisoner's words, into the semblance even of a confession of guilt; and Jesse was about being released, when Truman Hill came forward, with the following statement, made under oath:

"When the knife was presented by me to Jesse Boorn, and also when the hat was presented to him, his feelings were such as to oblige him to take hold of the pew to steady himself. He appeared to be much agitated. I asked him what was the matter. He answered, there was matter enough. I asked him to state. He said he feared Stephen had killed Colvin; that he never believed so

till the spring or winter, when he went into a shop where were Stephen and another, at which time he gained a knowledge of the manner of Colvin's death; and that he thought he knew, within a few rods, where Colvin was buried."

This statement altered the phase of the affair, as it was censidered tantamount to a confession. The tide of public sentiment was turned, and Jesse Boorn was remanded back to prison. Here the jailer tormented him with questions. The jailer's wife experimented upon the poor man's fears with womanly adroitness. Neighbors were let in. The parson, and 'Squire, and Lady Bountiful of each neighboring village were accorded admission to Jesse's cell. Children came to take warning from example, and young girls whispered and wept as they stared at the prisoner through the grated door. There seems to have been no limit to the poor man's inquisition. Ministers prayed with him; pious, earnest Christian folks sent him appropriate tracts; and godly housewives, desirous of saving the soul while they ministered to the body, secreted searching texts of Scripture in the frosting of the cakes they baked for him, or the crust of the pies. What wonder that the poor creature confessed, or was alleged by his fellow-prisoner to have confessed his guilt, when, in addition to this pious persecution, he was asked why he did not turn State's evidence—was told that nobody doubted that Stephen killed Colvin— and was assured again and again that it would be better for him to confess the whole?

In June, old Boorn visited his sons in jail. They were confined in separate cells. Under a requisition from the Governor, Stephen had been arrested, dragged from his home in Denmark, New York, manacled, brought back to Manchester, and imprisoned. The brothers had not met. After his father left, Jesse appeared afflicted. Having gone to bed