Killer Colt (39 page)

In the end, Seward could find no cause to “interpose his executive power between the sentence of the law and its execution.” For John C. Colt, “the expectation of pardon, the last hope of life, must be relinquished.”
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•   •   •

In making known his final determination—that all the impassioned pleas for clemency had failed and “the hopes entertained by many can no longer be cherished”—Seward expressed his “earnest wish that the few days which yet remain to the prisoner may be spent in preparing to appear before that dread tribunal appointed for all men.” Similar sentiments were conveyed in various newspaper accounts of Seward’s decision. In Monday’s New York
Sun
, for example, Moses Beach declared, “All hope for a melioration of the dread fate which the law has pronounced against the unfortunate John C.
Colt has vanished, and he has now no alternative left him but to resign himself composedly to the embrace of death, to which on Friday next he must inevitably yield.”
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But Beach was wrong in one crucial regard. For John Colt, death might indeed be inevitable on “Friday next.” But as he would prove, there were other alternatives left him besides resigning himself composedly to its embrace.

D
espite the evident finality of Seward’s decision, three dozen members of the New York State Bar Association met on Tuesday morning, November 15, to draw up a petition demanding a reprieve. That afternoon, the group set out for Albany to present its case to the governor in person. At the same time, John’s lawyers notified Sheriff Monmouth Hart that, because of a legal technicality, the warrant for Colt’s execution was invalid and “should not be carried into effect.” Hart—who had developed strong sympathies for Colt and had sent Seward his own letter protesting the sentence “on the ground of the injustice of the verdict”—seemed more than willing to refuse “the painful and disgraceful task.”
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Even so, preparations for the execution proceeded apace. A wagon was dispatched to New Jersey to bring back the gallows and rope used to hang Peter Robinson, the New Brunswick carpenter who had perpetrated the shockingly sadistic murder of banker Abraham Suydam two years earlier. According to the abolitionist and moral reformer Lydia Maria Child, this measure was taken for no other reason than to add one more “bitter drop” to “the dreadful cup of vengeance.” “As the memory of Robinson was execrated more than other criminals,” wrote Child, “they sent for his gallows to add to the degradation”—to “give an additional pang” of humiliation to the proud Colt by treating him no differently from the most reviled murderer in recent memory.
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As the day of the execution approached, it seemed as if New Yorkers could talk of nothing else. “Colt is the all-engrossing topic,” wrote the
noted attorney and indefatigable diarist George Templeton Strong.
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To those, like Lydia Child, who regarded the death penalty as a holdover from a barbaric past—“legalized murder in cold blood”—and believed Colt to have been unjustly condemned, the city appeared to be in the grip of a primitive bloodlust. “The very spirit of murder was rife” among the populace, Child lamented. “They were swelling with revenge, and eager for blood.”
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With space for no more than three hundred witnesses in the courtyard of the Tombs, printed invitations to the hanging—“You are respectfully invited to witness the execution of John C. Colt”—became the most coveted items in town.
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To the very end, John’s defenders refused to give up. When Seward refused the request of the thirty-six lawyers who had traveled to Albany—dismissing them as “seditious”—John’s counsel made another desperate appeal to Chancellor Walworth, “praying that the Chancellor will reconsider his refusal to allow a writ of error.” “His friends are still moving heaven and earth to save him,” wrote George Templeton Strong, who, as late as Thursday, felt that there was “still an even chance” of a reprieve.
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For a moment, it seemed as if the “persevering pleaders” on John’s behalf had succeeded. Late Thursday afternoon, a rumor swept through the city that Colt had been reprieved until January. Though “confidently repeated and believed by everyone,” it was quickly proved to be unfounded. “Colt’s second application to the Chancellor was met by a peremptory refusal,” Strong recorded in his journal that evening, “and as there was no hope of success with the Governor, his last chance is gone.” By then, even Sheriff Hart had announced that he would, after all, go through with the hanging. Given the prevailing sentiment among the citizenry, Hart feared that he himself might be lynched if he refused to carry out his duty.
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It was the Reverend Dr. Henry Anthon who delivered the devastating news to John. Rector of St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, Anthon—who was “firmly convinced of John’s innocence”—had been approached by Sam to “attend to the spiritual welfare” of his brother.
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He was with John in his cell when Sheriff Hart called him aside. Hart—who could not bring himself to tell John—begged Anthon to perform the awful task and “to ask John at what hour tomorrow he wished to be executed.”

Though John professed to be unafraid of death—“Let come the worst, I
shall die as calm as any man died,” he had boldly declared in one of his published letters—his reaction belied his bravado. At the news, he “flung himself on the bed and rocked there in agony for a moment or two.”

At length, John regained his composure, sat upright, and—in a ragged voice—said: “Sunset.”
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T
he temperature never rose above twenty-eight degrees on Friday, November 18. There was, of course, no such measurement as “windchill factor” back then, but the stiff wind from the west must have made it feel considerably colder. Throughout much of the day, dark, lowering clouds hung over the city like a pall.
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None of this deterred the eager crowd that began gathering outside the city prison at daybreak. By 8:00 a.m., according to one contemporary, “the Tombs was literally besieged by a mob, blocking every street around it, all assembled … to gaze eagerly at the walls that contained the miserable prisoners and to catch what rumors they could of what was going on within them.” Eventually, their number would swell to the thousands—men, women, and children—some having traveled from as far away as New Hampshire.
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A group of police officers under the charge of A.M.C. Smith was stationed at the prison entrance “to prevent the ingress of any except those who had tickets of admission.” No women were to be allowed inside, and a few could be heard complaining loudly of their exclusion. As the hour of the execution approached, the rooftops of all the surrounding buildings would be packed with spectators of both sexes and all ages, straining for a view of the courtyard. Despite the bitter weather, a holiday air prevailed.
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•   •   •

John had not slept that night. Seated at his table, he had passed the hours writing letters to friends and family members. He had just set down his quill
and was blotting the last of these missives when his brother appeared at his cell door. The time was approximately 6:30 a.m. After a few minutes of intense discussion, Sam left again on an errand.

Roughly an hour later, William Dolson, a barber who operated a shop on Centre Street and was commonly known as “Deaf Bill,” arrived by prearrangement to give John a final shave under the watchful eye of Deputy Sheriff Frederic L. Vultee. No sooner had Dolson departed than a young man brought in a basket containing John’s breakfast, prepared at a local eatery called Cowder’s Victualling Cellar. John was finishing up his last meal when the Reverend Dr. Anthon arrived at precisely 9:00.
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Though the two men had known each other only for a few days, their hours together spent in prayer, spiritual conversation, and discourse over doctrines like original sin and predestination had forged a close bond between them. Rising from his breakfast to greet Anthon warmly, John offered the minister his chair, then seated himself at the foot of his bed. Reaching over to take a small package from the table, he handed it to Anthon and asked him to open it. Inside were a bunch of gold coins and bank notes, amounting to five hundred dollars.

Explaining that he had received the money that morning from his brother, John asked Anthon to deposit it in a savings bank and see that it was doled out to Caroline at the rate of twenty dollars per month to help support her and their newborn child. He spoke fervently of “how anxious he was that the mother and child should lead a virtuous life and the child be duly educated.” Anthon, deeply moved by John’s solicitude for the welfare of Caroline and the baby, gave way to tears and vowed to assume responsibility for the child’s religious upbringing.

The longest of the letters John had written that night was addressed to his son. After reading it aloud to Anthon—who found himself “overpowered with emotions”—John sealed it in an envelope and passed it to the minister, explaining that it was “to be kept for his small child until it shall be old enough to understand its contents.” He then told Anthon that he had one final favor to ask. He and Caroline wished to be married. Would Anthon perform the ceremony?

Anthon, without hesitation, assented.
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•   •   •

During each of his preceding visits with John, Anthon had “pressed upon him the indispensable necessity as one mark of true penitence of a confession of the sin for which he had been condemned.” He now exhorted him again to make a clean breast. As he had done on every previous occasion, John “solemnly declared that he committed the act in self-defense.”

“I have said so again and again,” he exclaimed with a catch in his voice. “But what is the use? They will not believe it, they will not believe it.”

“Will you carry this as your confession to the bar of God?” asked Anthon, reaching over to clasp John by the hand.

“I am full prepared to do so,” John replied. “I would not die with a lie upon my lips.”

Satisfied, Anthon suggested that they “spend the time profitably in prayer” and asked John “if there was any passage in the Bible in particular he wished to read.”

“I will leave the selection to you,” said John.

Taking up his Bible, Anthon proceeded to recite passages from Luke 15:7 (“I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance”), 2 Corinthians 5:1 (“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”), and Luke 18:35–43 (in which Jesus restores sight to the blind man at Jericho).

Anthon read until 10:00, then—assuring John that he would be nearby—retreated to a vacant cell two doors down the corridor, “leaving the prisoner alone to his own reflections.”
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•   •   •

Even as John communed with his spiritual counselor, he could hear the activity in the prison yard, where the gallows was being erected directly outside his window.

This gallows did not operate by conventional means. There was no elevated scaffold upon which the condemned man stood, nor a trap through which he plunged to his death. Instead, as one contemporary described the apparatus, “The culprit stands on the ground and is lifted up by means of pulleys and a rope to which is attached about 250 pounds. This weight is held at the top of the cross piece by a small cord which is cut by a hatchet,
when the weight descends and the doomed man is suspended with a suddenness that is supposed to destroy at once all consciousness.”
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Though the hanging was not scheduled until late afternoon, invited witnesses began arriving early in the morning so that they could get the most advantageous views of the gallows. By noon, the courtyard was so packed that late arrivals could be heard complaining that Colt “was not to be hung high enough for those in the back of the crowd to see him.”
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