The Trial of Levi Weeks: Or the Manhattan Well Mystery-The Story of the First Recorded Murder Trial in US History, New York, 1800

by Estelle Fox Klieger

Overview

In 1799, the murder of a young woman caused a terrific stir in the city of New York. The victim was Gulielma Sands who, on December 22, left the boardinghouse where she lived, never to return. Her bruised body was found several days later in the Manhattan Well, a twenty-minute carriage ride from her home. The accused was Levi Weeks, a fellow boarder who, Miss Sands had claimed, was to marry her the night she disappeared. Two of the attorneys for the defense were Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, friends of Ezra Weeks, a prominent builder and brother of the accused. The citizens of New York raised an enormous hue and cry over the murder: the body was displayed in the streets before the trail; mobs shoved their way into the courtroom to see the famous lawyers at work and to get a glimpse of the accused; and—when the verdict was read—few felt that justice had been done. This book tells the story of the trial of Levi Weeks and includes the entire transcript of the first American murder trial ever recorded. It is at once a riveting retelling of a true crime in which the voices of early New Yorkers come to us freshly from over two centuries, and a riveting legal and social history of New York in the early years of the Republic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897338769
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/17/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	219
File size:	4 MB

Read an Excerpt

The Trial of Levi Weeks

Or, the Manhattan Well Mystery

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By Estelle Fox Kleiger

Chicago Review Press Incorporated

Copyright © 1989 Estelle Fox Kleiger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89733-876-9

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CHAPTER 1

THE DISAPPEARANCE

On Sunday, December 22, 1799, shortly after eight o'clock in the evening, a young woman named Gulielma Sands left the boardinghouse where she lived on Greenwich Street in New York City; she was never to return alive. After a day or so, when it became apparent that Elma, as she was called, had not spent the night with friends, Catherine and Elias Ring, who owned the boarding-house, became apprehensive about her welfare. A search was mounted for Elma; as the days passed apprehension turned to dread.

A week after her disappearance, some boys playing in Lispenard Meadows found Elma's borrowed muff floating in the Manhattan Well — so called because it had been dug by Aaron Burr's Manhattan Company. The Well was probed and Elma's bruised and sodden body was fished from its depths.

Catherine Ring was Elma's cousin; she and her husband Elias were Quakers. They lived with their four children and Catherine's sister, Hope Sands, in the boardinghouse at 208 Greenwich Street; Elma had been with them for three years. The New York City Directory for 1798 lists Elias Ring as having a dry goods store at that address. In those days, when there were no defined "shopping areas" in the city, merchants frequently ran businesses in their homes. In fact, Catherine Ring ran a millinery shop at 208 Greenwich Street; it was a good-sized enterprise which employed as many as twenty young women, including Elma Sands. At the neighboring house on one side of the Rings, Lorena and David Forrest lived and sold tobacco. On the other side was the house of Joseph Watkins, an ironmonger. Watkins' house furnishing store and nail factory was a well-known and thriving establishment.

In 1776, while the British occupied New York, fire destroyed 1,000 buildings; in 1778 there was another disastrous conflagration. Because of this and because the population of the city was growing rapidly — it was 30,000 in 1789 and 60,000 ten years later — there was a housing shortage. Newcomers to the city, whatever their class and financial situation, usually stayed in boardinghouses until they could find permanent housing. In 1789 there were said to be 330 boardinghouses in New York City, many of them quite elegant, but all of them filled to capacity.

At the time of Elma's disappearance there were five boarders unrelated to the Rings at the Ring house, and a lodger who did not take his meals there. One boarder was a young woman named Margaret Clark; the others were men, among them a young carpenter named Levi Weeks who shared his room with his apprentice. On the Sunday evening she disappeared, Elma had confided to Catherine Ring that she and Levi Weeks were to be secretly married that night. Thus suspicion immediately fell on Levi Weeks.

On January 4, 1800, the New York Daily Advertiser printed the story:

Thursday afternoon the body of a young woman by the name of Gulielma Elmore [sic] Sands, was found dead in a Well recently dug by the Manhattan Company, a little east of Mr Tyler's. The circumstances attending her death are somewhat singular — She went from her uncle's [sic] house in Greenwich Street last Sunday evening with her lover, with an intention of going to be married from which time until yesterday afternoon she had not been heard of. Strong suspicions are entertained that she has been wilfully murdered.

Although the newspaper was filled with details of national mourning for George Washington, who had died on December 14, 1799, this item attracted a good deal of attention. It was the nature of this crime that upset the citizens; the city of New York, with a population in 1800 of 60,515, was not free from random murder. A period of lawlessness had followed the Revolution and the watch had been increased: no protection was provided during the day, but at ten o'clock each night the watchman collected his lantern, stick, rattle and badge, and started on his rounds wearing his "leathern hat" which had earned him the nickname of "leather head." These men often dozed off in their watchboxes, because most of them had to work full-time jobs during the day to augment their skimpy salaries. There is a story about the young Washington Irving and his friends throwing a rope around an occupied watchbox and towing it down the street while the rudely awakened watchman protested loudly from inside it.

"The number of crimes is greater in the city of New York than elsewhere in the state," wrote a European visitor. "In the city there is one crime for every 129 persons. In the state, one for every 2633." And, indeed, although the jails were filled to capacity, vandalism, street robbery and personal attacks continued to occur in the city. The crime center was Canvas-town, a burned-out section lying towards the East River from Broad to Whitehall streets where the housetops were covered with canvas instead of roofs. It was "a resort of disreputable people;" in 1784 the Mayor had recommended to the grand jury that something should be done about riots and disorder in Canvas-town, and in 1800 the area was still festering.

In the center of the city, on the site of the present City Hall, stood the gallows, designed for some reason to resemble a Chinese pagoda, and stocks and whipping posts were nearby. On the frequent occasions when these devices were put to use, spectators flocked to cheer or jeer or simply to watch. There were times when as many as six criminals were hanged in one day. They were not all accused of murder: until 1796 hanging crimes included first offense burglary, arson, housebreaking and forgery. The theft of the most trifling article could bring "thirty-nine lashes on the bare back." Women as well as men were subject to this punishment: one Sarah Crowdy is recorded to have received twenty lashes for petty larceny. After 1796 there was some penal reform, and the death penalty was limited to treason, murder and theft from churches. Flogging however was retained, left to the discretion of the court.

So crime was not a rarity in the city, and neither was violence: the upper classes committed their special violence against each other through duelling, which was illegal but very much a part of the social code, because only gentlemen duelled. The conviction of a duellist in a court of law was virtually unheard-of, and anyone who wanted to preserve his good name would not allow himself to be suspected of cowardice. He could not apologize to his adversary unless he were to learn that he had been unfairly critical of him. Disgrace was still the only alternative to the acceptance of a challenge, although many thoughtful people saw clearly that the practice was repellent. Alexander Hamilton once said, "We do not now live in the days of chivalry ... The good sense of the present time has happily found out, that to prove your own innocence, or the malice of an accuser, the worst method you can take is to run him through the body or shoot him through the head." Hamilton's son was killed in a duel. In 1804 Hamilton himself was challenged by Aaron Burr over a newspaper report that Hamilton had slandered Burr at a dinner party. Hamilton attempted to placate Burr by saying that his remarks had been in reference to political topics only, but Burr, unassuaged, had then demanded to know whether Hamilton had ever spread rumors that reflected on the Colonel's honor.

Unquestionably Burr knew that Hamilton had done so. Hamilton had written to James Bayard, that "this man Burr has no principle, public nor private;" that Burr was "without probity;" that he was a "voluptuary" with expensive tastes that could not be satistifed "by fair expedients." Burr said later that the slanderous newspaper report had been the last straw; he could not "consistently with self-respect again forbear" from a challenge. The result of course was death for Hamilton and disgrace for Burr. And the practice of duelling lost its glamor in America.

However, in 1800 duelling was still in its heyday, and, although Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were hardly close friends, they were still on speaking terms. They often worked together on one side of a case, or on different sides of the same case. They were in fact to work together in the defense of Levi Weeks, against whom public opinion was enflamed. Gulielma Sands's death created a sensation in the city of New York: this was not a death for the sake of honor, nor was it the result of a drunken brawl in Canvas-town. A pretty young girl from a respectable home had been cruelly murdered, and rumors abounded that the young carpenter who lived in the Ring's boardinghouse had proposed marriage to her in order to enjoy her favors, and had then killed her to avoid keeping his promise. Handbills were distributed around the town implying Weeks's guilt, and the first newspaper accounts added fuel to the fire that threatened to consume the young man. It was said that Miss Sands had expected to be married on the night she died: "but alas," lamented the New York Gazette and General Advertiser, "little did she expect that the arrangements she had been making with so much care, instead of conveying her to the Temple of Hymen, would direct her to that bourne from which no traveller returns."

The emotion of the people was exacerbated by the public display of Elma's body before the funeral; on the day of the funeral itself the crowds which came to view the body were too great to be contained in the Ring house. Consequently, the open coffin was displayed in the street, guarded against the surging multitude by friends and public officials.

Levi Weeks was arrested on January 2, when the discovery of the body was reported to the police. The coroner's inquest lasted from Friday morning, January 3, until the night of January fourth. Two days later, on January sixth, the Commercial Advertiser reported that "strong suspicions" which had arisen on the discovery of the body led to a coroner's verdict of "murder by some person or persons as yet unknown." An indictment was quickly obtained against Levi Weeks and he was committed to the Bridewell to await trial. He was apparently released on bail because he was reported to have been taken up by the Sheriff on March 28, shortly before the beginning of the trial.

At this point the attention of the newspapers turned from the tragic fate of the young woman to the serious plight of the accused man. The New York Gazette backed off from what it called an "improper construction" in its previous report: "It is not our wish to hold Levi Weeks up as guilty ... We understand he has, contrary to former accounts, universal testimony in favor of his character." It was believed by "respectable authority," the Gazette continued, "that the young man is innocent, or that his guilt is at least extremely questionable ... The Public are desired to suspend their opinion respecting the cause of the death of the young woman whose body was found lately in the Well [so that the prisoner] may be condemned or acquitted by the free and unprejudiced voice of an impartial jury."

One might think that this cautionary note had been injected into the discussion of the affair to assure a fair trial. However, a strong concern for the rights of the accused in felony cases had not been a part of the process in the Colonies, and consequently was not to be taken for granted in the new Republic. Under English law, felonies had been considered the province of the king, and the law was weighted against the defendant and in favor of the prosecution, which in fact represented the Crown. For centuries the accused had no right to counsel; it was left to the presiding judge to decide whether to give him assistance. During the course of the eighteenth century, defendants were allowed to consult counsel on points of law if the judge gave permission, and if the prisoner knew that he could ask for such consultation; he was not automatically informed of this privilege. In England the right to counsel in felony trials was not granted until 1836, with the passage of the Prisoner's Counsel Act.

Courts and legislators in colonial New York modeled their attitudes toward those accused of felonies upon English law, and since few lawyers were allowed to give any counsel to defendants in criminal cases, only the prosecution — the Attorney General and his staff — had extensive experience in criminal law. Lawyers had little opportunity to glean experience from representing people accused of misdemeanors because, although these people had been granted the right to counsel, few could afford legal fees, and no financial assistance was given them by the court. Defendants had to pay court fees even if they were found to be innocent.

In 1777, the adoption of the Constitution introduced some reform of this situation: Article 34 provided that "in every trial ... for crimes or misdemeanors, the party ... indicted shall be allowed counsel, as in civil actions." After the Revolution at the first session of the New York legislature, the hideous punishments which had been traditional for prisoners who "stood mute," refusing to testify, were abolished, and laws were enacted which provided that a "mute" prisoner should be considered to have entered a plea of not guilty. This was as far as the new Republican courts wished to go in reform of criminal law. In 1788, the state of New York undertook to pay the expenses of prosecutors and of witnesses for the prosecution, which of course further weighted the scales against the accused. Officially, nothing was done to provide prisoners with legal counsel, although state courts often chose to appoint counsel for prisoners.

So one can assume that the sudden concern of the press for Levi Weeks's legal rights arose from something more than a tradition of judicial fairness. One factor may have been an understandable desire to quash riotous demonstrations of public hostility against the indicted man; but another may have been the discovery that this young carpenter had some powerful friends.

It must be borne in mind that, despite the undoubted egalitarian convictions of some signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the new Republic was a class-conscious society. There was, for instance, no universal male suffrage; the vote carried property qualifications. In colonial New York a free male had had to own property worth at least the equivalent of a hundred dollars in order to cast a vote for members of the Assembly. After the Revolution, the New York state constitution cut in half the property requirement for voting for assemblymen and extended suffrage to tenement dwellers who paid the equivalent of five dollars a year in rent. So the number of white males eligible to vote for assemblymen was doubled, but at the same time the requirement for voting for governor, lieutenant governor and state senators was raised to the possession of property worth $250, more than double what it had been under the Crown. Although New York was the only state that allowed direct, written-ballot election of the government by the people instead of through the legislature, assemblymen and state senators were elected by voice vote until 1787 when the written ballot became legal.

Since land was cheap in the countryside, tenement dwellers could often vote at least for assemblymen. In addition there was the legal device of the tontine, by which a number of men could band together to purchase property, thus claiming sufficient worth to be allowed suffrage. In 1800 approximately two-thirds of the free men in New York City, including blacks, could vote.

However, American class-consciousness was strong enough that an article could appear in a newspaper suggesting a tax on hoops both as a source of revenue and a deterrent to the aping of their betters by the lower classes. Aristocrats ruled the country as they had before the Revolution; their powdered hair, rouged faces and brocaded waistcoats set them apart from the ordinary population. A foreign visitor wrote:

The society of New York consists of three distinct classes. The first is composed of the constituted authorities, government officers, divines, lawyers and physicians of eminence, with the principal merchants and people of independent property. The second comprises the small merchants, retail dealers, clerks, subordinate officers of the government and members of the three professions. The third consists of the inferior orders of the people. The first of these associate together in a style of elegance and splendor little inferior to Europeans.

The question arises as to how Levi Weeks, described in the indictment as a laborer — although he was actually a carpenter — boarding in a house owned by Quakers, who represented egalitarianism and plain living, could afford the services of such prominent attorneys as Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and Brockholst Livingston. The answer lies in the fact that Levi was the brother of Ezra Weeks, a man with property and impressive connections.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Trial of Levi Weeks by Estelle Fox Kleiger. Copyright © 1989 Estelle Fox Kleiger. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

1 The Disappearance,
2 The Manhattan Company,
3 The Players,
4 Case for the Prosecution,
5 Prosecution Continued,
6 Case for the Defense,
7 Public Reaction,
8 Historic Perspective,
9 Aftermath,
Afterword,
Appendix,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,

Editorial Reviews

"Suspense builds until the stunning, climactic verdict. A neat real-life thriller, then, as well as a rich re-creation of old New York." — Kirkus Reviews


"A delightful snapshot of rough-and-ready justice." — Washington Times

From the Publisher