ARGUMENT IN PROSECUTION OF JOHN FRANCIS KNAPP FOR THE MURDER OF JOSEPH WHITE, AT

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS, 1830.

STATEMENT.

On the morning of April 7, 1830, Joseph White, a respectable and wealthy merchant of Salem, Mass., eighty-two years of age, was found in his bed, murdered. The bed clothes were turned down, and the dead man's night clothes and bed were drenched with blood from thirteen deep stabs, apparently made by a sharp dirk or poniard, and a heavy blow on the left temple, which had fractured the skull. The body was cold, and appeared to have been lifeless many hours. On examining the house it did not appear that any valuable articles had been taken. The crime excited great public alarm, which was further increased by reports of highway robbery in the neighborhood. Large rewards were offered, and a committee of vigilance was appointed for the detection of the offenders. For several weeks not the slightest clue was found to the mystery. At length a rumor reached the vigilance committee that a prisoner named Hatch, who had been committed, before the murder, to the jail at New Bedford, seventy miles from Salem, for shoplifting, could make important disclosures. On communication with Hatch, he stated that, some months before the murder. while he was at large, he had heard Richard Crowninshield, Jr., of Danvers, a young man of bad reputation, who had for several years frequented the haunts of vice in Salem, express his intention of killing Mr. White. On this testimony an indictment was found against Crowninshield. Other witnesses testified that, on the night of the murder, Crowninshield's brother George, Col. Benjamin Selman, of Marblehead, and Daniel Chase, of Lynn, were together in Salem at a gambling house frequented by Richard, and on May 2d these persons were indicted as accomplices in the crime. A fortnight afterwards, Capt. Joseph J. Knapp, a respectable shipmaster and merchant of Salem, received by mail a letter dated Belfast, May 12th, and signed, "Charles Grant, Jr., of Prospect, Me.," demanding a loan of three hundred dollars, and threatening, in the event of noncompliance, to ruin him. "I will merely tell you," the writer added, “that I am acquainted with your brother Franklin, and also the business that was transacted for you on the 2d of April last, and that I think that you was very extravagant in giving one thousand dollars to the person that would execute the business for you." Capt. Knapp knew no one named Charles Grant, and had no acquaintance in Belfast. Unable to solve the enigma, Capt. Knapp and his son Phippen rode to Wenham, seven miles distant, and showed the letter to Capt. Knapp's other two sons, Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., and John Francis Knapp, who were then residing at Wenham with Mrs. Beckford, the niece and late housekeeper of Mr. White, and mother-in-law of Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. The latter, upon reading the letter, told his father that it contained "a devilish lot of trash," and advised him to hand it to the vigilance committee. The following day Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., went to Salem, and requested one of his friends to drop into the Salem post office the two following letters, saying that his father had received an anonymous

letter, and that he wanted to send these letters to "nip this silly affair in the bud":

"May 13, 1830. "Gentlemen of the Committee of Vigilance: Hearing that you have taken up four young men on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Mr. White, I think it time to inform you that Steven White came to me one night and told me, if I would remove the old gentleman, he would give me five thousand dollars. He said he was afraid he would alter his will if he lived any longer. I told him I would do it, but I was afeared to go into the house; so he said he would go with me. that he would try to get into the house in the evening and open the window, would then go home and go to bed, and meet me again about eleven. I found him, and we both went into his chamber. I struck him on the head with a heavy piece of lead, and then stabbed him with a dirk. He made the finishing strokes with another. He promised to send me the money next evening, and has not sent it yet, which is the reason that I mention this.

"Yours, etc.,

Grant."

This letter was directed on the outside to the "Hon. Gideon Barstow, Salem," and put into the post office on Sunday evening, May 16, 1830. The other letter, addressed to the "Hon. Stephen White, Salem, Mass.," also put into the post office in Salem on Sunday evening, read:

"Lynn, May 12, 1830.

"Mr. White will send the $5,000, or a part of it, before to-morrow night, or suffer the painful consequences.

"N. Claxton, 4th.”

The Hon. Stephen White mentioned in these letters was a nephew of Joseph White, and the legatee of the principal part of his large property. The vigilance committee promptly dispatched a messenger to Prospect. Me., who, by means of a decoy letter, soon captured the author of the letter to Joseph J. Knapp. It soon appeared that his true name was Palmer, and that he resided in the adjoining town of Belfast. He had served a term in the state's prison. While protesting his own innocence, he disclosed that he had been an associate of the Crowninshields, and that, on April 2d, from the window of the Crowninshield house, he saw Frank Knapp and a young man named Allen ride up to the house. George walked away with Frank, and Richard with Allen. On their return, George told Richard that Frank wished them to undertake to kill Mr. White, and that Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., would pay $1,000 for the job. They proposed various ways of executing it, and asked Palmer to assist, but he declined. On May 26th, Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., and John Francis Knapp were taken into custody. On the third day after his arrest, Joseph made a full confession. He stated that he knew that Mr. White had made his will, and given to Mrs. Beckford a legacy of fifteen thousand dollars, but, if he died without leaving a will, he expected she would inherit nearly two hundred thousand dollars. In February he made known to his brother his desire to make away with Mr. White, intending first to abstract and destroy the will. Frank agreed to employ an assassin, and negotiated with R. Crowninshield, Jr., who agreed to do the deed for a reward of one thousand dollars. Joseph agreed to pay that sum, and, as he had access to the house at his pleasure, he was to unbar and unfasten the back window, so that Crowninshield might gain easy entrance. Four days before the murder, while they were deliberating on the mode of compassing it, he went into

Mr. White's chamber, and, finding the key in the iron chest, unlocked it, took the will, put it in his chaise box, covered it with hay, carried it to Wenham, kept it till after the murder, and then burned it. After securing the will, he gave notice to Crowninshield that all was ready. In the evening of that day he had a meeting with Crowninshield, at the center of the common, who showed him a bludgeon and dagger, with which the murder was to be committed. Knapp asked him if he meant to do it that night. Crowninshield said he thought not, he did not feel like it. Knapp then went to Wenham. Knapp ascertained on Sunday, the 4th of April, that Mr. White had gone to take tea with a relative in Chestnut street. Crowninshield intended to stab him on his way home in the evening, but Mr. White returned before dark. It was next arranged for the night of the 6th, and Knapp was, on some pretext, to prevail on Mrs. Beckford to visit her daughters at Wenham, and to spend the night there. He said that, all preparations being thus complete, Crowninshield and Frank met about ten o'clock in the evening of the 6th, in Brown street, which passes the rear of the garden of Mr. White, and stood some time in a spot from which they could observe the movements in the house, and perceive when Mr. White and his two servants retired to bed. Crowninshield requested Frank to go home. He did so, but soon returned to the same spot. Crowninshield, in the meantime, had started and passed round through Newbury street and Essex street to the front of the house, entered the postern gate, passed to the rear of the house, placed a plank against the house, climbed to the window, opened it, entered the house alone, passed up the staircase, opened the door of the sleeping chamber, approached the bedside, gave Mr. White a heavy and mortal blow on the head with a bludgeon, and then with a dirk gave him many stabs in his body. Crowninshield said that, after he had "done for the old man," he put his fingers on his pulse to make certain he was dead. He then retired from the house, hurried back through Brown street, where he met Frank, waiting to learn the event. Crowninshield ran down Howard street, a solitary place, and hid the club under the steps of a meeting house. He then went home to Danvers.

Joseph confessed, further, that the account of the Wenham robbery. on the 27th of April, was a sheer fabrication. After the murder Crowninshield went to Wenham in company with Frank to call for the one thousand dollars. Knapp was not able to pay the whole, but gave him one hundred five-franc pieces. Crowninshield related to him the particulars of the murder, and told him where the club was concealed. Joseph sent Frank afterwards to find and destroy the club, but he said he could not find it. When Joseph made the confession, he told the place where the club was concealed, and it was there found. Joseph admitted that he wrote the two anonymous letters.

Palmer was brought to the Salem prison on June 3d, and was put in a cell directly under that in which Richard Crowninshield was confined. While several members of the committee were talking with Palmer in his cell, they heard a whistle and calls of "Palmer! Palmer!" and soon a pencil and slip of paper attached to a string were let down through a crevice which Crowninshield had picked in the mortar between the blocks of the granite floor of his cell. On June 12th, in consequence of further information from Palmer, some stolen goods were found concealed in the Crowninshield barn. On June 15th, Crowninshield com mitted suicide by hanging himself to the bars of his cell with a handkerchief.

At a special term of the supreme court held at Salem on the 20th of July, the prisoners were brought to trial, John Francis Knapp as principal, and Joseph J. Knapp and Geo. Crowninshield as accessories. John Francis Knapp, the principal, was first put on trial. He was defended with great ability by Franklin Dexter, but was convicted and hanged. To convict the prisoner it was necessary to prove that he was present, actually or constructively, as an aider or abettor in the murder. The evidence was strong that the prisoner was one of the conspirators, and that at the time of the murder he was in the rear of Mr. White's garden, and the jury were evidently satisfied that he was there to aid in the murder. Such, however, it appears from Joseph Knapp's confession, was not the fact. But Joseph, when put on the witness stand, declined to testify against his brother. In consequence, both were convicted and hanged. George Crowninshield proved an alibi, and was discharged.

It may be added that the crime itself was committed under a misapprehension. Joseph Knapp, who had privately read the will, and knew that Mr. White had bequeathed to Mrs. Beckford, his mother-in-law, the sole issue of a deceased sister of Mr. White, much less than onehalf of the estate, had been erroneously told that, in case Mr. White died without a will, his mother-in-law would inherit half of the estate. It also appears that, although a will was abstracted, another and subsequent will was found among the murdered man's effects.

ARGUMENT.

I am little accustomed, gentlemen, to the part which I am now attempting to perform. Hardly more than once or twice has it happened to me to be concerned on the side of the government in any criminal prosecution whatever, and never, until the present occasion, in any case affecting life. But I very much regret that it should have been thought necessary to suggest to you that I am brought here to "hurry you against the law and beyond the evidence." I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own character, to attempt either; and were I to make such attempt, I am sure that in this court nothing can be carried against the law, and that gentlemen intelligent and just as you are, are not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, when it is supposed that I may be in some degree useful in investigating and discovering the truth respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent on me, as on every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how

great soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whosoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked for,-in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend, in the ordinary display and development of his char

acter.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon. He winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise, and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admis