John C. Colt
Encyclopedia
John Caldwell Colt the brother of Samuel Colt
, was a fur-trader, book keeper, law clerk, and teacher. He became an authority on double-entry bookkeeping system
and published a textbook on the subject. He was convicted of the murder of a printer named Samuel Adams, to whom Colt owed money over publication of a bookkeeping textbook. The trial became a sensation in the New York press. Colt was found guilty and sentenced to hang in 1842, but committed suicide on the morning of his execution.
Conspiracy theories began about the suicide, with some holding that Colt had in fact escaped from prison and staged a body to look like his own. One publication alleged that a family member had smuggled the knife used in the suicide into his cell. Others stated that Colt was living in California with his wife, Caroline. None of these allegations was ever proven. Edgar Allen Poe based his short story, The Oblong Box
partly on this murder.
, to Christopher Colt, a farmer who had moved his family to Hartford when he changed professions and became a businessman, and Sarah Colt née Caldwell, who died when Colt was eleven years old. Christopher Colt was remarried two years later to Olive Sergeant. The Colt family included eight siblings: five boys and three girls. Two of the sisters died in childhood and the other, Sarah Ann, committed suicide later in life, by taking arsenic.
Colt worked as an assistant book keeper at age 14 for the Union Manufacturing Company in Marlborough, Connecticut. He left the job and moved to Albany, New York
in less than a year. He returned to Hartford and studied in an Academy for three months. In 1827 he found employment as a math teacher at a ladies seminary in Baltimore
, Maryland for a year. In 1828 he became a supervisory engineer for a canal near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
. The following year his sister, Sarah Ann committed suicide and in despair, Colt enlisted in the United States Marine Corps
. His orders were for a Mediterranean cruise on the U.S.S. Constitution; illness prevented him from serving on the ship and he worked as a clerk in Norfolk, Virginia
for Colonel Anderson.
Colt spent three months as a Marine and was disillusioned with the military lifestyle and still very ill. He forged a letter in the name of "George Hamilton" a farmer from Ware, Massachusetts
stating that his underage son had falsely enlisted in the name of John Colt. Colt mailed the letter to his brother James and asked him to mail it to Colonel Anderson from Ware. Anderson discharged Colt within days of receiving the letter, citing Colt's "illness" as the reason.
Upon his discharge, Colt spent a year as a law clerk for his cousin, Dudley Selden
. At the same time he became a river boat gambler and was challenged to a duel over a shared mistress. He travelled to Vermont in 1830 as a debate coach for the University of Vermont
, Burlington
, however he left after a year due to symptoms of tuberculosis
. Colt then travelled to the Great Lakes
for relief of the disease and bought a farm in Michigan on Gooden's Lake, however tubercular symptoms surfaced again and he soon left for Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became a teacher of one of the first Correspondence courses in America, center of a Bohemian circle
and counted John Howard Payne
and Hiram Powers
among his friends.
From there he attempted many business ventures throughout the United States: land speculator in Texas, soap manufacturer in New York, Grocery wholesaler in Georgia, fur trader, dry-goods merchant in Florida, and even an organizer of Mardi Gras
masquerade ball
s in New Orleans.
. He toured the United States giving a series of lectures on the topic and by 1837 began writing a textbook on the subject.
His text book:The Italian science of double-entry book-keeping: simplified, arranged and methodized received praise and glowing reviews. Colt had the book published in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. By 1839 over 200 schools were using the textbook. Colt dropped "Italian" from the title for the second edition and included transcripts of his lectures in the newer editions, the book went through 45 printings and was in publication until 1855.
Shortly after publishing the first edition of his textbook, Colt went into partnership with the publisher, Nathan G. Burgess as Colt, Burgess & Co. The new firm almost went bankrupt after publishing An Introduction into the Origin of Antiquities in America by John Delafield Jr. The scholarship of the text was dubious and the book was available by subscription only. Hoping for a better market for Delafield's book, Colt moved to 14 Cortland Street in Manhattan, New York in 1839. The office doubled as Colt's residence and Colt made his own shipping crates for the books within it.
. In self-defense, Colt reached for what he thought was a hammer to fend him off, but the weapon turned out to be a hatchet
. Colt struck Adams 4 or 5 times with the weapon, causing Adams to drop to the floor.
After Colt realized that he had killed Adams, he cleaned up the blood. On the morning of September 18, Colt placed Adams' corpse into a large shipping crate and packed it with salt. He then addressed it to a phony address in New Orleans and hired a car-man named Barstow to deliver it to a ship named the Kalamazoo, scheduled to leave the next morning.
After being missing for over 24 hours, Adams' family began searching the city for him, placing notices in several newspapers such as the New York Courier and Enquirer
and the New York Weekly Tribune
notifying people he was missing. A neighbor of Colt's, Asa H. Wheeler, told Adams' father-in-law, Joseph Lane, that he had heard noises in Colt's office that sounded like a fight followed by a crash to the floor. Peering in the keyhole, he saw someone "bending over something on the floor". Wheeler later secured a key from the landlord and saw that a large packing crate was missing and that the floor had been scrubbed. On September 22, 1841, Colt visited Adams' print shop inquiring about the status of his books and the whereabouts of Adams. Adams' bookbinder, Charles Wells, told Colt that Adams had last been seen going to see Colt. Colt made no reply to this allegation and excused himself.
Lane, Wheeler, and an employee of Adams named John Loud; examined Adams' ledgers for any transactions involving Colt and went to the mayor of New York City, Robert Hunter Morris, with the evidence. Other witnesses said that Adams was last seen entering Colt's apartment on September 17 and that Colt had a crate delivered by a carman the next day. The mayor asked the Superintendent of Carts, William Godfrey, to locate the carman in question and find out the location of the crate. Godfrey found Barstow who told him the parcel had been delivered to a freighter named the "Kalamazoo".
The "Kalamazoo" was still in port because a storm had prevented it from sailing. New York Police and the Mayor of New York boarded the ship with the carman who had delivered the crate and asked if it was still in the cargo hold. The decomposing body had begun to give off a strong odor that ship hands had assumed was a poison put out to kill rats. When asked to open the crate, stevedore
s complied and the contents were a decapitated naked male corpse wrapped in a shop awning and packed with salt. A scar on the body's leg and a single gold ring identified the body as Adams.
; his other lawyers were John Morrill and Robert Emmett; the three were paid in stock from Samuel Colt's new company: Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey. The Chief Prosecutor at the trial was James R. Whiting
, the New York County District Attorney
. The judge who presided was William Kent.
The Colt-Adams Murder trial dominated the popular press at the time, due in part to the nature of the crime, and Colt's cohabitating with a pregnant woman to whom he was not married, Caroline Henshaw. The story eclipsed coverage of another murder in New York, that of Mary Rogers
as the press depicted Colt as a former professional riverboat gambler who had public affairs with women and a common-law wife and who committed perjury to enlist and exit the Marines. However it was mostly due to John Colt being related to Samuel Colt. Coverage appeared in New York papers such as The Sun, which incorrectly posted a picture of P.T. Barnum that it had purchased from the Albany Evening Atlas as a picture of Adams. As the trial went on religious magazines such as The Catholic Herald
, Evangelical Magazine, Episcopal Recorder and Gospel Advocate
, used the story to demonstrate "lack of morality in the home" or other beliefs.
Throughout the trial Colt was repeatedly "Found guilty of cold-blooded murder" in the New York press. The October 30 issue of the weekly Tribune quoted James Colt, then practicing law in St Louis as saying "insanity is hereditary in our family". James Gordon Bennett
wrote lengthy editorials in the New York Herald
about Colt's "confidence, assurance, and impudence" and that his "limitless potential has been undermined by a want of moral and religious culture". The major exception was The Knickerbocker
in which Lewis Gaylord Clark
reported the murder as a "misfortunate accident". Colt's lawyers continually petitioned Judge Kent to forbid press coverage, but Kent refused them saying, "The Court has done everything to prevent the jury from being influenced from without".
Halfway through the trial, Whiting made allegationss that Adams had been murdered with a Colt Paterson
revolver rather than a hatchet. Several witnesses were called in to testify including Sam Colt, himself who eventually demonstrated shooting his revolver in the courtroom. Over Selden's objections, Whiting had the coroner, David L. Rogers, bring Adams' skull and the hatchet into the courtroom to show the jury the direction and number of strikes made. John Colt was reported as "covering his face" at this demonstration.
Colt admitted he had killed Adams and planned to confess before he was arrested. He attested that he acted in self-defense
.
Colt said his first thought was to burn down the building to destroy the evidence, but reconsidered as a number of people lived in the building and rather than "cause more carnage" he reconsidered. He then decided to dispose of the body in a large packing crate and wrapped it in an awning and bound it with rope. After scrubbing the floor he threw Adams' clothing into a nearby outdoor privy
. He then stopped at the Washington bathhouse
on Pearl Street to wash the blood from his clothes and hands.
Closing arguments were made on January 23, Selden's argument was that Colt had acted in "self-defence" as Adams had been choking him and Colt's only means to defend himself was to grab a nearby weapon. His reason for hiding the body was temporary insanity. Whiting countered in a two-hour long rebuttal that the killing was premeditated, he pointed to Colt's demeanor at the trial, the taking of Adams' watch, a hatchet left out in plain view, and Colt's method of disposing the body as not the actions of an innocent man acting in self-defense. Judge Kent instructed the jury that since Colt had confessed to the murder that they were to determine whether the charge should be murder or manslaughter
and remarked on Colt's "careless air" demonstrated throughout the trial in the courtroom. The jury was disturbed by Colt's demeanor throughout the trial agreeing with the judge that Colt appeared stoic, unremorseful, and callous when describing his disposal of Adams' body. On January 24 after deliberating for over 10 hours, the jury found Colt guilty of willful murder
.
Colt's team requested an appeal and argued the case on May 5, 1842 asking for a new trial as the jury at the previous was misinformed; on May 12 a new trial was denied so the lawyers appealed to the State Supreme Court
located in Utica, New York
. The State Supreme Court heard the case on July 16, 1842 and upheld the earlier court's decision. Colt's sentencing date was scheduled for September 27, 1842. Undaunted, Colt's lawyers recruited Rogers, the surgeon who performed Adams' autopsy "to investigate the probable relative position and actions" of Colt and Adams during their struggle. By analyzing the number, shape, and position of the wounds and the blood splatter; Rogers deduced that the two "grappled face to face within a foot-and-a-half of each other" and "Adams was in an erect position at the time the fatal blows were inflicted. The report was submitted to Governor William H. Seward
in the hope of securing a pardon for Colt. Seward was overwhelmed with requests asking for a pardon for Colt, including 36 lawyers who visited him personally in Albany as well as judges and attorneys close to Seward such as Judge Ambrose Spencer
and former Attorney General Willis Hall
. Seward, in the end could not pardon Colt, as he felt the attempted cover-up of the crime and Colt's demeanor throughout the trial were not the actions of a "penitent man".
. His sentence was to be carried out on November 14, 1842. Colt asked that he be allowed to marry Caroline Henshaw on the morning of his hanging. While imprisoned, Colt lived luxuriously in his prison cell, receiving daily visits from friends and family, smoking Cuban cigars, sleeping in an actual bed instead of a mound of straw and wearing silk dressing gowns inside and a seal skin overcoat for his daily walks in the prison yard. His cell contained the latest novels, a gilded bird cage with a canary and fresh flowers brought to him every day by Henshaw. He dined on meals from local hotels such as quail on toast, game pates, reed birds, and ortolan
s. Several attempts were made to break him out of the prison and were foiled. A doctor was hired who claimed he could resuscitate Colt from the hanging, believing Colt's neck to be of such thickness that strangulation would be impossible.
In the morning of November 14, 1842, Colt and Henshaw were married in the prison in a small ceremony conducted by Rev Henry Anthon, an Episcopal Minister, and witnessed by Sam Colt and John Howard Payne
. After the ceremony and a few hours before the scheduled execution, a fire broke out in the Tombs. After the fire was extinguished, Colt's body was found in his cell. He had stabbed himself in the heart with a clasp knife, believed to have been smuggled to him by a family member. His body was taken by Rev Anthon and buried in the churchyard of St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.
, a researcher and author of two books about John Colt dismisses this as "an outlandish tale" and a "product of folklore, not fact". A New York Times article written in 1880 said that Caroline Henshaw was watched by private detectives for years after Colt's death and no sign was ever seen of him alive. None of these speculations of Colt's escape was proved to be true.
It has been said that Caroline Henshaw married Sam Colt in Scotland while Colt met her in Europe and that the son she bore was Samuel Colt's and not John Colt's. Colt's biographer, William Edwards, wrote that John's marriage to Caroline was a way to legitimize her son, Samuel; as Sam felt she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and divorce was a social stigma at the time. After Sam Colt's death in 1862, Caroline's son Samuel produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Sam Colt were married in Scotland in 1838 and this document made him an heir to the Colt Manufacturing Company.
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
, was a fur-trader, book keeper, law clerk, and teacher. He became an authority on double-entry bookkeeping system
Double-entry bookkeeping system
A double-entry bookkeeping system is a set of rules for recording financial information in a financial accounting system in which every transaction or event changes at least two different nominal ledger accounts....
and published a textbook on the subject. He was convicted of the murder of a printer named Samuel Adams, to whom Colt owed money over publication of a bookkeeping textbook. The trial became a sensation in the New York press. Colt was found guilty and sentenced to hang in 1842, but committed suicide on the morning of his execution.
Conspiracy theories began about the suicide, with some holding that Colt had in fact escaped from prison and staged a body to look like his own. One publication alleged that a family member had smuggled the knife used in the suicide into his cell. Others stated that Colt was living in California with his wife, Caroline. None of these allegations was ever proven. Edgar Allen Poe based his short story, The Oblong Box
The Oblong Box (short story)
"The Oblong Box" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1844, about a sea voyage and a mysterious box.-Plot summary:The story opens with the unnamed narrator recounting a summer sea voyage from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City aboard the ship Independence...
partly on this murder.
Early life
John Colt was born in Hartford, ConnecticutHartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, to Christopher Colt, a farmer who had moved his family to Hartford when he changed professions and became a businessman, and Sarah Colt née Caldwell, who died when Colt was eleven years old. Christopher Colt was remarried two years later to Olive Sergeant. The Colt family included eight siblings: five boys and three girls. Two of the sisters died in childhood and the other, Sarah Ann, committed suicide later in life, by taking arsenic.
Colt worked as an assistant book keeper at age 14 for the Union Manufacturing Company in Marlborough, Connecticut. He left the job and moved to Albany, New York
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
in less than a year. He returned to Hartford and studied in an Academy for three months. In 1827 he found employment as a math teacher at a ladies seminary in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland for a year. In 1828 he became a supervisory engineer for a canal near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
. The following year his sister, Sarah Ann committed suicide and in despair, Colt enlisted in the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
. His orders were for a Mediterranean cruise on the U.S.S. Constitution; illness prevented him from serving on the ship and he worked as a clerk in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
for Colonel Anderson.
Colt spent three months as a Marine and was disillusioned with the military lifestyle and still very ill. He forged a letter in the name of "George Hamilton" a farmer from Ware, Massachusetts
Ware, Massachusetts
Ware is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 9,707 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.Part of the town comprises the census-designated place of Ware....
stating that his underage son had falsely enlisted in the name of John Colt. Colt mailed the letter to his brother James and asked him to mail it to Colonel Anderson from Ware. Anderson discharged Colt within days of receiving the letter, citing Colt's "illness" as the reason.
Upon his discharge, Colt spent a year as a law clerk for his cousin, Dudley Selden
Dudley Selden
Dudley Selden was an American lawyer and politician from New York.-Life:He was a son of Joseph Dudley Selden and Ethelinda Colt . He married Mary Augusta Packard , and had a daughter Maria Louisa Selden who married William Rogers Morgan.Selden graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York,...
. At the same time he became a river boat gambler and was challenged to a duel over a shared mistress. He travelled to Vermont in 1830 as a debate coach for the University of Vermont
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
, Burlington
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
, however he left after a year due to symptoms of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. Colt then travelled to the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
for relief of the disease and bought a farm in Michigan on Gooden's Lake, however tubercular symptoms surfaced again and he soon left for Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became a teacher of one of the first Correspondence courses in America, center of a Bohemian circle
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
and counted John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne was an American actor, poet, playwright, and author who had most of his theatrical career and success in London. He is today most remembered as the creator of "Home! Sweet Home!", a song he wrote in 1822 that became widely popular in the United States, Great Britain, and the...
and Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers
Hiram Powers was an American neoclassical sculptor.-Biography:The son of a farmer, Powers was born in Woodstock, Vermont, on the July 29, 1805. In 1818 his father moved to Ohio, about six miles from Cincinnati, where the son attended school for about a year, staying meanwhile with his brother, a...
among his friends.
From there he attempted many business ventures throughout the United States: land speculator in Texas, soap manufacturer in New York, Grocery wholesaler in Georgia, fur trader, dry-goods merchant in Florida, and even an organizer of Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras
The terms "Mardi Gras" , "Mardi Gras season", and "Carnival season", in English, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, beginning on or after Epiphany and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday...
masquerade ball
Masquerade ball
A masquerade ball is an event which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask. - History :...
s in New Orleans.
Double-entry book keeping
While teaching in Louisville in 1834, Colt began lecturing on "Italian Book-keeping", or double-entry book keepingDouble-entry bookkeeping system
A double-entry bookkeeping system is a set of rules for recording financial information in a financial accounting system in which every transaction or event changes at least two different nominal ledger accounts....
. He toured the United States giving a series of lectures on the topic and by 1837 began writing a textbook on the subject.
His text book:The Italian science of double-entry book-keeping: simplified, arranged and methodized received praise and glowing reviews. Colt had the book published in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. By 1839 over 200 schools were using the textbook. Colt dropped "Italian" from the title for the second edition and included transcripts of his lectures in the newer editions, the book went through 45 printings and was in publication until 1855.
Shortly after publishing the first edition of his textbook, Colt went into partnership with the publisher, Nathan G. Burgess as Colt, Burgess & Co. The new firm almost went bankrupt after publishing An Introduction into the Origin of Antiquities in America by John Delafield Jr. The scholarship of the text was dubious and the book was available by subscription only. Hoping for a better market for Delafield's book, Colt moved to 14 Cortland Street in Manhattan, New York in 1839. The office doubled as Colt's residence and Colt made his own shipping crates for the books within it.
Murder of Samuel Adams
On September 17, 1841, a New York printer named Samuel Adams went to see John Colt to collect a debt over some textbooks that Adams had printed for him. The two disagreed over the final amount owed; sources indicate that it was a discrepancy of $1.35. According to Colt, Adams began choking him with his cravatCravat
The cravat is a neckband, the forerunner of the modern tailored necktie and bow tie, originating from 17th-century Croatia.From the end of the 16th century, the term band applied to any long-strip neckcloth that was not a ruff...
. In self-defense, Colt reached for what he thought was a hammer to fend him off, but the weapon turned out to be a hatchet
Hatchet
A hatchet is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade used to cut and split wood...
. Colt struck Adams 4 or 5 times with the weapon, causing Adams to drop to the floor.
After Colt realized that he had killed Adams, he cleaned up the blood. On the morning of September 18, Colt placed Adams' corpse into a large shipping crate and packed it with salt. He then addressed it to a phony address in New Orleans and hired a car-man named Barstow to deliver it to a ship named the Kalamazoo, scheduled to leave the next morning.
After being missing for over 24 hours, Adams' family began searching the city for him, placing notices in several newspapers such as the New York Courier and Enquirer
New York Courier and Enquirer
The New York Courier and Enquirer, properly called the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer, was a daily broadsheet newspaper published in New York City from June 1829 until June 1861, when it was merged into the New York World. Throughout its life it was edited by newspaper publisher James...
and the New York Weekly Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
notifying people he was missing. A neighbor of Colt's, Asa H. Wheeler, told Adams' father-in-law, Joseph Lane, that he had heard noises in Colt's office that sounded like a fight followed by a crash to the floor. Peering in the keyhole, he saw someone "bending over something on the floor". Wheeler later secured a key from the landlord and saw that a large packing crate was missing and that the floor had been scrubbed. On September 22, 1841, Colt visited Adams' print shop inquiring about the status of his books and the whereabouts of Adams. Adams' bookbinder, Charles Wells, told Colt that Adams had last been seen going to see Colt. Colt made no reply to this allegation and excused himself.
Lane, Wheeler, and an employee of Adams named John Loud; examined Adams' ledgers for any transactions involving Colt and went to the mayor of New York City, Robert Hunter Morris, with the evidence. Other witnesses said that Adams was last seen entering Colt's apartment on September 17 and that Colt had a crate delivered by a carman the next day. The mayor asked the Superintendent of Carts, William Godfrey, to locate the carman in question and find out the location of the crate. Godfrey found Barstow who told him the parcel had been delivered to a freighter named the "Kalamazoo".
The "Kalamazoo" was still in port because a storm had prevented it from sailing. New York Police and the Mayor of New York boarded the ship with the carman who had delivered the crate and asked if it was still in the cargo hold. The decomposing body had begun to give off a strong odor that ship hands had assumed was a poison put out to kill rats. When asked to open the crate, stevedore
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
s complied and the contents were a decapitated naked male corpse wrapped in a shop awning and packed with salt. A scar on the body's leg and a single gold ring identified the body as Adams.
Arrest and trial
Colt was arrested on September 23 by New York Police and the city's mayor. Adams' gold pocketwatch engraved with an image of the US Capitol was found among his possessions. The trial began on January 13, 1842. Colt was represented by a team of three attorneys led by his cousin, whom he had clerked under: Dudley SeldenDudley Selden
Dudley Selden was an American lawyer and politician from New York.-Life:He was a son of Joseph Dudley Selden and Ethelinda Colt . He married Mary Augusta Packard , and had a daughter Maria Louisa Selden who married William Rogers Morgan.Selden graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York,...
; his other lawyers were John Morrill and Robert Emmett; the three were paid in stock from Samuel Colt's new company: Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey. The Chief Prosecutor at the trial was James R. Whiting
James R. Whiting
James Raynor Whiting was an American lawyer and politician from New York.-Life:He was New York County District Attorney from 1838 to 1844. In 1842 as District Attorney, he prosecuted John C...
, the New York County District Attorney
New York County District Attorney
The New York County District Attorney is the elected district attorney for New York County , New York. The office is responsible for the prosecution of violations of New York state laws....
. The judge who presided was William Kent.
The Colt-Adams Murder trial dominated the popular press at the time, due in part to the nature of the crime, and Colt's cohabitating with a pregnant woman to whom he was not married, Caroline Henshaw. The story eclipsed coverage of another murder in New York, that of Mary Rogers
Mary Rogers
Mary Cecilia Rogers , also known as the "Beautiful Cigar Girl", was a 19th-century murder victim whose story became a national sensation in the United States...
as the press depicted Colt as a former professional riverboat gambler who had public affairs with women and a common-law wife and who committed perjury to enlist and exit the Marines. However it was mostly due to John Colt being related to Samuel Colt. Coverage appeared in New York papers such as The Sun, which incorrectly posted a picture of P.T. Barnum that it had purchased from the Albany Evening Atlas as a picture of Adams. As the trial went on religious magazines such as The Catholic Herald
The Catholic Herald
The Catholic Herald is a London-based Roman Catholic newspaper, published in broadsheet format and retailing at £1.50 ....
, Evangelical Magazine, Episcopal Recorder and Gospel Advocate
Gospel Advocate
The Gospel Advocate is a religious magazine published monthly in Nashville, Tennessee for members of the Churches of Christ. The Advocate has enjoyed uninterrupted publication since 1866....
, used the story to demonstrate "lack of morality in the home" or other beliefs.
Throughout the trial Colt was repeatedly "Found guilty of cold-blooded murder" in the New York press. The October 30 issue of the weekly Tribune quoted James Colt, then practicing law in St Louis as saying "insanity is hereditary in our family". James Gordon Bennett
James Gordon Bennett, Sr.
James Gordon Bennett, Sr. was the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald and a major figure in the history of American newspapers.-Biography:...
wrote lengthy editorials in the New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
about Colt's "confidence, assurance, and impudence" and that his "limitless potential has been undermined by a want of moral and religious culture". The major exception was The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, was a literary magazine of New York City, founded by Charles Fenno Hoffman in 1833, and published until 1865 under various titles, including:...
in which Lewis Gaylord Clark
Lewis Gaylord Clark
Lewis Gaylord Clark was an American editor and the brother of Willis Gaylord Clark.-Biography:Clark was born in Otisco, New York in 1808. He succeeded Charles Fenno Hoffman as editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, a role he held for over 25 years...
reported the murder as a "misfortunate accident". Colt's lawyers continually petitioned Judge Kent to forbid press coverage, but Kent refused them saying, "The Court has done everything to prevent the jury from being influenced from without".
Colt Paterson
A Colt Paterson is a revolver. It was the first commercial repeating firearm employing a revolving cylinder with multiple chambers aligned with a single, stationary barrel. Its design was patented by Samuel Colt on February 25, 1836, in the United States, France, and England, and it derived its...
revolver rather than a hatchet. Several witnesses were called in to testify including Sam Colt, himself who eventually demonstrated shooting his revolver in the courtroom. Over Selden's objections, Whiting had the coroner, David L. Rogers, bring Adams' skull and the hatchet into the courtroom to show the jury the direction and number of strikes made. John Colt was reported as "covering his face" at this demonstration.
Colt admitted he had killed Adams and planned to confess before he was arrested. He attested that he acted in self-defense
Self-defense
Self-defense, self-defence or private defense is a countermeasure that involves defending oneself, one's property or the well-being of another from physical harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in times of danger is available in many...
.
Colt said his first thought was to burn down the building to destroy the evidence, but reconsidered as a number of people lived in the building and rather than "cause more carnage" he reconsidered. He then decided to dispose of the body in a large packing crate and wrapped it in an awning and bound it with rope. After scrubbing the floor he threw Adams' clothing into a nearby outdoor privy
Outhouse
An outhouse is a small structure separate from a main building which often contained a simple toilet and may possibly also be used for housing animals and storage.- Terminology :...
. He then stopped at the Washington bathhouse
Public bathing
Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...
on Pearl Street to wash the blood from his clothes and hands.
Closing arguments were made on January 23, Selden's argument was that Colt had acted in "self-defence" as Adams had been choking him and Colt's only means to defend himself was to grab a nearby weapon. His reason for hiding the body was temporary insanity. Whiting countered in a two-hour long rebuttal that the killing was premeditated, he pointed to Colt's demeanor at the trial, the taking of Adams' watch, a hatchet left out in plain view, and Colt's method of disposing the body as not the actions of an innocent man acting in self-defense. Judge Kent instructed the jury that since Colt had confessed to the murder that they were to determine whether the charge should be murder or manslaughter
Manslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
and remarked on Colt's "careless air" demonstrated throughout the trial in the courtroom. The jury was disturbed by Colt's demeanor throughout the trial agreeing with the judge that Colt appeared stoic, unremorseful, and callous when describing his disposal of Adams' body. On January 24 after deliberating for over 10 hours, the jury found Colt guilty of willful murder
Premeditated murder
Premeditated murder is the crime of wrongfully causing the death of another human being after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension.State laws in the United States vary as to definitions...
.
Colt's team requested an appeal and argued the case on May 5, 1842 asking for a new trial as the jury at the previous was misinformed; on May 12 a new trial was denied so the lawyers appealed to the State Supreme Court
New York Court for the Trial of Impeachments
The Court for the Trial of Impeachments, and the Correction of Errors was established by the New York State Constitution of 1777. It consisted then of the Lieutenant Governor of New York , the Chancellor, the justices of the New York Supreme Court and the members of the New York State Senate...
located in Utica, New York
Utica, New York
Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....
. The State Supreme Court heard the case on July 16, 1842 and upheld the earlier court's decision. Colt's sentencing date was scheduled for September 27, 1842. Undaunted, Colt's lawyers recruited Rogers, the surgeon who performed Adams' autopsy "to investigate the probable relative position and actions" of Colt and Adams during their struggle. By analyzing the number, shape, and position of the wounds and the blood splatter; Rogers deduced that the two "grappled face to face within a foot-and-a-half of each other" and "Adams was in an erect position at the time the fatal blows were inflicted. The report was submitted to Governor William H. Seward
William H. Seward
William Henry Seward, Sr. was the 12th Governor of New York, United States Senator and the United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson...
in the hope of securing a pardon for Colt. Seward was overwhelmed with requests asking for a pardon for Colt, including 36 lawyers who visited him personally in Albany as well as judges and attorneys close to Seward such as Judge Ambrose Spencer
Ambrose Spencer
Ambrose Spencer was an American lawyer and politician.-Life:He attended Yale College from 1779 to 1782, and graduated from Harvard University in 1783...
and former Attorney General Willis Hall
Willis Hall (New York)
Willis Hall was an American lawyer and politician.-Life:He was the son of Rev. Nathaniel Hall and Hannah Emerson Hall . He graduated from Yale College in 1824, studied law in New York City and Litchfield, Connecticut...
. Seward, in the end could not pardon Colt, as he felt the attempted cover-up of the crime and Colt's demeanor throughout the trial were not the actions of a "penitent man".
Marriage and death
On September 28, 1842, after exhausting his final appeal, Colt was sentenced to death by hanging and remanded to New York City's infamous prison, The TombsThe Tombs
"The Tombs" is the colloquial name for the Manhattan Detention Complex, a jail in Lower Manhattan at 125 White Street, as well as the popular name of a series of preceding downtown jails, the first of which was built in 1838 in the Egyptian Revival style of architecture.The nickname has been used...
. His sentence was to be carried out on November 14, 1842. Colt asked that he be allowed to marry Caroline Henshaw on the morning of his hanging. While imprisoned, Colt lived luxuriously in his prison cell, receiving daily visits from friends and family, smoking Cuban cigars, sleeping in an actual bed instead of a mound of straw and wearing silk dressing gowns inside and a seal skin overcoat for his daily walks in the prison yard. His cell contained the latest novels, a gilded bird cage with a canary and fresh flowers brought to him every day by Henshaw. He dined on meals from local hotels such as quail on toast, game pates, reed birds, and ortolan
Ortolan Bunting
The Ortolan, or Ortolan Bunting, Emberiza hortulana, is a bird in the bunting family Emberizidae, a passerine family now separated by most modern authors from the finches, Fringillidae...
s. Several attempts were made to break him out of the prison and were foiled. A doctor was hired who claimed he could resuscitate Colt from the hanging, believing Colt's neck to be of such thickness that strangulation would be impossible.
In the morning of November 14, 1842, Colt and Henshaw were married in the prison in a small ceremony conducted by Rev Henry Anthon, an Episcopal Minister, and witnessed by Sam Colt and John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne
John Howard Payne was an American actor, poet, playwright, and author who had most of his theatrical career and success in London. He is today most remembered as the creator of "Home! Sweet Home!", a song he wrote in 1822 that became widely popular in the United States, Great Britain, and the...
. After the ceremony and a few hours before the scheduled execution, a fire broke out in the Tombs. After the fire was extinguished, Colt's body was found in his cell. He had stabbed himself in the heart with a clasp knife, believed to have been smuggled to him by a family member. His body was taken by Rev Anthon and buried in the churchyard of St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.
Aftermath
As the trial had made headlines in the daily newspapers, so did Colt's death. Theories were put forth by newspaper men that Colt had killed another prisoner and escaped during the fire. One newspaper account said that Colt had fled to California with his wife, as did a book published by a former New York Chief of Police. A man named Samuel M. Everett claimed he met John Colt (or a man who looked identical) in the Santa Clara Valley in California in 1852, the account was published in Pearson's Magazine. Harold SchechterHarold Schechter
Harold Schechter is a true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He attended the State University of New York in Buffalo, where he obtained a Ph.D...
, a researcher and author of two books about John Colt dismisses this as "an outlandish tale" and a "product of folklore, not fact". A New York Times article written in 1880 said that Caroline Henshaw was watched by private detectives for years after Colt's death and no sign was ever seen of him alive. None of these speculations of Colt's escape was proved to be true.
It has been said that Caroline Henshaw married Sam Colt in Scotland while Colt met her in Europe and that the son she bore was Samuel Colt's and not John Colt's. Colt's biographer, William Edwards, wrote that John's marriage to Caroline was a way to legitimize her son, Samuel; as Sam felt she was not fit to be the wife of an industrialist and divorce was a social stigma at the time. After Sam Colt's death in 1862, Caroline's son Samuel produced a valid marriage license showing that Caroline and Sam Colt were married in Scotland in 1838 and this document made him an heir to the Colt Manufacturing Company.