Duel with the Devil (35 page)

  
1
“a very clear day, but very blustery”
: Bleecker, Diary, 31 March 1800.

  
2
marrying one of his customers, the widow Mrs. Stackhaver
:
Report on the Trial of Richard D. Croucher
, 6.

  
3
the widow’s house on Ann Street
: Ibid., 9. During Croucher’s rape trial in July 1800, witness Abiel Brown mentions renting a residence in Croucher and Stackhaver’s house. The
Longworth’s Almanack
for 1800 (146) shows Brown at 10 Ann Street. The 1801 directory (126) shows Brown occupying both 8 and 10 Ann Street—perhaps having taken over the building after Croucher left to serve his prison sentence.

  
4
her teenaged daughter
: Ibid., 5.

  
5
“Scarcely any thing else is spoken of”
: Bleecker, Diary, 31 March 1800.

  
6
“The American Phenomena”
:
NYMA
, 17 March 1800.

  
7
“the concourse of people was so great”
: Hardie,
Impartial Account of the Trial
, vi.

  
8
“Crucify him!”
: Ibid.

  
9
Mr. Babb’s shop … “to confine tame birds in a free country”
: Thorburn,
Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of New-York
, 149.

10
the city’s only hosiery shop
: Ibid., 148

11
at the corner was an old buttonwood tree … for climbing
: Ibid., 150.

12
a phalanx of constables and a citizen volunteer guard
: Longworth,
Brief Narrative of the Trial
, 5.

13
“disposed to exercise it in its amplest extent”
: Ibid.

14
hawking door-to-door copies of … “Washington’s Will”
:
NYDA
, 13 February 1800.

15
“
THE TRIAL OF
L
EVI
W
EEKS
 … 
BY
J
OHN
F
URMAN
”:
NYCA
, 31 March 1800.

16
Hear ye, hear ye
: Jenkins,
New Clerk’s Assistant
, 133. This court proclamation is italicized but not in quotation marks, as Coleman’s transcript simply notes “Proclamation having been made in the usual form” (9).

17
he towered over most of the crowd … skated twenty miles up the Connecticut River
: Bryant,
Reminiscences of the “Evening Post,”
3.

18
All manner of persons
: Jenkins,
New Clerk’s Assistant
, 133.

19
an abandoned child at a Boston poorhouse
: Pasley,
Tyranny of Printers
, 240.

20
worked briefly as Aaron Burr’s law partner … it was to Hamilton that the grateful and destitute Coleman owed
: Chernow,
Alexander Hamilton
, 649.

21
he’d virtually walked out in disgust
: Nannie Coleman,
Constitution and Its Framers
, 148.

22
publicly questioned the curious provisions buried in Burr’s bill
: Koeppel,
Water for Gotham
, 85.

23
he’d served as an aide to Hamilton’s father-in-law
: Gerlach,
Proud Patriot
, 312.

24
the general’s former law partner
: Fitch,
Encyclopedia of Biography of New York City
, 1:346.

25
now also a board member of Burr’s new water company
: Koeppel,
Water for Gotham
, 77.

26
Approach the bar
:
William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 9.

27
a respectable-enough-looking fellow
: Longworth,
Brief Narrative of the Trial
, 5.

28
the custom to not let the accused testify
: O’Neill, “Vindicating the Defendant’s Constitutional Right to Testify at a Criminal Trial,” 812.

29
didn’t even have the right to counsel or to call witnesses
: Ibid., 811.

30
“Levi Weeks, prisoner at the bar
”: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 9.

31
local hacks took rapid notes
: Hardie,
Impartial Account of the Trial
, vii.

32
“Hearken to what is said to you”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 9.

33
Weeks immediately cut some of the jurors short
: Ibid., 10.

34
“Juror, look upon the Prisoner”
: Ibid.

35
they’d served in the assembly together
:
NYDA
, 2 June 1797.

36
So had the father of juror Garrit Storm
: Barrett,
Old Merchants of New York City
, 4:323.

37
tobacco and beeswax merchant
:
NYG
, 19 February 1799.

38
organizing local Irishmen for the Republicans
:
NYDA
, 11 June 1794.

39
everything from shawls to gunpowder
: Ibid., 23 November 1799.

40
“immense operations” in salt manufacturing
: Barrett,
Old Merchants of New York City
, 1:354.

41
former president of the city’s chamber of commerce … “Prince of Merchants”
: Ibid., 104.

42
landowners holding property worth at least $250
: Alschuler and Deiss, “Brief History of the Criminal Jury in the United States,” 879. Alschuler and Deiss’s account notes that although New York dropped its landowning requirement in 1821, it kept its $250 requirement until 1967.

43
nearly a year’s wages for a common laborer
: Lebergott, “Wage Trends, 1800–1900,” 462.

44
Hunt and his fellow juror Jasper Ward had even run a grocery store together
:
NYDA
, 19 April 1796.

45
“You shall well and truly try”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 9.

46
It was his habit to divide his papers into two columns
: Allan McLane Hamilton,
Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton
, 195.

47
Hale’s Plea of the Crown
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 94.

48
“Gentlemen of the Jury”
: Ibid., 10.

49
“The Jurors and the People of the State of New-York”
: Ibid., 10–11.

50
“Upon this indictment the prisoner at the bar hath been arraigned”
: Ibid., 11–12.

  
1
Colden had personally investigated
:
NYG
, 5 December 1799.

  
2
Burr helped save Colden land
: Coldengham History and Preservation Society, “The Colden Family of Early America,” 12.

  
3
“The prisoner has thought it necessary for his defense”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 12.

  
4
“His appearance interested us greatly in his favor”
: Longworth,
Brief Narrative of the Trial
, 5.

  
5
“He gained the affections of those who are now to appear”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 12.

  
6
“The deceased was a young girl”
: Ibid., 13. The remainder of this section is drawn from this page in Coleman’s trial transcript.

  
7
the defense was demanding that Elias Ring leave
: Ibid., 18–19.

  
8
“You have a right to it, of course”
: Ibid., 19.

  
9
twenty-seven years old—just five years older than Elma
: Ibid., 33.

10
“I regarded her as a sister”
: Ibid., 34.

11
“In July last, Levi Weeks came to board”
: Ibid., 19.

12
announce a whole series of legal precedents
: Ibid. Specifically, according to Coleman’s transcript, “4
State Trials
, 487, 488, idem 291, 298;
Leeche’s
[
sic
]
Cases
399, idem 397, idem 437; 2 Bacon 563;
Skinner’s Reports
402.”

13
Brockholst Livingston … a copy of Leach’s
Cases in Crown Law
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 19.

14
William Woodcock, accused in 1789 of beating his wife
: Leach,
Cases in Crown Law
, 397–98.

15
“His Lordship” … “then left it with the jury”
: Ibid., 401.

16
Aaron Burr leaped in
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 20.

17
“Levi became very attentive to Elma”
: Ibid.

18
Elias Ring, who had crept back into the courtroom
: Ibid., 21.

19
“I always thought her disposition rather too gay”
: Ibid., 33.

20
her niece seeming “much pleased”
: Ibid., 22.

21
“I heard the clock strike eight”
: Ibid., 23.

22
Colden dramatically unrolled an architect’s plan
: Ibid., 24.

23
“What kind of staircase is it?”
: Ibid., 25.

24
Levi seemed “pale and much agitated”
: Ibid., 26.

25
“I said,
Stop, Levi, this matter has become so serious
”: Ibid., 30.

26
Mrs. Ring
also
heard Elma threaten to overdose
: Ibid., 31.

27
“Why Levi! How can thee say so?”
: Ibid., 32. The remainder of this section is drawn from this page in Coleman’s trial transcript.

28
he had visited the museum with Hope and Elma
: Ibid., 38.

29
“After she was missing, he denied knowing any thing”
: Ibid., 37.

30
“I left my shoes at the bottom of them”
: Ibid., 36.

31
“He soon began to use all possible means to convince me”
: Ibid., 37.

32
Levi’s Seventh Ward alderman
: New York Common Council,
Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1784–1831
, 3:157.

33
assistant, the memorably named Mangle Minthorne
: Ibid.

34
their tireless efforts to get local streets fixed: Ibid., 2
:2. These duties are first noted with Furman in the 15 April 1793 entry on page 2, and he turns up in this capacity on numerous other occasions in the volume.

35
“he paid no more attention to Elma”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 37.

36
“Levi, if I was to do it”
: Ibid., 38.

37
“Levi Weeks was a lodger in my house”
: Ibid., 39.

38
Hamilton interrupted
: Ibid. The Coleman trial transcript is notable for, with a few exceptions, not specifying who on the defense team is speaking. It’s a peculiar omission for such a careful chronicler—so peculiar, in fact, that it is worth asking whether Coleman thought that the speaker was
already obvious
to his readers.
   In his account of the trial, Hamilton’s grandson Allen McLane Hamilton explains that “Hamilton interrogated most of the witnesses” (186). In both Hardie’s and Coleman’s accounts, Hamilton is listed first among the defense team; what is more, when Coleman had his manuscript proofed after the trial, it was Alexander Hamilton that he showed it to (
NYAC
, 30 April 1800). My inference is that Hamilton was, in fact, the lead counsel.
   On every occasion that we know Burr or Livingston to have spoken, they are clearly identified by name or as “one of the counsel.” For instance, the defense’s opening statement is attributed by Coleman to “one of the counsel” (64); both Longworth (10) and Hardie (21) identify this person as Burr.
   Hamilton is never overtly identified as a speaker by Coleman—because, I believe, he is the default identity of the defense. Tellingly, the
NYDA
, 3 April 1800, identifies Hamilton as making the request to forgo the closing statement; Coleman identifies this simply as “counsel.” My conclusion is that Hamilton, as the lead counsel, is speaking for the defense unless otherwise identified, and the courtroom dialogue in this book is rendered accordingly.

39
“Did you ever know that the prisoner
and
Elma were in bed together?
”: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 40. The remainder of this section is drawn from this page in Coleman’s trial transcript.

40
“May it please the court and gentlemen of the jury”
: Ibid., 43.

41
his voice low and quick
: Ibid., 81.

42
“I was satisfied, from what
I
saw
”: Ibid., 43.

43
As a newly married man
:
Report on the Trial of Richard D. Croucher
, 6.

44
He’d gone to the coffeehouse and then to a birthday party
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 44.

45
“I wish I had”
: Ibid.

46
“I believe I might have passed the glue manufactory”
: Ibid., 45.

47
“Ever had a quarrel with the prisoner?”
: Ibid., 44.

48
“She thought” … “he was an
Adonis
”: Ibid., 45.