themify
domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init
action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/goodspeedhist/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Note: Records from the Coroner’s Inquest were discovered after the first version of the story was published. I have since updated the article to reflect the new information found there. It is now a much longer, but even more interesting article.<\/em><\/p>\n With all the controversy over the possible demolition of the Union Hotel in Flemington, there has been a revival of interest in \u201a\u00c4\u00faThe Trial of the Century,\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 when Bruno Hauptman was tried for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby in 1932. But there was another \u201a\u00c4\u00faTrial of the Century\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 in Hunterdon County more than 100 years earlier, held in May 1828, when a 12-year-old boy was convicted of the murder of a 60-year-old woman.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is the story of that murder and of the trial and appeal that followed. Most depictions of this event tell us very little about the people involved. I needed to know more about them. In the process I found the story even more interesting and disturbing than I first thought.<\/p>\n The story begins with some early settlers in Hopewell Township.<\/p>\n Early in the 18th<\/span>\u00ac\u2020century, Josiah Beakes, a carpenter of Bucks County, moved to Trenton, New Jersey. Later on he settled near the village of Pennington in what was then Hunterdon County. He married Rachel Everitt whose parents had come to Hopewell from Jamaica, Queens.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Their son Samuel Beakes was born in Hopewell township in 1753, according to his gravestone. His first appearance in any record was in the ledger of the Moses Baldwin tannery between 1765 and 1772.2<\/a><\/sup> The tannery was located just north of the village of Pennington. Beakes must have been close to the Baldwin family because the grandson of Moses Baldwin, Moses Baldwin, Jr., married Samuel Beakes\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 daughter Mary in 1796.<\/p>\n Samuel Beakes was old enough to serve in the Hunterdon Militia during the Revolution. He was an ensign then, and afterwards, in 1792, promoted to captain, and later became Major of the Hopewell Battalion, 4th<\/span>\u00ac\u2020Company.<\/p>\n In 1783, after his uncle William Everitt died intestate, Samuel Beakes witnessed the document granting administration to his father Josiah. Josiah Beakes wrote his own will on May 26, 1791, leaving to his wife Rachel the house in Pennington, bought from John Rozell, during her life, plus all household goods, and a bond against David Everitt. To his son Samuel he left the house and lot on the west side of Main Street in Pennington after the decease of his mother. Samuel was required to pay his sister Mary \u00ac\u00a310. The residue of the estate went to Josiah\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s granddaughter Mary Beakes, the woman who would later marry Moses Baldwin, Jr. Samuel Beakes was named executor along with Josiah\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s friend Nathaniel Temple. The will was recorded on January 3, 1792, so Josiah probably died in December 1791.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Samuel Beakes thereafter became the head of the Beakes family in Hopewell. He had only one sibling, Rebecca, who died in 1769 at the age of 15. Samuel\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s mother Rachel was 75 years old when Josiah died, so she almost certainly lived with son Samuel until her own death in 1812, at the age of 95. Presumably they lived in the house on Main Street in Pennington, across from the Presbyterian cemetery. Four years later, Samuel Beakes, joiner of Hopewell, sold the Main Street property, amounting to a half acre, to Joel Jones of Pennington for $1400.4<\/a><\/sup> It\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s quite possible that Jones was renting the property before he purchased it. Meanwhile, Samuel Beakes was living on a farm north of Pennington for which there is no deed recorded.<\/p>\n Samuel Beakes was married twice. He married Hannah Ashburn of Bucks County in 1779, while the Revolution was in full swing. They had three children, Mary, 1777-1861, later the wife of Moses Baldwin, William, 1780-1865, and Rebekah, 1788-1871. Hannah died in 1815, age 61, and was buried in the Pennington Cemetery.<\/p>\n You may have noticed that daughter Mary was born two years before Samuel and Hannah were married. Hannah may have been Mary\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s mother, but it is possible that Mary\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s mother was Mary Disbourough. Some writers claim that Beakes was married to her, even though there is no record of a marriage. I was unable to find information about who she was or when she lived and died.5<\/a><\/sup>\u00ac\u2020Perhaps she died soon after daughter Mary\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s birth.<\/p>\n Three years after the death of Hannah Ashburn, Samuel Beakes married Catherine Vankirk on June 25, 1818. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Boggs, pastor of the Hopewell Baptist Church.<\/p>\n Samuel Beakes was a respected citizen of Hopewell Township. He was chosen to be an overseer of roads for Pennington in 1799 and the next year was elected to the Town Committee. He was frequently identified as Maj. Samuel Beakes. In 1802, he and Henry Baker witnessed the manumission of slaves by Steven Blackwell and Edmund Burroughs.<\/p>\n It has been a challenge to figure out who this second (or third) wife of Samuel Beakes was. She was born about 1767, and before marrying Beakes, she had a son Jonathan Vankirk, who was probably born around 1785-1790. Who his father was I cannot say. The only possibility I found was Johnson Vankirk, 1765-1826, of Hopewell Township, who may have been married to a Jemima Prall. I found it interesting that there was so little information on Johnson Vankirk on Ancestry.com. This suggests to me that he may have fathered a son with Catharine and then left her. He died in 1826, one year before Catharine did.6<\/a><\/sup> Catharine\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s maiden name and birth family are unknown. There is a possibility that she was related to the Blackwell family, but the evidence is very sketchy.<\/p>\n I was especially interested in finding out where Samuel Beakes and wife Catharine lived. Since Beakes died long before Mercer County was created, any deeds for his property would have been recorded in Hunterdon County. But I only found one deed for him. It was recorded in 1817, for sale of land to Joel Jones.7<\/a><\/sup> There was nothing else, not even for his estate after his death.<\/p>\n However, we do know that in 1815 Samuel Beakes owned property adjoining a lot of land left to Joshua Bunn by his father Jonathan Bunn in his will of that year. Beakes was close to the Bunn family, evidenced by the fact that he made the inventory of Jonathan Bunn\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s estate. The property that bordered Samuel Beakes was a 59-acre tract purchased by Jonathan Bunn from James White in 1810. It bordered \u201a\u00c4\u00fathe great road from Penington [sic] to New Market, today\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Highway 31, north of the village of Pennington.8<\/a><\/sup>\u00ac\u2020Discussion with David Blackwell convinced me that the property was on the west side of Route 31 near the intersection with Titus Mill Road, not far south of Marshall\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s Corner.<\/p>\n Samuel Beakes died on July 9, 1827 when he was 74 years of age. He was buried in the Pennington Cemetery next to his first wife Hannah Ashburn. He was not given an obituary in the Hunterdon or Trenton papers, which is surprising considering that he was a Revolutionary War veteran and had been a public servant.<\/p>\n Beakes neglected to write a will, so his estate was administered by Andrew Titus, a neighbor, whose sureties were Joshua Bunn and Nathaniel R. Titus. Bunn and Titus also made the inventory, which amounted to only $239.22 and \u00ac\u03a9 cent. It included household goods worth $114.67 and half a cent, carpenter tools, farming \u201a\u00c4\u00fautensils,\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 grain and grass, stock [animals], book accounts, a note of hand and some cash. It seems odd that Samuel\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s son William (1780-1865) was not involved in the settlement of his father\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s estate, small as it was.<\/p>\n Samuel\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s widow Catharine most likely continued to live in their house after Samuel\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s death. I wanted to know where that house was located because of the stunning and dramatic event that happened two months later, when Mrs. Beakes was murdered while she was sitting beside her fireplace. The general consensus was that a twelve-year-old boy named James Guild was the murderer. He had been seen cutting corn in the field opposite the Beakes home, a field that was owned by Joshua Bunn.<\/p>\n The Bunn family had been living in Hopewell Township since 1738 when Joshua Bunn, Sr. moved there from Woodbridge. Religion was very important to the Bunn family. Joshua\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s son Jonathan (1744-1815) was one of the founders of the Methodist Church in Pennington in 1775, and, according to Jack Davis, he \u201a\u00c4\u00fahosted many travelling evangelists including Francis Asbury.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9<\/p>\n Jonathan Bunn met Mary Shinn at a Quarterly Methodist Conference in Pemberton, New Jersey. She was from a Burlington County family that was also very active in the founding of New Jersey Methodism. They married in 1776 and had eight children, including their son Joshua, born in 1783, making him about the same age as Samuel Beakes\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 son William by his first wife Hannah. Joshua was also only five years older than Catherine Beake\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s son Jonathan Vankirk. About 1817, Joshua Bunn married Fanny Hoff. They had three children, the first being daughter Sarah Ann, born in 1818.9<\/a><\/sup> Fanny was probably related to Cornelius or John Hoff, who owned property adjacent to Joshua Bunn.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n In 1827, one of Joshua Bunn\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s employees was a twelve-year-old boy named James Guild (pronounced gilde, as in \u201a\u00c4\u00f2while\u201a\u00c4\u00f4; not gild, as in \u201a\u00c4\u00f2ill\u201a\u00c4\u00f4). He was born on April 11, 1815, possibly the son of Francis Guild of Hopewell Township. Since James and Francis Guild were black, records for them are very poor. We know that Francis Guild was listed as head of a free black household in 1830. He joined the Presbyterian Church of Pennington sometime between 1806 and 1822.<\/p>\n It was not uncommon for slaves to take on the surname of their masters. If that was the case with Francis Guild, then the most likely person to have owned him would have been one of the sons of Rev. John Guild of the Pennington Presbyterian Church. Somehow that seems improbable.<\/p>\n If Francis Guild was ever manumitted (that is, legally freed from slavery), his name was not listed in the records of Hunterdon County.11<\/a><\/sup> If he was a slave in 1804, and if James Guild was his son, James was born free, thanks to a law passed by the New Jersey legislature in 1804, in which children of slaves born after that date would be considered free.\u00ac\u2020However, those children would be obliged to work as servants for their former owners until they had reached maturity\u201a\u00c4\u00eeage 25 for men and 21 for women. Since Little Jim was only 12 years old in 1827, he had to be housed and employed by his former master, who appears to have been Joshua Bunn. I make a point of the question of slavery because several versions of the story of Little Jim claim that he was a slave, but in fact, at least technically, he was not.\u00ac\u2020Hubert G. Schmidt12<\/a><\/sup> observed that \u201a\u00c4\u00faIn practice, these children [born after 1804] were evidently considered as slaves, and were so counted by census takers.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9<\/p>\n Another potential source of information is the Birth Certificates of Children of Slaves, 1804-1835 at the NJ State Archives. These births were required by the law of 1804 to be recorded with the county clerk, who was to keep a special record book for the purpose.13<\/a><\/sup> Regrettably, there was no record of a James Guild being born in 1815 or of a slave owned by Joshua Bunn.<\/p>\nThe Beakes Family<\/h3>\n
Catharine Vankirk Beakes<\/h3>\n
The Bunn Family<\/h3>\n
James Guild, aka \u201a\u00c4\u00f2Little Jim\u201a\u00c4\u00f4<\/h3>\n