1819: Nathan Foster, wife-killer and patriot-killer
Add comment August 6th, 2019 Headsman
Two hundred years ago today, Nathan Foster hanged in Masonville, New York.
The crime on his charge sheet was poisoning his wife, Eleanor, to get with the pretty young maid she hired.
But little less damning in the eyes of his neighbors was the belief that he had taken the life of a patriot while fighting the pro-British side during the American Revolution.
Foster was a tory during the Revolution, and is reported to have been the identical person who inhumanly murdered Col. Alden, at the massacre of Cherry Valley, in 1777. Priest, in his narrative of the capture of David Ogden, who died a short time since in Franklin, Delaware County, thus refers: “This act of barbarity was perpetrated by a man named Foster, a tory at that time, and the same, who a few years since (1819) was hanged for the murder of his wife, by poison, in Delaware County, N.Y. at Delhi. That the same Foster did murder Colonel Alden, was ascertained by a certain James Campbell, another tory, who stated to David Ogden, that he had heard this Foster boast of the act, while they were both with the British at Niagara. He was at length overtaken by justice, and ended his miserable life on the gallows, although at the advanced age of __ years. He died without a confession of his guilt.
Foster’s prosecution had the aid at the very bar of New York’s Attorney General — the future United States President Martin Van Buren. There’s a #longreads piece on the man and the case available from New York History Review.
On this day..
- 1915: A day in the death penalty (and lynch law) around the U.S. - 2020
- 1718: Purry Moll and Elizabeth Cave - 2018
- 1859: Ratu Mara Kapaiwai, Fiji warrior - 2017
- 2013: Nguyen Anh Tuan, Vietnam's first lethal injection - 2016
- 1883: James Burton, William Marwood's last - 2015
- 1788: John and Robert Winter, father and son - 2014
- Corpses Strewn: All in the Family - 2014
- 1936: Josep Sunyol, FC Barcelona President - 2013
- 1759: Eugene Aram, philologist - 2012
- 1942: Janusz Korczak and his orphans - 2011
- 1795: Pomp, a Negro - 2010
- 1628: Johannes Junius "will never see you more" - 2009
- 1890: William Kemmler, only in America - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Hanged,Murder,New York,Notable Participants,Public Executions,USA
Tags: 1810s, 1819, american revolution, august 6, cherry valley massacre, ichabod alden, love triangle, martin van buren, masonville, nathan foster
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