The Execution of Mary Antone - 1813

The Execution of Mary Antone

Madison County Leader and Observer, May 26, 1910

There are but meagre references in the county's records of the murder committed by Mary Antone, her trial and the execution which followed.  All conversant with the county's early history are aware that this young squaw was a daughter of the notorious Indian outlaw, Abraham Antone.

 

The crime for which Mary paid her life was committed near Hamilton village [Madison Co., NY] about 1813, her victim being an Indian girl whose name is not given.  It appears that a party of roaming Indians and consisting of members of the Oneida and Stockbridge tribes, were in the habit of making tours through this section annually, and on one of them they were camped on a farm owned by J.D. Smith, near the village of Hamilton.  There were about 70 in the party and seven large wigwams had been erected in which they lived and conducted their pursuits of basket making, selling their wares, including trinkets of bead work, etc., to the surrounding populace.

 

The young squaw of whom Mary had a vindictive hatred was said to be good looking and of a fine form, but was referred to  by many of the party as "no good."  It is said the girl in question was endeavoring to captivate Mary's Indian, a young member of the Stockbridge tribe, and to whom Mary had been married for some time through the Indian form.  One day while the young girl was industriously working upon a basket, Mary stole quietly upon her and suddenly struck the startled girl in the right side with a knife repeating the blow six times with great rapidity.  Her victim's death was almost instant and the fleet-footed assassin fled to the woods near by and tried to conceal herself.  A party of officers were soon in pursuit and one William White, a deputy sheriff of Hamilton, finally found and arrested her.  When found she was curled up beside a large log like a wild animal. She appeared to be defiant and showed a proud bearing, manifesting marked indifference as to her fate, and declared that if she had not accomplished the girl's death at that particular time she would have later on.  She also said:  "She got away my Indian and deserved to die."

 

Mary was placed in irons and put under guard at Howard's hotel in the village of Hamilton after the jury attending the inquest had completed its investigation.  The jury at the inquest was composed of Gen. Nathaniel king, Daniel Smith, Elisha Payne, Azel Tinney, Jabin Armstrong and Samuel Payne. The jury found against her and she was taken to the Whitestown jail and kept until the time for her trial.  There was considerable excitement manifested by the Indians during the inquest and Abraham Antone, her father and who had been a member of the party in the camp when the murder took place, contended that the white people should have no hand in the matter, but that it should be left to the tribes to adjust according to their own laws and customs.  John Jacobs, an Indian who was the principal witness against Mary and who was most active in accruing her arrest, was forever afterwards the object of her father's hatred, and a few years later was killed by the revengeful old savage, for which crime he himself also suffered the death penalty.

 

The county seat proper was located in Cazenovia in 1810 and a court house was built there soon after, but no jail had bee provided.  A term of the Madison county, Oyer an dTerminer was convened there on June 27, 1814, the following being the judges present:  Hon. Jonas Platt, justice of Supreme court; Peter Smith, first judge of Madison county Common Pleas; William Hopkins and Jonas Fay, assistant judges.  The trial of May Antone for murder was called June 28th.  It is supposed that Daniel Kellogg conducted the prosecution, he having been appointed attorney in 1809, which office he held until 1816.  No mention is made of who conducted the defense, and the names of the grand jury who indicted her are not given. The trial jurors sworn in the case were:  Reuben Bryan, Artemus Inman, Glover Short, Jesse Taylor, Samuel Chubbuck, Shaler Filer, Isaac Morton, Eliab Perkins, Jason Leason, Nathan Smith, Ruggles Payne and Russel Barker, Jr.

 

Six witnesses were sworn for the prosecution and three for the accused.  The trial lasted but a day and the jury brought in a verdict against the prisoner of willful murder in the first degree.  Accordingly Mary was sentenced to death by hanging, the execution to take place on September 30, 1814, at 10 o'clock in the forenoon in the village of Peterboro. The sentence was carried out on that date and was made a public affair.  The gallows was erected on the flat due west from where the grist mill then stood and some twelve or fifteen rods from the channel of the creek.  The militia was called into service by Captain Daniel Petrie of that village, fearing that the Indian followers of her father might make trouble by interrupting the authorities in carrying out the sentence, as the old warrior had threatened that he would certainly kill the man who hung Mary.  He had been heard to say, pointing at Sheriff Elisha Pratt, "Me kill him !  Me Kill him!"

 

On the morning of the execution, the Indians from Siloam and the northern section of the county came in large numbers, both male and female with their papooses, and with them were Abraham and his son.  Mary's father and brother were equipped and painted in warrior style, but they made no demonstration of hostility but appeared grim, restless and silent, moving along the brow of the ridge above the flat scanning the multitude assembled and the gallows with keen eyes. The hour for the execution came and with it Sheriff Pratt and Mary under guard.  They ascended the steps to the platform of the gallows and the noose was adjusted about her neck, then the sheriff sent for Abraham to come and take a last leave of his child. The grim old Indian came through the crowd and his sinewy form soon appeared upon the scaffold, and without moving a muscle of his stoical features he took the hand of his daughter and then turned silently away betraying neither a sign nor emotion. The trap was soon sprung and the body of its victim was left dangling between heaven and earth and thus she had paid the penalty of her crime.

 

Antone, it is said, later tried on several times to kill the sheriff but failed in the attempts, and the latter soon settled up his business affairs and moved into the then far West.

 

M.M. Foote - May 24, 1910