Crime in Chenango County, nY - Part 4

                                      Chenango Semi-Weekly Telegraph, Norwich, NY, March 26, 1879

Crime in Chenango County, NY - Part 4

Horace R. Burlison

In the nighttime of Monday, June 25, 1860, John S. White, Orlando Utter and Samuel Robinson, having previously blackened their faces and otherwise disguised themselves, went to the dwelling house of Horace R Burlison and his family.  The house was located about a mile east of Oxford [Chenango Co. NY] near the old turnpike gate.  Having reached the house, they pushed open the door, ascended to the chamber floor and commenced tearing off the roof, with the intention of razing the house to the ground.  White used a bar.  Robinson an axe and Utter held a lantern.  While they were at work, Burlison seized a gun and shot Robinson through the body, killing him instantly.  The gun used was loaded with a bullet and forty-two shot.  Burlison's intention was to shoot White, but owing to the darkness and the disguises, he killed Robinson. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of murder. Burlison was arrested and lodged in jail.  The Grand Jury, however, failed to indict him and he was discharged.

Lavinia Leach

In 1864, a detachment of the Invalid corps was stationed in our village, as provost marshal's guard, and occupied the storehouse on Mechanic Street for barracks.  On the morning of July 6, of that year, at about half past seven, at these barracks, a young man named George W. Harkins was shot in the forehead.  He lived till about one in the afternoon without gaining consciousness when he died.  At first there was not the slightest clue to the murderer. Though Walter O'Shea the corporal of the Guard was asleep on a bed in the room in which Harkins was shot, and a boy was also present, yet they claimed to be entirely ignorant of the whole matter. At last, several hands of Maydole's Hammer Factory asserted that after hearing the report of the pistol, they saw a noted cyprian, Lavinia Leach running from the barracks.  She was arrested and confessed that she had shot Harkins but claimed that she did it accidentally.  A coroner's inquest was held and the evidence as brought out substantiated the girl's story.  It showed that she had passed the night at the barracks; that in the early morning she was talking and laughing with Shea, Pratt, Harkins and another named Waters; that Shea went out to breakfast, when she and Pratt got into a conversation about revolvers, that she went and took Waters' revolver out of his pocket and pointed laughingly at Harkins, when it went off and the bullet struck him in the forehead.  All the other testimony confirmed the above. The verdict of the jury was "that the death of George W. Harkins was the result of the inexcusable carelessness of Lavinia Hilliard alias Leach."  However, the general impression in the community was that Harkins was shot in a quarrel over a game of euchre and that the person who did the shooting was never discovered.