Camden County NJ Archives News.....John Harbison Murder Trial July 6, 1791
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Lynn Beatty klbeatty@redrivernet.com August 17, 2006, 2:20 pm

The Pennsylvania Gazette July 6, 1791
At the court of general sessions, at Camden on Thursday the 28th ult. John 
Harbison was tried for the wilful murder of Richard Russell.  Nicholas 
Robinson sworn.  The prisoner lived at the deponent's house.  The deceased, 
being on a journey, called on Sunday 29th November, 1789, on the deponent, and 
bought of him two quarts of rum.  The prisoner and the deceased drank 
together, and the deponent went to church.  The prisoner and the deceased in a 
short time came after, and sat at the church door.  The deponent took 
particular notice of the deceased making marks on his white hat, with 
something like red chalk.  The hat had a ribbon round the crown, which the 
deponent noticed also.  On returning from church, the deponent saw the 
deceased, accompanied by the prisoner, setting out on his journey.  In about 
an hour the prisoner returned, wearing the aht which the deceased had worn.  
The deponent on conversing with his family began to suspect the prisoner.  He 
was at that time security for the prisoner's appearance at court next morning, 
to be tried for larceny; the deponent therefore took him into custody and 
lodged him in gaol, the prisoner asked for rum, and said he had half a gallon 
in a closet which he had bought at Mr. Canty's store in Camden.  The deponent 
accordingly found some in two case bottles, which he believed to be the same 
he had let them deceased have on the Sunday before, stopped with particular 
flat corks, which were to be had in only one store in Camden, where he had 
bought them, and believed them to be those with which he stopped the bottles 
for the deceased.  The deponent informed Doctor Alexander, as a magistrate, 
that he suspected the prisoner had murdered the deceased.  The magistrate, 
after examination, committed the prisoner.  When they took the prisoner to 
trial on Monday, he had on a white shirt and stockings, which the deponent 
knew he had not a few days before.  He frequently visited the prisoner in 
confinement, who persisted that he knew no more of the deceased than that he 
was gone to Santee; he was seen to weep often.  The neighbours went to seek 
the boy of the deceased, but could not find it.  The deponent, with Mr. Barron 
went, a few days after, to look for a horse and coming near a creek, Mr. B---
shot a duck.  At the report of the gun a number of buzzards flew up.  On 
searching for their prey, the depoinent to his astonishment and horror, 
discovered the leg of a man; and on closer examination, was convinced the body 
was that of the deceased Russell, not only from his person, which was much 
disfigured by the buzzards having picke the scull bare and eyes out, but from 
his cloaths, which the deponent perfectly recollected.  The deponent and Mr. 
Barron then returned to Camden, went with a blacksmith to the gaol, struck off 
the prisoner's irons, put a rope round his neck, which was held at 10 or 
twelve feet distance, and desired him to walk before and conduct them to the 
place where the boy of Russell lay.  It was said that the prisoner had heard 
the body was found, but not to the knowledge of those present.  After going a 
small distance from the gaol, the prisoner stopped, and requested he might 
speak with the magistrate and the sheriff; he asked those gentlemen if he 
should not be murdered if he shewed the deceased, and was answered he should 
not be hurt at that time.  The prisoner appeared very much terriried, but took 
a straight course to the place where the boy was found, and said, "this is the 
place."  On being asked where the cloaths were which belonged to the deceased, 
he ansered that they were not far off, and went a short distance to a log 
under which the bundle was concealed; and a sledge hammer lay near the body.  
The prisoner said he looked upon himself as a dead man, appeared much 
affected, and, his siters being present, advised them to bring up their 
children in the fear of God.

On being cross-examined Mr. Hunt, counsel for the prisoner, the deponent was 
positive in knowing the body of the deceased; and verily believed the bottles 
in which the rum war, and also the corks, to be the same he had let the 
deceased have on Sunday morning.  Mrs. Robinson, wife of N. Robinson, sworn. - 
Deposed that before the prisoner left her house on Sunday, as she passed the 
prisoner, something caught on her cloaths which, on turning round, she found 
to be a carpenter's hammer, sticking out of his pocket; she asked the prisoner 
what it was for, he answered to crack hickory nuts.  When the bundle of 
cloaths was brought to her house, she knew them to be the same the deceased 
had there.  On being asked how she knew them, she said curiosity had induced 
her to examine the bundle, in  which was a piece of cloth sufficient for a 
coat, and other articles which whe very well recollected.  Late in the evening 
the prisoner came home and was drying a pair of stockings, when she perceived 
his breeches wet and bloody; being asked the occasion, the prisoner said he 
had slipt in to a ditch.

Cross examined by Mr. Hunt, "did not the prisoner kill a beef for your husband 
the day before?"  Answered, "he assisted in killing one about the middle of 
the week."

Doctor Alexander sworn - The prisoner's confession being produced in court, 
the counsel for the prisoner objected to its being read in evidence, as having 
beeen made when he was under constraint; and, for the same reason, the 
deponent ought not to recite what the prisoner said in confession; but the 
court over-ruled the objection.  The deponent then went on in his evidence, 
and said, that on Mr. Robinson and his family, having suspected the prisoner 
of the murder, they bro't him and the cloaths of the deceased before him, as a 
magistrate, to be examined.  The prisoner's breeches, which were also brought, 
were daubed with clay on the outside, and the inside appeared very bloody.  
The deponent asked by what means they became so, and the prisoner answered, by 
killing a beef for Mr. Robinson.  The clay on the breeches, when compared with 
that where the body was afterwards found, corresponded in kind and color.  
Being asked how he came by the cloaths then produced, the prisoner said he 
made a swap with the deceased, and gave him money to boot, which he had got 
from his brother; but his brother denied having given him any.  He shewed much 
guilt, drank water frequently, and appeared in great terror.  He said that 
Russell was gone to Santee, and was advised to send after him, as a means of 
acquitting himself of the crime he was suspected of; to which he at first 
seemed to agree, but afterwards refused.  The deponent then committed him to 
gaol.

After the body was found, the deponent was informed of it, and joined the 
party who took the prisoner to shew the body of the deceased.  There was a 
rope put round his neck, not to intimidate him, but to prevent his escape, 
having the length of ten or twelve feet of it that he might walk before.  He 
appeared apprehensive that the people would put him to an immediate death; but 
the deponent assured him that he should not receive any injury.  The prisoner 
then led the way on a direct course to where the body had been found.  When he 
came near the place, he pointed down the bank of the creek, which was very 
steep, and said, ther he lies; being asked who? he said, Russell; he was asked 
who put him there? he answered, he supposed it was then too late to deny that 
it was himself.  Being examined about the cloaths of the deceased, he went a 
short distance and shewed where he had concealed them by the side of a log.  
The prisoner then went aside with Mr. Brevard and the deponent, and made a 
voluntary confession to the following effect:

He declared that when he left Mr. Robinson's house in company with the 
deceased, he had no intention of killing him; but only wished to get his hat.  
That when they were passing Mr. Reid's house, the first thought of killing him 
arose in is mind.  He said he had for some time thought the world was all 
going wrong; and it bore on his mind that he must kill some person, that he 
might be hanged for it, and so get rid of an existence in which he experienced 
no happiness.  On going a little farther, he came to a resolution of killing 
Russell; and to delude him off the road, said he would shew him a shorter way 
through a field; upon which they left the road, and went on until they came to 
the bank under which the body was found, where they both sat down; and after 
drinking of Russell's rum for some time, he (the prisoner) made an excuse to 
go [ ], and left the deceased alone.  That he went to Mr. Lang's indigo vats, 
where he found a sledge hammer, which he thought was a fit instrument for his 
diabolical purpose; he brought it to the place he had left the unfortunate 
deceased, and came unperceived by him.  The deceased, from the effects of 
drinking, was in a dose, and in a posture of leaning forward; that, without 
speaking to him, he gave him a blow on the head with the sledge hammer, which 
knocked him down, and he kicked and struggled very much; upon which the 
prisoner repeated his blows until the deceased lay still.  He then dragged the 
body down the bank and covered it.  The deponent had examined the body and 
found three wounds on the head, each of which had broke the skull, and 
appeared as if given with a hammer, and is of opinion were the cause of the 
death of the deceased.
 
Evidence for the prisoner

Robert Walker sworn. - Said that last November court was a year, he was in 
confinement with the prisoner in Camden gaol; that a man came to the outside 
of the gaol, called out to the prisoner that he had cheated him of his rum, 
and demanded seven shillings.  The prisoner borrowed five shillings and three-
pence bill from the deponent, called the man Russell (to which name the man 
answered) and threw out the bill to him; and that the prisoner told the 
deponent he had swapt with Russell for a hat.  On his cross examination, he 
said he did not see the man, but that the prisoner told him his name was 
Russell, and he answered to that name.

George Harbison, brother to the prisoner, sworn.  Said that some time in 
November 1789, before Camden court, he let the prisoner have three French 
guineas, when he was bargaining with Mr. Hart for a shirt and pair of 
stockings; that he saw the prisoner, a few days before, hanging up a quater of 
beef which he had killed for Mr. Robinson; that the meat slipt off the nail, 
and in falling bloodied the prisoner's breeches and stockings.  On being cross-
examined, the deponent persisted in saying that he particularly notice the 
prisoner's breeched and stocking being bloodied by the beef.

Jacob Drayton, Esquire, state's attorney, addressed the jury; defined in the 
clearest manner, the crime of murder, argued against the probability of the 
prisoner's intention to get rid of an unhappy existence, in endeavouring to 
his the crime by concealing the body, and using the most artful means to avoid 
a discovery; and concluded by saying the prisoner was actuated by the most 
wicked motives, and was too dangerous a person to remain in society, after 
having violated the laws of hospitality and murdered the man who had used him 
with the greatest kindness.

Mr. Hunt, counsel for the prisoner, dwelt on the deranged state of the 
prisoner's mind when he resolved to kill somebody that he might get himself 
out of the world; said this was most probably, in that state of despair, the 
motive which urged him to the crime, as the other objects were not sufficient 
to tempt a man, possessed of reason, to the commission of murder - only a wool 
hat and some old cloaths.  If the jury should not think this consideration 
sufficient wholly to acquit the prisoner, he hoped it would at least induce 
them to recomment him to mercy.

Judge Bay summed up the evidence, and gave an excellent charge to the jury.  
If, on a serious consideration of the evidence, for and against the prisoner, 
they found the fact clearly proved, they would find their verdict accordingly; 
but if the scales hung in even balance, it had been the very humane practice 
to let that on the side of mercy preponderate; for it is a maxin in law that 
it is better for ten criminals to escape justice, than the life of one 
innocent person should [ ] be taken away.

The prisoner said he had already suffered more then death, by a long and 
painful imprisonment, and begged extremely hard for mercy.
The jury went out, and in about half an hour, brought in their verdict - 
Guilty!

During eighteen months confinement, Harbison behaved with a stupid ferocity; 
but when he was brought up to receive sentence, he changed his noted in those 
of the most abject strain - instead of death he solicited any kind of corporal 
punishment; on being told by the judge, that any alteration of the punishment 
did not rest with him, the then earnestly implored a respite of twenty days, 
which was not granted.

On Saturday the 30th, Harbison was carried to the gallows erected near the 
place where he committed the murder, and there executed.

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