MURDER OF LEMUEL CHEANEY
BY CHARLES C. CARR.
On the fourteenth day of December, 1818, Charles C.
Carr, or Stephen Grimes, shot and killed Lemuel Cheaney, while riding
through the silent, solemn woods, near Colonel Elias Powell's meadow farm.
It is not known tothis day which one of the two did the shooting, although
Carr was hung and Grimes cleared. Of one thing, however, there is a
certainty, and that is, that no incident in the history of Henderson
County, from the beginning up to that time, had ever created such a
profound feeling of indignation, and such a determination to crack the
neck of the murderer, should he be found. This was the first murder since
that of Mrs. Stegall and family, by Big and Little Harpe, in 1799, and,
from its surroundings, was equally as horrible. Suspicion had pointed to
Carr and Grimes, and when, perhaps, they were least expecting it, an
officer of the law presented himself where they were quietly domiciled and
made them prisoners. They were brought to the county jail and there
confined to await the action of the Grand Jury. At the March term, 1819,
of the Circuit Court, the following Grand Jurors were empaneled: Daniel
McBride, foreman, Jacob Hopkins, Nathaniel Dozerne, John R. Bently, Samuel
Burks, Laurence Robertson, Rowland Starks, Thomas Jones, Daniel Smith,
Furney Cannon, Martin Friley, Thomas Hart, Jr., Elijah King, John
Williams, Mark M. Yeargin, George Higginson, Daniel Lockwell, Simon Sugg,
Thomas H. Herndon and Alfred Williams. These gentlemen, after a thorough
examination of the testimony, returned to the Court an indictment charging
Charles C. Carr, a laborer of the County and Circuit of Union, with
feloniously, willfully, and of *his malice aforethought, shooting Lemuel
Cheaney from his horse, while riding along a by-path of Henderson County.
At the June term, following, the case was called, and
both parties announced themselves ready for trial. the following jurors
were then sworn to try the issue: Jonathan Fellows, Aaron Wilson, John
Wilson, Samuel W. Hammond, Gabriel Holmes, Robert A. Cobbs, Thomas Ladd,
William Carter, William Robards, William Miller, Christian Smedley and
Jonathan Anthony, wno, after hearing the evidence, returned the following
verdict: "We, of the jury, find the defendant guilty of the murder in the
indictment charged against him."
At the same term Carr was brought into court, in
custody of the jailer, and it being demanded of him whether he had
anything to say why the Court should not give judgment against him,
declined to speak a word in his own defense. he was thereupon ordered to
be again committed to jail until Monday, the twenty-sixth day of July, on
which day, between the hours of eleven and twelve, he should be taken by
the Sheriff of the County to some suitable place on the Public Square, in
the Town of Henderson, and there hung by his neck until he should be
pronounced dead. Why he should have been hung on Monday, and on an empty
stomach, the records signally fail to explain, and yet such was the case.
Lemuel Cheaney was a trader by profession, from the
upper part of the State. He had taken a raft of lumber to Cairo, Illinois,
and was en route on his return over land, when he was seized with
chills and fever while passing through Union County. He halted at
Morganfield, where he remained some weeks. During this time Charles C.
Carr lived near the town of Morganfield, and became, to all intents and
purposes, on intimate terms of association with Cheaney. the two were
frequently seen together, and on the morning of the twelfth day of
December, 1818, both men went to the house of James Townsend, in
Morganfield, where an exchanged of money took pace between Cheaney and a
man by the nam[sic] of Paxon. townsend counted the money and remembered
two five dollar bills, one on the Bank of Utica, the other on the bank of
Niagara, New York; also, a twenty dollar bill on the Bank of Vincennes,
Indiana.
Nest morning Cheaney told Townsend that he had a lot of
plank which Carr wanted to buy, but hadn't the money to make the purchase.
This conversation, as well as the exchange of money, took place while Carr
was present. On the same day Carr and Cheaney left, as Carr stated, for
Henderson. On the way up, and when in sight of Colonel Robert Smith's
house, near Smith's Mills Postoffice, the two met Stephen Grimes, who rode
along with them. At this point, Cheaney complained of being very sick, and
was really shivering with a hard chill. Grimes advised him to go on to
Colonel Smith's and there remain until the ague was off, and then to come
on to a certain point on the road nearer Henderson, where he would await
their coming and have them come over and spend the night with him. Cheaney
and Carr remained at Colonel Smith's one hour and a half, or more, when
they remounted and proceeded on to the designated point where they were to
be joined by Grimes. When they arrived at this place Grimes was found
sitting on a log waiting, as he had promised. The three then started on
the road to Henderson, and after riding awhile they came to a log lying
across the road, at which place there was a bush cut down. This, Grimes
told them, was cut down by one of his sons, as a turning out place for a
nearer route to his home.
This place was a short distance from Colonel Elias
Powell's meadow farm, and here they turned and proceeded about a half
mile, when Cheaney was killed. As to who killed him, no one has ever
positively known, many persons believing that Carr was the murderer, while
as many believed it to be Grimes
Cheaney had a large amount of money on his person, and
this was taken and divided between the two. It was a well-known fact that
Carr had no money and was unable to pay his smallest indebtedness, yet,
after the shooting of Cheaney, he was seen with several hundred dollars.
This, coupled with other circumstances, created heavy suspicion, and when
James Holloway and James Townsend were shown some of the money passed by
Carr, they recognized the same bills they had counted for Cheaney only a
short time before. Townsend recognized the two five dollar bills of the
Bank of Utica and Niagara, New York, and the twenty dollar bill of the
Bank of Vincennes.
This was, then, enough to guarantee an arrest, and in a
few days both men were arrested and confined in the Henderson County jail.
Old Grimes, as he was called, turned State's evidence,
and Carr would have done the same thing, but Grimes was too quick for him.
Carr's deposition is on file in the indictment, and, if one-half of it be
true, old Grimes was the murderer, and ought to have been hung. Carr
protested his innocence, and openly charged Grimes with the outrage. He
did not deny sharing the money after the death of Cheaney, but declared
that he stubbornly opposed the killing even up to the time the fatal gun
was fired. Carr had had his trial, had been found guilty, and sentenced to
be hung on Monday, the twenty-sixth day of July, 1819. The few life's
moments left him were now flittering away as rapidly as the melting snow
before the rise of a burning sun. He confessed his sins, yet protested his
innocense of Cheaney's murder. Old Grimes had done the deed for which his
life was to pay the penalty. James M. Hamilton, Henderson's leading
blacksmith, had forged the iron anklets which bound his legs together.
Moses Morgan had builded the wooden casket which was to become the home of
his mortal frame. Fayette Posey had builded the gallows beneath whose beam
his lifeless body, in motionless horror, was to hang, as a propitiation
for the sins of Grimes. He also had prepared the sepulchre, whose funeral
pile awaited to inclose him forever. The day had arrived, and, with its
coming, thousands of anxious people.
In the great crowd stood Old Grimes, to witness the
execution of a man who was dying, as he protested, while facing death for
the sins of this old sinner. For the space of an hour before the awful
moment, Carr sat in his silent prison buried in deep thought; nor was this
monologue of the wretched prisoner very strange or wonderful. He had
nerved himself to meet disgrace, to meet the scorn and taunts of his
fellow men, and to meet with serenity, even death itself. The clock had
struck eleven, and as the last echoes died away, Peter D. Green, special
bailiff, and his attendants, made their appearance and bade him prepare
for execution.
Quickly dashing away the briny evidence of his late
weakness, and with a mighty effort of will he stilled the beating of his
heart, and resumed once more his careless manner. Turning to the Sheriff
he said:
"I have been waiting, and am ready. Do your duty."
A few minutes sufficed to remove his fetters, and the
Sheriff waited a moment that he might arrange some of his apparel, quietly
and without a word either of reproach or pity, led him forth from his
dungeon. Carr followed the footsteps of his conductor with a firm, bold
tread, evincing neither alarm nor hesitation, until he was lifted into the
wagon and commanded to take his seat. Then, indeed, he started back with a
slight exclamation of horror, for the seat mentioned was the dead tenement
he was so soon to fill, a dungeon far more dark, gloomy and contracted
than the one he had just left. Yes, it was his own coffin.
The mournful cortege moved slowly away from the prison
door, and with funeral tread, for it was the funeral of the living dead.
Carr sat upon his coffin, guarded by the special bailiff and his
assistants, and sadly and solemnly did the actors in this bloody but
legal, drama move along to the foot of the gallows. The terrifying
structure and judicial instrument of death was erected on the Public
Square, directly in front of the two-story brick now occupied by Captain
Charles G. Perkins as a family residence, and tradition tells that the
large locust tree now standing in his front yard was one of the posts sunk
in the ground which supported the beam, or cross bar, underneath which
Carr hung. Carr sat in the wagon gazing around upon the sea of upturned,
unsympathizing faces, with apparant unconcern. Yet he felt more than his
manner indicated. At the command of the bailiff, he stood alone in the
wagon, and immediately beneath the beam, from which a rope dangled,
swaying gently to and fro under the mild influence of a soft southern
breeze. Folding his arms tightly across his breast, as if to keep down the
tumultuous beating within, and giving one look to the broad, bright
heavens, and another to the frightful rope, he at last fixed his keen gaze
intently upon the human mass below him, but his eye rolled too rapidly
from man to man, and his look was too eager and intent, to be the mere
result rapidly scanning the faces of others in search of some familiar
countenance, or of some one he had reason to believe was then and there
present. for several minutes, as his eye turned from face to face, his
pale, rigid features exhibited no emotion, or, if any, only that of
disappointment. But, all at once, the object of his search met his gaze.
The doomed man's face lost its pale indifference, a rush of color passed
rapidly into his countenance, and that there was some disturbing emotion
those who stood near were well satisfied.
In a moment more his eyes were scornfully fixed upon a
heartless old wretch who stood prominent in that great assembly of curious
spectators. The eyes of the multitude followed the eyes of the condemned.
Voracious curiosity now centered upon the individual at whom Carr was so
intently gazing, yet he could not be seen. The multitude moved in
shapeless confusion, wedging in here and there, that one glance might be
gained of the object of Carr's scornful and unremitting ocular
penetration. Then it was that he raised his arm and pointing his index
finger with unerring precision, said, with unmistakable emphasis:
"Fellow citizens, God knows there stands the
murderer of Lemuel Cheaney; Stephen Grimes !"
A wild shout went up and a rush was made for the
dastardly old scoundrel who stood in unblushing indifference to witness
the hanging of the one he had basely betrayed.
Grimes could not stand the accusation, but ran for his
life, pursued by many men, and was not seen again that day. As for the
general mass, the contest going on was, with them, equal to a gladiatorial
combat, and for the entire time their interest continued undiminished, and
their numbers were only increased until the close of this judicial
tragedy.
The dread hour of parting was now over with Carr. He
busied himself making bare his throat for the fatal rope. A slight shudder
passed over his person as the cord touched his naked neck, but, beyond
this, he showed no signs of trepidation. He stood alone upon the trap of
the wagon; a moment of breathless axe, and he stood no longer upon plank,
or earth, or solid rock, but hung a dangling, struggling, horrible
spectacle in the air. A few convulsive movements of the limbs, a quick
heaving of the breast, a trembling shudder throughout the body, and all
was over. Carr was dead. His fate was no longer a thing of doubt. The rope
and death had torn away all darkness, and his dreams were dreams no more.
His body was cut down and sepulchred a few steps away, where it reposed
and mouldered from Monday, July 26th, 1819, until exhumed by the
foundation diggers twenty years ago.
After the death and burial of Carr, public sentiment
bore down upon Grimes. It was evident that his life was not safe in the
neighborhood in which he lived, but of this feeling he seemingly knew
nothing, and continued to pursue his daily avocation. Finally, pent up,
yea, outraged society, could stand it no longer. The belief grew stronger
and stronger, day by day, that the gallows had been defrauded of its
legitimate and most guilty subject, and that the least guilty, alone had
paid the penalty. A company was formed with the determination of ridding
the county of Old Grimes, and, to this end, they cautiously approached his
home, where he was found, taken out, and most unmercifully thrashed. This
terrible scourging, it was thought, would terminate his earthly career,
and he was thus left. But not so. Next morning found him gone, and from
that day to this has never put foot in Henderson County.
Thus concludes the story of the first murder and public
hanging in Henderson County.
History of Henderson County, Kentucky
by Edmund L. Starling
p. 523-29
published in 1887
public domain material
