|PS
Jereboam O. Beauchamp was executed at Frankfort, Ky., on
July 7, 1826, for the murder of Col. Sharp. His
wife died one hour after the execution from
the effects of poison.
Price, 50 Cents.




THE CONFESSION
|HE}|| || |||||||MP,
WHO WAS
HANGED AT FRANKFORT, KY.
ON THE 7th DAY OF JULY, 1826.
MURDER OF COL, SOLOMon P, SHARP.
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CONFESSION.
I AM the second son of a most worthy and
respectable farmer. My parents at an early period
of my life became professors of the Christian re-
ligion, and ever after lived quite piously up to its
dictates. The early part of my education, which
generally has a lasting impression on the bent of
the mind, was of a most pious and salutary kind.
I was much of a favorite with my fond father,
although of a most wild, eccentric and ungovern-
able temper of mind. But he was flattered by his
friends that I early showed some indications of
genius; wherefore, at their solicitation, he deter-
mined to give me an education much beyond his
limited fortune; for he was not wealthy, though
his enterprise and industry had made him com-
fortably independent for the country life.
I was placed quite early in the best schools
in his reach I was naturally of a most volatile,
idle and wild disposition. But the great ease with
which I acquired whatever learning I turned my
attention to, enabled me so far to gain the favor
of my tutors as to interest my father's friends to
advise him to put me somewhere under an able
teacher, in order to acquire a thorough classical
education, although his numerous, rising family
seemed to render his ability to complete it hope-
less. But fortune placed me under the care of a

[4]
man of great abilities and learning, to whose pa-
ternal affection and attachment to me I cannot
here withhold this last passing tribute of my
gratitude. This was Dr. Benjamin Thurston,
than whom I have not found on the earth one
man who approaches nearer the dictates of honor
and philosophy. Under him and some other
teachers, although I was several times inter-
rupted from my course of education by being
taken home and other casualties, I acquired by
the time I was 15 or 16 years of age a good Eng-
lish education, a knowledge of the Latin lan-
guage, and a respectable acquaintance with the
Sciences. But feeling for the difficulties under
which I saw my father laboring to do equal jus-
tice to others of his numerous family of younger
children who now began to claim more of his
exertions for their education, I resolved no longer
to burden him with mine, but to thenceforth shift
for myself as well as I could—complete my edu-
cation by my own exertions.
Reluctant as I was to quit my eourse of
learning, I turned my attention for a time to
making a little money by keeping a store. But
this soon growing insupportable to me, as it quite
took me off from all pursuit of education, I pro-
cured a recommendation from my former tutors
to teach a school myself, although quite too
young for such a trust.
In this way I made some money and then again
went to farther prosecute my education. But in a
little time I was invited by my former friend and

| 5 ||
benefactor Dr. Thurston, into his school, where I
assisted him in his duties, and by the time I was
18 years old completed my education, so far as I
thought it necessary or important to go, prepar-
atory to the study of law, which all my friends ad-
vised me to pursue. Mingling with my acquaint-
ances of the bar at Glasgow, and those attending
the courts there from Bowling Green, I was about
this time attracted by a general burst of general
indignation amongst them, towards Col. Sol P.
Sharp, of the bar from Bowling Green, for the
seduction of Miss Ann Cook of that place. I was
acquainted with Col. Sharp personally, and some-
what intimately too, for being greatly delighted
with his eloquence, and designing to study the law
myself, I sought his acquaintance and had ex-
pressed some thought of endeavoring to place my-
self in a situation where I could study under his
direction. I should have mentioned to him my
wish but for this very story about Miss Cook.
Now, I was not personally acquainted with Miss
Cook. I knew however of the Cook family by
character, and I had heard the gentlemen of the
bar of my acquaintance from Bowling Green,
speak often in high and enthusiastic terms of Miss
Cook for intelligence, etc. And the more es-
pecially when the execrations of Col. Sharp, for
her seduction, was in the high tone, to which it
was at first carried amongst them. But there was
a young gentleman from Bowling Green at that
time, a room-mate and bosom friend of mine, who
had been intimately acquainted with Miss Cook

| 6 ||
and much devoted to her. Hearing the high
account which he gave of her character, and
the animated representation, which an enthusi-
astic devotee would make of the dishonor to an
injured female, to whom he was so much devoted,
he much inflamed the indignation so infectious in
the youthful bosom for injuries of this kind, and
which had been caught and kindled in my bosom,
from those of the profession with whom I then
associated.
My friend held Col. Sharp in utter contempt
and abhorrence, and from him I imbibed some-
what of my personal dislike, in so much, that I
felt a disinclination to enter into even those cor-
dial salutations of friendship, which had heretofore
characterized our intercourse. He was a man of
the greatest penetration, and I think on one occa-
sion noticed this. For he had learned of my de-
sign to enter the study of law, and I suppose had
heard some one speak of my thoughts of studying
under him. For he asked me once if I intended
to go immediately to the study of law. I replied
that I should in a few months. He said he had
learned that I intended to go to Bowling Green,
and wished to study with him. I replied with
rather more austerity than politeness, I should
probably go to Bowling Green, but I had not de-
termined to study with him. The manner in
which I spoke this, I saw startled some little sur-
prise in his countenance, more from my impolite-
ness than any feeling else. However it passed off
with his flattering me with auguring well of my

[7]
success, and by saying that if I should come to
Bowling Green, he would be pleased to have it in
his power to facilitate in any way, my progress.
It may seem strange that I should have been so
easily infected with dislike towards one I had here-
tofore admired, for merely the tale of his dishonor
towards a female, to whom I was an utter stranger.
But such was the enthusiasm of all my passions,
that when I had a bosom friend, all his partialities
were my partialities, all his antipathies mine.
Besides, this was a species of dishonor, which,
from my earliest recollection, had ever excited my
most violent reprobation. I had ever said I would
as soon receive into my friendship a horse thief,
as a man, however high his standing who had dis-
honored and prostrated the hopes of a respectable
and worthy female. And I still say there is more
intrinsic dishonor and baseness in it than in steal-
ing a man's horse, and should be received with less
forgiveness, or countenance, by society. Under
these habitual feelings and sentiments, it is not so
strange that I should participate in a strong de-
gree with my friend in his contempt and dislike
of Col. Sharp, for his dishonor towards a worthy
orphan female, whom my friend respected in such
high terms. With these prepossessions of sym-
pathy for Miss Cook, I retired to spend a few
months in a country life with my father, previous
to my entering the study of the law. This I done
to reinstate my health, which had become much
impaired by a life of late too sedentary and stu-
dious. My father lived in the country in Simpson
[8]
county, which was one or two counties removed
from Glasgow, where I had been going to school
since my last visit to my father.
Miss Cook had retired to a romantic little
farm within a mile of my father's, there to spend
in seclusion the remainder of her days, with only
her aged mother and a few servants. Immedi-
ately on learning that, when I arrived at my
father's, I determined to become acquainted with
one I had heard so much talk about. But to my
great disappointment and mortification I learned
she sternly refused to make any acquaintances or
even to receive the society or visits of her former
acquaintances. This for some time prevented my
visiting her. But my anxiety and curiosity in-
creased with the accounts I continued to hear of
her, till at length. I resolved to intrude a visit
upon her, however unwelcomely I anticipated she
would receive it; the more especially if unaccom-
panied by an introduction from any friend or
acquaintance of hers.
I, however, ventured over one evening and
was ushered into a room by the servants, but
after waiting there some time I yet saw no one
but the servants, although as I approached the
house I had seen Miss Cook in that very room. I
was at length served by the servants with some
fruits, but Miss Cook had retired, declining to see
me. I sent for her. She came. I introduced
myself to her and told her that, notwithstanding
I had learned she was disinclined to make any
acquaintances or to receive the visits of any one,


| 9 |
I had been impelled to obtrude a visit upon her.
I spoke of her friend and acquaintance of Glas-
gow, whom I had heard speak very highly of her,
and that he had so heightened my anxiety to be-
come acquainted with her that I had resolved to
hazard the mortification which her persisting to
decline any acquaintance with me would give me.
I told her that spending my life very lonesomely
in the country without either books or society, I
had the more hope she would excuse my intru-
sion, and at least, if she refused me her society or
to become acquainted with my sisters who wished
to visit her, she would favor me with the benefit
of her library whilst I remained in the country,
as I had been told she had a very choice selection
of books. She replied that, as to her society, she
had retired to that secluded spot, never again to
mix with the world; that the reason she had left
Bowling Green was to avoid society, and she
must therefore tell me frankly that it would be
against her wishes to receive company, but that
as to her library it was quite at my service, and it
would give her much pleasure to contribute in
any degree to my amusement or advancement by
the loan of any books she had. She then spread
her library open to me, and we continued all the
evening in my selecting and reading some books
of philosophy which she had pointed out as favor-
. of hers, and in the conversation to which this
eCl.
On the approach of night, when I spoke of
taking my leave, I selected only one book to take

| Iol
home with me, but she insisted on my taking sev-
eral, I said I would read the one I had selected
and return for others. I saw from her smile she
penetrated my design in that to frame an excuse
for another visit soon. Nevertheless, I took but
one small book, nor scarcely delayed to read that,
ere I returned for another. She declined seeing
me, but having the library thrown open to me
she sent me some excuse for not seeing me. I
read some hours there alone and left the house
without seeing her. In a few days she had begun
to haunt my thoughts and dreams in a way that
youths, who have felt the like sensations, can bet-
ter imagine than I can describe. I determined to
visit her again, but again she declined to see me.
I was vexed at the disappointment. After read-
ing some hours I sent a second time, insisting to
see her, feigning some special reason for it. When
she came I entered into a long and urgent remon-
strance against her persisting to refuse to see me.
I told her it was not her books that led me there;
that it was her and not her books, and used all
the address and persuasion I was master of to
induce her to relax her sternness of purpose not
to receive the visits of any one, but to suffer my
sisters to be introduced to her. She persisted
with much firmness to refuse it, but with not less
modesty entered into a feeling representation
why I should not insist in making my sisters ac-
quainted with her. She told me she never could
be happy in society again, and as she could not
return the visits of my sisters they would not

| II |
wish to visit her; but as to my visits, when they
were intended to reap any benefits her library
could afford me, it was at my service.
I, however, soon took my sisters to see her.
She received them with much politeness and
entertained us very agreeably. She, however, de-
clined their invitation to return their visit, nor
did she solicit them to visit her again. I con-
tinued to visit her nearly every week after this,
and whenever I would go I would seldom take
any denial to see her, till at length I, by increas-
ing importunity and persuasion, prevailed with
her to receive my visits as those of a friend and
acquaintance. -
I told her I would not break in on her retire-
ment, by presuming to address her as a lover, but
that I only sought her society and conversation of
an evening occasionally as a friend. To this she
so far assented as to meet me on my visits, and
spend part of the time I was there in the room
with me, and then retire to her reading, drawing,
painting, or other amusements which employed
her time daily. Thus passed as much as three
months, during which time scarce one week to-
gether escaped without my seeing her. And
meantime there was enkindled between us a
mutual friendship such as mortals seldom feel. I
called it friendship out of complaisance to her
stoical philosophy and because I had special
agreement, settled it as a preliminary to our
acquaintance that I was not to speak to her of
love. But call it what we might, I was conscious

[I2]
there was kindled in my heart, a feeling and a
flame, I never felt before. In short I was in love;
and that with all the ardor of youth, of ardent
passions and feelings, when he first feels the bud-
ding of that sweetest of all passions, which recip-
rocated, turns earth into heaven. And although
I had never once mentioned this to Miss Cook, yet
to the fair sex I need not say, there is a language
in the eyes of the lover which they will much
sooner depend upon than that of the tongue.
And although when I did tell Miss Cook of my
passion she remonstrated against anything upon
that subject. But she firmly persisted for some
time to decline to hear anything of love from me.
But being now almost daily associated with her.
on terms of the most reciprocal friendship, I be-
came satisfied she also felt something more than
friendship for me. We now frequently conversed,
and freely, upon the subject of love, but she
always held out that there was an inseperable
barrier to her encouraging in me, or in herself,
any feeling of that sort. At length I formally
solicited her hand in marriage She refused it
with such a burstoffeeling as would have rendered
persisting in that refusal, tenfold more painful.
But she told me there was an inseperable
objection in her own bosom to marriage, but that
her heart did not find that objection to me. In
this she long persisted, but would never tell me
what that fatal barrier to my happiness was. At
length. I resolved to take no denial but to know
this secret objection. She then told me with a

| 13 ||
firmness which spoke that it was the voice of fate,
that the hand that should receive hers, would
have to avenge the injury a villian had done her:
She said her heart could never cease to ache, till
Col. Sharp should die through her instrumentality;
that he had blighted all her happiness, and that
while he lived she would feel unworthy of my love.
But she said she would kiss the hand and adore
the person who would revenge her, but that no
one else save myself should do it. No conditions,
nor any earthly propositions she could have made,
would have filled me with so much delight.
Whenever I had contemplated a marriage with her,
I had always esteemed the death of Col. Sharp a
necessary consequence. I never for a moment
could feel that I could suffer a villian to live, who
had been the seducer of one I pressed to my bosom
as a wife. And to hear her thus require what I
had so much calculated on was peculiarly pleasing
to me indeed. These feelings I expressed to her,
and told her it had been my firm purpose to take
Col. Sharp's life if I married her. She then con-
sented to become my wife, and in my ardor I de-
termined to fight Col. Sharp before our marriage.
He was at that time at Frankfort. I resolved to
go immediately in quest of him. She remon-
strated against that, for she said Col. Sharp was a
coward, and would not fight me a duel, and being
at Frankfort, and surrounded by his friends and I
a stranger, he would have every advantage over
me. But that if I would delay until I could catch
him in Bowling Green, her friends would support

| 14 |
me in any revenge I chose to take upon him. But
as the office of Attorney General was about this
time tendered him, I learned that he would
remain at Frankfort and send for his family to
reside there. Wherefore, I prepared to go imme-
diately to Frankfort. I did not feel that as a
stranger unallied to Miss Cook, I could justify
myself before the world to kill Col. Sharp, on his
refusal to fight me, My determination therefore
was if possible to force him to fight me, or if not
I had given a vow and solemn oath to her, for
whom I intended to kill him, that I would do it
in such a manner as would least endanger my own
life. When I took my leave of Miss Cook my
sister was present. She burst into tears at parting
and envoked the protecting arm of heaven to be
my protector and my shield. This quite aston-
ished my s.ster and old Mrs. Cook when she heard
of it. It seemed also a mystery and a matter of
concern to my parents, and all the family, when I
next day set off to be gone from home some time,
without telling any one where I was going, or on
what business, nor do my parents or any of my
family, or any one else, save Col. Sharp, my wife
and myself, know to this day, what brought me
to Frankfort at the time of which I now speak. It
has been a perfect mystery to everybody.
I arrived in Frankfort about the commence-
ment of the session of the Legislature in 1821, I
think it was. I got to town on Sunday after din-
ner. In the evening I met Col. Sharp on the
Mansion House pavement. I had not seen one

| I5]
man in town, save himself, whom I knew. He
met me in the most cordial manner of friendship.
I then took him by the arm, telling him I had
come to Frankfort to see him on business of
great importance, and asked him to walk with
me. He readily complied, and we continued our
walk down the river till we had gotten to a re-
tired place quite out of the town. He then halted
as the bells were at that time ringing for supper.
I then asked Col. Sharp if he recollected the last
words the injured Miss Cook had spoken to him.
He turned pale as a corpse and stood as still as a
statue of stone.
“Col. Sharp,” said I, “I have been deputed
and sent by her to take your life. I am the man
of whom, in a spirit of prophecy, she spoke to
you, when she forbade you her presence. She
says you will not fight me. Will you, sir, or
not º'
He paused some minutes, motionless.
I continued: “Answer me, Col. Sharp Will
you fight me a duel 2"
He replied: “My dear friend, I cannot fight
you on account of Miss Cook.”
I then drew my dirk and stood back from
him, and bade him defend himself. He said:
“Upon my honor, sir, I have not a weapon
except a small penknife.”
I took from my pocket a Spanish knife, and
said to him (holding out that and my dirk):
“Choose one of these, sir, and I will throw it
to you !”

[16]
“My dear friend,” said he, “I cannot fight
you on Miss Cook's account.”
I then threw him the knife, and said to him,
advancing and raising my dagger:
“You damned villian, what do you intend by
that; that she is not worthy you should fight her
friend and avenger ?”
“My friend,” said he, “I did not mean that.
I never can fight the friend of that worthy, in-
jured lady. If her brothers had murdered me I
could not have had the heart to raise my hand to
defend myself. And if you, my friend, are her -
husband, I will never raise my hand against you.”
I replied: “I am not her husband, sir, but I
am her friend and avenger. She has sent me to
take your life. Now, sir, with me will you fight
a duel?” (again raising my dagger).
He then stepped back a step, and I thought
from the turn of his eyes he was preparing to
run. I sprang forward and caught him by the
breast of his coat, and said: “Now, you damned
villian, you shall die!”
He then fell on his knees and said: “My life
is in your hands, my friend! I beg my life Spare
it, for mercy’s sake '''
I let go his coat, and slapped him on the face
so hard as to tilt him back on his hands.
I then said: “Get up, you coward, and go till
I meet you in the streets to-morrow !” and as he
arose I gave him a kick. “Now,” said I, “go arm
yourself, for to-morrow I shall horse whip you in

| 17.
the streets and repeat it daily until you fight me
a duel.”
He then began to beg again; called me his
dear friend in every sentence; told me how mis-
erable he was for his conduct; said his whole
estate was at our command and anything we
chose to require at his hands, if I would let him
live for his wife and child's sake, and then ad-
vanced again to kneel to me. I told him to
“stand off, you villian, or I will take your life for
the insult of offering me your estate.”
He said he did not mean to insult me, but
anything under heaven he would do which I
would require, if I would spare his life. I told
him it was unnecessary to multiply words, for he
would have to kill me or I would him, so that he
had better at once consent to fight me, and that I
would give him any advantage he chose as to the
manner of fighting; but fight he must or die.
“Why, my dear friend,” he said, “if you was
to take a dirk and I a sword, I could not raise it
against you.”
He then affected to weep, and said: “My
friend, if John Cook had beaten me to death with
a stick and I had had a sword, I would never have
raised it against him.” -
“Very good, Col. Sharp, you are just about
such a whining coward as I was told you was, but,
sir, it will only give me the more prolonged
pleasure of killing you; for, if I don't beat you
on the street daily till I make you fight me, or till
| 18 |
I beat you to death, one or the other I will cer-
tainly do. So now go to sleep on that till I meet
you to-morrow in the streets.”
I then turned about to hunt the knife I had
thrown him. He began again to whine out some
flattery and adulation, to prevail with me not to
kill him.
“Oh '' said he, “you are the favored possessor
of that great and worthy woman's love. Be it so
then. Here, take my life! I desire it. But do
not disgrace me in the streets.” -
I bade him begone from me or I would abide
his offer in one moment (starting toward him).
He then started off towards town, and after I
had hunted some time for my knife and could not
find it, as it was now grown something dark in the
river bottom, I also started back to my lodgings.
This knife had “Jo. B.” plainly engraven on the
blade, and probably some one may have found
it who will now recollect those letters being on it.
Next morning I bought me a very heavy horse-
whip and after breakfast paraded in the streets,
armed at all points for battle For I expected the
Colonel would surround himself by friends and
take advantage of the law, to shoot me as I
approached to assault him. But I also had pistols
and intended to menace the attack, at a distance,
by approaching him without saying a word to
him, and if he fired at me, I would also draw and
fire at a distance, as I knew I would have an
advantage therein, as I was well practiced with
the pistol, which I knew he was not. I made sev-


| 19 |
eral sallies around town that day, but no Colonel
Sharp appeared. I imagined he had kept his
room that day with the hope that I would leave
town. Next day I patrolled the streets for him
till dinner. I then began to inquire for him ;
when, lo! I was told that he had the day before
set off at daylight for Bowling Green to bring his
family to Frankfort. I mounted my horse and
immediately started after him, but as I supposed
he was too much ahead of me for me to overtake
him. I rode quite leisurely, and took a route by
my uncle's, Col. Beauchamp, which was out of
the way. Besides, nothing could have pleased me
so well as the idea of encountering him in Bowling
Green. But behold when I got to Bowling Green
I found I had been deceived. Col. Sharp was not
there, nor was he expected there for some con-
siderable time. I was much enraged, it is true,
but really I could not help being somewhat
diverted at the trick which had been played upon
111C.
We then determined to delay marrying until
Col. Sharp should come to settle up his business
in Bowling Green, and then lure him to the retire-
ment, where Miss Cook lived, and there kill him.
At length he came to Bowling Green. I was there
when he came, and went immediately to retire-
ment to concert a scheme to lure him there. Miss
Cook wrote him a long letter, telling him that not-
withstanding the feelings she had manifested to-
wards him, when last she saw him, and the stern-
ness with which she had forbid him never to see
| 20 |
her again, these had not been the feelings of her
heart, but momentary effusions of delirium. She
told him that he need not be surprised that the
wild chivalrous notions of an enthusiastic devotee
of a youth of Mr. Beauchamp's age, should have
made him hope to ingratiate himself with her by
fighting a duel on her account. She told him it
was true she had been something pleased with
Mr. Beauchamp's mind, and might have by her
expressions to that effect encouraged his hopes;
but owing to the course he had told her he had
taken towards Col. Sharp, she had entirely broken
off his visits. She said she expected to leave the
state soon, and either go to Virginia or Mississippi,
and that as he had conjured her by letter, that if
she should ever consent under any conditions to
suffer him to see her, she had thought before she
left the state she would like to give him his letters,
and if he had retained any of hers to get them
from him. She requested that he would certainly
be there on such an evening, and that he would
apprise her by the servant who bore that letter,
whether or not he would do so. Col. Sharp re-
ceived this letter and immediately asked the ser-
vant if Mr. Beauchamp was at Miss Ann’s when
he came away. The servant told him no, for he
had been instructed not to let it be known that I
was there
Col. Sharp then asked him if I still con-
tinued to visit his mistress. The servant told
him I did. How long had it been since I had
been there? The servant said several days. Did


| 21 |
I visit there often ? Yes; the servant told him I
was there frequently. Well, was his mistress and
I to be married ? The servant said there had
been such talk. Was I in that neighborhood at
that time 2 The servant told him I was not, for
he had been told not to let it be known in Bowl-
ing Green I was at his mistress's.
Col. Sharp then wrote the most feeling letter
I ever read in my life, expressing to Miss Cook
the inconceivable surprise and delight he had felt
on receiving her letter, permitting him once more
to see her, of which he was so unworthy, and
concluded that death alone would prevent his
certain attendance at her house on the hour ap-
pointed. -
When the servant came back and told us all
the questions Col. Sharp had asked him, we at
once feared he suspected some snare was laid for
him and would not come. The second evening
after we got this answer was appointed for him to
be there. I waited with great anxiety, but with
not much hope for his arrival. He did not come.
By light next morning I dashed off for Bowl-
ing Green, determined there to end the matter
with him some way. When I got to Bowling
Green I found that Col. Sharp was two full days
on his way to Frankfort. But I was told there
that he had left his business in so unsettled a
state that he must and would be there again
before very long. We had postponed marrying
until I could finish the study of the law. Where.
fore, I resolved to lie by, quite still, and prosecute

| 22 ||
my studies in Bowling Green till Colonel Sharp
should at length again venture down there to set-
tle up his business. For, in fact, I did feel that I
could never call Miss Cook my wife till Col. Sharp
should die at my hands, and she said she felt
unworthy of me, and would feel that she had
degraded me by marrying me before I had av-
enged the injuries she had received.
I prosecuted my studies with ardor and had
finished them, and if Col. Sharp was ever in that
country after the snare we laid to lure him to
retirement, it was when I was absent in Tennessee,
for I watched with a hawks eye for him. Now,
our design, when we attempted to lure Col. Sharp
to Retirement, was for Miss Cook with her own
hand to shoot him. I did not like that But she
was inflexible; and F had learned her to fire my
pistols, she had practiced with them till she could
place a ball, with an accuracy, which were it uni-
versally equalled, by our modern duellists, would
render the practice of duelling much more fatal
than it is frequently seen of late. The idea that
any other hand than mine should kill Col. Sharp,
was ever grating to my feelings. But she ever
seemed to esteem the possibility of killing him
with her own hand, as what she most desired of
all things in the world. And instead of that pur-
pose growing weaker, after she had formed it, it
seemed every day to fasten itself more and more
upon her mind. This true womanish whim pro-
longed to Col. Sharp many days of life. For when
she had once formed this purpose, it fastened

| 23 ]
itself upon her mind with such firmness, that all
my remonstrances could not shake it off, and she
persisted in it, that let the world say what it might,
if ever Col. Sharp should again come to Bowling
Green, and she could find it out, she would lay
some intrigue that would gain her an interview
with Col. Sharp, and with her own hands she
would take his life. But when I had completed
my studies we got married. After this I watched
the Bowling Green courts and kept a spy there
incessantly to give me notice if ever Col. Sharp
should be heard of in that part of the country. I
had now married Miss Cook, and felt that I had a
sufficient apology before the world, to revenge upon
Col. Sharp the injury he had done her. Neither
could I any longer think of the wild idea of my
wife revenging her own wrongs. I was married
in June, 1824. Col. Sharp was expected down
certainly that summer. That year was the guber-
natorial election. The contest was between Judge
Tompkins and General Desha. I looked to this
contest with immense solicitude for Tompkins'
election, not only because he was a man of so
much better qualifications and abilities and of my
own politics, but on account of the petition which
I foresaw with prophetic certainty I would have
to make for the executive clemency. For although
while I was unmarried I did not feel that I could
justify myself for killing Col. Sharp, yet when
Miss Cook had become my wife I felt determined
that if ever I could catch him in Bowling Green
that he should fight me a duel or I would cane
-
| 24 |
him whenever he ventured out of his room, till I
would either make him defend himself by arms,
and thus one or the other die, or I would at last
beat him quite to death publicly; for I knew that
if ever I caught him there I would be supported
and upheld and defended by men of spirit in any
measure of revenge I might choose to take toward
him. And even if I should be at last forced to
kill him publicly without legal justification, I
had seen with what absolute and infallible cer-
tainy the favor or prejudice of the place decides
a man's fate in capital cases in this country, and
that in Bowling Green I had nothing to fear in
any event. But after Desha was elected I always
dreaded to come in contact with Col. Sharp in
Frankfort. Sharp was the Attorney-General and
possessed vast influences in and about Frankfort
from his great wealth and talents. I knew Gov.
Desha was not a man of firmness, and I much
feared that should I encounter Col. Sharp in
Frankfort and be there tried, the influence of
Sharp's friends would blacken everything against
me, and I much feared that in a final resort to the
executive, Desha would be swayed by the popular
clamor around him.
Judge Tompkins was a man of the greatest
firmness. I had been raised under his eye. His
children had been my early playmates and school-
mates. I had been much about his house and
had early marked his ever firm temper of justice
in all his actions, public and private. All his
character forbade me to fear that anything but a










| 25
sense of intrinsic justice would ever influence
him in the slightest degree in case of life or
death. Not so Desha. Popular clamor alone
governed him ever. This consideration made me
hesitate much at the thought of ever coming to
Frankfort to kill Col. Sharp. During all the sum-
mer of 1824 he was expected in Bowling Green,
but did not come. It was then said that he would
surely be at the spring court in Bowling Green.
Still he did not come. I now began to grow im-
patient and to fear that he never intended to ven-
ture down there any more.
I at last fell upon a device whereby to get
from himself directly the truth of when he would
be there, without his knowing the person making
the inquiry. For this purpose I would put in the
post office at one place and then at another letters
to Col. Sharp, with names never heard of before,
feigning some weighty land claims in the Green
River country, and wishing to know when he
would be there, that I might see him about them.
The last of these letters was in the name of Zeb-
ulon K. Yantis, a name never heard of before,
inquiring whether Col. Sharp would be in Bowl-
ing Green at August court there or not. I had
written one other in the same name by a stranger
traveling through Frankfort. I had gotten Col.
Sharp's answer. He was indecisive whether he
would be at circuit court in Warren or not. I
therefore wrote this last letter dated June 27,
1825. I told Col. Sharp I had not gotten his
former letter, and was extremely anxious there-
| 26 ||
fore that he should give me an immediate reply
to that, as it was a matter of the greatest impor-
tance to me. I received no answer to this until
after the election. But before the election an
incident occurred which settled my purpose that
if Col. Sharp did not very soon come into that
country I would seek him in whatever corner of
the world he might be hid.
Some little time before the election I received
a letter from a gentleman who at that time lived
in the whole world, informing me of the reports
and insinuations which Col. Sharp and his family
had circulated, that the child of my wife was a
mulatto. I say this gentleman lived in the whole
world. I will not give any more definite descrip-
tion of him lest, peradventure, I might minister
to the cravings of Desha and his satellites for
some pretext of detraction from the merit which
their envy hates. He was not, as they would fain
insinuate, influenced by political jealousy or per-
sonal envy, to write this letter; for he was as
much superior to Col. Sharp or any other of
Desha's satellites, or Desha himself, as his prin-
ciples were more pure or his mind more honor-
able than theirs. His letter was written in a
spirit of pure, honorable and disinterested jus-
tice, because he thought it right that I should
know of this vile conduct of Col. Sharp and his
family and set them right. Neither will I give
anything more of his letter than just that it gave
me the information about the report of the negro
child, lest Desha's apes should pretend to found


| 27 |
thereon some basis for the random guesses of the
author. It is sufficient to say he was a man on
whose word I would have resigned my life. And
he wrote me that the Sharps had set afloat insin-
uations that the child of Miss Cook was a mulatto
in order to do away with the charge against Col.
Sharp for seduction. The writer signed his own
proper name to the letter, and told me he would
rather not be known as having voluntarily com-
municated to me the information he had, but that
if it became materially important, or at least if
Col. Sharp endeavored to avoid responsibility by
denying that he had countenanced the report, he
would not shrink back if called on to prove the
fact. For he said that when he heard the report
once or twice he went to Col. Sharp and asked
him if it was a fact that the child was a negro
child, and Col. Sharp told him it was, and that he
had a certificate from the midwife to prove that
fact. He said he told Col. Sharp plainly that he
did not believe it, and that it was a shame to cast
such an insinuation abroad. Col. Sharp then
requested him not to say anything about his hav-
ing said so.
I had now meditated upon Col. Sharp's death
so long that I was perfectly able to make dispas-
sionate calculations and weigh probable conse-
quences with as much calmness as I would
determine an ordinary matter of business. I did
not kill Col. Sharp through the frenzy of passion.
I did with the fullest and most mature delibera-
tion, because the clearest dictates of my judg-

| 28
ment told me I ought to do it, and I still think
so. But after I had gotten this information about
the negro child I did resolve to hazard killing
Col. Sharp in Frankfort publicly, Desha being
Governor notwithstanding. On the one hand I
considered the situation of his son, whom I saw
he would ultimately have to pardon, and I thought
he certainly would not pardon his son for high-
way robbery and murder for money and refuse to
pardon me for killing a man who had so much
deserved death at my hands. On the other hand
Sharp had been bought over by Desha and had
resigned the office of Attorney-General to lead
the New Court faction in the House of Represent-
atives. I say he had been bought over by Desha.
Aossibly he may not have been actually ſought
over for money. I, however, always much sus-
pected he was directly bribed by a few certain
men to exert himself for the New Court jugglers
for office, just as he would have been feed by
them to advocate their interest at law. Certain it
is, however, that he turned completely round in
politics to catch the popular breeze in Franklin
where the New Court faction held nearly three-
fourths of the county, and under that breeze he
sailed into the House of Representatives and was
there hailed as the leader, the orator and savior of
his party. Seeing him placed thus at the head of
that party, I felt that I would encounter a tre-
mendous monster if I attacked him publicly in
that situation in Frankfort. The Governor and
the whole administration placed all their hopes in

[29]
his eloquence, abilities and intrigues. I foresaw
that the man who would snatch away their leader
would encounter all the direst rage of that infuri-
ated faction.
We, therefore, fell upon a scheme to turn the
devotion of the administration to Col. Sharp to
our advantage. I say we did; I mean myself and
wife. A great deal has been said about my wife
going on her knees to me to prevail with me not
to kill Col. Sharp publicly. My wife never had to
get on her knees to me to enforce her wishes. We
reasoned together as intelligent beings on all oc-
casions, neither assuming any superiority, but
each confident of the other's affections, and con-
fident that the ideas of each would be duly
weighed and appreciated by the other. I, there-
fore, after the most mature deliberation, resolved
that if I should have to kill Col. Sharp, to do it
secretly. The world must now say as it will of
this determination. -
It is true I regretted to have to take this
course, but it was (Desha being Governor and
Sharp his fugleman) the only way which pre-
sented the possibility of my killing Sharp in
Frankfort without certainly losing my own life
for it. And although I never regarded death
much, yet I did not feel that I was bound to
observe any law which regulates the reciprocal
conduct of men of honor in my conduct toward
Col. Sharp, or to risk my own life by shooting
him publicly, any more than I would have felt
bound to go publicly into an Indian town and

[30 |
shoot down the savage who had secretly crept into
my house and murdered my defenceless children.
For I had just as much reason to expect Desha
would listen to the dictates of justice, were I to
kill his chief for worse than murdering my wife,
as I would have to expect justice from the infuri-
ated savages if I had shot their chief for taking
the life of my children.
It is in vain to say the laws of society provide
adequate relief for all injuries of one citizen to-
ward another. Where is the father of any sensi-
bility or honorable feelings who would not infin-
itely rather a villian would silently put his
daughter out of the world than to seduce her, and
leave her to drag out a wretched, degraded exist-
ence tenfold more painful to the father than her
death 2 And yet what remedy has the law pro-
vided which would be the least consolation to the
unhappy father for the injury 2 Neither is it dic-
tated by any law sanctioned by reason and the
immutable principles of justice that then the
father should add to the misfortunes of his family
by publicly killing the vile destroyer of their
happiness and his, where such are the circum-
stances surrounding the villian that to kill him
publicly would be inevitably to forfeit the life of
the person doing it So that it was a conviction
of the partiality of Gov. Desha, and a belief that
it was sanctioned by every law of justice and of
right, and would be approved by all the just
spirits in the universe from the necessity of the
thing, and not my wife's getting on her knees to

[31 ||
me, that induced me to change my purpose of
killing Col. Sharp publicly and do it privately
after I was married. But to do it in Frankfort
even in the most private manner I foresaw would
be extremely hazardous. I knew that Dr. Sharp
would know in a moment who had killed his
brother, and I knew if his own exertions and that
of the family would not be sufficient to avenge
his death, yet the fury of the New Court faction
would be such that, with the wealth of the Sharp
family, I could be convicted. But I fell upon a
diversion in my favor of that very faction; this
was to give them a pretext for charging the death
of their leader upon their political opponents.
For this purpose I first resolved to kill Col.
Sharp on the second night of the election. This
would have raised a prodigious commotion in my
favor throughout the State among the New Court
faction, and I should have done this but for un-
for seen accidents over which I had no control. I
therefore determined to wait calmly till the night
before the meeting of the Legislature. Meantime
I prepared everything for setting off to Missouri
as soon as I had killed him. Never was a murder
planned with such studied precaution since the
world began. I knew very well it was impossible
to avoid being arrested for the murder. I there-
fore planned everything with a view to the evi-
dence which I should be able to bring forward in
my favor.
Three weeks before the meeting of the Legis-
lature, I made a sale of my property, and gave out

[ 32 |
publicty on all occasions, I should start to Missouri,
the very Sunday on which I really intended to kill
Col. Sharp at night. This I continued to say and
prepare for, up to the very Sunday preceeding. I
had my wagon, horses, and every thing prepared,
and in all my arrangements and engagements,
professed the fullest determination to start the next
Sunday. Nay, I had even engaged persons to come
and help me load my wagon the Friday and Satur-
day previously. But I had secretely prepared me
an excuse for running away and delaying my re-
moval a week. I had business of consequence in
Frankfort, and such as would render it very
reasonable and necessary I should go there before
I moved away. But I had never intimated the
least intention to do so. For I worked it to ap-
pear quite a casual thing, and wholly unexpected
to me, that I should ever be in Frankfort before
my removal. I had even spoken to John F. Lowe
of getting him to go to Frankfort for me, and told
him the business I wanted done there, and on his
refusal I spoke of getting my brother to go, as it
would be impossible for me to leave home. But on
the Saturday before the Tuesday I intended to
start to Frankfort, I secretely procured a process
to be issued against me, which if executed, would
unavoidably prevent my intended removal for that
season. On Sunday evening Mr. Bradbarn in-
formed me of this process. I appeared in utter
astonishment and said it would ruin me by pre-
venting my removal. He said it was a mere
vexatious thing intended only to delay me, and

[33]
were he in my place he would go away and avoid
it, till my friends could get my family ready to
start away. I swore no I would stay and defend
myself, for that next Sunday was the extreme
bound I had set to start to Missouri. But after a
long remonstrance on his part, that I ought to get
out of the county, I agreed to study upon the pro-
priety of it. Next day my father and myself, at
my father's gate, met Lowe, who was a Constable.
I forbade him to approach me, and showed him I
was armed to defend myself, if he did. He had
not the process, and when I told him of it, and
spoke of my determination to defend myself, he
also advised me to go away till my family could
get out of the county, but I sternly refused, and
said I should remain in the neighborhood, and start
the coming Sunday for Missouri. That day, how-
ever, at the earnest solicitation of father and friends,
I agreed, (upon their professing to prepare every
thing for my family to start) to leave the county
to avoid the process. But I represented so much
that they would have to do, that they said they
could not have everything ready by the next Sun-
day, so that Sunday week was appointed. And I
then avowed my determination, to come to Warren,
and Edmonson, and settle up my business there,
and if I should have time, I would come also to
Frankfort, so as to settle up my land affairs in this
state, ere I should leave it. Accordingly on Tues-
day I left home for Frankfort I led a horse for
sale. In Bowling Green, where Capt. Payne was
speaking of buying the horse, I said if they did not

| 34
buy him, I could get my price for him in Glasgow,
or in Edmonson, whither I was going. He how-
ever, bought the horse, and I came up to Edmon-
son and done my business there; and thence pro-
ceeded to Frankfort. I arrived in Frankfort about
half an hour in the night, on Sunday night. For
many miles during the day I had ridden through
excessive smoke, and had therefore gotten a violent
headache. I tied a spotted silk bandana handker-
chief around my head. When I got to town I did
I did not take it off until I got lodgings. At the
Mansion House I hailed, when a young gentleman
(Mr Taylor) came to take my saddle-bags. He
said he feared the chance to accommodate me
would be bad. He said they were so crowded,
every bed they had would be occupied, and he
feared he would have to put me on the floor in the
dining room, where he feared I would be disturbed
by others. I was somewhat unwell, and would
not like to be broken from my rest. He then
recommended me to Capt. Weiseger's tavern. At
Weisegers I walked into the bar-room, and asked
for my horse to be taken.
“Sure,” the bar-keeper replied, “it will be im-
possible for us to take your horse sir, we could
receive you, but not your horse.” -
I asked him if there were any private boarding
houses where I could get in. He said Mr. Scott
at the Penitentiary would take me in. He then
proposed to send my horse to a livery stable, if I
chose. “However,” said he, “Mr. Scott has a good
stable and I would recommend you to him.”

[35]
After I had been at Mr. Scott's some little
time I walked out to see my horse fed, and as I
had on giving him to the servant forbidden him
to feed him till I should go with him to see it
done. After supper I was conducted to a bed-
room above stairs, and took out a book, observing
to Mr. Scott, I believed I would read awhile. So
soon as he had left me I accoutered myself for
the deed I was meditating to accomplish. I had
provided me with an old ragged surtout coat
which I had procured long before, and which no
human being could have proved to have been in
my possession. I had provided me a large butcher
knife several months before, the point of which
my wife had poisoned, which no one could ever
have proved I ever owned or had in my posses-
sion. When traveling in Tennessee I had passed
a clearing where a negro had left his old wool hat
on a stick. I took the hat, and splitting the end
of the stick left a silver dollar in place of the hat.
I put on a mask of blue silk which gave me at
five steps' distance, in the clearest moonlight, the
exact appearance of a negro, so well had my wife
fitted it to my face. I put on two pair of yarn
socks to preserve my feet in running and to avoid
my being pursued by the direction I might be
heard running in the dark if I had worn my
shoes. Besides, in this way my tracks could not
possibly be identified anywhere. But I took my
shoes, my coat and my hat and hid them down
near the river where I could run and get them
after the deed should be done. -
| 36||
I had learned from a source, which the offer of
life would scarcely wring from me, where Col.
Sharp's house was. It was the easiest thing in
the world to point it out, so that a stranger could
not mistake it. He had simply to be told it was
the nearest house to the State House, for it stands
only the width of the street from the then State
House, and almost right across the street from it.
I crept out of Mr. Scott's house so easily that,
although the family were all up and passing about
the house, none of them heard me; neither would
they have heard me if they had been in the very
passage through which I had to pass. I had found
out Col. Sharp's house long before the Io o'clock
bell rang. He was not there when I first went. I
suspected he had gone to meet his acquaintances,
the members from Green River, at the Mansion
House. I had habituated my mind to philosoph-
ize and reason upon the subject of killing Col.
Sharp till I thought I could kill him with as much
tranquility of feeling as I could whip a servant
that I thought deserved a whipping ; but when
my eyes crossed his form all the furies of hatred
seemed combined in me, so much did my blood
boil for vengeance. I was almost so far bereft of
my reason at seeing him as to put on my mask
and rush right into the room and stab him down
in the crowd.
I determined to assassinate him on his return
home, as soon as he left the tavern. But while I
had walked a little way from the view of him, he
disappeared from the room I had left him in, and


| 37 |
I supposed he had gone home. I hastened to his
house but he was not there. I feared I might miss
him, and meantime he could get to bed before I
could see him, if I went back to the tavern to hunt
for him. Wherefore I determined to watch his
house till he should come home. I could now, as
I lurked about around the house, see all that was
going on in it; and could see what rooms were
occupied and what were not, as well as if I had
lived about the house. I intended to attack Col.
Sharp before he could get into his house, if I could
ascertain him as he came home. I wished Col.
Sharp to know me before I killed him. I intended
to call to him from a little distance in a low voice,
and request him to come to me as he was about to
enter the house. Luring him thus to me in the
street alone, I intended as soon as I got hold of
him, to whisper to him who I was, and imme-
diately dispatch him. But while I was viewing
the back part of the house to know the situation,
should I fail any way to get hold of Col. Sharp,
before he went to bed, he entered his house and
was in his chamber before I saw him. After a
moments reflection I resolved to wait until all
lights were extinguished about the house, and all
persons asleep, and then call the Col. up. I was
afraid Dr. S. would also have to be killed, for I
knew as soon as his brother was killed he would
turn his thoughts immediately to me. But while
I was lying meditating in the public square, con-
cealed, whether to knock at the door of Col.
Sharp's chamber, or at a street door, in a dark
[38]
alley, which opened into a room immediately com:
municating with the chamber, Mr. Bacon came for
Dr. Sharp to go home with him. This I esteemed
a very fortunate thing, for I did not wish to kill
him. However, I myself rather inclined to kill
him for the part he had taken in the slander about
the black child, and other slanders upon my wife.
But my wife always begged for him, and to her he
owes his life. For she always said to see him de-
prived of his brother, whom he literally worshipped,
was the greatest revenge she could possibly
imagine, or wish to be exercised on him. She said
after his brother should be killed it would be a
charity and the greatest humanity to the Dr. to
kill him also. Before Bacon had come for the Dr.
I had seen two men passing in the street, and op-
posite Col Sharp's house, they met two negro girls
and wanted them to stop, but the girls ran away
from them, and the men continued their night
walking towards town. When I had waited long
enough, as I supposed, for those who had been
awakened by Bacon's coming for Dr. Sharp, I pre-
pared to complete my purpose. I resolved to
knock in the alley for fear those in Bass's room,
which as well as Col. Sharp's room, opened upon
the porch, might not have fallen asleep. Besides
I knew I could easily lure Col. Sharp quickly to
me at the back door, by feigning myself Coving-
ton, as Col. Sharp and the Covington's were ex-
tremely intimate. And if I could only lure him
into that alley, I would have an opportunity to
let him know as he fell by whose hand he received















| 39 |
the stroke, for this I wished him exceedingly to
know. And I would have risked a great deal to
have him know who I was. I put on my mask
with this design; that if a candle should be lit be-
fore Col. Sharp approached me, I would keep it on
and as he approached I would knock the candle
out with one hand and stab him with the other,
but if he approached me without a light, I intended
to draw down my mask as he approached, from
over my face, for it was so constructed and fastened
on as to be easily drawn away from the face or
placed over it again. There was no moonlight,
but the stars gave light enough, where withal to
discern the face of an acquaintance on coming near
him, and closely noticing his face.
I drew my dagger and proceeded to the door.
I knocked three times, loud and quick, Col.
Sharp said:
“Who’s there 2"
“Covington,” I replied.
Quickly Col. Sharp's foot was heard on the
floor I saw under the door he approached with-
out a light. I drew my mask from my face and
immediately Col. Sharp opened the door, I ad-
vanced into the room and with my left hand I
grasped his right wrist as with an iron hand. The
violence of the grasp made Col. Sharp spring
back, and trying to disengage his wrist, he said:
“What Covington is this 2°
I replied, “John A. Covington, sir.”
“I don’t know you,” said Col. Sharp; “I know
John W. Covington,”

| 4o
“My name,” said I, “is John A. Covington,”
and about the time I said that Mrs. Sharp, whom
I had seen appear in the partition door as I en-
tered the outer door, disappeared. She had
become alarmed, I suppose, by the little scuffle
Col. Sharp made when he sprang back to get his
wrist loose from my grasp. Seeing her disappear,
I said to Col. Sharp in a tone as though I was
deeply mortified at his not knowing me:
“And did you not know me, sure enough 2"
“Not with your handkerchief about your face,”
said Col. Sharp, for the handkerchief with which
I had confined my mask upon my forehead was
still around my forehead.
I then replied in a soft, conciliating and per-
suasive tone of voice, “Come to the light, Colonel,
and you will know me,” and pulling him by the
arm he came readily to the door. I stepped with
one foot back upon the first step out at the door,
and still holding his wrist in my left hand I strip-
ped my hat and handkerchief from over my fore-
head and head, and looked right up in Col. Sharp's
face. He knew me the more readily, I imagine,
by my long, bushy, curly suit of hair. He sprang
back, and exclaimed in the deepest tone of aston-
ishment, dismay, horror and despair I ever heard,
“Great God it's him ''' and as he said that he
fell on his knees, after failing to jerk loose his
wrist from my grasp. As he fell on his knees I
let go his wrist and grasped his throat, and dash-
iug him against the facing of the door, I choked
him to keep him from hallowing, and muttered in

| 41 ||
his face, “Z):e, you wil/ai/ " And as I said that,
I plunged the dagger to his heart. Letting him
go at the moment I stabbed him, he sprang up
from his knees and endeavored to throw his arms
around my neck, saying, “Pray, Mr. Beauchamp,”
but as he said that, I struck him in the face with
my left hand and knocked him his full length
into the room.
By this time I saw the light approaching and
dashed a little way off, and put on my mask. I
then came and squatted in the alley near the door
to hear if he should speak. His wife talked to
him, but he could not answer her. Before I
thought they could possibly have gotten word to
the doctor, he came running in. So soon as he
entered the room he exclaimed :
“Great God! Beauchamp has done this I
always expected it.”
The town was now alarmed, and the people
began to crowd the house very fast. I still lurked
about the house to hear what would be said, and I
wished some one to see me, not in the light of the
candle, so they would take me for a negro, with
my black mask on. At length while I was en-
deavoring to peep in at a window, Mrs Sharp came
right upon me from without the house, behind me,
and cried out to the company to run there, saying
she saw the murderer. But by the time they got
out of the house, I was out of the lot. I stopped to
listen if any one pursued me, and I saw the lot full
of people running down after me, whereupon I
dashed off again, and went and got my coat, and

| 42
hat' and shoes, which I had hid down near the
river. I then went a considerable way farther
down the river, and took the old hat and coat in
which I had done the murder, and tying them in a
bundle with a rock, sunk them in the river. I also
buried the knife near the river bank; and then
dressing in my proper clothes and putting on my
shoes, I came back into town. I passed near Col.
Sharp's house to hear what was saying, but all was
now whisper and silence. But I had heard and
indeed seen that Col Sharp had died without
speaking before I left the house, which was my
greatest anxiety. I then went to my room, creep-
ing up stairs as softly as a cat, so that I could not
hear my own feet touch the floor, having slipped
off my shoes at the door. I then lit my candle and
burnt my mask, and washed my hands which were
dirty from burying the knife in the ground. I
then laid down with a certain calculation of being
arrested the next morning as soon as Dr. Sharp
should have inquiry made, and find I was in the
town; but such were the happy feelings that pre-
vaded me, and the perfect resignation I felt to the
will of heaven, having accomplished my long set-
tled purpose, that in five minutes after I laid down,
I fell fast asleep and slept soundly, till the stirring
of the family awakened me in the morning.
I then listened, as a matter of course, for Mr.
Scott to come and examine me as soon as he
should go to Col. Sharp's and hear of Dr. Sharp's
exclamation that it was Beauchamp. For when
Scott had let me to bed the over night, I said to

[43]
him I wondered if old Uncle Beauchamp, of
Washington, was in town. He said he did not
know, and asked me if Col. Beauchamp was an
uncle of mine. I said he was. Mr. Scott said he
was very well acquainted with Col. Beauchamp,
and asked me if my name was also Beauchamp.
I told him it was, Next morning I heard the
news of Col. Sharp's death told to Mr. Scott, and
listened for his return to see me. For that name,
Scott, now began to give me some uneasiness, as I
had heard Col. Sharp married a Scott, and I
feared this might be a relative, as in fact he was.
I listened for his return as soon as he could go to
Col. Sharp's and hear that Beauchamp was sus-
pected, and sure enough before I was done dress-
ing I heard Mr. Scott come tramping up stairs to
my room. He opened my door and said:
“Good morning, Mr. Beauchamp.”
I returned the salutation with a very pleasant
politeness, but Mr. Scott abruptly said:
“Don’t you think some man went to Sharp's
last night and killed him '''
I put on a face of great astonishment, and re-
plied:
“Great God! is it possible What! Colonel
Sharp ſº -
“Yes,” said he, “Col. Sharp is dead º'
I then stood a moment, as though in mute
astonishment, and then said:
“How did it happen, sir; in a fight?”
Mr. Scott said: “No ; some stranger called
º Sharp to his door and just stabbed him
ead.”
[44]
And thereupon he turned about to go out of
the room, but I said:
“Stay, sir; for God's sake! tell me something
about this horrid affair " -
Said he: “I can tell you nothing in the world
about it, sir, further than that Col. Sharp was
called to his door from his bed, and stabbed down
dead upon the floor.” And with that he left the
1 OO111.
I did not like his abrupt manner as he entered
the room, but my manner, I saw for the moment,
quite removed his suspicions. I came down stairs,
and being invited by Mrs. Scott into the dining
room, she told me of the horrid murder. I told
her Mr. Scott had told me of it, and asked her if
there were no suspicions entertained of who could
have been the assassin. She said none that she
knew of, and after some little further conversation
I started to do my business in the Registrar’s
office. -
This was my business: in April preceeding I
had sent the plats and certificates of four surveys,
together with the warrants they were made on to
the Register's office. They had now as I supposed
laid long enough for the patents to issue. I had
also with me another plat and certificate, which I
presented for registry in the first place, telling the
registrar the warrant was filed. He looked and
could find no warrant or survey in the office in my
name, and after a long search, told me there was
not a warrant or plat and certificate in the office in
my name. I saw therefore, at once, that Thos. D.


| 45 ||
Beauchamp, by whom I sent my papers, had not
filed them in the office, and behold here I was flat
in Frankfort, without the least shadow of business.
This frightened me very much, as I knew I should
be arrested, from what Dr. Sharp had said on en-
tering the room where his brother was dying. I
thought if I could get off without being arrested,
possibly they might not send for me, seeing they
had no shadow of evidence against me. And this
I the more hoped if the diversion should be created
in my favor, which I foresaw and intended should
arise, from suspicions of Col. Sharp having been
murdered from political motives. I knew there
would be a great clamor of this kind raised, and
knowing how weak and vain a man Dr. Sharp was,
I had some hopes he might be carried along with
the current, whereupon I hastened to Mr. Scott's
and ordered my horse to start home. By this time
Mr. Scott had again returned to his house. I be-
gan immediately he entered the house to ask him
farther questions about the murder. I saw from
his manner very evidently, he had his suspicions
revived. I asked him if Col. Sharp had any recent
quarrel with any one, whence they could attach
suspicion to that person. He said no, he had
heard of no quarrel of Col. Sharp with any one.
Said he, “Mr. Beauchamp, what profession are
you of 2 I think you said you lived in Simpson
county.”
Yes, I told him, I lived in Simpson county.
My profession was that of a lawyer, or at least I
had studied the law, but living in the country for

[46]
the last eighteen months I had not gone to the
practice, but had continued my reading in the
country.
“Well sir,” said he, “are you a married man?”
I replied I was.
“Who did you marry Mr. Beauchamp?”
“I married Miss Ann Cook sir,” I replied, and
at that his face, black as it is, turned blacker still.
I had seen this was the great point he was
sent to ascertain, and still I forbore to inquire
why he asked me that question, and passed off
the conversation as though it had been quite in
etiquette. Nor did I take the least notice of his
impolite inquiry, what my business at Frankfort
was, but answered all his impertinent inquiries
with a polite, cheerful frankness and truth, as
though his questions had been a matter of course.
Then taking leave of him I set off from his house
when the sun was about half an hour high. When
I spoke of riding, he asked me if I was not going
to stay to see the House organized. I told him I
should like very much to do so, but that the ensu-
ing Sunday I had set to start to Missouri, and
therefore was compelled to hurry home; besides,
I said I had some relatives in Bloomfield with
whom I was under promise to stay all night that
night, and therefore I wished to set off early to
get there.
I have now left Frankfort, and let us pause
and take a retrospect of my conduct before we
have to view it through all the mists of calumny,
malice and misrepresentation which have subse-

| 47 |
quently intervened For it was wholly upon cir-
cumstances, subsequently raised and fabricated,
that I have been convicted; for never in any age
or country do the pages of history record such a
complication of prejudicial tales as were recited
upon my trial.
When I had untied the bundle of old clothes
the over night, which I had prepared to commit
the murder in, I had thrown the old handkerchief
they were tied in on my bed. It was quite a
worn-out, dirty old handkerchief, which not long
before I had wiped my nose on when it had been
bleeding a little. I recollect to have noticed when
my wife was tying up the clothes in it that it had
still the appearance of one or two stains of old
blood on it. After I had gotten out of town I
recollected that as I raised up in the bed that
morning I had thrown the clothes of the bed
down over this old handkerchief, and that I had
forgotten it and left it there.
Reflecting there was this stain of blood on it,
and knowing what a hobgoblin the least drop of
blood would be to a mind already disposed to sus-
picion as Mr. Scott's was, I had serious thoughts
of turning back for this handkerchief after I had
gone a mile or two. But then I thought the ap-
pearance of the handkerchief would speak for
itself and demonstrate to any man of common
sense that what was on it was old blood, and
could not possibly have been put there the over
night. Besides, I thought that if I went back for
such an old handkerchief as that and it should
| 48 ||
chance to have been found before I went back,
this really would look suspicious So I continued
on my journey, but not without little uneasiness
about this handkerchief, when I reflected how
much the common mind is disposed to distort
into a suspicious light every circumstance against
a man when once he is accused. And after Mr.
Scott had come back the second time to examine
what Beauchamp I was, and confirmed the great
point of his suspicion that I was the Beauchamp
who married Miss Cook, I felt perfectly convinced
I should, from what Dr. Sharp had said the over-
night, be pursued and arrested. All my conduct,
therefore, everything I done or said, was planned
with a deliberate view to the effect it would have
in evidence.
The part I had to perform was extremely diffi-
cult indeed, not to tell of the matter at all would
seem suspicious. But then I knew indeed how
few there were, who would have firmness enough
to tell a man's manner, or tell what he said about
a murder, just as it took place, after the man,
whose manner and words he was detailing, was
accused of murder. For this reason I resolved to
tell of the murder only where there were several
present, the one to be a check on the other, or to
persons with whom I was acquainted, and whom
I knew to be persons of firmness. I met Miller,
the Representative from my county, upon the turn-
pike road near Frankfort, in company with Senator
Wood, and a young fop by the name of Wilkins,
who had become acquainted with me in Simpson


[49]
county. I knew the youth, but had never liked
his self-important consequential manners, and a
youth of that description was never long in dis-
covering the sovereign contempt I showed to all
the fop and cox-comb species. Wood was a little
ahead of Miller and Wilkins, and kept right on,
not being acquainted with me. Miller began to
rally me in the manner of friends, before we came
in twenty steps of each other. I nodded my head
to Wilkins, and he passed right on by me, but
whether he halted after he passed me, or not, I do
not know; for I had barely halted my horse to
shake hands with Miller, ere he hurried on, telling
me he must ride on, as he must get to town and
hunt himself boarding by the time the House met.
After he had passed me I again checked my horse
to tell him of the murder, but he kept speaking
till he was too far to be heard any longer, and then
bid me adieu, saying he was in a great hurry, so
that I again let him go on without stopping him.
It was made a matter of suspicion against me, after
I was arrested, that I did not tell Miller of the
murder. But Miller was a man of honor, and
swore before the Court of Inquiry, as the truth was,
that he had driven on past me, and employed all
the time we were in speaking distance, in a hurried
conversation on his part, and that I had no oppor-
tunity to tell of the murder. But by the time of
my final trial Miller was moved away to Alabama,
and Mr. Wilkins to get himself into a little notice,
or some other motive more criminal, came forward
and swore, he and Miller and myself, stopped
| 50 |
fifteen or twenty minutes, in deliberate conversa-
tion. And there did he employ the court perhaps
half an hour, with a tale made up, upon the vastly
mysterious and suspicious circumstances, of his
barely having met me, and seen me nod my head
to him on my return home from Frankfort. I
merely mention this to show with what an un-
blushing face men can stand up, and swear the
most barefaced falsehoods imaginable, upon my
trial. For Miller is yet living, and will hear with
horror, that it was sworn we halted fifteen or
twenty minutes in conversation, the morning after
Col. Sharp was killed. Soon after I passed Miller
I met a Mr. Crocket, a Mr. Pemberton, and another
gentleman. We all stopped in the branch together
for our horses to drink, and I told them of what a
horrid murder had been committed the over night.
At Vaughns, three miles from Frankfort, I break-
fasted, and there in the presence of several gentle-
men I told of the murder. But all the way down,
wherever I told of the murder, I carefully avoided
telling one single particular about it, but expressly
told everybody I had been unable to learn the par-
ticulars. For although Scott had told me every-
thing that was known about it, yet I much feared
I might tell some particular, which he would deny
having told me. I staid the first night with John
T. Brown, of Bloomfield. I told there of the mur-
der. Next morning I breakfasted with Col. Jas.
M. Brown, of Bardstown. There also I told of the
murder. That night I staid with an old gentleman
by the name of Ferguson. And I think a lasting













| 51 |
encomium on his honesty and truth, incorruptible,
that he is almost the only individual with whom I
had any conversation whatever on my way home,
whom the Sharp's did not make a witness of
against me. On the third day, in the evening, I
passed what I had all the way dreaded as the
Straits of Scylla. This was Thomas Middleton,
the ever ready and devoted tool of the Sharp family.
How to avoid him I knew not. Once I thought of
loitering that day, so as to pass this monster un-
observed, in the night, and should actually have
done so, but for my great wish to get to Peyton
Cook's that night. If there had been any by-path,
I would have gone around his plantation to avoid
him, for I knew if he got a glimpse of me, there
was no getting by him without his having some-
thing to say to me. But there was no way to
escape the Straits. When I hove in sight I saw
there were several persons about the porch, and
I rode off to the opposite side of the strait, hoping
to sail through unobserved. But alas! I was dis-
cried and hailed. What could I do? If I had
pushed on without stopping, after being hailed to
do so, all would have sworn I passed there in a
gallop, under whip and spur, looking back, evi-
dently expecting pursuit at every step. I there-
fore thought it best to call, as I was bid, and act in
a natural way, seeming in no hurry, and trust to
some one present to save me from Middleton's
prejudice. Robt. Hendrix pressed me to go into
the house and take something with him. As I was
thirsty I done so. While we were in the house

[ 52 |
drinking, Hendrix asked me jestingly, if I was kin
to that Senator Beauchamp, who let the cat out of
the wallet, alluding to the story the Anties have
on old Col. Beauchamp, for having divulged the
secrets of the celebrated caucus of 1824, wherein
was engendered, what was called the re-organizing
act of that session. To turn away the quiz, I swore
no, I was no kin to that Senator Beauchamp.
Middleton turned to me and said: “You need
not deny him, for your uncle is an honor to you.”
I replied: “You must be one of these animals
we call relief men, in my country,” and so, as soon
as I had finished my glass, I bade them good even-
ing, mounted my horse and rode on. And sure
enough, as I feared, the Sharps made a most mate-
rial witness of Middletown. He could not say I
told him in confidence I killed Col. Sharp, because
when he was told of the murder by those in pursuit
of me, he stated, as the truth was, that I had not
told of the murder there at all. But he went as
far as he could go. He said I denied positively
that I had been to Frankfort, for he said he had
taken me aside, and asked me if I had been to
Frankfort, and that I said no, I had been up into
Washington county to see Uncle Jeraboam
Beauchamp, and he said I swore I was related to
Col. Beauchamp, whereas I am told there are fifty
persons in Warren and Edmonson counties, who
have heard him state that I said I was not related
to Col. Beauchamp. But he found this would give
the whole conversation a loose jesting, ironical
character, thereby weaken the force of his tale,
issi
about my denying I had been to Frankfort, etc.,
for Middleton knew as well the relationship I bore
to Col. Beauchamp, as I did myself. Many other
little foolish things Middleton related as having
been said by me, but which I deem unworthy of
any note. He also brought forward a poor old
man, who told a long miraculous tale about my
looking back, but as he was only brought forward
to strengthen Middleton's story, and as the poor
old man's hairs are hoar, and he is near the grave,
I will forbear to record his name.
I stayed all night at Peyton Cook's, who is a
brother to my wife. While at supper I very
calmly, and as though it had been an ordinary,
every-day occurrence, observed that Col. Sharp
was killed the night I was in Frankfort. Mr.
Cook, his wife and mother were the only persons
at table. I saw astonishment and suspicion flash
from every countenance as they paused and
glanced at one another. Now, neither mother
Cook nor Mrs. Peyton Cook had ever in their
whole lives heard me mention or even allude to
the name of Col. Sharp; neither had they ever
heard it mentioned or alluded to in my presence,
so profound was the silence which the great deli-
cacy of that family had inspired them with upon
the subject of Col. Sharp's name before me. But
they were aware of the hatred which I, as well as
all the Cook connection, bore Col. Sharp , and so
soon as I said he was murdered, I saw alarm, con-
fusion and suspicion startled in their counten-
ances. Soon after this, some woman (who she


[54]
was I know not) came into Mr. Cook's house, and
I embraced the first opportunity to request the
family to forbear any observations upon the sub-
ject of the intelligence I had given them. I said:
“You are all surprised that I now speak of
Col. Sharp, but so extraordinary an occasion
called his name from me.”
This I done to prevent the misrepresentations
which I knew this woman, who had come in,
would almost certainly make of what might have
passed between me and the family upon the sub-
ject of Col. Sharp's death, after she should see
me accused of the murder. According to my re-
quest not another word passed in regard to Col.
Sharp while I stayed at Mr. Cook's.
Next morning I breakfasted at Mr Tully R.
Payne's, in Bowling Green. I knew the line of
conduct to be pursued, if I should stop in Bowl-
ing Green, would be difficult, and I would gladly
have avoided stopping there, but I had unavoid-
able business with Capt. Wm. R. Payne, who lived
in his brother's family. Capt. Payne has no fam-
ily. He married an elder sister of my wife, who
is dead
I knew if I went into Bowling Green, and said
Col. Sharp was murdered, while I was in Frank-
fort, the town, or many of them, would want to
know no more than that, to convince them I was
the person that killed him. I did not care for their
suspicions, for I knew the world would always im-
pute Col. Sharp's death to me, at any rate, and had
no objection to be thought the murderer, provided
[ 55]
the Sharp's could not prove it. But I never spoke
of Col. Sharp in Bowling Green. I had for years
before my marriage, and even after, studiously
avoided speaking about Col. Sharp, and I knew
that if I told in Bowling Green that Col. Sharp
was murdered while I was in Frankfort, everybody
would be crowding around me to ask all the par-
ticulars.
I could not bear the idea of people talking to
me about Col. Sharp. Wherefore I told Capt.
Payne of the murder, but when we arose to walk
into the room to breakfast, where the ladies were,
I said: “Do not speak of the intelligence I have
given you Captain, you know the delicate situation
I stand in towards Col. Sharp.” This I should
certainly have said, had I not been in a days ride
of Frankfort when Col. Sharp was killed. Because
as Capt. Payne testified, I ever avoided any con-
versation in relation to Col. Sharp. Nevertheless,
this was esteemed a very suspicious circumstance,
although it was abundantly proven, I had always
manifested precisely the same reserve upon the
subject of Col. Sharp's name. However, let others
here draw what inferences they might, from my
conduct there. Capt Payne gave a very minute
correct and just coloring to all my manner and
conduct, and to all I said while at his brother's.
On the fourth day, in the evening near sunset,
I got to my own house. I got home within fifteen
minutes of the exact time I told my wife I would
get home. She was walking down the grove
upon the road I was to come, anxiously expecting


[ 56 |
my arrival. As soon as I saw her thus alone, I
hoisted my flag of victory. She ran to meet me,
and as I alighted from my horse I gave her the
flag, and she fell prostrate on her face before me.
She then burst into tears, and lifted her voice to
heaven that she was revenged for all the misery a
villain had brought on her and her family. Then
clasping her arms about my knees, she called
upon the spirits of her father, her brothers and
sister to bless me and intercede with a just Provi-
dence to protect me from all harm for the righte-
ous deed I had done. Then rising up in alarm,
she said:
“Are you safe, my husband 2’
I told her I was beyond the reach of all that
mortals could do to me, because the villain who
injured her had fallen by my arm.
“But,” said I, “the avenger of blood is after
me.” -
I then called a servant to take my horse, and
we walked to a more retired place where we sat
down, and I briefly recounted to her all the cir-
cumstances of the glorious deed. And I can truly
say, I do not believe there ever lived on the earth
two more happy beings than we were. Notwith-
standing I told my wife I was confident, persons
were then in pursuit of me, and I even calculated
they would be there that very night.
But Col. Sharp had died by my hand This
consoled us for all misfortunes and made us per-
fectly regardless of danger. I then went to my
house and set it in order for battle and defence.

[ 57]
For my determination was, if Dr. Sharp was of
the party who pursued me, I would fight them,
for no Sharp should have ever obtruded himself
into my yard without being shot while I was in it
alive. Indeed, I hesitated a great deal whether I
would not shoot one or two of those who pursued
me, and then make my escape and leave the United
States. And had those who pursued me come
that night, I believe I should have fought them.
But by next day I had calmly come to the resolu-
tion that I would rather die than flee my country,
and as they had no shadow of proof against me, I
resolved to go quietly and cheerfully forward and
submit to an investigation, should any one come
for me.
The night I got home there was a fellow by
the name of John Lowe called there on some
business and stayed some time, reluctant as he
must have seen I was to enter into any conversa-
tion with him ; for I wanted to get him off as
soon as possible, and while he stayed my wife and
myself were mostly retired, employed in my re-
citals of all the minutes of the murder, so that we
had scarcely anything at all to say to Lowe. At
length we got rid of him, and after I had pre-
pared myself for battle, we went to bed. As I
was not molested that night, my reflections had
led me to risk all the evidence the Sharp family
could get against me, little—ah little—thinking
the whole treasury of the commonwealth would
be thrown open as a reward to villains to swear
away my life!
| 58 ||
Next morning, about an hour by sun, I saw
four men ride up to my gate and call to me to
come to the gate. I recognized the face of one of
them the moment I saw him, as being a man I
had seen in Frankfort on Monday morning. I
was satisfied at once they were come to arrest me,
But I walked out to them with all the cheerful-
ness imaginable, and one of them asked me if my
name was Beauchamp. I said it was. He asked
me if had not lately been in Frankfort I told
him I had just returned from there the preceding
evening. They all paused. I saw they were em-
barrassed. I had my rifle in my hand, for I was
cleaning and loading it in my yard when they
rode up. At length one of the more frank and
sensible of the men (Mr. Jackson) said to me in a
feeling manner that I was suspected of the mur-
der of Col. Sharp, and as a gentleman I was called
upon and requested only to go to Frankfort and
acquit myself. I put on a face of great astonish-
ment to find myself suspected, but promptly
avowed my ready determination to go immedi-
ately to Frankfort, if there was anything said
there prejudicial to my reputation. I then re-
quested the gentlemen to alight, and I would
have my horse caught and go with them immedi-
ately. I then told them explicitly in the presence
of witnesses, before they alighted from their
horses, that I was there free and in my own yard,
and in a situation to defend myself; that if, as
they had said, I was only called upon as a gentle-
man to go forward and meet the charge, I would


| 59 |
most cheerfully do so; but that I was not, neither
would I or could I be taken, a prisoner; that
apprised by them that I was suspected, I should
at all events go immediately to Frankfort, but
not with them if they expected to consider me a
prisoner. They pledged their honor they had no
such calculation, and therefore they were invited
to the house. In my house there was a loaded
musket with a fixed bayonet, a shotgun, a rifle,
pistols and other arms, all in excellent order. If
I had chosen, with these and my servants and
family. I could have defended my house against
four men, or even twenty men, armed as these
men were, with only pistols. But I had resolved
before they came that if I was sent for I would
go cheerfully forward, unless I saw some of the
Sharps in the company of those who pursued me.
As, therefore, none of them were along, and these
men told me they only requested me as a gentle-
man to go forward, I told them to satisfy them of
my sincerity in saying I would freely do so.
I sent a servant into the house to bring out my
arms and deliver them to the gentlemen. Pres-
ently they asked for my dirk to examine its width.
This pleased me, because I knew it would not
answer the width of the wound. They also said
they had the measure of the assassin's shoe track,
which was found where he ran across the garden.
This very much pleased me, as I imagined at once
they had gotten upon some other persons track.
But how was I frightened, when on measuring my
shoe, it did not differ in length scarcely any from

[60 |
the measure the men had. They cried out in the
exulting hopes of their then made fortune, “ex-
actly, exactly, to a hairs breadth.” I saw however
it was not exactly the measure of my shoe, but still
it was nearer than I wished it. But as they said
the width and all the proportions of the heel
were preserved, I did not fear the track, but was
satisfied it would be in my favor. When I had
dressed in the clothes I wore when in Frankfort,
and got my horse, I asked them for my dirk, which
they had been examining. The one of them who
had it appeared rather disinclined to let me have
it, which inflamed me in a moment. I therefore
firmly bade him “give me my dirk, sir,” which
(seeing me in a passion at his hesitation) he quickly
done.
They had the handkerchief which had been
found at Scott's, with them, but did not say a word
about it to me, or let me know they had it. I was
anxious to hear whether that had attracted any
attention from the little stain of blood from my
nose on it, but I deemed it not prudent to make
any inquiry about it, but to listen first what had
been said about it.
Soon after we set off from my house we met
John W. Covington and his brother Isaac, who had
accompanied those who pursued me, but had not
approached the house, being men famous for their
cowardice, and having heard in the neighborhood
that I was armed with a stack of guns, pistols, etc.
Soon after they got in company with us, I was
asked for my dirk, for them also to look at it.

[61 ||
After they had kept it till we rode near a mile, I
asked them for it. When lo! they said they had
lost it. I believed it to be a falsehood at once, but
as I attributed it to their cowardice, fearing I would
kill all six of them, I contented myself, not doubt-
ing they would produce it when we got to
Frankfort. But henold, when I got to Frankfort,
I found they had thrown it away sure enough, and
they there accused me of throwing it away, and
they then had it put in the newspapers, that it was
a wide dirk, and recently ground to keen edges,
and might have made the mortal wound, whereas,
Providence so ordered it, that it should be found
to detect all this foul trick to murder me.
The dirk was now to be seen, and was exhibited
in court, and was quite a narrow bladed dirk, with
not the mark of grinding on it, but of quite dull
polished edges. And so much did the Covingtons
dread the exposure and comtempt, which the pro-
duction of this dirk would bring upon them, that
they went and bought it from the man who found
it, and would not let my father bring it to the
Court of Inquiry, but pledged their honor they
would bring it forward themselves to the Court of
Inauiry, and they did not do it. But the lashing
which my counsel, Pope, gave such conduct before
the Court of Inquiry, and the burst of indignation,
which the suppression of the dirk created, com-
pelled the Covingtons to give it up.
I have given it to Col. Beauchamp, and it will
remain a lasting monument to the unfair attempts
of which John W. Covington and Isaac Covington,
[62 |
together with those who arrested me, resorted to
in order to deprive me of my life. And if it had
not fortunately have been found, the world would
have heard it described on oath, on my trial, as it
was described in the public papers about the time
of my arrest, a wide dirk and recently ground to
keen edges.
I was not suffered to hear anything about the
handkerchief I had left at Scott's till I had gotten
quite away from my friends and out of my own
neighborhood and county. But who can conceive
of my consternation and horror when I heard
that it would be sworn that it had been found at
Col. Sharp's door, and that those who had come
for me were a poor set of devils who had been
lured on by a reward, and that the Legislature
had offered a reward of $3,000, the Trustees of
the town $1,000, and Dr. Sharp and other individ-
uals no one knows how much more
I now began to see the sad forebodings of
what I had to encounter. I therefore gathered
from the guard all the information the public had
in relation to the handkerchief, which was simply
that it had been found the morning after the
murder, at the very door where the murder was
committed. I asked the guard to let me see it.
They done so, and, behold a corner of it was cut
off and two holes cut in the body of it, as though
the assassin had held it over his dirk and stabbed
through it. I was now at a great loss to know
whether to confess the handkerchief was mine
and tell where I had left it, or not. I inquired for



[63 ]
Scott's character. I was told he would be believed
on oath. I then set my mind to reflect one whole
evening what was best to be done. I viewed it as
a scheme to revenge Col. Sharp's death, and I
knew, if none of my neighbors could recollect
the handkerchief, the reward offered would read-
ily bribe persons to swear to it as being mine.
The guard were a drunken, careless set of fellows
whom I could dupe or deceive in any way; but
whether it was best to make them drunk and
leave them, or take the handkerchief from them,
was a considerable question with me. But as I
could leave them after I had taken the handker-
chief, or even if I should fail to get it, I deter-
mined to try that experiment first. Accordingly,
at Bluster's, where we stayed all night the second
night, I took the handkerchief and burnt it. I
done it in this way:
I slept before supper. But two beds were in
the room, one assigned to me, and the other to the
guards who slept, while the others watched me.
That night we had some bounce, and I managed
by a few jokes upon the excellence of the bounce,
and handing around frcely, to make the guards all
feel very heavy and sleepy. After suppor I asked
them to 1et us look at the handkerchief. It was
produced, and after I had returned my fervent
thanks to heaven for the handkerchief having been
found at Col. Sharp's door, and observing to some
bystanders, that, that handkerchief would clear me,
by leading to the detection of the really guilty, the
guard put it away.
[64 |
I noticed who kept it; I took a very particular
fancy to him, and when he went to lie down, I
even condescended to invite him to my bed, as
three had to sleep together on the guards' bed.
He very gladly accepted the invitation, and when
he went to bed, he threw his coat, in the pocket of
which the handkerchief was, upon a chair at the
foot of the bed. Before I laid down I walked out
of the room, and as I came in passing near the
chair, I took it in my hand and carefully threw it
on the foot of the bed. I then went to bed but
complained of being chilly, and asked for my cloak
and a better fire to be made. I threw my cloak
over the bed, which quite covered up the coat. I
then took my handkerchief from the coat pocket,
and soon after got up, still complaining of being
chilly. This gave me frequent occasion to stir
the fire.
A young gentleman by the name of Anderson
(quite an intelligent, honorable, young gentleman
too, I have found him), was sitting leaning back
against one side of the mantlepiece, so that his
back was towards the fire. I set a stick of wood
up between him and the fire, and commenced
walking the floor and conversing with him on dif-
ferent subjects. Carrol, only, of the guards, was
sitting up with young Anderson at this time, and
I managed to get him so drunk that he was half
the time asleep in his chair. At length when he
had walked out, I stepped to the fire to put on this
stick of wood. I had my handkerchief in my
pantaloons pocket. I took up the stick of wood


| 65||
and seeing Anderson was not looking at me, I
threw the handkerchief into the large fire and threw
the stick on it. It was consumed in a moment
without Anderson having the least idea or sus-
picion of my having thrown anything whatever in
the fire, but the stick of wood, for a fine piece of
cotton goods as that was, will not be smelt burn-
ing, when thrown into a very hot fire. Next
morning we rode to Mumfordsville to breakfast.
There the people of the town crowded the room
to see me. The guard had not yet missed the
handkerchief. There were at the tavern to see me
two gentlemen of my acquaintance, Lawyer Mc-
Farrow, and Lawyer Wood. They were lament-
ing the misfortune which had befallen me, but I
took the earliest occasion to express the willingness
with which I was going forward. For I said the
assassin's handkerchief was found, which would, I
doubted not, under the divine direction, lead to the
detection of the guilty, and clear me.
They asked me where the handkerchief was,
I said the guard had it, and asked the guard to
let the gentlemen see it. Carrol, who had kept it
the over night, felt for it, and, behold it was
not in his pocket. He examined well, and said,
“It's gone '' For God's sake, I told him I hoped
not, and asked him to examine his pockets again.
He done so, and said it was certainly lost. I then
asked the others to feel in their pockets, for I said
I hoped they had forgotten who kept it the pre-
ceding night. They all felt their pockets, but
said none of them had it. They then began to
[66 |
look, one at the other, with a blank, foolish look
that was truly diverting, inasmuch that some in
the room actually broke right out into laughter at
them. But I put on a very solemn face of deep-
est concern, and began to beg them to let us all
go back immediately and make a thorough search
for the handkerchief. But they all refused and
said it was not worth while, I remonstrated
warmly that we should go back, and at length, on
their persisting in their refusal, I said I did not
believe they wanted it found. They then began
to hint their suspicions that I had taken it;
whereupon I broke out in a torrent of abuse
upon them, and said they had thrown away my
dirk because it did not suit the wound, and that
they had now suppressed the handkerchief be-
cause it was not mine and would clear me; so
that if they did not go back for the handkerchief.
I would go no farther unless the law compelled
me. But we finally agreed to send back and have
search made, and we proceeded on to Frankfort.
When I got to Frankfort I found the whole
country in a flame, and although prejudice was at
its zenith against me without a shadow of proof,
yet things were beginning to work exactly to my
wish and as I had planned. Amos Kendall, editor
of the Argus and oracle of the New Court faction,
had already begun to howl piteously over Sharp
as a martyr in his country's service and in the
cause of the people, as he called the cause he
advocated in politics. Scarcely was Sharp buried
ere Kendall sounded the alarm throughout the


| 67 |
State that it was politics which had caused the
murder, and charged it plainly upon Sharp's polit-
ical opponents about Frankfort. This caught the
vanity of Dr. Sharp and Mrs. Sharp, to whose
feelings it was much more grateful for the world
to say Col. Sharp, whom they worshipped, had
fallen a martyr in his country's cause, and that he
had been murdered for fear of his matchless abil-
ities, than to say he deserved his doom and fell
by the hands of private revenge for a base seduc-
tion and adultery, and falsehood and slander.
So for a time they united with the New Court
factionists, and then oh! what a piteous tune
they sung over Col. Sharp's grave. They eulogized
him above mortality and sung his praises as a
martyr, insomuch that one would have expected
posterity would see him noted foremost among the
saints in the calendar. Nothing offended the
Sharps or young Scotts so soon, as an insinuation
that I was the assassin, Nay, the Argus soon after
I got to Frankfort, came out with a tremendous
menace and threat, against any such as should
presume to insinuate that the motive imputed to
me, had been the cause of the holy martyr's
lamented death. This tune caught my fancy ex-
actly, and when things went on thus I began to
feel pretty safe. But soon their cuckoo note began
to change. The people, many of them would pre-
sume to insinuate, Col. Sharp was not as immacu-
late as his family would have the world believe.
The story of his baseness and dishonor towards
Miss Cook, had too long sunk him into infamy
[68 ||
while he lived, for his friends now at a word to
acquit him of the charge. And when the people
of Franklin county saw the husband of Miss Cook,
charged with Col. Sharp's murder, it rationally
brought to their minds the stories they had heard
in the last electioneering canvass, about the negro
child, and merely because there was a feeling in
the breast of every man, which told him I ought
to have killed Col. Sharp, the plain, candid, com-
mon sense people in the country, rather inclined
to think me guilty, although they had no sort of
proof to raise even such a suspicion, only looking
to the motive and the justification or cause which
I had to kill him. And then the anti relief presses
ridiculed the idea of Col. Sharp being a martyr so
severely, and hinted in such plain terms, that his
family were aiming to compromise his blood to
save his fame, that the Sharps themselves became
ashamed of their hypocritical pretensions to disbe-
lieve my guilt. Such had been their zeal to defend
me that Dr. Sharp utterly denied that he had said
“Beauchamp has done this,” so soon as he entered
the room where his brother was dying. But it
was proven upon them by their own statements, by
several of the most respectable gentlemen in
Frankfort.
While the Sharps and the New Court faction-
ists kept up the controversy, whether it was the
Old Court party or myself that had killed Col.
Sharp, I felt quite safe, for I knew I could get a
jury of factious, violent New Court men in Frank-
lin county who would gladly acquit me, in order


[69 |
the better to charge the murder on the Old Court
party. While, therefore, the excitement was kept
up against the Old Court party to the clearing of
me, I prided myself secretly on my foresight and
success in so planning the murder as to the time
as to raise this diversion in my favor, and had for
a time very little fear but that I should thereby
escape. And I should have done so but for a
turn in the current of the popular excitement
which was as unlooked for, as unprovided for by
me, as the burning of Moscow by Bonaparte.
This was the uniting of me and the Old Court
party together and making me their instrument.
This united the Sharps, the New Court party, the
Old Court party—in short, all parties and all
orders upon me, without a diversion in my favor
from any quarter.
This proved fatal to me, and this alone. I
had looked for, provided and foreseen everything
but this. This took me by surprise and com-
pletely and wholly disconcerted and ruined my
every prospect. All this was done by Amos Ken-
dall and the New Court leaders. Finding an irre-
sistible prepossession in the public mind to believe
me guilty, upon the bare circumstance of Sharp's
base conduct toward my wife, they feared omnip-
otent truth would shine out and they never could
make the world believe but what I killed him.
For neither the Sharps nor the leaders of the New
Court faction ever did really doubt for a moment
but that I was guilty. Therefore, they had locked
me and the Old Court party together, which, as I
[7o
was an Old Court man, took for a time very well,
and, in fact, convicted me.
This union of the Old Court party and me, the
New Court party effected by connecting me with
Patrick H. Darby who had edited an Old Court
party paper in Frankfort, called the Constitutional
Advocate. And this brings me to speak of Darby.
Poor Patrick | The world has heard so much of
the part this man had taken in this drama that,
perhaps, I ought to preface an account thereof
with some general idea of his real character. In
doing this I can only write: Fool' fool! fool!
He is generally called a man of some subtlety in
all the lower acts of baseness and meanness. But
in his perjury against me I have certainly found
him one of the greatest fools I ever met with in
the world to pretend to any experience in perju-
ries and subornations, as he may well do, if we
credit either his general character in Tennessee
or the certain information of gentlemen of the
greatest standing in that State. For I believe it
is well established that he was expelled from the
bar in Tennessee as being unworthy to associate
with the profession. -
But to return to the part he has acted in my
case. The morning after I was brought to Frank-
fort, I was told that one Patrick Darby, said he
had heard me threaten to kill Col. Sharp. I never
had heard of him in my whole life, except the
mere general rumor of his being expelled and
literally driven from Teunessee for crimes and
infamy. When, therefore, I heard that he was


| 71 ||
going to swear against me, I readily feared he
might have been bribed to do so by the rewards
offered. Indeed I had a hint of that sort from a
gentleman of the greatest respectability in the
State, the morning I got to Frankfort. But I was
couvinced Darby had never seen me, and was
therefore preparing a plan to have Darby intro-
duced to some other stranger for me, and so detect
that he knew nothing about me; but while I was
meditating this plan in my mind early one morn-
ing, pop! Darby intrudes his ugly phiz, right into
the room where John Rowan and I were shut up
in private conversation, about the tale he had fab-
ricated. I did not know what impolite intruder
this was, but presently I heard Rowan in conver-
sation with him call him Mr. Darby. At that
name, Darby, I quickly turned my eye on him and
asked Mr. Rowan if that was the gentleman of
whom we had been speaking. He said it was. I
was inflamed in a moment, that Darby had thus
defeated the plan I had been meditating. I imme-
diately arose, and abruptly asked Mr Darby, “Did
you ever see me before, sir?” I imagine Darby
thought I had thrown off my cloak to fall upon
him and beat him for his falsehood. He was so
confused and frightened, that he stood as mute as
a statue. I always like to look a villain in the eye,
but I could not get Darby to look at me. I placed
myself before him him and sternly bade: “Look
at me sir; did you ever see me before?”
He was nettled at my stern contemptuous
manner, and after some hesitation, he stammered

| 72 |
out he thought he had seen me at Brandenburg,
on the Ohio river. I asked him how he knew I
was the man, or how did he come to get into con-
versation with me, or get acquainted with me.
He said he was introduced to me as Lawyer
Beauchamp—Jeroboam Beauchamp, nephew to
Col. Beauchamp, the Senator from Washington.
“By whom,” said I, “were you introduced to
me sir?”
“By Lawyer William Allen,” said he, “of Mun-
fordsville.”
I then asked him at what time he saw me at
Brandenburg. He said it was at the sale of lots
there in May preceeding. I asked him what day
the sale of the lots was on. He named the day
and I jnst turned off in contempt, and said I could
prove I was that day attending court fifteen miles
from Brandenburg, and that I never had been there
in my life, neither did I know Lawyer Allen at all,
and thereupon I abruptly broke off the interview,
thinking I had him safe enough for the peniten-
tiary, if he should dare to swear to that story, for
it never once entered my fears that after a man
had in the presence of witnesses been so explicit,
in the locality and circumstances of an interview,
as Darby had been, even insomuch that he de-
scribed the log we stood on, that then he would
change the whole story, and say it was at another
place he had seen me. But wonderful indeed, and
passing strange to tell, the next news I had from
Darby was that he said he was wholly mistaken,
and that it had been at my own house he had seen


| 73 ]
me, and heard me make the threat. This sufficed
the Sharps and Amos Kendall, who bore Darby
personal ill will, and who were very anxious to
seize upon any pretext, to connect the Old Court
party and me together. And forthwith they began
to clamor about Darby confessing in confidence, he
had been at my house, and to ask what he had
been doing there. And thereupon they pinned me
and Darby fast together in the assassination.
This gratified the vanity of the Sharps by
still supporting the idea of Col. Sharp being a
martyr in his country's service, while at the same
time it gratified their vengeful feelings toward
me, whom they all the while knew was the real
murderer. This connection of Darby and myself
also well enough suited the New Court factionists,
to whom Darby was peculiarly odious, and so well
did this idea seem to take with the people of
Franklin county, who were mostly violent New
Court men, that all that Darby and myself could
ever do we could never pull ourselves apart. Poor
Darby became so frightened by clamor raised
after him about having been at my house, that he
then denied he had ever been there But it was
proven upon him that he had told one or two men
he had been there, which made the matter a hun-
dred times worse, aud in a great measure really
confirmed the suspicion that he had been there
and was concerned in the murder. But he now
utterly denied having been at my house, and got
so entangled in his contradictory stories as to
begin to be tired of his bargain, and would, I
[74]
doubt not, at one time have gladly given up the
reward, if he was to get any, if he could any way
have safely retracted. Indeed, he had been de-
tected in so many contradictions about where he
had seen me, first saying it was at Brandenburg,
and then at my house, and then at Nashville, that
he began to express doubts whether or not he was
altogether mistaken that I was the man that he
had heard threaten Col. Sharp's life, and to doubt
whether he had ever seen me at all or not. And
accordingly he told John U. Waring explicitly he
never had heard me threaten Col. Sharp's life at
at all, but had only heard from others that I had
threatened his life; and when it was demanded
of him to tell from whom he heard this, he said
he had heard Carroll, brother to the Governor of
Tennessee, say that he had heard me threaten to
kill Col. Sharp; whereas, when we sent for Car-
roll, he swore he never had in his whole life heard
there was such a human being as I in existence,
till he heard I was accused of Col. Sharp's mur-
der. - -
But the more Darby told to get clear of being
a witness against me, the more the New Court
faction and the Sharps clamored about our con-
nection. Darby, therefore, came before the Court
of Inquiry with the broad assertion, in contradic-
diction of everything he had said before, that it
was upon the Nashville road he met me, a perfect
stranger, and that I told him I meant to kill Col.
Sharp. For when he became so frightened as to
deny what he had said about being at my house,


[75]
he then laid the venue of his story on the Nash-
ville road. But unfortunitely for his story was
this location of it, as was that at Brandenburg,
for I had never been at Nashville in my life.
But now the question was how did I come to
bawl out to a perfect stranger, upon the highway,
that I intended to kill Col. Sharp, whose name I
would scarcely permit any one to mention in my
presence. This presented a difficulty, but Darby
said I wanted to employ him to bring suit against
Col. Sharp for some land, negroes, and money,
which he had promised my wife, in satisfaction
for the injuries he had done her. As though she
had deigned to accept an offer of pecuniary com-
pensation for an injury of that sort A thing that
no human being on earth, but Darby, will say they
ever heard a hint of or believe. He said that I
had wished him to bring the suit, and on being
told that I could not sustain it, I swore I would
come to Frankfort and shoot Col. Sharp down in
the streets. We asked him when this conversa-
tion took place. He said it was in the first days
of September, for he said he was at that time com-
ing from Nashville to Kentucky, and that as he
passed Mr. Duncan's house, another called to him
and told him there was a gentleman in the house
who wanted to see him, and that I came out of the
house, and as we walked down this way of the lane,
towards the well, we had this conversation. But
before the final trial he had seen Duncan, who
would swear, and did swear, that at the time Darby
passed there in September, 1824, he was confined

| 76 |
to his house by sickness; that he was very inti-
mately acquainted with me, that I was not there,
neither had I been there since my marriage.
Wherefore, Darby again altered his story, even
from what he had sworn, and said he had stopped
at the well, and that I rode up quite alone on a
small horse. But he said he did not find out my
name was Beauchamp, or what it was, or what
profession I was of, or to whom related. Neither
could he say positively I was the man he had heard
threaten Col. Sharp's life, but so it was, he heard
somebody threaten his life.
Soon after the Court of Inquiry, Darby went to
Duncan's well, and there found a notch cut in a
rail, which had the magic effect of bringing the
whole conversation to his memory. He took a
Lawyer Mills, six miles to see it, and stated im-
plicitly to Mills, he had a distinct recollection of
cutting that identical notch in the rail, in Septem-
ber, 1824, while in conversation with me. But
most unfortunately for him, Duncan swore that
rail was at that time, and long after, in a standing
tree. Besides his first story was, that I said in a
conversation about the election, that if Col. Sharp
was elected, he never would take his seat in the
Legislature. Whereas, he had now gone back to
a time nearly a year before Col. Sharp became a
candidate.
The morning after I got to Frankfort the pop-
ular excitement was at its highest rage in conse-
quence of the many falsehoods that were basely
circulated by those who were interested in the

| 77 |
reward for having arrested me. That evening I
was taken before Justices Waggoner and Clarke.
So soon as I had made the print of my shoe in
the dust, several were standing by, who cried :
“The very same; the very same, exactly. I saw
the track in Sharp's garden; I'll swear positively
that shoe made it.” But George M. Bibb, who is
a man of sterling honor and of the greatest firm-
ness, had measured the track in Sharp's garden
with great exactness. He had taken all its pro-
portions; its length, its breadth, the length and
breadth of the heel, and every part very accu-
rately with paper. As soon as he applied the
measure to my shoe, he pronounced unhesitat-
ingly my shoe could by no possibility have made
the track he measured in Col. Sharp's garden.
This track was still supposed by all to be the
track of the assassin, and for this reason: it was
the only fresh shoe track across the garden where
Mrs. Sharp had seen me run; for I, in my sock
feet, made no track which was noticed ; and the
idea once possessing the multitude that it was the
assassin's track, every one could see some reason
to confirm that belief. It seemed to them to have
advanced slowly and cautiously, making short
steps, and to have receded rapidly by springing
strides, and a thousand minute circumstances
concurred to prove that it was the assassin's
track, particularly after the idea got abroad that
my shoe exactly corresponded with the track,
which was put in the public newspapers. The
track was at this time the only shadow of a cir-

[78 )
cumstance whereby any one hoped to be able to
attach suspicion to any particular individual.
This had turned out manifestly to my advantage.
They were then at a perfect loss what to be at.
The handkerchief which Mr. Scott and the Sharps
had fabricated on me was gone No one had seen
it who could swear it was mine. Scott admitted
he had not seen me with such a one, for as they
knew it was mine they doubted not they would
be able to prove it by my neighbors who had seen
it, but said it was not such a one as they had ever
seen me with. The suppression of the handker-
chief, therefore, quite disconcerted all their deep
laid schemes. For no one could cast an insinua-
tion that I had made way with the handkerchief,
further than upon arbitrary suspicion; and it was
in itself unreasonable that I should have taken it
from the guard who had sat up and kept an eye
on me every moment all the way up. So that
they had not now the slightest pretence of proof
against me—not one single circumstance to raise
even the suspicion of guilt. And the prosecuting
attorney, Mr. Charles S. Bibb, was obliged to
admit before a crowded State House he had no
evidence against me. But it was suggested that
some evidence might be found in the Green River
country. I then arose and stated before the
assembly that I would be far from seeking to be
acquitted or to leave the place while it was sug-
gested that proof could be had anywhere against
me, and that I was quite willing to remain in
custody and allow full time for the friends of the

[79 |
deceased to collect any evidence they might deem
important, if any existed, and therefore the trial
before the magistrates was delayed ten or fifteen
days to see if any proof could be found against
111e.
In the meantime my neighborhood was ran-
sacked to and fro for days, and direct offers of
bribes were to two of my neighbors made, as hon-
est old people as God ever made, to induce them
to bear false testimony against me. Still, the
Sharps plead that if allowed sufficient time they
could procure some sort of testimony against me.
But the time expired, and no shadow of evidence
could be found or bought, or got in any way.
Still, the Sharps plead that if sufficient time was
allowed them some sort of testimony could be
procured against me, and hereupon the trial was
again delayed ten or fifteen days longer, pretend-
ing to search for, but really to bribe, some manner
of testimony whereupon to commit me to trial
before a jury.
But I should have observed that a few nights
after the first postponement of my trial, Mr. Geo.
M. Bibb came to see me, according to my request
in a letter of that day, which letter, as Mr. Bibb
I learn has had some illiberal imputations cast
upon his visit to me, I will insert [see Appendix].
When Mr. Bibb saw me, in compliance with this
letter, he told me that he did know of his own
knowledge that the handkerchief found at Col.
Sharp's door was dropped there after daylight, for
he said he had examined all the alley and every

| 80 |
inch about the steps of the door so soon as it was
light, and he would swear positively that it was
not there then, whereas it had been found long
after sunrise. So that it was absolutely demon-
strated that the handkerchief was fabricated and
thrown there after Bibb made the search. If I
had have known, I could have proven that before
I burned the handkerchief I would have confessed
that it was mine, and would have told the vile
trick that had been played on me. Indeed. I was
almost ready to divulge the whole matter to Bibb
even then, and tell him I had burnt the handker-
chief for fear they would succeed in their fabrica-
tion. But I finally concluded to let the matter
rest as it stood, as they could never prove the
handkerchief was mine.
In regard to the voice I was solicitous to have
Mrs. Sharp to hear it, while I spoke in company
with other strangers to her Not because I at-
tached any importance to the matter of the voice,
but to prevent the Sharp's from having the pre-
tence of Mrs. Sharp's recognizing my voice to harp
on. For although I spoke to Col. Sharp in a per-
fectly disguised voice to keep him from knowing
me, yet I well knew that if ever Mrs. Sharp should
hear my voice, and be apprised at the time that it
was mine she heard, she would exclaim in a mo-
ment, and forever swear, that mine was the voice
she heard, the night her husband was murdered.
And I very soon saw that they were aiming to give
her a pretext to say that mine was the voice of the
assassin. For I could constantly hear that she

[81 ||
said unhesitatingly, she absolutely would know
the voice of the assassin if she should hear it again.
After I heard this I redoubled my exertions to have
it so arranged some way that Mrs. Sharp should
hear my voice with that of other strangers to her.
For this purpose I not only wrote to Bibb, but I
made similar attempts in several ways. Among
the rest I applied to Mr. Joel Scott, notwith-
standing the unfavorable impression his conduct
had made on me. I pressed it upon him until he
gave me his pledge of honor as a gentleman, that
he would arrange some place, that Mrs. Sharp
could hear me speak in company with other per-
sons who were strangers to her. Still, I saw no
arrangements of that kind carried into effect. I
began plainly to see they were determined to avoid
it. I then came out publicly and demanded that
if Mrs. Sharp pretended that she knew anvithing
about the assassin's voice, and they wished any-
thing fair, or just, or honorable, they would let me
be carried into her hearing in company with other
strangers to her.
Nothing could arouse them to put on even the
appearance of a fair and honorable experiment of
the matter. On the contrary, this same Joel Scott,
who had pledged his honor to me as a gentleman,
he, himself, would so arrange the thing, that other
strangers should come with me, when Mrs. Sharp
should hear my voice, was the very man who
secretely brought Mrs Sharp to the jail, to hear me
converse with himself and the jailor, both her
intimate acquaintances, and without letting any

[82 |
one be with Mrs. Sharp, to attest whether she dis-
criminated my voice or not, but Dr. Sharp What
happened 2 Precisely what they intended should
happen. Mrs. Sharp memtioned in town that she
recognized my voice the moment she heard it, and
Dr. Sharp attested that she distinguished my voice,
from others, immediately I spoke.
Distinguished it from what other voices?. From
Mr. Scott's and the jailor's, both her intimate ac-
quaintances, either of whose voices she would
have known among ten thousand other voices; she
too knowing that no other person, but us three,
was to be present. Before the Court of Inquiry,
Mrs. Sharp swore my voice was the same she
heard call her husband to the door, the night he
was assassinated. She also swore I was precisely
the statue and figure of the man she saw in the
door with her husband; whereas, at the jail she had
only seen me wrapped in a cloak, and when ques-
tioned how she conuld recognize my statue in a
cloak, she swore the assassin had a cloak on;
whereas, she had to Geo. M. Bebb, and many
others, described the assassin, as being a tall, slim
man, dressed in dark clothes. How then if I had
been muffled in a cloak, could she have told any-
thing in the dark about my figure or my dress 2
By the time of the Court of Inquiry, the
Sharps had become heartily ashamed of their
vain attempts to create the belief that Col. Sharp
had died a martyr in his country's service, and
they had not yet struck on the scheme of making
me the instrument of the Old Court party, by

[83]
uniting me with some one else. Before the Court
of Inquiry, therefore, Mrs. Sharp, throughout her
whole testimony, spoke not one word in allusion
to her ever having thought of but one person
being engaged in the assassination. But before
the final trial they had connected me and Darby
together—ahal Mrs. Sharp had actually seen two
men, one with a cloak and the other without a
cloak; one exactly of my stature, and the other of
course must have been Mr. Darby's stature. Joel
Scott and her had also by this time coincided in a
long and pretty tale about the exact coincidence
between the account Scott said I gave of myself
at his house and that which Mrs. Sharp said the
assassin gave of himself to Col. Sharp. Scott
said I had told him I had been “bewildered and
belated over the river,” and that I had applied at
all the great taverns in the place and they were
so crowded I could not get in ; so I came to his
house. Mrs. Sharp said the assassin told Col.
Sharp he had been bewildered and belated over
the river, and that he said to Col Sharp he had
applied at all the great taverns in the place and
they were so crowded he could not get in ; “so I
came to your house.” In this way they went so
far as to make me almost tell Col. Sharp my
whole history, and who I was when I was about
to assassinate him. It is true I did directly let
Col. Sharp know who I was, but it was not by
any words, but by stripping my head and discov-
ering my face full to his view in the light, and I
stabbed him dead the same moment. This, too,

| 84 ||
was after Mrs. Sharp had fled from the scene; so
that she did not hear the exclamation he made on
seeing who I was. I told Mr Scott I had made it
later than I expected before I got to town, in con-
sequence of having stayed to breakfast with Capt.
Hobbs, with whom I had stayed the preceding
night, and who had married a relative of mine.
It was rumored, whether true or false I do not
know, that Mrs. Sharp said, that was precisely
what the assassin told Col. Sharp. However, she
did not swear this; and, to be candid, I believe it
was rumored merely in ridicule of the story about
the miraculous coincidence of the story I had told
Scott with that the assassin told Col. Sharp in
other respects. For all orders of society treated
Mrs. Sharp's testimony with less humane allow-
ance for her revengeful feelings toward me than
really I was always disposed to make. For I had
always thought it was no more than might be ex-
pected from a distressed female, to destroy the
whole effect of her testimony by manifesting a
desire to say all she could against the assassin
who had robbed her of her adored husband.
I have said the world never witnessed more
misrepresentation, flowing from prejudice or worse
motives, than were upon my trial. I had called
myself Covington before Col. Sharp opened the
door, in a disguised voice. I knew Gen. Elijah M.
Covington and John W. Covington, had been for
many years Col. Sharp's most intimate friends, and
the whole name and family of Covingtons were
warm friends to Col. Sharp. For this reason I

[85 |
called myself Covington, to lure Col. Sharp quickly
to the door. But I had planned, to say, so soon as I
got to Col. Sharp that my name was John A. Cov-
ington, knowing that he would readily know by
my voice, etc., I was nche of his intimate acquaint-
ancos of the Covingtons. So that by calling my-
self John A. Covington, Col. Sharp would imagine
it was some Covington he had forgotten about, or
was not so well acquainted with, and meantime I
could get hold of him and stab him. I also had a
farther view in this. By letting myself be heard
to call myself the Col.’s friend, John A. Covington,
it would readily be conjectured that the assassin
meant John W. Covington, and then my knowing
John W. Covington's name so well as I did, would
put a very forcible negative, upon the idea of my
being the assassin. All this I planned with a
deliberate premeditation, and when I was arrested
and told the assassin called himself John A. Cov-
ington, I said: “Are they certain he called himself
John A. Covington 2"
I was told he did. I then asked if there was
any John A. Covington about Frankfort. I was
told there was not, but it was supposed the assassin
meant John W. Covington. I then said that ought
to convince any candid man that I could not be
the assassin, seeing that I knew John W. Coving:
ton's name as well as I knew my own, and could
show it in a hundred places on my papers at home.
This had at first a most powerful effectin my favor,
and was a circumstance so stubborn in my favor,
that I doubt not it cost much to clear it away.

[86 ||
But this they at length did, and even turned it as
one of the strongest circumstances against me.
How can we conceive this possible? It was indu-
bitably established that I knew John W. Coving-
ton's name, as well and familiarly as any man
could know another's name. But they first proved
by one Isaac Covington, that he heard me the
evening I was arrested, call John W. Covington,
John A. Covington They also proved by a poor
devil by the name of Punch, that he heard me the
first night after I was arrested, speaking of John
W. Covington, call him John A. Covington; and
this that poor devil swore, although he was present,
and heard me when I told the guard the miscalling
of the name would clear me, seeing how well I
knew John W. Covington's name, and could show
it in a hundred places on my papers at home.
But still there was manifestly a contradiction
and a gross absurdity in their tale, even thus dis-
credited. For it was well established that I was
familiarly acquainted with John W. Covington's
name, which rendered their tale absurd and im-
probable. But Mrs. Sharp had sworn Col. Sharp
told the assassin, “I don't know John A. Coving-
ton; I know John W. Covington,” which involved
a contradiction of their story. For if, as they
contended, I had thought the name of John A.
Covington, Col. Sharp would have showed me my
mistake. They, therefore, proved by a man by
the name of William Bradburn, who swore he
had heard me say near a year before Col. Sharp's
murder, that although I well knew John W. Cov-
| 87 |
ington's name, yet I always mistook it and called
it John A. Covington.
They had found great difficulty and had been
at infinite pains to prove upon me the possession
of something where with I could have done the
murder. They at length succeeded herein, with
this same Bradburn, who swore that a few days
before I came to Frankfort he had even seen me
whetting a very large French dirk. This was not
a matter of any consequence; at least it cannot
now be a matter of any difference to me whether
the world say I killed Col. Sharp with a French
dirk or a butcher knife. But such is the truth,
and I must declare it to the world : William Brad-
burn did not see me whetting a French knife, or
any knife, within a few months much less a few
days before I came to Frankfort, For dying, I
must aver I had not had such a knife for several
months; and 10r Bradburn saying I had said I
always mistook John W. Covington's name, a
man might as well have said I did not know my
father's name. And there would have readily
been quite as much show of reasonablness or
probability that I should have mistaken my
father's name, as that I should have mistaken
John W. Covington's name. For there were not
two names in the whole world that I had as fre-
quent—nay, more frequent–occasion to write and
speak for the last eighteen months as the names
of Gen. Covington and John W. Covington, and
for this plain reason: Gen. Covington had been
ever since I was born the principal surveyor, and


[88 |
John W. Covington the acting surveyor under
him, for the whole section of country where I
lived. They, too, have the largest landed estates
in that country. For the last eighteen months I
had been engaged in making a connected plat of
all the lands in that section of country, to appro-
priate such as was vacant.
I had been frequently at that time, for two,
three, four, sometimes maybe five days at a time,
at Gen’1 Covington's, engaged constantly, in the
business of copying off his books, which were
given entirely up to me, in which books the name
of John W. Covington, recurred upon almost every
page. I had written and spoken his name many
thousand times, within the last eighteen months,
and oftener perhaps than any other single name in
the whole world, except the name of Gen’1 Cov-
ington. But I knew, that if when Col. Sharp came
to the door, and asked what Covington I was, I
had told him that I was John W. Covington, he
would have known it was not John W. Covington,
and would have seen in a moment I was an impos-
ter. But he would naturally have his curiosity
quickly awakened, to know what John A. Coving-
ton this was who called himself his friend. But
they turned this name, John A. Covington, against
me, and seeing they would bear down all my evi-
dence, I would not let my father produce the copies
of lands I had taken from Gen’ſ Covington's office,
and my maps, and surveys, and notes, and writings
in relation to my land-mongering affairs, which
my father found in my house just after my arrest,

[89 |
on which papers I counted the name of John W.
Covington in 171 different places, and that, too,
although many of my land papers were, after I
quit the land speculation, wasted and destroyed.
Bibb swore before the Court of Inquiry, and
so did John Harvie (a gentleman of great firmness
and of the highest character), that the handker-
chief absolutely was thrown at Col. Sharp's door
after daylight, for they both, as soon as it was
daylight, searched every foot of the alley and
about the door with the nicest scrutiny possible,
and were both enabled to swear positively that
the handkerchief was not there, where found by
Col. Taylor and Gen. South near breakfast time of
day.
This threw a dark shade of suspicion around
the Sharp family for having fabricated the hand-
kerchief altogether, But they supposed they
were fruitful enough of expedients to clear them-
selves of any such little suspicions as that. Miss
Arabella Scott, Dr. W. H. A. (P. Q. Z.) Scott and
little John Scott, therefore, swore that about the
dawn of day John Scott picked up the handker-
chief and took it to his brother Harrison Scott,
and that Harrison told him it was some old
negro's handkerchief; it was no account, and to
go and throw it precisely where he found it,
which he immediately done; and they swore that
while John had taken it to his brother Harrison
in the room, Bibb and Harvie made the search in
the alley and at the door. But this tale would
not do, for they swore John went immediately

[90
back and placed the handkerchief where he
found it, and that he did not have away from the
spot more than two or three minutes, and it was
just after daylight when it was thrown back
there; whereas, Bibb swore positively that he
went back and sauntered about the alley after
sunrise; that he examined all the door, the steps,
and even put his hand on the little shrub the
handkerchief was afterward found upon, and he
knew positively it was not there then. Bibb then
went to his breakfast, and after he was gone Col.
Taylor and Gen. South found the handkerchief
thrown upon the little shrubbery at the door.
This was near the common breakfast time of
day; so that the a-b-eb, i-b-ob story of the young
Scotts, as my counsel, Samuel Q. Richardson,
called it, very justly, was plainly proved to be a
fabrication. Indeed, they plainly detected them-
selves; for on the final trial they were examined
separately, and Dr. Scott stated that his brother
John brought him the handkerchief and he took
it in his hand and threw it down upon the floor,
saying nothing to John about putting it back.
But when John was called and examined apart
from his brother as to the minute circumstances,
he swore he took it to his brother, and his brother
took it in his hand, examined it and gave it back
into his hand, and told him to go and put it pre-
cisely where he found it, for it was no account; it
was some old negro's handkerchief.
Thus, after all their planning, we managed to
prove clearly to the full satisfaction of the audi-













| 91 ||
ence, that the handkerchief was dropped at Col.
Sharp's door after I left the town,
But the world had never a clearer demonstra-
tion of the power of prejudice and imagination,
and of how far they will bias the minds of the
best of men, except a few rare instances of great,
original firmness, independence and strength of
mind. Here the blood on this handkerchief was
the mere faded, old, dried blood which had been
on it and it in use for I think nearly two weeks;
yet many persons of very good intelligence swore
it was precisely of the character, color, age and
appearance in every way of the little stain of
blood on Col. Sharp's shirt. But the handkerchief
was not present to be inspected. It had only been
seen exhibited to the crowd for a little while after
it was found. Here there was a wide field for the
imagination of those who had seen it, to work upon,
and this furnished a rich harvest of contradictory
opinions, and varient statements. Many doubted
its being fresh blood at the first, while Bibb and
Harvey told the crowd firmly, the handkerchief
was not there at daylight, and before this tale of
young Scott's was introduced to clear up that diffi-
culty, the idea took very well that the handker-
chief was all a fabrication. But when they intro-
duced the story they did to explain away that cir-
cumstance, all could then see some way to explain
away the appearance of the blood, and reconcile it
with the idea of its being fresh blood. And it
really afforded me upon trial an amusing occasion
to sit silently by, and take a philosophical con-
[92 |
stains of blood on it, which looked like it had
sideration of human nature, and observe the wild
and varient speculations upon the subject of the
appearance of the chameleon-like handkerchief,
which existed then only in their memory and im-
aginations. It possessed all the colors of the rain-
bow, to listen to all their descriptions. Nay, some
swore it was a wide striped or checkered handker-
chief, while others swore it was a spotted one.
But all agreed now that the blood had been wiped
upon the handkerchief, by the drawing of a bloody
dagger through it. Only one man did I find who
had discrimination enough, to see the handkerchief
through the suspicions which surrounded it, as it
really was, and who had moral courage and firm-
ness enough, to state the real appearance it had to
his eyes. This was Judge Robt. Trimble, judge of
the United States Court for the District of Ken-
tucky. He told the jury plainly, in an impressive
common sense way, that it was an old dirty cross-
barred handkerchief, which had some remaining
probably been used some time before to wipe the
nose when bleeding.
This was the plain simple truth of the whole
matter, as it regards the far famed handkerchief,
for the blood had actually gotten upon it the way
Trimble supposed, and it had been worn several
days around my hand, which I had hurt in a fall
from a horse, at Wm. Gaines. It had also been
rubbed in my saddle-bags, all the way to Frank-
fort, having the clothes I committed the murder
in tied up in it. And the fabrication of the hand-










| 93 ||
kerchief was all planned, and betrayed weakness
in any point of view. For besides the vesting of
it with the old blood on it, they had cut the corner
off. What was this done for 2 To cast the insinu-
ation that I had cut the corner off because my
name was on it. This presupposed the absurd
idea that I had gone to the door with the premed-
itated design to throw it down right where I in-
tended to commit a murder, and if I threw it down
there I must have done it by premeditated design,
and refused to pick it up when I had a chance to
do so, for I lurked and prowled about the door as
Mrs. Sharp attested, till the house was crowded
with the people of the town. This much of the
handkerchief that was used to take my life with:
but before I quit the subject of it, I must do an
act of justice to a very honest man, who had fallen
under some censure for his testimony in relation
to it. This is Mr. Absalom Stratton. He is a
neighbor to my father, and was at my house when
I was arrested. He saw the guard have the hand-
kerchief, and said then he had never seen me
have such a one. This he continued to state and
my father had him summond to the Court of In-
quiry, to prove that he was a near neighbor of
mine, and had much intercourse with me, and had
never seen me with such a handkerchief. This he
came to Frankfort to swear, and would have sworn
it before the Court of Inquiry, but he was not called.
But before the final trial I imagine he had been
asked, if he had ever seen any of my family with
such a one. Here conscience checked him; he

[ 94 |
had to say that he had seen a little servant boy of
mine, bring such a one to his house twice, when
he came there for some articles my wife had bought
of Mrs. Stratton. He said he could not say it was
the same one, but that it was one of about the
same appearance. He told the truth, for I doubt
not, my boy did carry that same one to Stratton's
for the articles Stratton mentioned, or if it was
not the same one, it was one of precisely the same
stamp, for we had several which came off the same
piece. But Stratton's not stating this at first, and
being before the Court of Inquiry, my witness in
regard to the handkerchief, and finally being
against me in relation to the same one, induced
some to suppose he had been bribed, but he was
not.
His testimony was of a much more dangerous
character to me than was Bradburn's, and many
others whose testimony I have exposed. But God
forbid that I should confound the guilty with the
innocent, and abuse all because their evidence
made against me. Young Taylor gave a true
coloring to the application I made for lodging at
the Mansion House, and of the reason I did not
stay there. Sacra, Weiseger's barkeeper, stated
what I said to him very unfairly before the Court
of Inquiry. He said I asked so soon as I entered
the public room, for a private room, and that he
told me I could not have a private room, but could
have a room in company with one or two others,
but that I refused to stay unless I could get a
private room; whereas, the only reason I did not


| 95 ||
stay at Weiseger's Tavern, was that Sacra told me
at the first word, that he could not possibly take
my horse. I said there not one word about a room
in any way. Sacra denied telling me that my
horse could not be taken. He also swore that I
had my head tied up with a striped cotton hand-
kerchief; whereas, it was a spotted silk bandanna
handkerchief. -
I do not think however that Sacra was bribed,
I believe that in the first transport of prejudice
when he heard next day of my being accused, his
suspicions carried him along with the current
opinion, and like many weak minds, he was glad
to say some little things suspicious of what he had
seen in me. Certain it is that on the final trial,
instead of strengthening and giving a higher
coloring to his testimony, as most all the other
witnesses did, Sacra grew evidently weaker, and
softened down in his testimony, and hesitated
much, to assert things so positively as he did on
the first trial. -
The New Court faction attempted to strengthen
the suspicion of my connection with Darby, by
the testimony of the town watch, or some street-
walker, going in the character of a patrol. One
of them, Ace Carl, was one of those who was inter-
ested in the reward. He proved by the other two,
James Doney and E. M. Crane, that they met me
a little before the murder, going right to Darby's
office, but we examined them separately, and
thereby detected them. Crane was examined first,
he swore he met me, but he said he was some few
| 96 ||
steps before Downey, and said he passed me with-
out stopping me, but Carl and Downey stopped
me, and called to him to stop, and that they ques-
tioned me, and talked to me some time. Downev
said Crane was behind him and Carl, and when
they met me, that Downey passed me, but after
passing me a step or two, he stopped a moment
and turned his head to look after me, but that I
made no halt, nor even turned my head. But he
said he did not speak to me at all, neither did any
of the others, nor did any of the others but himself
make any halt. Nevertheless, he swore positively
I was the man; whereas, he would not that night
have known an ordinary acquaintance, wrapped as
he said I was in a cloak, and only having passed him
on the street, unless he had very closely observed
him full in the face. I was on that street that
night, but it was before 11 o'clock and I was with-
out a cloak. He said he met me after 1 o'clock,
wrapped in a cloak. But this testimony even
before it was detected by the separate examination
of the witnesses, was esteemed fabricated, because
all said no man would have known a stranger
again, merely having passed him on the street in
a cloak, so dark a night as that was.
But the most barefaced and completely detected
fabrication of any, was, a concerted attempt to
prove that I had attacked Col. Sharp's home nearly
a month before I killed him. For this purpose
they proved positively, by three witnesses, that in
October I put up at the Mansion House, in Frank-
fort, and Dr. Sharp and Mrs. Sharp swore that at
-










| 97 ||
that very time, some one attempted to lure Col.
Sharp to his door, late in the night, but on his
refusing to speak or tell who he was, Dr. Sharp
got a sword and drove him away from the house.
But this was not better placed than the fabrication
of the handkerchief, for when those who were to
swear to having seen me at the Mansion House,
made the statement, they said they found out my
name by seeing it written in the tavern register,
and knowing the register would be called for, they
had to resort to a sham, they tore out a leaf of the
register, so as to say the name had been written
on that leaf. But this artifice detected the whole
fabrication, for by tearing out the leaf they con-
fined themselves to a definite date. By their tes-
timony and the leaf missing from the register on
the 11th, 12th or 13th of October, for the register
was entire except for these days, and they could
not have torn out a leaf in the whole register,
which would have enabled me to detect their
mistake so clearly as the one they did tear out.
For on the Ioth of October I was at the Circuit
Court in Simpson county, seen by a crowded court
yard of my acquaintances, and there entered into
a written contract of that date, with Walter Elam,
attested by Lawyer Smith, which contract is still
in the hands of Mr. Smith. On the 13th of October
I was at a public horse run and seen by more than
one hundred of my acquaintances, and had a pro-
cess executed on me that day, which I proved by
the records. On the 15th of October I was at a
public sale, seen by fifty acquaintances, and a


| 98 ||
written contract then written of that date, and
attested by two witnesses, which contract is still
in being. Those three days proved the absolute
impossibility of my being in Frankfort between the
Ioth and 15th of October, for from my neighbor-
hood to Frankfort is four days good riding.
But I was also able to prove where I was on
every day in October. Nevertheless, three men
swore I was in Frankfort between the Ioth and
14th of October. I am reluctant to record these
men's names, because they are young gentlemen
of standing and many have dissuaded me from
mentioning this piece of evidence because these
young men have heretofore supported a fair char-
acter and certainly could not have been induced
to swear to a willful falsehood, for men of their
standing would never perjure themselves upon
the trial of a man for his life. At the request of
Col. Beauchamp I will not mention these young
men's names, hoping that whatever motive in-
duced them to testify so positively to that, about
which they were mistaken, they will, lamenting
my fate from such testimony, be more humane in
the future. But as to their high standing, I have
seen men upon my trial of as high standing as
they were, stand up unblushingly and swear posi-
tively to things which they knew well were false,
as they knew they were in existence.
An individual told me when I was first brought
to Frankfort that Joel Scott, I might be assured,
would not state aught but what he believed to be
true, although his great devotion to Col. Sharp

[99]
might so far prejudice him against me as to make
him see things in rather an unfavorable light for
me. I acquiesced that perhaps he might think as
he spoke, while at the same time I knew the trick
he had played in regard to the handkerchief I left
at his house. But his high character made me
doubt the propriety of denying his positive oath
when he swore he heard me leave my room about
the time of the murder. For I knew people would
believe he heard me go out some time that night,
and I feared it would make more against me to
deny it. Wherefore, I admitted I was out, but
contended Mr. Scott was mistaken in the time of
night he heard me go out, and in the length of
time I was out. He swore I went out between
I and 3 o'clock, and he lay awake nearly an hour
and did not hear me return ; yet he admitted he
heard no clock strike, hour cried, or anything else
whereby he could possibly know the hour. I
went out about 9 o'clock; I did not return till
near day. I crept out so softly in my socks that
he could not possibly have heard me; yet he
swore he heard me open my door and descend
the stairs in my shoes, and when half way down
he heard me cough and spit, whereby he knew me
by my voice from another young man who slept
up stairs. He also said he heard me unbolt the
front door, go out and pull it to after me. Scott
got entangled in difficulties and contradictions
which those who did not know the intrigues and
duplicity with which he acted, could not explain,
When he first went to Col. Sharp's and heard

| Iool
the whisper about Beauchamp, he at once sus-
pected I was the Beauchamp they suspected. He
intimated his suspicions and at once returned
home to see whether I might not have fled, as
some one on horseback was said to have been rid-
ing in full speed right from Col. Sharp's about
the time of the murder. The talk about me was
only a secret whisper at that time, confined to the
Sharps and Scotts who only suspected me, because
they felt that Col Sharp ought to die at my hands,
and he and the doctor had long feared I would
kill him. But they did not know I was in town
till Joel Scott went to Sharp's next morning; nor
did he then let it be publicly known that he sus-
pected who I was, or why he went to see if I was
in my room, only alleging that he done it because
he heard me stirring out of my room the over
night. When it was known Scott was going to
see if I was in my room, Mr. Benj. Taylor and
Col. Henry C. Payne, of Fayette, went with him,
but he would not let them go with him into my
room. I do suppose Scott and the Sharps did
suspect that if I were the Beauchamp they sus-
pected I was, I had really gotten my horse and
fled in the night. - -
Scott entered my room abruptly, and I think
started back in surprise to see me there. But my
being there and my pleasant tranquil air, when he
first entered the room, and my seeming astonish-
ment, and all my manner when told of the murder,
completely for the moment expelled his suspicions,
and he hurried down to tell Payne and Taylor so,
| IoI
without waiting to question me, and find out what
Beauchamp I was. Besides I suppose seeing I
was there, he did not like to rush right into my
room and tell me of the murder, and immediately
go to questioning me as to who I was, or abruptly
ask me if I had married Miss Cook. So he went
down and told Col. Payne and Mr. Taylor that I
was in my room, and there was nothing to attach
suspicion to me. And he requested them to go
back and let it be known, that I was in my room,
and to do away anything his suspicion might have
excited, for he said there was no suspicion could
attach to me But he presently returned himself,
to find out the great point of their secret suspicions,
that I was the man who had married Miss Cook.
When he first heard that, I never saw such a face
of horror in my life, as he put on. But what could
they do? They were secretely amongst themselves
satisfied that I was the assassin, but they had no
shadow of a circumstance which would justify them
to arrest me. All was yet therefore secrecy and
mystery, till they could fall upon some arrange-
ment, some plan, which might do to allege as a
ground work for their suspicions For they did
not like to arrest me, merely alleging that I had
married Miss Cook. For so much was Dr. Sharp
ashamed of his instantaneous suspicion of me,
that in less than an hour after the murder, he said
he did not know his brother had a personal enemy
in the world, although he had exclaimed that I
was the man as soon as he entered the room where
his brother was dying, although he did not at that

| Ioz ||
time know I was in the town or in the state. But
the handkerchief I left at Scott's soon furnished
them with a ground work for their suspicions.
And I do suppose that their suspicions so wrought
upon their imaginations, or their tears so blinded
their eyes, as to make them really suppose that
the stains on the handkerchief, were the stains of
Col. Sharp's blood, otherwise I think they would
certainly have put fresh blood on the handkerchief,
while they were cutting the corner off, and cutting
holes in it.
Scott, as is frequently the case with prejudiced
witnesses, greatly weakened the effect of his tes-
timony by trying to make it too strong. He
attempted to make a prejudiced effect against me
by his relation of my manner and of what I said
when told of Col. Sharp's death. He swore that
when told of the murder, I hung my head and
muttered some incoherent exclamation that it was
a truly horrid thing, or something to that effect,
but that I manifested no curiosity or surprise
about the matter. He made a great and studied
effort to give my manner and suspicious appear-
ance. But we then introduced Mr. Taylor and
Col. Payne, and proved that as soon as he went
down from my room he said there was nothing
suspicious in my appearance. He made a most
pitiful attempt to get over this by swearing he
told them. I looked like other men would under
similar circumstances, meaning thereby I looked
like other guilty men. But Mr. Taylor told him
with great firmness and plainness that he said ex-


[ Iog |
plicitly there was no suspicion could attach to me,
from the manner in which I received the news of
Col. Sharp's death, and that he saw nothing to
induce suspicion against the man. And Colonel
Payne said Mr. Scott removed his suspicions and
led him clearly to believe his own were removed,
and that there was no ambiguity whatever in his
language. Mr. Scott then, in violation of all
sense of propriety and the decent outward ap-
pearance of a disinterested witness, arose and
stated with much warmth, right before the jury,
that he did believe me guilty from my looks when
he first entered the room, and that he still did
believe me guilty and had never for a moment
been out of that belief. This was a contempt of
court and ought to have been punished as such ;
for a witness has no business to state his belief of
the guilt or innocence of a prisoner. Scott thus
stating his suspicions had never been removed,
after stating to Payne and Taylor that he saw
nothing amiss in my appearance, involved him in
a seeming contradiction. But here was the mys-
tery. He stated the truth that he saw nothing
suspicious in my appearance, and my manner had
for a moment baffled his prepossessions against
me, but still he had a secret suspicion that I was
the man who married Miss Cook, and if he could
have known that, his suspicions would have been
confirmed, as indeed they were when he returned
and ascertained that fact. But while I am com-
pelled to speak these truths against Mr. Scott, it
gives me great pleasure to speak in terms of elo-
quence of his amiable lady.
| Ioq
All who heard her testimony, were animated
with a lively admiration of her amiable candor
and justice; and the simple, truthful feeling and
humane manner, in which she gave her testimony,
formed a striking contrast to the designing, preju-
diced manner of her husband. I felt for the situ-
ation in which she was placed. But she stated
with a candor and a modest independence, which
done her sex honor, that owing to her husband's
suspicions, she examined my room, my bed, my
towel, my washbowl, my fire-place, and everything
about my room, and that she could see nothing
but what she could readily account for, without
supposing me guilty of the murder. She sent for
her husband after he left the house and remon-
strated against his suspicions. She said she was
unwilling he should set afloat any suspicions
against the stranger, who had lodged in their
house. She noticed his manner, his countenance,
his conversation. She saw nothing suspicious
about him, and was unwilling to believe he had
committed such a horrid deed.
I come now to notice the treachery and double
villainy of John F. Lowe, the man who was at my
house the night I got home from Frankfort. Lowe
was a neighbor of mine whom I had in many
instances befriended. He was a very ignorant
man, and had in some way been appointed a Con-
stable. His great ignorance led him to forever
haunt me to instruct him in all his official duties.
He was always much devoted to me, and had once
upon the trial of a warrant I was interested in,


| Ios I
swore a falsehood for me, out of mere friendship
Soon after I was arrested, I was much alarmed at
hearing that my sister had been walking where
she commanded a view of the road, and had seen
me approach my wife on my return from Frank-
fort, with a flying flag. This she had passed some
jest about, in the hearing of Lowe, which when I
heard of it gave me great uneasiness, not because
Lowe could testify to what my sister had told him,
but lest he should speak of it, and so get my sister
summoned to prove the fact. For I did not know
my sister had seen me with the hoisted flag, or I
would have at once enjoined upon her, never to
divulge it while she lived. My wife took great
pains to prevent Lowe from divulging this matter,
and he promised her most solemnly, nothing
should ever wring it from him while he lived, and
he was then sincere. I had Lowe summoned to
the Court of Inquiry to prove my tranquil unsus-
picious conduct the night I got home, and to prove
that the handkerchief, which those who arrested
me had, was such a one as he had never seen about
my house or with my family. Besides I wished to
prove by him the fact of my having wished to
hire him to come to Frankfort in my stead to get
some patents for my lands, but that the process
which was issued against me was the cause of my
leaving the neighborhood. All this Lowe could
have sworn to with a safe conscience. And at the
first I had no idea of getting him to swear any-
thing further. But soon the aspect of affairs began
to blacken around me. An immense reward hung
| 106 ||
over me, and a high hand of bribery was carried
on against me. The connection of Darby and me
together, united all parties against me, and this too
made Darby use every effort in his power against
me, in order to prove me guilty without him. For
all the world united upon Darby and me, some
saying one done it, and some that the other done
it, and many, that both done it. For our mutual
aim was to prove that the other was guilty alone,
and thereby clear himself. I at one time got the
better of Darby, and would sooner have wished
my chance than his. For I succeeded to make it
prevail pretty generally for a time that one or the
other was singly guilty, from the absurdity of the
thing, in itself, that if we had been accomplices, he
should have turned against me. This was the
point I wished to gain, for severed from him I had
nothing to fear. For although the heads of the
New Court faction were satisfied of my guilt, and
were equally satisfied of Darby's innocence, yet I
knew if the question were put, simply which of
the two was guilty, they would always cry Darby,
and so far excite their faction in the country to the
same leaning, that I could escape through a jury
of that faction. And in any event, I knew if the
question was generally between Darby's guilt and
mine, the New Court faction maintaining Darby's
guilt, and the Old Court party my guilt, the
Governor would side with his own New Court
faction, and would probably pardon me on the
score of disbelieving my guilt, so that the murder
must be cast upon the other party, and indeed,













| Ioy ||
while the question stood between Darby and me,
the Governor frequently and explicitly said he did
not believe me guilty. He said the same motives
which prompted the murder of Baker, in order to
charge it on his son, to disgrace the family, had
caused Sharp's death, meaning that Sharp had been
killed to put down the Governor's faction. (Baker
was the man whom Isaac B. Desha, the Governor's
son, murdered on the highway for money).
But the Old Court party rallied around Darby
so strongly that they soon put to the blush the
idea of anybody killing Sharp for fear of his influ-
ence in politics; and Darby finding himself seri-
ously getting into the narrows, had recourse to
his usual bribery and subornation to extricate
himself. All parties were obliged to admit Darby
had sworn falsely, from his prevarications and
contradictions. He was the only man in the
whole world who was found that said he had ever
heard me threaten Col. Sharp's life, and he too
never haying seen me before in his life. This
seemed to be unreasonable, and he found it neces-
sary to corroborate his own statement and prove
me guilty alone. He took out from the office
twelve blank subpoenas, without the knowledge
or consent of the prosecution, and started down
into my neighborhood for the sole purpose of
hunting up persons to swear against me. I trem-
bled for the issue of this trip, for I had been
warned by many gentlemen of the first standing
in Tennessee that with the rewards which hung
over me I had much to fear from Darby's subtlety
in all the arts of subornation,
| IoS ]
Darby went into my neighborhood and hunted
about among all the lower class of society, and
such as he could find fit subjects for his purpose.
He succeeded to bring this Lowe over to his pur-
pose, and laid with Lowe a very apt scheme to
ensnare ºne Lowe apprised Darby, I amagine,
that he had been bought over about what my
sister had told him about the flag. Darby sent
Lowe to my wife to tell her that Darby had been
to him and offered him a bribe to swear that he
had heard me threaten Col. Sharp's life. Accord-
ingly, Lowe came on, express to my wife, while
Darby was in the neighborhood, and told her
Darby had that day been to his house, or to where
he was cutting wood near his house, and had
offered him a bribe to swear he had heard me
threaten to kill Col. Sharp, and also to swear he
had heard me say in the same conversation that I
had spoken to Lawyer Darby to bring suit against
Col. Sharp. Lowe offered to go immediately be-
fore a magistrate and swear this, but he begged
my wife to keep the thing a secret till she could
write to me about it, and if I wanted him to swear
anything in the world against Darby more than
Darby did say to him, he would gladly swear it
for me. My wife readily believed every word
Lowe said, and did herself prefer to keep the
matter secret till she con1d write to me for some
plan whereby to turn the affair to our greatest
advantage. She gave me a minute detail of all
that did pass between Darby and Lowe, and
added her earnest recommendation that I ought













| Io9 |
to embrace the opportunity to prove by Lowe
whatever I chose against Darby.
It is needless to disguise that this occurrence
gave me great satisfaction. For I will not deny
the fact that I had secretly wished for some op-
portunity to ensnare Darby in his subornations.
I had now caught him fairly, as I thought, and I
resolved to make the most of the opportunity to
play off his own warfare against me. Darby was
swearing a falsehood against my life, and was
suborning others to do the same. At least I was
plainly told by gentlemen well acquainted with
him, both in Tennessee and this state, that he
would resort to subornation against me. In one
instance I had caught him in trying to bribe Lowe.
I do somewhat suspect, too, that it was Darby who
influenced a poor ignorant fellow, by the name of
Hays, to state that he had heard me threaten the
life of Col. Sharp. I say, I suspect Darby menaced
him, for I have no evidence of the fact, But this
is the reason of my suspicion. Hays never heard
me call Col. Sharp's name in his life, nor does it
seem he ever saw me but once. He was influenced
by somebody; and although the Sharps made
great exertions to get testimony, yet I do not think
they influenced Hays. Because, throughout the
whole prosecution, Dr. Sharp endeavored to main-
tain the position, that before the electioneering
canvass, previous to Col. Sharp's death, I had no
hostility towards him. And Hay's threat was of
an older date, so that if the Sharps had prevailed
with Hays, they would have made him lay the


[ IIo
threat after the election, or after Col. Sharp became
a candidate. But Hays' threat suited Darby, so
that as the Sharps and Darby were the only active
agents in procuring the witnesses, except some
little petty subornations about Frankfort, by some
of those interested in the reward. I have always
charged Hays' evidence to Darby's account. How-
ever, let him have been influenced by whom he
may, he was so extremely ignorant, and acted in
such a foolish manner, in the long winded story he
told, that he done me much more good than harm,
insomuch that he filled the whole audience, judge,
jury, counsel and accused, with laughter at his
tale, and we just let him speak on till he got tired,
and then let him pass without noticing him, so far
as even to cross examine him. But to return to
Lowe, All my hopes was to join with the New
Court party against Darby, but so to turn the evi-
dence as to make Darby guilty without me, while
therefore I rejoiced to have it in my power to prove
an attempt at subornation against Darby by Lowe,
I also gladly embraced the opportunity, to prove
Darby guilty of the murder, or at least to show by
Lowe's testimony, that Darby was the author of
most of the prejudices against me, and that he was
colleagued with the reward hunters, to palm the
murder on me in order to acquit himself.
I accordingly wrote out six sheets of paper
containing all that I wished Lowe to swear to,
I glossed over ingeniously the story Lowe had
told my wife in all its parts, and made it more
completely feasible than it was in Lowe's way of
| | | | |
telling it, although he told, I have no doubt all.
most strictly the truth. But I also added thereto
many facts for Lowe to swear to against Darby,
which did not take place between them, making
out in the whole a deep laid scheme to palm the
the murder on Darby. I had a very fortunate
opportunity to do this by means of a fabrication
in relation to the famous handkerchief I have be-
fore spoken of The handkerchief was burnt. It
could, therefore, never rise in judgment against
me. If, therefore, I could prove that Darby had
been seen with it since the murder, it would com-
pletely fix the murder on him. Lowe had seen
the handkerchief in the possession of those who
arrested me. I therefore prepared a statement for
Lowe, that Darby had showed him the very same
bloody handkerchief and another like it precisely,
and had agreed to give him a large sum to swear
he had gotten the last mentioned one from me,
and that I had another like it which he believed
to be the one found at Col. Sharp's door. Several
other facts were written out in plausible language
which Lowe was to swear to against Darby.
These sheets of paper I had conveyed secretly
to my wife, with directions to her on the envel-
ope that no human eye save her own was to see a
line of it. For although Lowe was much devoted
to me, and was a man who was ever sticking ten-
aciously to his honor, as he affected; yet I had
had opportunities to find him not to be a man of
inflexible integrity. And a man who has no
innate feelings of honor in his own bosom has



| 112 || -
seldom any firmness in his friendship; nor can
he be bound by any tie that can be depended on,
except self-interest; and as Darby was now com-
mitted he would make every exertion. For these
reasons I was extremely careful not to put myself
in Lowe's power. I wrote to him, but my letters
were of an honorable, frank and open character,
such as I cared not if the whole world saw them,
But still, they were well calculated to affect
Low's ignorant mind and dispose him to my in-
terest, to such purpose as I chose, which I con-
veyed to him by a secret method of writing known
only to ourselves.
I directed my wife most especially to impress
Lowe throughout with the belief of my inno-
cence and to let him into the light of nothing
whatever of ourselves, but only to instruct him
simply what he was to do. For I told her Lowe,
being now once tampered with, would have great
inducements offered to him to keep him in Dar-
by's interest. And so much afraid was I of Dar-
by's advantages, as Lowe should come to court,
that I directed my wife not even to let Lowe look
on my handwriting, but to read what I had writ-
ten, to him, and make him understand it well in
every part, and then to read it sentence by sen-
tence to him, and let him in his own handwriting
take it down as she read it,
But by the time my wife got this document
the time of my trial was at hand. And as she had
in her delicate state of health, ridden about and
exerted herself so much in her endeavors to save

| 113 ||
me, that she had become confined to her bed. She
was abed with a very high fever, worn out in body
and mind, and really almost bereft of her reason,
when Lowe came for this document, Her situation
would have moved the heart of a fiend. She was
unable to sit up in bed; surrounded only by her
faithful servants, and unable to come or be brought
to my trial, as I had at her ſervent prayer per-
mitted her to do, although in so delicate health.
When Lowe came in the evening her fever was
raging and owing to the violent attack of pain her
head was in, she was unable to attend the least to
reading the document to Lowe. But the time for
Lowe to start to Frankfort was at hand. I had
written to my wife that the document was of vital
consequence for Lowe to swear to, otherwise I
would not go into trial, but would wait to make
better preparations against the darkening storm
which was gathering around me. Lowe made the
most solemn protestations of devotion to her, and
prayed to be permitted to save me. At length my
wife permitted him to take the document and copy
it in her presence. He earnestly prayed of my
wife to be permitted to take the document home
with him, to read and copy all that night. It was
important he should spend every minute he could
upon the document, that he might the better un-
derstand his part. At length my wife permitted
him to take it with him, upon the most solemn
oath no human eye save his own should see it, and
that he would return it next morning. Lowe be-
trayed this document into the hands of my enemies.

[114 ||
And behold this was the great point of all Darby's
endeavor. For Lowe had all the time been acting
traitor for Darby, to ensnare me, and procure from
my wife, something that would operate to my
prejudice, and to Darby's advantage. It is true
the document procured by Lowe, contained no
disclosures, nor any admissions, of a single fact
against me, neither did it shed the least light upon
the subject of the murder. It was only a memo-
randum of instructions to my wife, that Lowe
when called, would state such and such facts,
many of which Lowe admitted were true, because
he knew they could be proven to be within his
knowledge.
But he utterly denied all he had told my wife,
or that he had ever seen Darby at all. He said my
wife voluntarily gave him the document, without
his promising to swear to it. But he joined to his
mistatement, calculated to clear Darby from the
suspicion of being my accomplice. For it did not
suffice Darby to prove me guilty, unless he proved
me guilty alone. For although he might never so
clearly prove me guilty, yet the New Court party
and the Sharps, did not acquit him any sooner
thereby, for they wisely kept a two fold aim at the
Old Court party. If I was innocent, said they, the
Old Court leaders are guilty. If I was guilty, oh!
then said they, I was the mere tool, instigated by
the Old Court leaders, and Darby was my accom-
plice. To me, therefore, gnilty alone, Lowe swore
that my wife had explicitly told him of my guilt,
during my prosecution. But it was not sufficient
| II5]
to say I was guilty. It was esteemed impossible I
could have found Col. Sharp's house, and have
ascertained his chamber, and selected the secret
door I did without an accomplice. Besides the
track, which all supposed to be the track of the
man Mrs. Sharp saw run across the garden was
evidently not my track. This therefore strength-
ened the suspicion, that if I was guilty, I had an
accomplice.
Those circumstances therefore were important
to Darby to be explained, so as to make me guilty
without an accomplice. For this purpose Lowe's
testimony was adduced to prove, my wife had told
him I had gotten a negro to accompany me, and
show me the house and the door. And that the
track Bibb and others measured, was mine, but
that I had on a different pair of shoes from those I
wore to Frankfort. Lowe also swore he had heard
me threaten Col. Sharp's life, about the time Darby
swore he had heard me threaten his life. That is
soon after my marriage. He swore, my wife about
the time boasted to him, that I would kill Col.
Sharp, to revenge the injury he had done her
family, and that the night before I got home from
Frankfort, she had intimated to him that, that was
what I came to Frankfort for, and that next night
he went to my house, for the express purpose of
knowing whether I done it or not, and that I told
him so plainly of it, that he became satisfied I had
killed him. For he said when he got there, my
sister said I had brought home a flag, and I said
yes, I had brought home a flag, a red flag, the sign
-


| 116 ||
of war and victory, and I had gained the victory.
That I intended to be a Christian, that things had
turned up with me, that I now knew there was a
God who would revenge me to them to whom it
was due. All this and many other things Lowe
went on to state, going as far as he could to swear,
I had plainly as I could, told him I had killed Col.
Sharp, not to say that I had told him so in direct
plain language. There were many other witnesses
summoned against me, to prove, each some im-
portant trifle, which I deem unworthy of the least
mention, the more especially as I have but a few
more hours which I can possibly devote to this
work. Possibly I may be called off in a few
minutes, by more important duties, and may be
unable to resume it ever again.
But I cannot but avail myself of one moment
to record to their honor the firmness with which
Richard Holloway and Jesse Lane withstood the
the tornado of prejudice which carried away all
around them while they remained unshaken, and
gave their evidence with impartiality and truth
and independence. I was most ably prosecuted
by the regular prosecuting attorney, Charles S.
Bibb, Daniel Mays, a hireling prosecutor, and the
Attorney-General, James W. Denny. Bibb spoke
in the spirit of his native honor, humanity and
fairness. Mays prosecuted very ably indeed, and
traced me out in all my subtle, studied precau-
tions for the commission of the murder, with
much accuracy, considering the entire want of
evidence as to the true circumstances of the trans-

| 117 |
action; but he weakened the effect of his effort
by his betraying a rancorous prejudice against
me, and a manifest want of fairness in his argu-
ment. Denny concluded the argument with abil-
ity, and spoke in a very fair and impartial manner,
which added much to the effect of his speech. I
was defended very ably by Thomas J. Lacy, Sam'1
Q Richardson and John Pope. Lacy was quite
young to speak in such a case; he made an able,
eloquent and fearless defence; it was an hercu-
lean effort and derived much advantage from real
feeling, as their had from our much and confiden-
tial intercourse grown up in his bosom a deep
inlerest in my fate, which moved him greatly to
sympathise with me. A parting tribute to thy
honorable, zealous and masterly exertions, Lacy
God speed thee in thy way to eminence and dis-
tinction, to which thy talents and thy merit entitle
thee! Richardson came into the defence at a
late stage of the case, but gave my former counsel
very good assistance. Pope made an eloquent and
able display, and it was one of the best defences I
ever heard. Indeed, I cannot conceive how the
case could have been argued with more ability
and judgment; nor could any man of any legal
discernment, who had heard his argument, with
candor say that the evidence was of such a char-
acter as the law contemplates of circumstantial
evidence to convict of murder.
So soon as Pope left the bar, Darby had the
great bravery to attempt to strike him with his
cane. I was in the bar when he made the attempt

| 118 |
to strike Pope in front of the door. I saw it, and
—Oh, Almighty God! what feelings overwhelmed
my understanding! I forgot my situation and
rushed out at Darby, the jailer holding one arm
and some of the guard the other. Darby was
seized away by the crowd and I was held as in a
vice and conducted off by the guard to await the
return of the jury with their verdict. But I de-
clare I do not believe for the half hour I was left
alone I thought five minutes about the verdict;
I thought only of fighting Darby. - -
The jury, after an hour's retirement, brought
in a verdict of guilty, which, although it was un-
looked for by many of my friends, yet it made no
change in my feelings, because I had habitually
calculated upon it and was at all times so far rec-
onciled to die, after I had killed Col. Sharp, that
death had no power to daunt me.
The court first set an unusually short time for
my execution. This much vexed me, because it
constrained me to rise, to ask the extension of the
time in order that I might be able to write a his-
tory of the circumstances which led to my death.
A longer time was readily granted by the court.
But now came a scene, which more than anything
I had yet with aroused my feelings. Such was the
spirit of fiendly revenge which existed towards my
wife, that at a venture it was determined to make
her an accessory to the murder. This was true.
For she was strictly guilty, and liable as an acces-
sory before the fact, but there was no sort of
evidence of that truth. However, just as they

| 119 |
suspected me as principal, and suborned testimony
to convict me, so they suspected her as accessory,
and procured testimony to prove that. For this
purpose, this same Lowe, swore my wife, had not
only explicitly confessed my guilt, but had con-
fessed she had herself devised the plan by which
Col. Sharp was assassinated. But this tale although
positively sworn to by Lowe, the justices utterly
disregarded, insomuch, that they would not even
commit her for trial on it. But she would not quit
my prison, nor has he since my conviction. She
proudly glories to die with her husband who dies
for her. One grave and one coffin will enclose us.
I must now close this very imperfect narrative. I
regret exceedingly I have not time to write out
explicitly all Col. Sharp's conduct, and that of his
wife and Dr. Sharp, which caused his death. Suf-
fice it to record, that Col. Sharp was guilty of the
most base dishonor and ingratitude, in the seduc-
tion of Miss Cook of which the villainy of man is
capable.
When he first set out in life the Cook and Payne
family, and connections, were wealthy and in great
influence. He was then in poverty and obscurity.
They patronized and supported him in his whole
career, till at length the scale was turned. Mis-
fortune had followed each other in a train, upon
the Cook family, until Col. Sharp had risen above
them in wealth and influence. He had prostrated
their pride, and seduced one whom he should have
protected as a sister. She had retired with her
broken hearted mother never again to mingle in

| 120
society. The anguish she had felt was soothed by
my love. But at a time before my marriage, when
father, brother and friends by a most strange suc-
cession of calamities, had been swept into the grave
and had left her without one soul on earth, save
her dear old mother, to whom she could look for
consolation and comfort, in her sorrow and im-
molation, then did Col. Sharp have the baseness to
insinuate that his own child was a negro child, and
that the unfortunate woman whom he knew he
seduced from the path of virtue, had been the
mother of a negro child. Nay, he actually forged
a certificate to prove that to be a fact. This how-
ever he only done to show to his wife to silence
her eternal clarh about the matter. For he never
intended, nor even would if he could have avoided
it, dared to let it be known that he had a certifi-
cate of that kind, for fear of his forging being de-
tected.
But at length Col. Sharp ventured, after sev-
eral years, to again aspire to regain his long lost
popularity, and while this dishonor of Miss
Cook's seduction was held in terror over him, his
wife could not avoid letting out the secret of this
certificate, for all this time she actually believed
Col. Sharp had obtained one. Nay, after his
death, she told several of the most respectable
citizens of Frankfort that she then had the certi-
ficate and had it in her hand after the Colonel's
death, and her brother, Dr. Scott, told the same.
But, lo! how they were confounded when Col.
Beauchamp went and got the midwife's affidavit
| 121 |
that no such certificate had been applied for or
given by her, and immediately both her and Dr.
Scott denied saying they ever had such a certific-
ate. But it was proven upon them to the satisfac-
tion of everybody. Still, Mrs. Sharp suffered her
name to be put to a publication written by some
New Court man, with a view to make an impres-
sion upon politics, and in that she acquitted Col.
Sharp of the charge of forging the certificate, and
then actually swore all contained in the said pub-
1ication was true. -
Dr. Sharp and Mrs. Sharp and old Mrs. Scott
may console themselves with the reflection that
their slanderous tongues had some slight tendency
to accelarate the death of one whom they all lit-
erally worshiped as a god; and although they
may, after my death, persist in their slanders, yet
it will not bring him whom it has taken from
them back. Dr. Sharp may spend his brother's
estate going, as his great friend Squire Lucas said
of him, “crying about the country like a fool, and
afraid of being killed himself,” in the endeavor to
give color to his base falsehoods; yet it will avail
him nothing.
I have now to bid adieu to this world. To-
night my beloved wife and myself will lie down
in each other's arms and sleep our long sleep I
have a thousand duties to my God and my friends
crowding upon me to-day. The evening draws to
a close, and I desire to abstract my mind from ex-
ternal engagements that I may enjoy with my
wife the luxury of contemplating our happy exit


[I22 ||
from this world, as the destined moment ap-
proaches when we shall launch together into an
happier scene
But I must stay a moment to do an act of justice
to my memory. After all the intrigues which had
been concerted to impute Col. Sharp's death to
political motives, had failed, from its intrinsic ab-
surdity, and I had been convicted, there was still
another effort made to establish that falsehood
upon the Old Court party through me. I had
reason to believe Gov. Desha, would probably
extend to me a pardon or respite, if I would confess,
and accuse several of his political opponents of
being my accomplices. I was wanted that Achilles
Sneed and John N. Waring would be brought in,
as having both been to my house and instigated
me. but mostly it was insisted upon, that Waring
should be accused. They wished me to say there
had been a combination among the leaders of the
Old Court party, to assassinate the Governor, and
several of the most prominent supporters of his
administration. I wold not do this for three reasons.
The Governor would not secure me his pardon by
writing, but wished me to go to the gallows, and
there to the last minute, solemnly maintain my
statements, and he would then pardon me. I
therefore suspected his design was to deceive
me, and I was determined not to risk dying on
the gallows. I knew such a wicked, foolish and
absurd fabrication would not be believed, and
would only at once be charged upon Gov. Desha,
and he would not then have the firmness to par-
| 123 |
don me. Besides, I could not reconcile to myself
to hazard the execration of mankind for so false
and cruel an accusation against men who had
never injured me and of those they wished to
accuse, and then probably die with the contempt
of the world, like a cowardly wretch, on a gibbet.
I however agreed to do thus far, and accord-
ingly done it. I accused Mr. Darby, who had
sworn a falsehood upon me, and promised as soon
as I was pardoned to accuse anybody named,
alleging to have, before my pardon, divulged it to
several, but was afraid of enraging the Old Court
party by coming out fully. They, therefore,
stated on my publication, which I prepared
against Darby, that was not a full disclosure, but
that the limited time set for my execution and
other reasons prevented me from publishing a
full account of the murder at that time. But
even what I wrote against Darby, insignificant as
he was, was charged to be the price of my pardon,
and Desha soon began to speak in ambiguous and
equivocal language to my friends. I began sev-
eral days ago to be thoroughly convinced the
Governor meant to deceive me
Darby, however, last week came to talk with
me. I had already written a full explanation of
Darby and had it lying by me on my table. But
I concluded I would torment the perjured wretch
a little longer, and I therefore strenuously accused
him to his face before the whole audience, and so
confounded and confused him by my solemn
accusations and the severe terms of reproach


| 124 |
which I cast upon him, that all his friends were
greatly disconcerted by the interview. And he
went on with the fullest conviction that I would
die solemnly avowing he was with me in the
assassination. But I have now to close my ac-
counts with an all-seeing God, and truth bids me
tell the world Mr. Darby had nothing to do with
Col. Sharp's murder But that he was certainly
guilty of wilful perjury, for he never saw my face
in his life till I was a prisoner after the murder.
Col. Beauchamp has been censured for acting
in the intrigues with me to accuse Darby, but I
most solemnly aver he ever, both publicly and
privately, admonished me to tell nothing on any
man but what was true. He has the character of
deep intrigue, but in my case he has ever dis-
suaded me from any sort of intrigue, and per-
suaded me to act openly and to avoid even the
suspicion of intrigue. -
As to my dear old father; to those whom he is
known it is needless to say anything to preclude
any suspicion of his conniving with me at any
thing false or criminal; for I believe the tongue
of malice and slander has never, throughout all
my misfortunes, imputed to him anything in the
least dishonorable or reprehensible. He, I am
satisfied, was amongst the last men in the world
to believe me guilty, and there was not one single
man in the whole world whom I took so much
pains to persuade of my innocence as my father.
And after my conviction, so far from being at all
instrumental in the intrigue and get me to con-

| 125 ||
fess and accuse Darby, he would never have one
word to say to me on the subject after he heard I
had insinuated my own guilt. Not that his affec-
tion for me abated or his kindness diminished.
Far from it. He felt that I was justifiable, and
he could only pity and console me. The outrage
and dishonor which I had revenged was that
which, above all others, he had ever admonished
me to eschew as the vilest act of which human
nature was capable. For if I have found one man
upon the earth entitled to the name of an honest
and honorable man, my father is that man. I
have marked him in all the variegated scenes of
prosperity and adversity, and have seen his soul
thoroughly tried, and justice bids me publish,
when dying, this testimony of his inexorable
honor and integrity. And, great Almighty God!
has he deserved this fate in his son’s—his favorite
son–by the pious manner in which he has raised
me up ! But thy ways are inscrutable, O God!
to the blind understanding of men. And the
conviction of the feelings of honor which have
caused my death will, I hope and doubt not, in a
measure console him for my early loss. Into thy
hands, then, I commit him, thou God of Justice
who will mete out to him the measure thy wis-
dom seems meet to allot him in this world, and
finally unite him to me in an happy eternity,
where I may meet him, my beloved mother and
brothers and sisters, is my humble prayer,
For the Redeemer’s sake.
JERE BOAM. O. BEAUCHAMP.

| 126 |
POSTSCRIPT.
I have now arranged all my papers and closed
everything preparatory to quit this scene of ac-
tion. My beloved WIFE, for whom—Oh! how
does my soul now melt in affection —is preparing
to lie down with me to sleep, and wake no more
Our spirits will, in a few moments, leave these
bodies and wing their way to the unknown abode
which our God may assign them
We have a vial of laudanum which my wife,
with as much composure as she ever shared with
me a glass of wine, is carefully dividing into
equal proportions, one for each of us. I mark her
serene aspect' I should be lost in amazement
and astonishment at her strength of mind, which
can enable her so composedly to meet death, did
I not find in my own feelings that resignation—
may, joy, which makes death, so far from being
the “Aºng of Zerrors,” become the “Prince of
Aegae /?”
It has been maintained by some that no one
ever commits suicide. when in the possession of
his proper reason. Of other, I cannot speak But
certain it is, I never prepared to take an article of
medicine, with more deliberation and cool reflec-
tion, than I now prepare to take a fatal portion of
laudanum. I do it with the clearest dictates of my
judgment, after months of prayer to the Author of
my being, to permit me to do it, to inspire my
mind with a conviction of whether he will permit
me to do it, without offending him or not, and to
| 127 |
pardon and forgive me, If I do it against his will.
We have kneeled to the Omnipotent and Omnicient
and the Creator, and mover of all minds, so to
direct, inspire, and influence our minds, that in all
things we may discern, what it is his will we
should do, and we would endeavor to do it. And
we pray to Him with humility and sincerity, that
if in anything we do which is contrary to his will,
he would pardon his weak and erring creatures.
Are not all things possible to God? Our reason is
greatly fallible indeed. How short does it fall of
comprehending God’s attributes and perfections.
He has made us weak and erring creatures. But
He is surely able to forgive all our weakness and
errors. Although he is a God of Justice, whose
laws he will execute, yet has he not in his infinite
mercy and goodness, provided a way, whereby all
the transgressions of his creatures may be forgiven,
and yet his law remain perfect? It may be said
then this to me is a transgression, and a sin, with
my eyes open to its criminality. So are all the
sins of men or they would not be sins at all. For
can I believe that the countless thousands of
human souls who have in the ages of darkness,
and in the countries of superstition, fallen deluded
victims to their zeal, in the service of beings which
they believed to be the true Gods, are now for their
ignorance in eternal misery. Forbid it Almighty
God I should for one moment bear such a horrid
thought. It will be said the whole human family
are by nature under condemnation. For that very
reason, there was made an expiation for their


| 128 |
transgressions, where with they do actually trans-
gress, but not less for them who have not known
good from evil, and have consequently never
transgressed a law they knew not of. For are
infants dying from the mother's breast, condemned
to everlasting misery 2 Oh! man, do not the mercy
of thy God, so much injustice. For His mercy
has provided an expiation for them, whereby his
law can be made whole, and yet they be saved. In
like manner the sins of those who knowingly
transgress may and will be expiated and pardoned,
provided they ask God in an acceptable manner,
that is, with humility and sincerity of heart, to
pardon and forgive them through the merits of the
Redeemer. In suicide it may be said there is no
time left for prayer and contrition of heart. Not
so with us. We will pray while we lift the fatal
cup to our lips. We will not cease to pray, we
will die with our lips still quivering with fervent
heartfelt prayer to an Almighty, and a loving and
merciful God, to take us to himself, and to forgive
us all our sins for his crucified Son’s sake. We
will die calling on the name of that Jesus, whom
we have both once in our lives reviled, to intercede
with the Father for his sake to pardon us, although
the chief of sinners. And does God measure the
length of prayer 2 Oh! how my soul leaps out to
my blessed Jesus, when I read his reply to the
thief on the cross. “I believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, help thou my unbelief,” and forgive my
multiplied transgressions. We will now trust to
that God who is infinitely merciful, to forgive that
| 129 |
sin, which even in praying we commit. I lay
down my pen to pray, and praying fake the fatal
poison. My wife and myself have now drank the
poison which will shortly launch us into eternity.
We can neither of us refrain from singing with joy,
so happy are our anticipations, for the scenes, we
will ere morning's sun awake. Great God! for-
give and help us, and take us to thyself for the sake
of thy blessed Son. Amen. Amen.
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
POSTSCRIPT.
THURSDAY NIGHT, Io o'cLock.
JULY 6, 1826.
After we had taken the laudanum last night
* about 12 o'clock, we remained on our knees some
hours at prayer, and then laid down and placed
our bodies in the fond embrace in which we wished
them interred. My wife laid her head on my right
arm, with which I encircled her body, and tied my
right hand to her left hand on her bosom. We
also as we laid side by side, confined our bodies
together with a handkerchief, to prevent the
struggles of death from severing us. Thus we lay
in prayer for hours in the momentary expectation
of dropping to sleep to awake in eternity. Some
little after daylight I received a hope and a confi-
dence, that my sins were forgiven, and in the joy
of my soul I shouted aloud and awakened all within
my reach, and told them what the blessed Re-
deemer had done for me.









| 130
I have ever since longed and prayed how soon
it would please God to take me to himself. But
strange to man, near twenty-four hours have
elapsed, without the laudanum having had any
effect. My wife puking this evening about 2
o'clock, and soon after took a smaller portion of
laudanum. We took each originally the half of a
vial full, which was about two inches long and as
large as a common sized man's thumb My wife
is now asleep, I hope to wake no more in this
world. I have no more laudanum to take, and
shall await the disposition which the Lord chooses
to make of my body, content that if I cannot die
with my wife, I shall ere this time tomorrow, be
in the realms of eternal felicity.
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
FRIDAY MORNING, 7 O'CLOCK.
Between 12 and 2 o'clock I am, by sentence of
the law, to be executed. I did hope, even till late
last night, that ere now the laudanum we had
taken the night before would have ended our cal-
amities, but it has had no effect on me, and my
wife has again despaired of its killing her, not-
withstanding she repeated the dose. She is so
fearful of being left alive, with no means to take
her life and no one to consolate and strengthen
her after my death, that I have at her affectionate
prayer consented to join with her and each of us
stab ourselves | I have all this morning, since
midnight, tried to prevail with her to await the
will of heaven, without making any further at-
| 131 ||
tempts upon herself, but it is all fruitless. She
says I shall never be buried till she is also dead,
even if she is to starve herself to death. And she
so fears the miseries which the misguided sym-
pathies of her friends may bring upon her after
my death by attempting to thwart her purpose,
that she has melted my heart to acquiescence in
her will. For I had last night resolved to make
no more attempts upon myself.
But, oh! I pity her so much I can refuse her
nothing she prays of me to do. I commit myself
for forgiveness upon the mercy of an All-Merciful
God, who has forgiven all the sins of my life, and
will, I hope, forgive this last wicked act that car-
ries me to eternity.
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
DIRECTIONS FOR OUR BURIAL.
We do not wish our faces uncovered after we
are shrouded, particularly after we are removed to
Bloomfield. We wish to be placed with my wife's
head on my right arm, and that confined around
her bosom.
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
As some insinuations have been cast upon
John McIntosh for a supposed agency in the in:
trigue, to get me to accuse the Old Court party, I
deem it due to him to contradict any such notion.
On the contrary, he, ever from the day of my








| 132 ||
conviction, told me frankly nothing would avail
me toward getting a pardon, and therefore he
advised me I had no motive but to tell the truth,
which I do, let it bear hardly upon whom it
might. And generally, justice bids me say this
of John McIntosh; and although he was rigidly
faithful to the commonwealth, yet he was ever
honorable, magnanimous and humane to me and
to my wife, especially during the time she im-
mured herself with me in my dungeon.
|The following scrawl was written a few mo-
ments before he was taken out to be executed,
and while his wife was in the agonies of death]:
Your husband is dying happy For you I
lived, for you I die! I hear you groan I hope
you may yet be recovered If you are, live till it
is God’s will to take you, and prepare to meet me
in a better world.
Your dying husband,
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
My beloved ANNA.

| 133 ]
LINES
WRITTEN BY J. O. BEAUCHAMP WHILE IN JAIL UPON BEING
AROUSED FROM SLEEP BY A VISION OF HIS
wife’s spreiſt.
Daughter of grief thy spirit moves
In every whistling wind that roves
Across my prison grates:–
It bids my soul majestic bear
And with its sister spirit soar
Aloft to heaven's gates.
In visions bright it hovers round,
And whispers the delightful sound,
Peace to thy troubled mind.
What though unfeeling worlds unite
To vent on you their venomed spite,
Thy Anna's heart is kind.
And oft when visions thus arouse,
The husband’s fondest hopes, he vows,
'Tis no delusive dream
And springing from his bed of grief
He finds a moments sweet relief,
Then round him honors gleam.
But still when calm reflection reigns,
My soul its sweet repose regains,
In this triumphant thought;
That in thy love, tho' absent far.
My soul has laid in store for her,
Of bliss, its sweetest draught.
Then rave ye hungry storms of fate,
Spit on your vilest blasts of hate
Ye perjured reptile worms
Disdaining ought to yield– my soul,
Soul shell gladly fly this earthly goal,
Safe to my Anna’s arms.

| 134 |
For oh! the thought, triumphant, proved
The soul within itself can shroud
The purpose of the brave;
Secure of her, the dear one’s love
For whom he dies and mounts above
Misfortune's highest wave.
He cries—prisons for clayſ the etherial soul
Triumphant soars' disdains control,
And mocks a perjured world !
The shaft’s too late He soars too high,
He rides in triumph through the sky,
Not caring whence ’twas hurled.
Not even a gloom, a sigh
Be read in thy angelic eye;
Be firm as him you love!
For wherefore pine to meet this spell?
Has not God ordered all things well ?
We’ll meet in Heaven above.
And oh! the triumph of that day,
We're worth ten thousand forms of clay,
To die is but to reign.
Then cease thy troubled soul from grief,
Be this thy soul's sure sweet relief,
(What more ?) Our aim we gain.
(This was written before my conviction and while my wife
was absent from me.—J. O. BEAUCHAMP.)
-
\
VERSES
ADDRESSED BY MRS. ANN BEAUCHAMP TO HER HUSBAND, J. O.
BEAUCHAMP, A FEW DAYS BLFORE THEIR DEATH.
Spirit divine! thou more than mortal man,
With thee to die and in thy fond embrace,
Fulfill the wise, the universal plan
Ordained by fate for all the human race,
| 135 |
To soar with thee to that unknown abode,
To which my father's spirit early fled,
Where earth-born cares can never more corrode
The sweet repose of the illustrious dead.
To meet my sister's spirit and my brothers brave,
Who left me early to the storms of fate,
And paved the way and strewed with flowers my grave,
Oh! these are joys which earth cannot create.
There shall my father’s spirit grasp my hand,
And call thee son, and bless thee as his child,
While round assembled all the kindred band,
As once on earth, while Heaven and fortune smiled.
The brave shall bless thee for thy righteous deeds,
But chief for that which man's unrighteous laws,
Account a crime ! But pine not, though thou needs
Must die, thou diest in honors cause.
Thy spirit feels its worth : a villain's heart
Thy dagger pierced ; he perished by thy hand.
Accused by Heaven, he felt the bitter smart
Assigned to guilt by Heaven's high command.
On earth he trembling lived in guilt and fear
Of thy avenging hand, and when at length,
To his appalled soul thy form appears,
A glimpse disarms him of an infant's strength.
His coward heart did faint, ere yet thy hand
Had pointed to his breast the poisoned steel.
On tiptoe standing, then I see thee stand,
Then bursts thy wrath, as bursts Jove's vengeful peal.
And perished by the stroke the vilest heart,
That ever human blood did animate.
And having finished well thy noble part,
Content we’ll meet the mystic will of fate.


| 136 |
VERSES
ADDRESSED BY MIRS ANN BEAUCHAMP A FEw Houſ as BEFoEE
THEIR DEATII.
Ilord of my bosom's love, to thee,
To thee do I pour this parting tribute of my breath;
Thy worth, thy love and thy honor shall be
My soul's sweet theme 'till I am cold in death.
Hard is thy fate and dark the ways
Of Him, whose will decrees thy bright career
Should end in cruel death ere half thy days
Were numbered; losing all life's prospects dear.
Thy soul was brave: at honor’s call
Thy life blood flowed free as the air of Heaven.
Thy stern decree, a coward fiend should fall,
His heart was pierced as with a peal of thunder riven.
Stern was thy purpose; fate obeyed
Thy righteous will, and to thy hand resigned
The wretch ; prostrate and gasping as he laid,
The approving voiee of Heaven calmed thy mind.
But dire arose in wrath a venal band,
And raised the war cry—up start the hireling clan,
And marshalled all the force of all the land,
Against one lone, oppressed, unfriended man.
Unmoved he met the direst spite of hell,
And mocked their perjury; and scorned to yield
Aught of his tranquil air; and happier fell,
Than ever hero did on glory's field.
And wedded to his side my form shall lie
Encircled by his arms; for naught but fate
Could move my stubborn purpose, free, to die
With all my soul calls dear, or good, or great.
| 137
LINES
ADDRESSED TO MRS, FRANCES R. HAWKINS BY MRS. BEAUCHAMP,
IN JAIL, THE DAY BEFORE THE DEATH OF HER
AND HER ELUSBAND.
Thou soul of sympathetic mould
How do thy virtues charm my mind
More precious than the purest gold
Thy heart, so feeling and so kind
-
'Tis not thy wines nor dainties rare,
Thy lemonades nor choicest fruits,
Thy richest cakes nor roses fair.
Which so my woe-tied soul recruits
No! 'Tis not these; it is the tear
Of virture shed for virtue wronged,
Which lights the dying heart of care
With poisoned darts of malice thronged.
And, oh! the solace to the heart
Of woman dying for her lord,
Who dies beneath the cruel smart
Of perjured hatred's poisoned sword.
To feel the angelic pity’s touch
Of sister woman's kindly hand,
Whose independent soul is such
As basest malice to withstand.
This soothes the dying hour of one
Whose lot has been the sport of fate,
Whose ills on earth this day are done,
To heaven's high behest await.
That you may enjoy the heavenly boon,
To thy pure worth so justly due,
Is prayed by one whose life's bright noon
Is darkened quick by night's dark hue.



| 138].
For since it is the will of fate
My all on earth should die for me,
I glory that our blessed estate
One coffin and one grave shall be.
This night, by God's all ruling will,
We close our eyes to wake no more ;
But hope our vital spirits still
Will happy live and God adore
THE DEATH SCENE.
BY J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
A death scene rushes o'er my sight!
My heated brain recalls it back ;
A horrid vision of the night!
I oft retrace my bloody track.
I see appear the hated form
Whose coward heart I doomed to bleed
Quick flashes o'er my mind the storm
Which drives me to the bloody deed
I grasped him with an iron hand
Appalled, he struggles in amaze
But when unmasked he sees me stand,
He sees his death torch instant blaze
Fainting, he kneels for life in vain;
He knew not pity’s softest glow;
He could the heart of Virtue gain
And break it with dishonor's blow !
I pause—but short as lighting's gleam
The flash of pity through my soul;
For quick the burning, vengeful stream
Pervades my heart with due control.
Then hurling 'round in sportive breath,
I dash his coward, trembling form,
And plunged the poisoned shaft of death,
Which calmed my heart's black, vengeful storm
For raising high the deep dyed steel,


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With fiendly laugh I mock his groan,
And bid him, writhing, dying, feel
The retribute of Virtue's moan
Then ceased the raging fire to burn,
Which passing time had only fanned,
And to my grateful wife returned
In triumph in her just command.
Well satisfied, we dare our fate,
Content to meet its direst spite,
And bow us to the good and great,
The Fount of Justice, Life and Light !
EPITAPH
TO BE ENGRAVEN ON THE TOMB OF MR. AND MRS, BEAUCHAMP.
WRITTEN BY MRS. BEAUCHAMP.
Entombed below in each other's arms,
The husband and the wife repose,
Safe from life's never ending storms,
And safe from all their cruel foes.
A child of evil fate she lived,
A villain's wiles her peace had crossed;
The husband of her heart revived
The happiness she long had lost.
He heard her tale of matchless wee,
And burning for revenge he rose
And laid her base seducer low.
And struck dismay to Virtue’s foes.
Reader, if Honor's generous blood
E’er warmed thy breast, here drop a tear,
And let the sympathetic flood
Deep in thy mind the traces bear.
A father or a mother thou,
Thy daughters view in grief's despair,



[140
Then turn and see the villain low,
And here let fall the grateful tear.
A brother or a sister thou,
Dishonored see this sister dear;
Then turn and see the villain low,
And here let fall the grateful tear.
Daughter of Virtue most thy tear,
This tomb of lovo and honor claim ;
For thy defense the husband here
Laid down in youth his life and fame.
His wife disdained a life forlorn,
Without her heart's-loved honored lord;
Then, reader, here their fortunes mourn,
Who for their love their life blood poured.

| 141 ||
APPENDIX,
NOVEMBER 21, 1825.
DEAR SIR:—It has been with some difficulty
I have stemmed the torrent of public opinion, to
the contrary, and presumed to hope, that you was
not so far prepossessed against me, as not at least,
to suspend an expression of your opinion, till you
hear what can be alleged against me, on oath,
You are well aware that in cases like the present,
we must ever expect immense exaggeration. In
this case, peculiarly, it is not surprising if there
should not prevail a degree of popular prejudice,
not warranted by the circumstances, of suspicion,
raised against the first accused of the murder of a
man, so highly and justly esteemed as was Col.
Sharp. I speak not to a man on whose feelings I
could hope to work, much less bias his judgment,
by any protestations about innocence, or appeals
to his humanity for the oppressions thereof which
I could make. Your opinion, will be founded in
the circumstances which will be brought against
me, independently of anything I can say. But,
sir! if, as I have been told is the case (though I
have found many things that have been told me
since I was in prison that were not to be relied
upon). But, if, I say, you, with some other gentle-
man of greatest standing and influence at the bar,
feel too great a respect for the memory and family
of your unfortunate friend, to defend any one

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suspected (however slightly) of his murder, I do
hope you will nevertheless, tell me as a man of
candor, on what your opinion against me and that
of the thinking part of the community is based.
You have heard much, I doubt not, about my
having threatened the life of Col. Sharp. I make
no protestations. But sir! I can simply say you
will be convinced all these rumors have arisen in
the vain imaginations and conjectures of fools.
You see what is printed from mere vague rumor,
about my dirk being a wide one,—please see the
scabbard in the possession of Mr. Carl, -that it was
recently ground sharp, ask Mr. Jackson; that my
shoe fits the track in the garden of Col. Sharp,
happily you measured that track. Then that I
left my room that night—$5,000 set as a price on
my life. Circumstances are unfortunately such
that as I am advised, it is not permitted in wisdom
for me to account for as yet. But this much it has
pleased the Almighty that I should be now permit-
ted to do. To explain and prove to the satisfaction
of a gentleman of your candor and impartiality,
that it was a motive different from that of a mur-
derer, that led me from my room that night.
About this I wish particularly to see you. I have
no hope to stop for a considerable time, the current
of popular prejudice against me. I might as well
expect at a word to stop the motion of the earth.
Time and reflection must be allowed for the popu-
lar clamor to cease, unless indeed, it should so
please the Omnicient One that the murderer should
be brought quickly to light.

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Some gentlemen have honored me with the
promise to see me after supper, Mr. Crittenden
amongst them. I wish to see you first. I have
endeavored as far as any man could do, since I
was told I was unhappily suspected, that my con-
duct should be frank and unreserved. I wish it
still to be so. But much may be fabricated so
unfavorable to me as to render it prudent I should
be circumspect in some things, in which my own
wish would be to be perfectly unreserved and
communicative with everybody—to gentlemen
whose good opinion I value more than life.
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.
To GEO. M. BIBB, Esq.
FRANKFORT, May 19, 1826.
To MY DEAR BELOVED MoTHER:
I feel it a duty which I owe to the fond mother
who bore me, to write you, consoling and comfort-
ing you under the afflicting dispensation of Provi-
dence, which in my fate is visited on you. Be
comforted and cheered, then, best of mothers.
The ways of God are just, although our blind
understandings may not see the reason of them.
Although I feel at an early day we will meet in
heaven, as to the way in which I come to my end,
you shall not think of that, to make my loss the
more afflicting. Death is death in any shape. It
is only with me as with my dear sister that I leave
the world at an early stage of life.
J. O. BEAUCHAMP.

| 144 |
As he was being led to the gallows, he asked
how his wife was. He was told by the physicians
she was doing very well. He asked permission to
see her, which was granted. As soon as he saw
her, he said:
“Physicians, you have deceived me; she is
dying !”
Then turning to his wife, he said to her:
“Farewell, child of sorrow Farewell, child,
of persecution and misfortune For you have I
lived, and for you I die!”
He then said to guard: “Now, I am ready.”
THE END.





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