Witness Statements From the Trial of Jacamiah Tillet for the Murder...
A Case of Jealousy and Homicide in Cold Spring, New York [Manuscript]. [Long Island, New York]. [Witness Statements From the Trial of Jacamiah Tillet for the Murder of John Covert]. Cold Spring, Huntington, New York, May, 1845. [5] ff. 12-1/2" x 7-1/2" (31.7 x 19 cm) sheets, fastened together at heads with wax seals, content to rectos and versos, two contemporary newspaper clippings about the case affixed to recto of final leaf, which is docketed on verso. Moderate toning, three horizontal fold lines, 16 marks and brief annotions to margins in pencil. A well-preserved piece of Long Island legal history. $750. * This rare manuscript provides a firsthand account of the 1845 murder trial of Jacamiah Tillett, a man driven to violence by a dark obsession with his neighbor's wife. The documents contain detailed cross-examinations of key witnesses, including the victim's widow, Elizabeth Covert. At the time of the trial, Elizabeth was described as a woman of roughly twenty years who had been married only a short time. Local accounts suggest a scandalous history; she was reportedly "very intimate" with Tillett prior to her marriage, a connection that fueled Tillett's lethal infatuation. According to the witness statements and contemporary newspaper clippings. Tillett was deeply infatuated with Elizabeth, frequently attempting to force his affections upon her. On at least one occasion, Tillett allegedly suggested that Elizabeth poison her husband and flee with him. These specific notes-penned with the clinical precision of a legal mind-are attributed to William Platt Buffett (1793-1874). Buffett was a preeminent Suffolk County attorney and future county judge, suggesting these documents served as his personal trial notes for the defense. This collection offers a raw, unfiltered look at 19th-century jurisprudence and social scandal. It captures the tension between the "respectability" of Victorian-era marriage and the violent realities of domestic obsession in rural New York.
Price: $750.00
Book number 86108