William Morgan Author:Robert Morris General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1883 Original Publisher: R. Macoy Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select... more » from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI. THE TRIALS AT CANANDAIGUA. ALTHOUGH no violation of law was proven upon -£j- Constable Hay ward, or the six members of his posse, for bringing William Morgan from Batavia by virtue of a warrant for petit larceny, the proceedings of Tuesday night in removing that person from Canandaigua afforded subjects for the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Ontario county. Bills of indictment were returned against Nicholas G. Chesebro, Edward Sawyer, Loton Lawson and John Sheldon, in the Court of Sessions of November, 1826, charging them First. With conspiracy to seize and carry William Morgan from the jail to foreign parts, and there continually to secrete and imprison him. Second. That on the evening of September 12, they did so seize him, etc. in pursuance of the conspiracy. These indictments, by consent of parties, were transferred to the Court of Oyer and Terminer, and the circumstances of the trial were long remembered by those present. The court assembled at Canandaigua, January 1, 1827, a bitterly cold New Year's morning. Five judges occupied the bench, viz: Enos T. Throop, judge of the Seventh District, presiding; Nat. W. Howell, first judge of Ontario county, and Judges Younglove, Atwater and Brooks. The weather, as remarked, was terribly inclement, but every citizen who had health to breast it was at court that week, and many a frozen foot and finger attested the fact to the generation following. The district attorney, Whiting, was assisted by seven of the best lawyers on the circuit. "He was bound," it was said at the time, "bound te convict." The defense was c...« less