John Ten Eyck
JV’s subject today is John Ten Eyck, a black farm laborer who was blamed in 1877 for their murder shortly thereafter. Today we ask: Was he the real murderer or just an easy scapegoat the authorities pinned the crimes on? Episode based heavily on “Gilded Age Murder and Mayhem in the Berkshires” by Andrew Amelinckx.
Sources:
https://modernfarmer.com/2015/10/blood-on-the-farm-the-double-murder-that-shocked-the-nation/
Song referenced:
Walls Are Closing In/HangMan – The Pretty Reckless
Music for Criminal Musings provided by We Talk Of Dreams. Thanks, Nico!
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Transcript available on Website (click Read More)
This week, during our Berkshire/Western Massachusetts Crime Miniseries, we’re going wayyy way back because some of my favorite True crime deep dives, involving people of color, are not actually recent, they are super old. I want to give a shout out to Andrew Amelinckx, as most of this information came from his book: “Gilded Age Murder and Mayhem in the Berkshires.” It’s an interesting read to say the least, and insanely informative. I daresay we’ll be coming back to it in later episodes.
I don’t know how many of you have wondered this, but imagine: what was your hometown like from 100-200 years ago? Who was there, what was the fashion? What was the economy like? Was everyone rich? Was everyone poor? Did the street you live on right now even exist back then? What family names might you recognize in the area? One crucial question though, that I’m suspecting you probably didn’t ask about your area, especially if you live in the North, is this: before slavery was abolished throughout America, where were the slave-owners in your town? Where are the graves of the enslaved men and women? And when slavery was abolished, what happened to the black population?
My hometown’s history with race and slavery is… well, it’s complicated, as most northerners would tell you. We know for a FACT that there were slave owners here, because we actually celebrate and recognize Elizabeth Freeman, who.. Well, you can listen to that entire episode. We are the birthplace of W.E.B. Du Bois, but we’re also the kind of place that would rather have named our elementary school “Muddy Brook” than “Du Bois Elementary”. Yeah, seriously. Don’t know if you could hear my eyes rolling there, but trust me, they rolled HARD just now. The Berkshires are in general known for being fucking gorgeous and having a quaint “rural charm”. So, it took people by surprise when, in the late fall of 1877, there was a double murder of an elderly couple on Thanksgiving Day at their farm near Sheffield. Our subject today, is John Ten Eyck, the black farm laborer who was blamed for their murder shortly thereafter. But was he the real murderer or just an easy scapegoat the authorities pinned the crimes on?
On the evening of Nov. 29, 1877, just after 5 p.m., as a light snow began falling, Ten Eyck stopped 15-year-old John Carey Jr., on the road that led to the farm. Carey worked for David Stillman and his wife, Sarah, doing farm chores, including milking the cows. Ten Eyck inquired whether the Stillmans sold butter and if they had any guests that night. The boy told him that they did indeed sell butter, but was unaware if they had any company that evening. Ten Eyck thanked him for the information and headed south towards the Stillmans’ farm.
Carey was the last to see the elderly couple alive, besides the killer, obviously. He was also the person who found their bodies the next morning. The scene he found was “bloody beyond comprehension”. One newspaper would describe the crime as “one of the most brutal human butcheries ever committed in New England.” While this could totally have been hyperbolic AF, it wasn’t necessarily wholly off the mark. It was real bad, y’all.
That morning, Carey went to
