Legends of the Shawangunk2 JR.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath ...

“Gross” Hardenburgh. 139
credence. Some of them brought jugs of whiskey to make merry over the death of their
enemy, and drunkenness became the order of the day. One, who had just come from
butchering hogs, as he beheld the dead man prepared for dissection, exclaimed: “That is
fatter pork than I have killed to-day.” The speaker bore unfriendly relations to one of the
physicians; and, while the dissection was going on, he continued: “That is more than I
ever expected to see—my two greatest enemies—one cutting the other up!” When the
body was opened, and the heart exposed, he cried: “My God! that’s what I’ve longed to
see for many a day!”
Another composed and sang an obscene and irreverent song, in which he described
the death of Hardenburgh, the feeding of birds on his body, and other indelicate details.
This greatly pleased the assembled multitude, and was repeated so often, that some can
yet recite parts of the composition.
Quinlan, from whom we glean most of the preceding, says that a woman of the
neighborhood, whose descendants are among the most respectable citizens of Fallsburgh,
declared that “Gross had gone to ——, to fee more lawyers.” One of the witnesses, on
being asked if he knew who shot Hardenburgh, answered that he did not; but expressed
regret that he did not himself do the deed, as “Doctor Benjamin had offered two hundred
acres of land to have his father put out of the way.”
These remarks evoked shouts of merriment from the crowd. Vain were all efforts to
preserve order; decorum and decency were set aside; the rejoicing of the settlers,
inflamed by the all-potent rum, took the form of the revels of Pandemonium.
From evidence elicited at the inquest and from subsequent developments, it is
supposed the assassins were three in number, and that they were posted behind a tree
about eight rods from the road, where they had cut away some laurels that had obstructed
their view. The ball had entered the victim’s shoulder, and passed through, breaking the
back-bone; and the shock to his nervous system was such as to instantly deprive him of
sensation. This accounts for the circumstance of his not hearing the report of the gun.
Several were suspected of being implicated in the murder, some of them being
arrested either as principals or accessories; it is probable that a number of individuals in
the “infected” district could tell more than they were willing to disclose. When the fatal
shot vas heard in the valley, one of the men who was at work on the chimney at the
“Dug-way,” slapped his hands and remarked, “That’s a dead shot! An old fat buck has
got it now!”
A tradition is current in the neighborhood that a suspected person moved west, who,
on his death-bed, confessed that he assisted at the murder, but stubbornly refused to
disclose the name of any of his accomplices. If the death of Gross Hardenburgh was the
result of a conspiracy involving a number of persons, the secret has been well kept; and
guilty souls, blackened with the horrible crime, have gone down to the grave with the
burden of their unconfessed transgression. After the assassination, such of the settlers as
had not