A murder in Tinmouth, 232 years later
|
|
A memorial marker for Nathaniel Chipman rests in Tinmouth Cemetery. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald |
Toolbox
By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: June 12, 2009
TINMOUTH — It's an unsolved murder that's been haunting residents who live on the rolling hills of Tinmouth for more than 200 years.
The question is not who murdered British loyalist John Irish in 1777 in front of his family at his cabin on North End Road, but why no one was brought to justice for the crime.
At 1 p.m. Saturday, residents who live on the land where Irish was murdered or in the original homes built by settlers will act out a murder trial that never was.
Vermont Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Reiber, top attorneys from across the state, a Tinmouth historian and the public will impersonate alleged killer Isaac Clark, a captain with the Green Mountain Boys charged with rooting out loyalists or Tories in the area, Irish's wife Rebecca Doty Irish, defense attorneys and state judges in their attempt to act out a jury trial.
Tinmouth residents will be the jurors and the Tinmouth Fire Station will be the courtroom.
The trial is part of a full day's activities in Tinmouth for the 15th Annual Vermont Judicial History Society Seminar — free of charge and open to all.
According to historian Grant Reynolds and organizer Paul Gillies, an attorney from Montpelier, it's a simple tale that deserves retelling.
"We can hope that (for a guilty verdict), but the jury's decision is the jury's decision," Reynolds said.
"It's what 12 people believed," he said. "It doesn't mean it's the absolute truth."
But for Reynolds and some lifelong Tinmouth residents, some truth is better than none.
The date was July 27, 1777.
Published historical accounts, included in Saturday's script, state that Irish, who claimed to be a Quaker who abhorred violence from any side, ordered protection papers for his family after the fall of Ticonderoga so the British would leave them alone.
Their neighbors had fled but the Irish family stayed.
A week before Irish got those papers, Capt. Ebenezer Allen came to town to root out Tory families loyal to the British, an order handed down to him from a commanding officer as part of the Green Mountain Boys' effort.
"My great-grandparents were Tories," Reynolds said. "They were the enemy, they were virtually terrorists."
Lt. Isaac Clark of Middletown, under the direction of his captain (played by resident Marshall Squier), believed Irish to be the enemy and shot him outside his brother's cabin.
All the men who were witness to the shooting ran away and no one was ever held accountable for the murder, according to historical accounts.
Clark went on to serve in the War of 1812 as a general.
Rebecca Irish, who will be played by Kathy Halford of Wallingford, lost her home to one of the men involved in her husband's death and moved to Danby.
"It was truly more ambiguous than the straightforward, 'we saw the spy carrying the plans out of the office and we shot him,'" Reynolds said. "The controversy is whether it was an act of war or an assassination."
State prosecutors, to be led by attorney Sarah Jarvis, will charge that Clark was guilty of murder. The defense, led by attorney Charles Merriman, will argue that Clark was just following orders, weeding out the Tories of Tinmouth.
The trial and verdict – signifying one of Vermont's oldest open legal questions — will be followed by Chief Justice Reiber and seminar attendees walking to the historic headstone of Nathaniel Chipman in Tinmouth Cemetery.
"The chief justice of Vermont is going to stand at the same site that Chipman, the first legally trained justice of the Vermont Supreme Court (is buried)," Gillies said.
"It sounds like a historic moment."
For more information, call Gillies at 223-1112, ext. 103.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
39