Auburn’s Trial Of The Century Murder on the high seas

by Charles Francis

On August 27, 1858 two men were executed in Auburn for murder and mutiny on the high seas. The two men were Peter Williams and Abraham Cox. Williams and Cox had been crewmen on the brig Albion Cooper. On January 20, 1858 they were found guilty in a federal court session of murdering the Albion Cooper’s officers as well as another crewman.

The trial of Williams and Cox stirred interest throughout Maine and the northeast. The court was filled to capacity by relatives and friends of the murdered men, as well as a myriad of curious onlookers. Williams’ and Cox’s execution was public. In fact, it was one of the few public hangings in the state in the nineteenth century, and one of the last executions in Maine, where sentiment had been growing in opposition to the death penalty for some time. For this reason, among others, it drew spectators from as far away as Portland. The story of what happened or may have happened aboard the Albion Cooper is one of the most bizarre tales from any court trial held in Maine at any time. Part of the reason for this is that the conviction of Williams and Cox was based on hearsay. In fact, the chief witness died or was killed before the trial even began.

The conviction and execution of Peter Williams and Abraham Cox were based on two separate pieces of evidence. Thomas Lahey, a sixteenyear-old boy, had given his version of events aboard the Albion Cooper to a succession of second parties, including the American Consul in Havana. He had also scribbled his impressions of what had taken place in the ship’s log, which he smuggled off the vessel. Lahey, however, died under suspicious circumstances before he and Williams and Cox were returned to Maine. Those who viewed the trial drew the seemingly logical conclusion that Williams and Cox had killed the boy to prevent him from testifying. While Peter Williams confessed that he and Cox killed the officers and the crewman on the Albion Cooper, he did not confess to Lahey’s murder.

One of the more interesting sidelights to the trial of Williams and Cox is that it engendered two murder ballads, the work of an erstwhile poet by the name of O.K. Yates. Reading the ballads leaves one with the impression that Yates actually interviewed the two. Whether or not this is true will never be known, but the ballads were published before Williams and Cox were executed. The ballads were titled Last Words of Peter Williams and Last Words of Abraham Cox, respectively. In them, Williams and Cox commended themselves to Christ. Williams placed the blame for his actions on the cruelty and inhumane treatment by the officers of the Albion Cooper. Cox’s reasoning behind his actions was somewhat more obscure, as he blamed his wife for what happened. Regardless, the two ballads were, in part, the reason that the grounds across from the Auburn jail were filled with curious onlookers during the hanging.

The federal judge who presided over the district court trial was Ashur Ware. The prosecuting attorney was United

States District Attorney George Shepley. Shepley was the son of U.S. Senator Ether Shepley. Shepley went on to become a general in the Union Army and the Military Governor of Louisiana. The defense attorney in the case was George Evans.

According to court records, the Albion Cooper set sail from Portland on July 27, 1857. Except for Williams and Cox, the officers and men on board never returned to Maine. They were Captain Daniel Humphrey, First Mate Collingwood Smith, Second Mate Quinton Smith (who had married in May of that year), Seaman David Burns and Thomas Lahey. Humphrey, the two Smiths, and Burns died from a succession of blows and cuts dealt by a hatchet, a razor, and a knife. Their bodies were dumped into the sea. Lahey was not killed because the pair thought that he could navigate the Albion Cooper But Lahey died under mysterious circumstances on the vessel carrying Williams and Cox back to Maine.

Depending on one’s interpretation of court records, it would seem that much of the blame for what happened on the Albion Cooper could be placed on the head of Collingwood Smith. The First Mate appeared to have been an exceptionally brutal officer whose actions were, at the very least, overlooked by the Captain, perhaps even countenanced by him. Smith routinely harassed the elderly Cox, the cook, for serving slop for meals, and, at times, even struck him. He badgered and struck Williams in the same way. In addition, Smith stabbed Williams for being insubordinate, and left him to dangle from handcuffs, his feet not touching the floor, on at least two long occasions. These facts come from the statements and written impressions of Thomas Lahey. At some point, Williams and Cox seem to have decided enough was enough of the brutal treatment, and killed the officers and Burns, who would have been a witness. Cap(cont. on page 24)

(cont. from page 23) tain Humphrey and Second Mate Quinton Smith were killed in their bunks. The other two were killed when they went to investigate what was happening. Lahey was kept alive to navigate — something he proved unable to do.

The Albion Cooper spent several days aimlessly drifting in the Caribbean until it encountered the Black Squall, bound for Havana. Lahey had sewn the log of the Albion Cooper into his coat after writing his version of events in it. He gave it to the master of the Black Squall, who, in turn, gave it to the American Consul in Cuba. It was the log that was the primary piece of evidence against Williams and Cox in court.

It is doubtful that Williams and Cox would have been hung had they been convicted in a Maine state court. While capital punishment was still in force in state statutes at the time, sentiment against it in Maine was so strong that hanging was almost a thing of the distant past. Williams and Cox, however, were tried in a federal court. From the beginning, it was a foregone con- clusion that, if convicted, they would hang. This reasoning set the stage for Maine’s trial of the century for Auburn’s citizens.