Pork said when Ockwood had two or three drinks, he was crazy and manifested murderous tendencies. His desire, however, was always to kill or injure some woman, and he would not trust the man.
William Ockwood, he said, was an expert with a boat, used to the water, was formerly a log driver, and an excellent swimmer. The witness did not know what Ockwood could do in water when he had been drinking. He said that Ockwood did not seem like the same man when drunk.
Pork’s statements seemed to validate the jury’s finding that Mary had been beaten to death at the hands of her husband. Everyone was so sure of it, in fact, that the Re-Union said, “There is little doubt, in the light of known facts, that James Ockwood, Rasfan Arquette, or Aaron Alquit, as the Indian wife murderer has been variously known within the past two years, is alive and seeking to conceal himself from those who would hunt him down and punish him for his crime.” The paper reminded its readers that the district attorney and the sheriff knew within thirty-six hours of finding the body that a murder had been committed, saying, “During this period of time, Ockwood was unsuspected, save by a few, and could have made his way on foot half way across the country without being molested.” But can a dead man do that?
Three weeks later, on May 31, 1897, Ockwood’s body was found, and the matter was quickly put to rest, probably because authorities still had the Crouch-Daly murders to sort through. The Herald reported:
The body of a squaw was found on Warner’s island in Lake Ontario near Henderson harbor, May 9th. Death, it was announced, had resulted from injuries to the head, and the case was said to be one of murder. An Indian, Aaron Arquette [sic], was accused, but he could not be found. Sunday, the Indian’s body was washed ashore at Sackets Harbor. This clears up the mystery, as it is now believed that while drunk, they both fell out of the boat and were drowned.
Did it really clear up the mystery? Because the coroners, physicians and authorities sure had seemed pretty certain that Mary Ockwood was murdered before her husband’s body was found. They had previously announced, prematurely in retrospect, that “the woman had not drowned, but had been killed by heavy blows on the head.” The jury said, “We the undersigned jurors, find that the deceased came to her death by blows received on the head and the body, inflicted by her husband with a club or heavy weapon at or near Six Town Point.” And what about this announcement? “One thing is a practical certainty; the woman was killed either on shore or in a boat and her body thrown into the water. This is circumstantially proven by every post mortem finding.” Circumstantially proven? A practical certainty? How could the discovery of Mr. Ockwood’s body have instantly exonerated him from a crime that so many had been so certain that he committed, simply because he appeared to have drowned? Bunnell, the lone juror who refused to sign the verdict, was right to not jump to conclusions. That’s not to say that it’s inconceivable that, in a drunken rage, Ockwood bludgeoned his wife to death and tossed her overboard, then accidently went over himself—having lost his footing on the choppy waters in his highly intoxicated state, or that perhaps the couple’s serious head injuries were caused in a fall in the boat before or as they were being cast out into the rough waters. There are countless scenarios, and we will never know, at this point, what happened. For all we know, both husband and wife were slain and robbed by someone who had seen them with money in Sackets Harbor. In the end, their deaths went down in the books as accidental drowning—and authorities were reminded that things may not always be as they first seem.
CHAPTER 9
THE GRUESOME “WATERTOWN TRUNK MURDER”
HOUNSFIELD, 1908
Jammed within the narrow confines of a trunk, with her head mashed to jelly, one ear gone and her body mutilated until recognition was almost impossible, the body of Mrs. Sarah Brennan, wife of Patrick Brennan, of Brownville, was found Monday afternoon in a back kitchen at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Farmer of that village.
—Watertown Re-Union, April 29, 1908
In October 1907, Mary Farmer hatched an elaborate plan to criminally acquire the property of her neighbors so that her young babe, Peter, would one day have something of value that she believed she and her husband, James Farmer, could never provide otherwise. (Heaven forbid that they should have to work for their material possessions like the rest of us.) The fact that a cold-blooded murder might become necessary for her to meet this sinister objective was but a trivial detail that the soon-to-be murderess would worry about when the time came. That time came on the morning of April 23, 1908, when Sarah Brennan paid a routine visit to Mary Farmer. Neighbors later claimed to have heard the women arguing. One can only surmise that Sarah had finally learned of Mary’s plot to steal her house and home right out from under her. She would have to be silenced.
Some said that twenty-four-year-old Mary “had never fully recovered her mentality” after the birth of her only child in 1907, but countless others testified that her peculiar behavior spanned years, culminating in the one unspeakable act—when she raised the hatchet over the skull of Sarah Brennan—that sealed her fate. Although there was never any doubt about Mary Farmer’s guilt, her mental state at the time of the gruesome murder would ultimately determine whether the young mother should live or become the second woman sent to the electric chair in New York state. Hence, much time at the inquest and later trials would be devoted to determining if Mary Farmer was sane when she slaughtered her so-called friend and neighbor. Even more time would be spent determining what role, if any, her husband had played in the whole affair.
Portrait of Mary Farmer, 1908. Printed with permission from the Watertown Daily Times.
It all began when Mary Farmer forged a deed to the Brennan residence that was recorded in the county clerk’s office. Somehow, she managed to steal the deed from the Brennan house on one of her many visits to call on Sarah Brennan. The property, located on Paddy Hill in Hounsfield, across the river from Brownville, was adjacent to the Farmer property (known as the old Barton Hotel), and the women visited often. Although the Brennans were not wealthy, by any standards, they enjoyed life’s simple pleasures and seemed content. For Mary Farmer, living eighty feet away must have become increasingly difficult to tolerate because she was reminded daily of what others had that she wanted. The Farmers had lost the previous home they owned near Ontario Mill when they were unable to make payments, and Mr. Farmer had not held a job for some time. They had almost nothing of value. Thus, with an inexplicable sense of entitlement, Mary Farmer made a conscious decision to turn her growing irritation into an opportunity for herself and her family. On October 31, 1907, she went before Attorney Francis Burns at the Jefferson County clerk’s office impersonating Sarah Brennan. There, she transferred the deed to the Brennan home to the Farmers for the sum of $2,100 (roughly $50,000 in today’s dollars) and forged fifty-five-year-old Sarah Brennan’s signature.
Once that first crucial step was accomplished, Mary Farmer began slowly spreading the word around town that she had purchased the property from the Brennans so that it wouldn’t come as such a surprise when Sarah Brennan disappeared and the Farmers moved into their home. And, while the Brennans heard occasional rumors that they had sold their property, they adamantly denied them and wondered how they had started. On January 7, 1908, the Farmers boldly deeded the property they had illegally acquired to their son, who was then ten months old; and they transferred the insurance on the house from the Brennans to themselves. Phase one of the plan was complete. All that was left was to remove the oblivious couple from the premises. For reasons unknown, Sarah Farmer waited four months to complete her plan. Some speculated that the delay was due to “timidity to commit the deed and the presence of relatives.”
Thursday, April 23, started out like a normal day for the Brennans, other than the fact that Sarah had, ironically, dressed in black in memory of a daughter who had died some time before on that date. But she was fine when she paid a visit to the Brennans’ home that morning to see if her “friend,” Mary, wanted to ride with her
to a dentist appointment in Watertown. Something must have snapped at that moment in Mary Farmer’s criminal mind, for she decided then and there that it was the day she had long waited for. Opportunity knocked, literally, the moment Sarah Brennan reached her doorstep.
Pat Brennan went to work at Globe Mills that day, where he ran a boiler. He and his wife could never have imagined the events that were about to transpire when they set out in their respective ways that day. According to the Watertown Re-Union of April 29, 1908, Mr. Brennan came home to find the door locked and the key missing from its secret hiding spot:
Courtesy of the author.
All was happy when Mrs. Brennan left him for his work at the C.R. Remington mill that morning. When he returned that afternoon, he found the front door locked. He felt behind the blind for the key; and, not finding it, went to the barn, which was also locked. With a hammer, he pulled the hasp, secured a ladder and entered a window. He thought that perhaps his wife was out calling, but wondered that she failed to leave the key.
Ten minutes later, Brennan was at work tearing down the stormhouse. He had almost finished when Farmer, who had not been working for some time past, came to the fence.
“Don’t you know that I own that place now,” said Farmer. Brennan turned in amazement and replied that he did not. “Yes, the place is mine, all right,” continued Farmer. “I bought it last October, and you can see the deed at the county clerk’s office. I paid $2,100 for it.”
“That’s funny,” commented Brennan. “My wife never said anything about it, and you neither have said anything about it all these months.” Farmer replied that he didn’t think there was need of it, inasmuch as Mrs. Brennan had been paying him $2 a week rent for it, but that now he had decided that he would move in and enjoy his own.
Over the next few, surreal days, Brennan could not get a straight answer from the Farmers on the whereabouts of his wife, and he grew increasingly suspicious that they were somehow involved in her serendipitous departure. The day after Sarah Brennan went missing, the Farmers went to Watertown to obtain the following notice from Field & Swan to be served on Mr. Brennan, telling him to vacate his property and informing him that the Farmers had a bill of sale for all of the personal property in the house.
To Patrick Brennan:
Dear Sir—Take notice, that by virtue of a deed dated October 31, 1907, and recorded in the Jefferson county clerk’s office November 9, 1907, in the book of deeds 325, page 93, your wife, Sarah Brennan, sold and conveyed to me, the undersigned, the house and premises in the town of Hounsfield, Jefferson county, N.Y., near the village of Brownville, in which you and she then resided and have since resided; and that I thereupon became and now am the owner of said property; and that your wife has recently delivered to me the keys and possession of said house and property; that I am now in the sole and exclusive possession thereof and of all the household furniture and personal property in the house, which was sold to me by her by bill of sale and delivered to me, for which personal property I paid her, and I am now in possession thereof, in said house.
That I hereby notify and require you to stay away, remain away, and keep out of this house and off said premises from now on, except to come to said house and get and take away your wearing apparel and personal belongings, which I hereby require that you do before April 27, 1908, and in case of your failure so to remove your wearing apparel and personal belongings, I will leave them with Daniel Woodard at his residence in said town, subject to your order, and I hereby forbid you to come on said premises as and for the purpose stated above.
Dated April 24, 1908
(Signed) JAMES D. FARMER
FIELD & SWAN, Attorneys for J.D. Farmer
Not only would Pat Brennan soon learn that his wife had been brutally murdered, but the Farmers booted him out of his own house and robbed him of all of his material belongings. But the property was the least of Brennan’s concerns at the moment. All he really wanted to know was what happened to his wife.
The Re-Union said:
Worried almost to desperation, Brennan came that night to the home of James Rattray in Griffin Street, this city, and anxiously inquired if anything had been seen of his wife. It is alleged that the Farmers had told Brennan many stories of his wife’s absence, saying first that she had been selling her property and buying expensive clothing and had left for Duluth. Later, it is alleged, they said that she had gone to Watertown and said she wanted her goods sent to Rattray’s.
Every story was followed by the anxious husband. No one had seen her leave at the station, no trace of her was obtainable at Rattray’s. She had an appointment at Dr. Huntington’s for dental work and this she had failed to keep. Brennan investigated and found all her clothing in the closets.
Two days after being kicked out of his home and told that his wife had left him, Brennan consulted Attorney Floyd Carlisle. The lawyer soon discovered that a woman resembling Mrs. Farmer was the one who had transferred the property at Attorney Burns’s office, not Mrs. Brennan. There was definitely something fishy going on. The scheming couple, meanwhile, proceeded to take full possession of the Brennan property, even as an investigation, unbeknownst to them, was about to commence; they were about to be busted. For little did they know—indeed, little could anyone have known or ever envisioned—that a trunk was about to become their undoing in a case that would be forever recalled as the famous “Watertown Trunk Murder.” Mary Farmer’s black trunk was among the items carried from the Farmer house to the Brennan residence when the Farmers stole the Brennan house. That trunk represented everything: Mrs. Farmer’s guilt, Mrs. Brennan’s untimely demise, Mr. Farmer’s innocence and Mr. Brennan’s worst fear.
After learning from Attorney Carlisle that something wasn’t right in the handling of the real estate transactions, Pat Brennan alerted District Attorney Pitcher, and on Monday, four days after the nightmare had begun, Sheriff Bellinger and his assistants were dispatched to the Brennan residence to question Mary Farmer. At first, Mrs. Farmer denied any knowledge of her neighbor’s disappearance, but she turned a lovely shade of deathly pale at the start of questioning. Bellinger was onto her. He then proceeded to search the home, determined that he was not leaving without some answers.
According to the Re-Union, it wasn’t long before he had them.
In the back kitchen, the sheriff found the trunk. An odor came from it, and the sheriff suspected that the body was within. When asked for the keys, the Farmers claimed to have lost them, and with a hammer, the lock was forced. A horrible sight met the officer’s eyes—a battered countenance, blood and hair intermingling, the body forced and jammed until it filled the space, skirts partly covering the limbs. When the discovery was made, Brennan and Farmer sat together. “My God, did you do this?” moaned Brennan. “As God is my witness, I did not,” replied Farmer.
Original photograph of trunk containing Mrs. Brennan’s butchered body. On the back of the photograph, “Revelation of a murder” was written Printed with permission from the Watertown Daily Times.
A moment’s consultation and Mrs. Farmer was given a chance to look upon the ghastly spectacle. It was too much, and a moment more a confession was had from her. She said that she had felled the woman with the axe and then washed the instrument and the blood spots from the floor. Later she claimed that, as Mrs. Brennan stepped to the parlor window, Farmer stepped behind her and drove the ax against her head with the exclamation, “There, damn you, I have done with you.”
The body was examined by Coroner Charles E. Pierce, along with several physicians, and they found that the left ear had been hacked off, there were three defense wounds on the left wrist, both lips had been cut straight through and a long gash was made on the forehead over both eyes where the axe had broken through the skull. The left jaw was fractured, and it appeared that the victim had been struck from the side first and then “blows had been rained upon the face to finish the job,” according to an article called “Cruel Murder” in the Watertown Re-Union of April
29, 1908. This finding contradicted Mrs. Farmer’s version of having snuck up behind the woman and striking her with the axe. In the trunk with the body, a button from a man’s coat, a comb and a torn pocket were found, and the murder weapon was discovered several days later, well hidden from view in a nook in the barn. Beneath a mattress was a blood-stained coat that appeared to have been recently washed, and although the floor had been freshly scrubbed, blotches of blood stains were still apparent. The evidence was clear, abundant and indisputable.
After the initial shock of being found out wore off and a smidgeon of reasoning (disturbed as it was) returned, Mrs. Farmer attempted to lay blame for the murder on her husband. Then she quickly recanted that version and again admitted that it was only she who was responsible. Nevertheless, both husband and wife were taken to the county jail as suspects in the murder of Sarah Brennan. Mr. Farmer, perhaps still absorbing the ramifications of the grim discovery (and the idea that he lived with such a cold-blooded killer), wisely said nothing on the way to the county jail. However, Mrs. Farmer, baby at her breast, smiled when asked by the deputy if her dreams had been disturbed, sleeping in the same house as a corpse. She replied smugly that her dreams were no worse than usual—proof of a mind with no conscience and an impending insanity defense.
A disheveled, weary James Farmer arrived at his arraignment in shackles, led by Undersheriff Charles Hosmer, and Mary Farmer, wearing a blue skirt, heavy plush coat and a shawl over her head, was accompanied into the courtroom by Sheriff Ezra D. Bellinger. The Re-Union said, “As far as expression goes, she was as immobile as a statue and looked straight ahead, never shifting her glance. During the time she sat there, not a muscle moved, and she was motionless. Her face was neither flushed nor pale, but it was easily seen that a terrific struggle was going on in her mind.” After the charges of murder were read to the couple by city judge Reeves, Brayton A. Field entered a plea of not guilty for Mr. Farmer. Attorney E. Robert Wilcox was assigned to Mrs. Farmer, and the date for examinations of the couple was set for May 6, with Mr. Farmer being questioned first at 9:00 a.m. and Mrs. Farmer at 2:00 p.m. As a result of the incriminating evidence produced at that examination, the couple was brought before the grand jury and indicted on charges of first-degree murder. It was initially thought that perhaps James Farmer was unaware of his wife’s plan, especially after she accepted full responsibility, yet there was plenty of evidence that could not be ignored.
Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County Page 9