260. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Georgetown, Jan. 7. A murder of the most barbarous nature was committed last Monday night, on a Mr. Joseph Ward and wife, in Seneca, Montgomery county. The perpetrator of this infernal act is supposed to be a black fellow that lived in the house, and who, after the family had retired to bed, and all was dark and silent, got up furnished with an ax to commit the horrid deed, and stole quietly to the bed-side where Mr. Ward, his wife, and little daughter (they being all the family) lay—the former of whom he struck first, in the head with an ax, and then his wife, repeating his blows until he had deprived them of their existence. He ten took a chunk of fire and threw it into the garret of the house, amongst a quantity of tow, where it kindled in a very little time. In the mean while the little girl made her escape to a neighbouring house, at which place the negro arrived immediately after, to inform that his master’s house was on fire; on hearing of which the neighbours went immediately, and the negro with them to try, if possible, to extinguish the fire. When they arrived at the house, the flames had not got as far down as the lodging room of Mr. and Mrs. Ward, (neither of whom was to be seen) it was conjectured they must not have awakened, whereupon they instantly rushed up stairs to apprise them of their danger, but to their astonishment, they found them in their bed murdered, the marks of violence being sufficient proof of the supposition. The negro is at present confined in Montgomery goal.

261. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Dover, January 11. Last Saturday evening, an unfortunate accident happened at Barrington. A Mr. John Stiles was working some old iron in a forge, among which was a gun barrel. While the iron was in the fire, Mr. Stiles was relating a story of a person who was working a gun barrel in the manner he was, when the gun (being charged) went off, and killed the man. While Mr. Stiles was giving this account, the gun in the fire, which was loaded, discharged its contents into his thigh. His physicians have pronounced his wound incurable.

262. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Bennington, Ded. 12. At the late court of oyer and terminer at Claverack, in Columbia county, bills of indictment were found against the several persons in confinement, charged with the murder of sheriff Hogeboom.

263. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Middletown, Jan. 28. On Tuesday night last, the dwelling house and store of Mr. ____ Ransom, of East-Haddam, was consumed by fire, together with about 1200 pounds worth of dry goods, all their furniture, clothing, &c. The particulars of this melancholy accident we have not learnt; further, than that the eldest son of Mr. Ransom, perished in the flames, and that Mrs. Ransom very narrowly escaped the shocking fate of her son.

264. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Died.
In this town, Mr. Elijah Sawyer, aged 84.
At New-London, 16th of Jan. very suddenly, Mr. Henry Boothe, of Mansfield, aged 45.
At Suffield, of the Small-pox, Capt. Thaddeus King, in the 43d year of his age.
At West-Hartford, Mrs. Nancy Goodman, aged 40.
At Hartford, Mr. Solomon Wyman.

265. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Came into the enclosure of the subscriber, the 12th of September last, five SHEEP. The owner is desired to pay charges, and take them away. William Perkins. Mansfield, Feb. 2, 1792.

266. WH Sat Feb. 4, 1792: Remedy against the Effects of Excessive Damps. At the season of the year when the Excessive damps produced from the vapours of the earth, have such a visible effect on the human body, generating colds and destructions of the lungs, and putrid diseases of the most fatal kind, the following which has been tried in the circle of a few families would doubtless be of use if more generally adopted, as it is not only a specifick preventative, but is the sure palliative in asthmatick and consumptive constitutions.
When the air is thick, foggy, or moist, let small lumps of pitch be thrown into your fire, in such degree, and so frequent, as to keep up an almostconstant smell of that bitumen in the apartment.
In rooms where fires are not frequently used, a chafing dish, or even a warming pan, throwing into it small lumps of pitch, particularly before going to bed, might be applied with conveniency.
Houses newly painted are best purified in this manner, and the more so as it neither injures or soils.
In rooms where charcoal is used, small portions thrown temporarily into the fire will in a great degree prevent the bad effects of which such numberless instances have occurred.
The above is more worthy trial as it is cheap and easy to be procured and used by the poorest people. The only inconvenience is the smell which some over delicate habits effect to dislike, but time remedies even this, and it becomes at last, by frequent use, to be rather agreeable to the nerves.
Pitch is aromatick, and it is observable, that where it is used daily in large quantities as in the ship-yards, no pestilential diseases ever approach.

267. WH Sat Feb. 11, 1792: A considerable shock of an Earthquake was felt at Quebec the 6th of last month. A letter from Paul’s Bay, to a mercantile house in that city, mentions, that 19 different shocks were felt at that place.

268. WH Sat Feb. 11, 1792: New York, Jan. 25. Extract of a letter from Kinderhook, dated January 17. “It is with pain I inform you of the death of Mrs. Sarah Hogeboom, widow of the late murdered Sheriff of our county. She died yesterday morning, surrounded by a great number of her relations, connexions and others, who all beheld her death as an undoubted consequence of the cruel fate of her husband. This is pronounced to be the case by all the physicians who attended her. She is lamented by all, and her death was served, in some measure, to revive in the breasts of the friends to humanity and government these ideas of horror and detestation which the murder of her husband inspired.

269. WH Sat Feb. 11, 1792: Albany, January 9. The following singular incident, we are informed from respectable authority, occurred on the late field of battle in the west. A young officer at the close of the action, secreted himself in the hollow of a large tree, near the tragic scene, where he remained undiscovered by the Indians the remaining part of the day of the battle; and through a small knot-hole, he witnessed a conduct that would disgrace devils broke loose from the infernal regions. The Indians proceeded to strip and scalp the dead, leaving the unhappy wounded languishing under the double tortures of body and mind, till they had glutted their savage vengeance on the dead; after
which they dispached all the wounded with their tomahawks. Under the friendly veil of the succeeding night, the officer made his way through pathless forests to rejoin his surviving comrades.

270. WH Sat Feb. 11, 1792: Providence. Feb. 4. Monday evening last, a young woman, named Hannah Jaquays, from Philadelphia, who has lived in the Rev. Mr. Pitman’s family several years, was unfortunately drowned in a well, in the cellar of the house he occupied. It appeared she went down to get a pail of water, and it is supposed fell in head first, as a contusion appeared on her forehead. She was not missed till nearly a quarter of an hour, when, on search the body was found in the well. Every means were attempted for her recovery, but without effect. She was in her 16th year.

271. WH Sat Feb. 11, 1792: Petersburg, (Virginia) Jan. 5. On Monday last a most unhappy affair happened to Mr. Charles Turnbull, son of Mr. James Turnbull, who lives near this town. While Mr. Charles Turnbull was on his was from Richmond to this town, he was overtaken by a man on horseback, who after riding with him a short distance left him, and went on before. About two miles from Osborn’s he observed the mans topped and went into the woods; and when Mr. Turnbull came up the man fired at him from behind a tree, and shot him down. Mr. Turnbull immediately spoke to the man, who made no answer, and after getting possession of Mr. Turnbull’s saddle-bags, he rode off. A shot went through Mr. Turnbull’s shoulder, and one through the back of his neck. He now lies, dangerously ill, but there are some hopes of his recovering.

272. WH Sat Feb. 11, 1792: Windham. Died, Mrs. Elizabeth Lincoln, consort of Mr. Thomas Lincoln, jun. aged 43.

273. WH Sat Feb. 18, 1792: Hartford, February 13. Mr. William Augustus Bowles, who some time ago, appeared in London in the Character of an Indian Chief, was not an Indian by birth, but an Anglo American, from Maryland, who being of an unsettled, roving, and enterprizing disposition, attached himself to one of the Indian nations, being enamoured of the savage life, and which is perhaps more excusable, of a savage girl, who he married; then settled among her friends, and is now by adoption, though not by birth, an Indian warrior.

274. WH Sat Feb. 18, 1792: The noted William Cunningham, of infamous memory, Captain of the British Provost in New-York in the last war, and well known by many of our unfortunate countrymen, who were prisoners in that city at the time, was on the 10th of August last executed in England for forgery.

275. WH Sat Feb. 18, 1792: Frederick Manning, Stone-Cutter, informs the public that he carries on the above business, at his shop in Windham, in all its branches, Makes Tomb-tables, either of marble or Bolton stone—Grave-stones, of do [ditto]. Side-boards, of marble—Marble Vats, for painters—Chimney-pieces, &c. ­all in the neatest manner---cheap for Cash, or country produce. February 16, 1792.

276. WH Sat Feb. 18, 1792: Wanted, as an apprentice to the Blacksmith’s business, a Lad about 14 or 15 years of age. Enquire of Nathan Taylor. Windham, Feb. 14, 1792.

277. WH Sat Feb. 25, 1792: Died. At Farmington on the 12th inst. Mrs. Sarah Gridley, aged 26, wife of Mr. Elijah Gridley; and daughter of Mr. Thomas Goodman of this town [not sure if “this town” refers to Windham or Hartford]

278. WH Sat Feb. 25, 1792: Extract of a letter from Fredericks-Town, in the State of New-York, to the Editors, dated February 9, 1792. “As Mr. Timothy Delevan, was teaching a school in his own house, the 31st ult. About 11 o’clock, A.M. the whole chimney of a sudden fell, and buried him and a number of his pupils under its ruins. He and two of his scholars, (who were buried four feet in the ruins) were take out dead, one the only daughter of Mr. Edward Moony, about 9 years old, the other a son of the widow Maria Birdfall, 7 years old, nine others of the scholars were wounded, some badly; but it is hoped will all recover. Two of the wounded were drove by the stones of the chimney through the side of the house opposite to the fire place, and once was covered three feet in rubbish, one only escaped unhurt.

279. WH Sat Feb. 25, 1792: Windham. Deaths.
In this town, Mr. Thomas Gray, aged 43.
Scotland society, Mr. Timothy Webb, aged 84.
At Brooklyn, Mrs. ____ Payne, consort of Mr. Seth Payne, of that town.
Miss Bethia Harris, aged 20.
Last Saturday, Mr. Samuel Buer, of Hartford, merchant, being at Wethersfield, on a visit, was seized with a fit of the apoplectic kind, and
expired in about four hours, aged 47.
Since which have died of the same disorder, a Mr. Wells, of West Hartford, Col. Terry, of Enfield, and a Mr. Stow, of middletown.

280. WH Sat Feb. 25, 1792: My wife Hepzibah, having eloped from my bed and board without any provocation, and carried away sundry articles with her: I do hereby forbid all persons harbouring or trusting her on my account, for I will not pay any debt of her contracting; and I forbid all persons concealing the effects she hath carried off. Josiah Hendee. Ashford, Feb. 16, 1792.

281. WH Sat Feb. 25, 1792: The life, confession, and last dying words of Capt. William Cunningham, formerly the British Provost-Marshal, who was executed in London, the 10th of August, 1791.
I William Cunningham was born in Dublin Barracks, in the year 1738. My father was Trumpeter to the Blue Dragoons, and at the age of 8 years I was placed with an officer as his servant, in which station I continued until I was 16, and being a great proficient in horsemanship, was taken as an assistant to the riding master of the troop, and in the year 1761 was made sergeant of dragoons, but the peace coming the year following, I was disbanded. Being bred to no profession, I took up with a woman who kept a gin shop in a blind alley, near the Coal Quay, but the house being searched for stolen goods, and my doxy taken to Newgate, I thought it most prudent to decamp; accordingly set off for the North, and arriving at Drogheda, where in a few months after, I married the daughter of an Exciseman, by whom I had three sons.
About the year 1772, we removed to Newry, where I commenced the profession of a scowbanker, which is that of enticing the mechanics and country people to ship themselves for America, they are sold or obliged to serve a term of years for their passage. I embarked at Newry in the ship Needham for New-York, and arrived at that port the fourth of August, 1774, with some indented servants I had kidnapped in Ireland, but were liberated in New-York on account of the bad usage they received from me during the passage. In that city I used the profession of breaking horses; and teaching ladies and gentlemen to ride, but rendering myself obnoxious to the citizens in their infant struggles for
freedom, I was obliged to sly on board the Asia man of war, and from thence to Boston, where by my known opposition to the measures pursued by the Americans in support of their rights, was the first thing that noticed me to General Gage, and when the war commenced, I was appointed Provost Marshal to the Royal Army, which placed me in a situation to wreak my vengeance on the Americans. I shudder to think of the murders, I have been accessory to, both with and without orders from government, especially while in New-York, during which time
there were more than two thousand prisoners starved in the different churches by stopping their rations, which I sold.
There were also two hundred and seventy-five American prisoners and obnoxious persons executed, out of all which number there were only about one dozen public executions, which chiefly consisted of British and Hessian deserters. The mode for private executions was thus conducted; a guard was dispatched from the Provost, about half after twelve at night, to Barrack street, and the neighbourhood of the Upper Barracks, to order the people to shut their window-shutters and put out their lights, forbidding them at the same time, to presume to look out of their windows on pain of death; after which the unfortunate prisoners were conducted, gagged, just behind the Upper Barracks, and hung without ceremony, and there buried by the black pioneer of the Provost.
At the end of the war I returned to England with the army, and settled in Wales, as being a cheaper place of living than in any populous cities, but being at length persuaded to go to London, I entered so warmly into the dissipations of the capital that I soon found my circumstances much embarrassed. To relieve which, I mortgaged my half-pay to an army agent, but that being soon expended, I forged a draft for three hundred pounds sterling on the board of Ordnance, but being detected in presenting it for acceptance, I was apprehended, tried, and convicted, and for that offence am here to suffer an ignominious death.
I bet the prayers of all good Christians, and also pardon and forgiveness of God for the many horrid murders, I have been accessory to. William Cunningham.