Murder at Cherry Hill

The Murder at Cherry Hill occurred in 1827 near Albany, New York, when John Whipple was shot and killed at the Cherry Hill farm, home of a prominent Albany family, the Van Rensselaers. John's wife, Elsie, and her lover, Jesse Strang, were tried for the murder. While Elsie was acquitted as an accomplice, Strang was found guilty and sentenced to death for the crime; his execution was the last public hanging in Albany.

Known at the time as the Strang-Whipple case, the murder and subsequent trial revealed much about the society of the time. It touched upon important issues of the day such as women's roles and legal rights, social class, punishment and the law, and slavery in New York.

The case

Jesse Strang, a New Yorker from Putnam County, deserted his wife and children fearing that his wife was unfaithful. He became a drifter and went to Ohio but shortly after returned to New York in 1826. The scandalous nature of his separation might have stopped then if there had not been a baggage problem that caused him to seek a job in Albany.

Later on, in an Albany bar, he met another accomplice in the crime, Elsie Whipple, who was none other than the daughter of Abraham Lansing and Elsie Van Rensselaer. She was also the wife of John Whipple. He fell in love with Elsie and took a job as a handyman under the name of Joseph Orton in Cherry Hill, the Van Rensselaers’ residence. A gullible Elsie in turn fell in love with him. Elsie, grumpy and irksome, was not a model of perfection. She was said to be prone to hysterics and violent shouting fits and felt domineered and controlled by her husband. It was no wonder Jesse and Elsie got along well. The lovers kept in touch with the help of the members of the house who passed letters between them.

Elsie then decided that the best thing for the lovers to do would be to kill John and then run away. Elsie then conspired with a reluctant Jesse to poison John’s tea with arsenic so the lovers could elope, but their attempt failed.

At 9 o’clock on a night in May, 1827, Jesse Strang, on further insistence from Elsie that he murder John Whipple, climbed onto the roof of the shed and used his $15 rifle to shoot and kill Whipple. The bullet he shot Whipple with was the very bullet that John, getting wise about his wife’s affair and fearing his death, had loaded into his gun, which the wicked Elsie had stolen and given to Jesse.

Strang then immediately ran towards a local store and was given an alibi by the police. He then returned to Cherry Hill and helped a doctor remove the bullet from Whipple’s body.

Later, however, the police ruled that he could have traveled the mile from Cherry Hill to the store and detained Whipple on suspicion of the murder. Upon capture, a fearful Strang, hoping for a lighter sentence, confessed and blamed Elsie for the conception of the plan. This led to the incarceration of Elsie. Whenever they communicated in jail, Elsie reminded him that had he not confessed, the two might have gotten off scot-free in Montreal, as they had been planning to escape there.

Believing Elsie would be given a lighter sentence as she was a woman, Jesse asked his lawyer, Calvin Pepper, to plant documents at Cherry Hill incriminating Elsie as the mastermind behind the plan as he had burned the letters she sent him. Pepper refused and told him he would not receive a lighter sentence whatever he did.

As Jesse suspected, Elsie was said to be the victim. In truth, the rifle had been bought with her money, she removed the curtain in John’s room so Jesse could shoot and she was the one who could poison John’s tea.

At Strang’s trial, The district attorney was Edward Livingston, a relative of the Van Rensselaers and Lansings’ who told Jesse to his face, “You are guilty, you must be convicted, you must die!” and Judge Duer called him a “serpent” and a “fiend”. When the judge asked the jury for a verdict, the jury deliberated for less than 15 minutes before pronouncing him guilty of murder.

Three days after Strang’s trial, Elsie Whipple stood trial for aiding and abetting the murder of her husband. In four days, a clearly guilty Elsie was pronounced not guilty and cleared of charges. After Strang finished being a witness on the stand at Elsie’s trial, he was sentenced to death by hanging.

On August 24, 1827, Jesse Strang was hanged in what was the last public hanging in Albany. Most of the elite in Albany lauded this as justice served. Elsie got away and lived in Cherry Hill. The murder, the stir it caused in not only Albany, but also the entire nation, and the verdict has been in hot debate and will probably continue to be for its highly controversial decision regarding the involvement of Elsie in the crime.

Bibliography

Moore, Sean (2004). Husband Murder. Retrieved April 27, 2007, from Husband Murder, Seduction, and Female Violence Web site: http://faculty.plattsburgh.edu/sean.moore/Chapter%204-Extract%20from%20dissertation.htm

Parker, E Retrieved May 3, 2007, Web site: http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9612c&L=aejmc&P=936

Jones, Louis (1980). Murder at Cherry Hill: The Strang-Whipple Case, 1827. Historic Cherry Hill.

Whodunnit teaches history. (1991, January 13). Sunday Union,

Selections from a Van Rensselaer family library. (1768).

Visited Cherry Hill, April 27, 2007.

Quote from Edward Livingston, District Attorney.

Quote from Judge Duer

Saw gravestone of John Whipple, Albany Rural Cemetery

(2005, July). Retrieved May 17, 2007, from Elsie Van Rensselaer Lansing Web site: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/vr/elvr5078.html