good impulse. I have considered mankind my natural prey and have never
hesitated to gratify my appetites, passions, and desires, no matter how
dear the sacrifice paid by others for their gratification, and now
society which I have so long outraged claims the only recompense I can
make for all the wrongs I have committed; the law, which to me has ever
been a subject of scorn and derision, now exerts its majesty, and calls
on me to pay the penalty due for breaking it; mankind, against whom I
have so long waged a bloody and resistless war, now clamors for my
blood, in compensation for the innocent blood I have so often shed.
Justice at last asserts her sway, and a dreadful punishment awaits me.
But let me go on to the end.
The sloop E. A. Johnson offered an easy prey. She had on board, I
supposed, from all the information I could gather, something over a
thousand dollars, and the entire crew consisted of but two boys and
myself.
I had never known of or seen Captain Burr before I shipped with him. He
had never done me injury or wrong, so that I had no revenge to gratify,
no grudge to pay.
He seemed a kind and amiable man, and would, I have no doubt, awakened
kindly feelings in any heart but mine, and even I liked him. Yet I
engaged myself to him solely, and only for the cruel purpose of taking
his life, the lives of the two young men, and making myself master of
the money I supposed he had on board.
I calculated to do this as calmly as you would contemplate doing any of
the usual duties in the ordinary transactions of life.
I had killed men, yes, and boys, too, many a time before, for far less
inducement than the sum I supposed I should gain by killing them; and I
had too often dyed my murderous hands in blood in days gone by, to feel
the slightest compunctions or qualms of conscience then.
I never thought of the consequences of such a crime. The fear of
detection never once crossed my mind. I had too often done the same
thing with impunity to believe that a day of reckoning would ever come,
in this world at least, and I never gave a thought to the world to come.
After engaging with Captain Burr, I went home to my wife at 129 Cedar
street, and lying down on the bed, told her not to disturb me, as I
wanted to take a long sleep, and if any one came for me, to say that I
was not in. She left me alone, and I then deliberately matured all my
plans. I marked out the course I intended to pursue exactly, and after I
had decided upon everything, I went to sleep and slept as soundly as
ever I slept in my life, my mind was so much at ease, and I felt so
contented at the idea of having at last an opportunity of making some
money in an easy way.
The next day I went on board and commenced my duties, and in order to
ingratiate myself into the good graces of the captain, I did even more
than could have been expected of me.
We sailed on the sixteenth of March from the foot of Spring street, and
proceeded to Keyport, where we remained till Sunday. While here, I
scraped the mast of the sloop, did a lot of carpenter work, and
evidently pleased Captain Burr very much by my earnestness in trying to
make everything look ship-shape.
We arrived at Gravesend on Saturday afternoon, and waited there for a
fair wind.
At last we put to sea, and when we were off the Ocean House, I went to
the forecastle, and got an axe, which I put in the boat hanging to the
davit aft.
The younger Watts was at the helm, and I asked him to allow me to steer
a little while. He consented, and went forward.
In a few minutes I left the helm, and taking the axe, went to him, and
asked him if he saw Barnegat Light. He said he did not. I told him to
look again, and pointed with my hand.
He turned round and looked in my face a moment, but even if he had
suspected my cruel purpose, he would have read no indication of it
there, for I was as calm as though I were going to do the simplest and
most innocent thing in life.
Had I been under human influences, the confident and trusty way in which
he turned his eyes to mine, would have made me hesitate, but no such
thought entered my heart, and I pointed again and told him to “Look
there; ain’t that it!”
He turned his head, and peered through the darkness in the direction I
pointed, and as he did so, I struck him on the back of the head with the
axe, and knocked him down.
He fell!
Thinking I had not killed him, I struck him again with the axe as he lay
upon the deck.
His fall and the sound of the axe made some noise, which, added to that
caused by my running across the deck, attracted the attention of the
captain, who came up the companionway, and putting out his head, asked
what was the matter?
I replied, “nothing,” and then asked him, as I had the younger Watts,
“Is that Barnegat light.”
Captain Burr replied, “No, you will not see it for two hours;” and as he
spoke he turned his head from me.
The axe swung in the air, and, guided by my sinewy and murderous arm,
came down.
The edge crunched through his neck, nearly severing his head from his
body, and killing him instantly.
The body fell down the companionway.
As I turned to leap after it, and dispatch my remaining victim, I looked
forward, and—Oh, God, how I shudder to think of it now!—he whom I
thought I had already killed had risen and was coming aft, his hand
outstretched toward me, and the blood running in two dark streams over
his pale face, from two ghastly wounds on his head.
For a moment I stood undecided, but as he still came on, I ran toward
him, but ere I reached him he fell about midships, and rushing on him, I
struck once! twice! thrice! with the axe, and finished him.
Running aft, I jumped down the companionway with the bloody axe in my
hand.
There lay the elder Watts in his berth, and close beside him the
ghastly, bloody corpse of the captain.
I stood a moment looking at him, and dashed at him and struck out with
the axe.
He leaped out of his berth, and sprang at me, all red with the blood of
the captain, whose body had fallen past him, covering him with gore in
its fall.
He tried to grapple with me, but stepping back, I gave the fatal axe a
full swing, and struck him again, again, and again, once upon the head,
once on the back, and once more upon the head, which felled him to the
floor, and he lay dead at my feet, side by side with the captain.
My bloody work was done!
Dead men tell no tales.
I was alone. No eye had seen me, and now I was free to reap the reward
of my work.
I did not feel the slightest regret for what I had done, and went about
removing the bodies, as coolly as though they had been so much old
lumber.
I took a rope and bent it on to the feet of the elder Watts, hauled him
on deck, and threw him over the quarter. I then hauled the captain out
in the same manner, and threw him over; and then going to midships, I
lifted the body of the younger Watts from the deck, and plunged him into
the sea by the starboard side.
I then threw the axe overboard, and soon as I had done this, I changed
the course of the sloop, and ran in close to the Hook.
My intention was to run the sloop up the North River, and then fire her,
but I came near running her on the Dog Beacon, abreast of Coney Island
and Staten Island lighthouse, after which I fouled with a schooner, and
carried away the bowsprit, so I put the money and such other articles of
value as I could pick up, into the yawl, and then sculled ashore three
miles, landing just below the fort on Staten Island.
My movements after landing are well known; and when I look back upon the
fatality which seemed to dog my steps, it seems as though the fiend, who
so long had stood by me in every emergency, had deserted me at last, and
had left me to my own weakness.
But I never thought of this until after my arrest. I had no shadow of a
presentiment that I should be checked so suddenly and brought to
justice, and on my return to New York, made arrangements to go away with
my family as coolly as if nothing had occurred which should counsel me
to use caution.
But on that fatal night when I awoke from a deep sleep to find the
officers of the law standing by my bed, for the first time fear overcame
me, and I grew faint and weak as a baby. Great drops of sweat started
out on my forehead and all over my body, and then I realized that at
last the master whom I had served so long had really deserted me and
abandoned me to my fate.
But to all outward appearance I choked these feelings down, and none who
saw me dreamed of what was passing within.
My task is done. I have related all the awful details of my life with as
much minuteness as I can, and now nothing is left me but to prepare to
die.
I ask no sympathy, and expect none. I shall go to the gallows cursed by
all who know the causes which will bring me there, and my only hope is
that God will, in his infinite mercy, grant me that spirit of true
repentance which may lead to pardon and forgiveness in the world to
come.
PHRENOLOGICAL CHARACTER
OF
ALBERT W. HICKS,
GIVEN AT
FOWLER AND WELLS’ PHRENOLOGICAL CABINET,
308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
BY L. N. FOWLER, PROFESSOR OF PHRENOLOGY.
_June 29th, 1860_
He has a remarkably strong muscular organization, and bony system, which
has a powerful influence on the tone, quality and direction of his mind.
His mental temperament is fairly developed, but not to such an extent as
to give the finer qualities to the mind and character. He is excitable,
and susceptible of intense feeling, yet it is rather a heated impulse of
passion, than a delicate and refined sensibility.
He has a large brain, which gives a great amount of general mental
power, and with a good education and proper direction, he would be able
to exert a leading and extensive influence over others.
His Phrenological developments are very marked. His head is high in the
crown, and long, but rather narrow. Destructiveness is not a leading
organ, and it acts chiefly as the servant of his excessive will and
other strong propensities, which circumstances and bad training may have
made sources of temptation to him. He is however, strongly developed in
Combativeness, which gives the spirit of resistance, self-defence, and
power to overcome obstacles, and if provoked, and had some selfish
purpose to subserve, his Combativeness and Firmness would render him
capable of almost any act of desperation.
His social organs are large, and he is susceptible of strong love to
woman, but with such a temperament that love would take an animal
direction. He is interested in children and home, and in friends when
they do not oppose his course. He is also very continuous and protracted
in mind, and never gives up any project that he has once resolved to
accomplish.
His Alimentiveness is large; he loves to gratify the appetite highly,
and is liable to indulge it too freely. His love of property acts
strongly in proportion to his want of it, and he seeks it to spend,
rather than to lay up, and if he had an abundance, it would go freely in
the gratification of his various desires.
The tendency to be cunning and artful, is not very strong. He is more
likely to do things openly and undisguised, than he is to work shrewdly
behind the curtain, and do things in such a mysterious way as to defy
detection; yet he has much Cautiousness, and is watchful where there are
dangers and difficulties to be encountered.
He has a great amount of ambition to excel in what he does. He has also
excessive Self-Esteem, independence, self-reliance, and desire to be the
master spirit, and maintain his own individuality. His will is the
strongest element of his mind, and his character is more affected by it
than by any other one faculty; for whatever he may purpose to do through
the influence of circumstances, he will carry out at all hazards.
His moral brain indicates large Hope and anticipation, but only medium
Conscientiousness and Benevolence, which hardly ever act in a
controlling manner.
His Spirituality is very deficient; he has very little idea of the
unseen, and of subjects pertaining to the higher life, and has scarcely
any Veneration at all, which leads him to act without due regard to the
Higher Power, and without feeling his dependence on, or much
responsibility to, his Creator.
His mechanical talent, sense of beauty, and love of the sublime, are
only average in power. His ability to imitate and copy, is good, and his
love of fun rather strong, without being particularly given to joking
and fun-making. He has a correct eye for proportion, can judge well of
forms and outlines; has a good degree of order and arrangement, has good
native talents for making estimates and calculations; has a superior
memory of places and localities, and decidedly good abilities for any
kind of mental operation where order, method, system, knowledge of
principles and places is required.
His conversational talents are poor, and his memory of events not very
good. His powers of comparison are excellent; intuition, and ability to
judge of character and motives, good; agreeableness and suavity of
manner rather wanting; in fact, the leading features of his character
grow out of his will, determination, and continuity of mind; a
domineering, proud, unsubmissive spirit, joined to strong watchfulness
and forethought, and the desire to accomplish what he attempts, in the
most signal and positive manner. He should be known for love of his
female friends, fondness for children, attachment to home, and a fair
degree of sympathy with his friends. He has a deficiency of tact and
power to conceal his feelings, and those qualities that give
spirituality, religious feeling, and sense of dependence. The crimes
that he has been led to commit, are full as much the result of a want of
the right kind of education, as from his natural organization. He has
strong passions, and an unbending and headstrong will; but with proper
culture, and good circumstances, he would, most likely, have used his
energy and talents in a way to secure success and respectability,
instead of warring upon the rights and interests of his fellow men.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 36, corrected “power to define and perish felony” to “power to
define and punish felony.”
2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.