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| Christmas Lights circa 1914 |
The year was
1914. While the pretty lakeside village
of Canandaigua, New York was strung with garlands and lights twinkled in shop windows
enticing Christmas shoppers, Edward McCabe and his roommate Thomas Burns were
busily downing drinks in a village saloon.
Later the two men caught the train to the small hamlet where they
resided. Edward, the son of my second great-grandfather James O’Hora’s sister, was born in Auburn, New York to Irish
immigrants Patrick and Mary O’Hora McCabe. Now at 55, Edward was a large man, over 200 pounds,
and in top shape from the physical labor he performed on area farms. A news article described his physique as magnificent. Edward had a long arrest record, begun in his
teenage years for petty robberies and assaults. His
friend Thomas Burns was an immigrant from Ireland, and at age 33 a younger and much smaller man than Edward. Both
were farm laborers and bachelors who enjoyed their liquor, and they brought with
them on the train that day a jug of whiskey.
Witnesses would later testify that after disembarking at the station in Holcomb,
the men were overheard arguing loudly over who contributed more to their
living expenses. The two eventually
returned to their shanty a short distance away and resumed drinking. The argument continued off and on throughout
the evening as the liquor flowed. No
doubt weary after the day’s exertions, Edward McCabe stretched out on his bed. Burns,
still angry, took that opportunity to attack, unexpectedly striking Edward with
a shovel using such force that the blow cut Edward’s nose and lips in two
vertically, and left a jagged wound down his forehead. He fell from his bed and lay
helpless on the floor as Burns continued the assault, stomping and kicking him,
breaking his ribs and inflicting internal injuries.
Early the next
morning, December 10th, Edward was found by two hunters, who upon hearing moans emanating from the
shanty entered and found his bloodied form still lying on the floor next
to the shovel. He was rushed to
Canandaigua and admitted to the hospital there where he made a deathbed
statement detailing the attack and naming Thomas Burns as his assailant. Edward died of his injuries in the early
morning hours of December 11th. His death certificate gave the cause of death
as,”Hemorrhage and shock due to lacerations of head, fracture of ribs and other
injuries, probably homicidal”.
Burns, who had returned to Canandaigua to continue imbibing, seemingly unaware of his roommate’s demise, was apprehended in a rented room at the Webster House there. Charged with
murder, he would later be allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced
to, “at least six years and six months and no more than nineteen years at
Auburn Prison”. Edwards’s brothers from
Auburn came for his body and accompanied him on his final trip home.
Thomas Burns’
future is not clear. In the 1930 census,
the Utica State Hospital for the Insane had in their care a patient named Thomas
Burns of the right age. I can’t be
certain it’s him, it’s a quite common name, but it well may be the right man. The patient named Thomas was born in
Ireland as was the killer Thomas, who at one time had lived in the Syracuse
area. He could have returned there after
his release on the manslaughter charges; Utica is only an hour away from
Syracuse.
Six and a half
years seems a very short time for such a brutal murder, I can only wonder
why he was allowed to plea bargain such a straightforward case and given the light sentence he was?
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