It was agreed that they should meet near Paine’s house about dark, or soon after, and endeavor by some means or other to decoy him away from the house to the river, where they were to fall upon him and kill him with weapons they should provide for the purpose; then they were to tie a large weight about his neck and throw his body into the river. Accordingly they repaired to the place of rendezvous appointed, each one armed for the diabolical purpose with some deadly weapon. After waiting some time without being able to see or hear anything of Paine, for he happened to be away from home, and did not return until late, they repaired to a low public house near by, to consider what should be done, as they were now frustrated in their design. They here drank deeply, and urged on to desperation by the maddening and intoxicating draught they had taken, resolved upon the death of their victim at all hazards. After disguising themselves as much as possible, they went back again to Paine’s house, and stationed themselves one on each side of the house, to give the alarm if they were likely to be discovered. Smith then entered the house and groped his way through the dark until he came to the room where Paine and his wife slept. Paine hearing the door open, raised himself a little in the bed and enquired who was there, when Smith raised an axe which he picked up outside the door, and struck Paine upon the head nearly burying it to the socket, and splitting his head in a horrible manner. He then threw down the axe and drew a large butcher knife, and rushed upon him, and stabbed him to the heart, and cut his throat from ear to ear and otherwise mangled his body in a most horrible manner. During this time Paine’s wife was screaming as loud as possible, but Smith paid no attention to her cries, intent only on the death of his victim. His companions outside fled upon hearing her cries, and persons in the neighborhood, on hearing the alarm repaired to the house. Smith was taken just as he was coming out of the house; he was kept in custody until the following day, when a warrant was signed and he committed to prison, until the first sitting of the Supreme Court, where he received the just merit of his cruel and blood-thirsty crime. He was tried, condemned and sentenced to be hung, I believe, in 1822, which finished his cruel and unlawful career. Had he himself fled after striking the first blow, he too might have probably escaped, but perhaps he was too much intoxicated. Thus some means are always left whereby the guilty are sooner or later brought to punishment. It was on the gallows, just before he was swung off, that he made a short confession from which we copy the words above stated.—The names of his companions we did not learn, as he would not discover them, as he said they were the fathers of families. We give this short history of him who was the father of the subject of this narrative, in order to show the source from which she sprung.
After the execution of Smith, his family, as may be supposed, was thrown into the utmost confusion, and it was at this time that Mrs. Smith saw the necessity of bringing all her artfulness into action, as she had now a large family depending upon her for support, and her means of living had now become very limited. However she managed so as to make her house a house of entertainment for persons travelling for pleasure, or those who were spending the summer months in that delightful region, away from the more unwholesome air of a crowded and pent up city, and in this manner, as may be supposed, they formed many new acquaintances, and by keeping up appearances pretty high, and teaching her daughters well the art of deception, she soon succeeded in marrying them all to persons of considerable respectability. She had now an only son who was nearing the age of manhood, and who by his long associations with a set of low, drinking, gambling and licentious persons, was little better even at this age than a perfect sot, but of him we will speak in another page.
The youngest daughter, whose name was Ann and who is the subject of this narrative, was at the age of sixteen married to a man whose name was Walters, a respectable wheelright from the lower part of Delaware, who happened to be travelling in that section of the country in the summer of 1828, and stopped for a day or two at St. John’s, where he was taken sick, and as he had put up at the house of Mrs. Smith, and she found her guest to be a person of very good personal attraction, and possessing considerable money, she determined at once to bring about a marriage between him and her daughter. Consequently he was treated with the greatest care and attention during his illness; Ann being his constant and daily attendant. She was an uncommonly agreeable person, and by no means bad looking, although rather large. She was extraordinarily fond of music and dancing, a great talker, very witty and fascinating in her conversation, and concealed her real character so well that he soon fell in love with her, and her mother also exercising an influence over him, he was induced to marry her immediately on his recovery.
The following year he returned to Delaware, taking his wife with him, and settling down on the Nontioke river near the Maryland line, about ten or twelve miles from Laurel, where he established a ferry now called by the same name, also working considerably at his trade whenever opportunity permitted.
He had not been married long, as may be supposed, before he found out the real character of his wife which preyed upon his constitution. His health soon began to decay rapidly, and at the end of three years he died, leaving her a young widow just twenty years old. His death was not so much grief to her as was supposed by those who dealt out sympathies towards her, as the tender hearted but deceived people thought, she being so far from her relatives if she had any alive, for none were ever seen visiting her since they moved there. But it has since been ascertained by her own confession that he died by the effects of poison which she gave him through her negro slave whom she kept as cook, taking care lest suspicion might occur after his death and examination take place, that it might appear a mistake, or through the ignorance of the illiterate slave. This she did, thinking no doubt, that she was clear of him, as his health seemed declining, she could then carry out any plan she might devise for the gratification of propensities, for she was very sensual in her pleasures and totally incapable of appreciating that high toned feeling and the dignity of self respect and refinement which should govern the female sex. She was almost indifferent to any principle of justice, as well as to human sufferings. She was bold, revengeful, and courageous, and cunning in the subjects of her pursuits. She was also very deceitful, shrewd, and had great influence over the weaker minds. After the death of her husband she became one of the most abandoned and notorious of women, giving loose to every species of licentiousness and extravagance, and there was no crime too great, no deed too cruel for her to engage in, to accomplish any object of her design, after engaging personally in acts of the most outrageous butcheries and robbery.
After living in this manner for three years after the death of her husband, her previous course of life being secreted from public censure, 1835, she moved from her place of habitation to near Johnson’s cross roads, on the line between Maryland and Delaware, five miles from her old place of habitation. She here set up a low tavern, as she knew she would then have a much greater chance of carrying on her unlawful and wicked practices here. She made use of a great variety of artifices to induce slave dealers and others, who she thought would be likely to have any quantity of money with them, to put up with her, and she was considered by some to be a very hospitable woman; seldom charging her visitors anything. Besides, being a young and fascinating widow, just in the flower of life, it was nothing remarkable to see gentlemen of various ranks frequenting her house some under the pretence of paying addresses to her, besides its being a tavern, as taverns in the southern countries differ in regularity from those of the northern or free States. Although born in a free country where slavery is abhorred, she soon imbibed a taste for the traffic in slaves, as our readers may easily perceive that her location was in a slave State where morality is not very exalted, as such a course could not possibly have been carried on in a free State so long, without meeting the eye of detection. However, she so managed matters as to make her house a kind of head quarters for slave dealers, who generally had plenty of money, she soon got round her a gang of ruffians who were perfectly obedient to her will and ready to do the most bloody acts whenever she commanded. Of this gang she was always the master-spirit, and deviser of ways and means. Whenever travellers called upon her she marked her man at once, laid her plans, then gave the watchword and frequently became the leader herself in the most horrible crimes.
About the middle of November 1835, a gentleman whose name was Parker, from Richmond, Va., on his way to New York, stopped to feed his horse, and called for dinner. Finding that he had a large quantity of money by him, she placed her unsuspecting guest at a table so that his back was near an open window, through which he was shot by one of her accomplices. They then robbed him of every thing he had in his possession, amounting to three thousand dollars. They then secreted his body in the cellar until the night, when a hole was dug in the swamp in the rear of the house, where he was afterwards deposited without much hesitation. His horse they afterwards sold for two hundred dollars in Baltimore.
In about two months after, two slave dealers from Norfolk, Va., called at the house on their way to Baltimore, the travelling being very bad, and finding it necessary to stop and feed their horses, and refresh themselves. After calling for dinner, and making some enquiry about the slave market in Baltimore, they engaged in conversation, and whiled away the time by exciting and gratifying their feelings by the wit of their hostess. Three times they called for their horses, which were at length brought, but another glass of wine was passed around, and they were enticed to stay a little longer. Thus she kept them until night, when they started expecting to reach Laurel, which was about fifteen miles distant, via Perkin’s ferry. But no sooner had they departed from the house than she dressed herself in men’s attire, and took with her three of her gang. One was named Griffin, of whom we will speak immediately; another, whose name was Hunt, was one of Griffin’s early associates; but the name of the other we are not certain of, as he has yet escaped; it is thought he made his way to Texas. However, they mounted some of their fleetest horse, and started in pursuit, determined on killing and robbing them. Taking another road crossing the river above Perkin’s ferry, and placing obstructions in the road as it passed up a sandy hill, they there laid in wait for them; stationing themselves to fire upon them as they ascended the hill, she and her gang rushed out and fired, wounding both of them—one of them so badly that he died in a few hours—and so frightening the travellers’ horses that they ran away from both robbers and drivers, though the wounded travellers managed to drive safely through to Laurel that night, where the one who was most hurt died almost immediately on his arrival at the inn.
The above named Griffin was executed for murder, at Cambridge, Maryland, on the 14th of June last, and when brought upon the scaffold, he declared, as he stood in the last moments of his earthly existence, and on the brink of eternity, expecting in a few moments to meet his God in judgment, that he was innocent of the crime, for which he was about to die, but still acknowledged that he was guilty of other murders of the most awful and blackest shade. He begged a little time as he said he could not think of appearing before his eternal Judge, without confessing to the world, the awful crimes of which he was guilty. He then proceeded as follows: