Hon. W. D. Kelly, one of the Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, for the City and County of Philadelphia, Francis Jobson, (collector of water rents,) Wm. D. Francke, Daniel Evans, (fire-proof chest maker,) Isaiah G. Stratton, Wm. Stroud, (officer in the Custom House,) Jacob Walker, John Hinkle, Norman Ackley, (constable,) Anthony Hoover, Aaron B. Fithian, Geo. K. Wise, John Mackey, Andrew Redheffer, John McEwen, Thomas Liston, William Hopkins, James Smith, William Nutt, John Manderson, Jacob Glassmire, John Dittus, Joseph Parker, Charles H. Roberts,[B] testified that they knew Henry H. Kline. They were citizens of Philadelphia, and some of them had been acquainted with him for twelve or fourteen years. When asked the question prescribed by law, “What is his general character for truth and veracity?” the answer uniformly was, “It is bad,” or words to that effect. Some, and among these Judge Kelly, when asked, “Would you believe him on his oath?” answered, “That would depend on circumstances;” some answered positively “no,” and others so qualified their answers as to show their belief that his testimony should be received cautiously.
John Carr, a blacksmith, who lived four or five miles from Parker’s, testified that on the night of the 10th of September, between eight and nine o’clock, he followed Harvey Scott (one of the colored men whom Kline swore he saw at Parker’s) up stairs to bed, in the garret of his house, and buttoned the door after him; the next morning (the 11th) he unbuttoned the same door, called him down, saw him immediately go about his daily employment, and had him employed that day in his shop. John S. Cochran, who also lived with John Carr, testified to substantially the same facts.
Lewis Cooper was examined as to the transactions of the morning of the 11th, after the riot. He carried from the ground, in his dearborn, the wounded Dickinson Gorsuch, and the body of Edward Gorsuch. He testified to some conversations with several witnesses, and that he was one of the neighbors who accompanied the corpse to Maryland.
John Houston was called, and testified that about the time of the riot there was a party of men at work on the railroad near Christiana, who were called to work in the morning by a bugle; and to some other immaterial matters.
Enoch Harlan, Joseph M. Thompson, George Mitchell, Levi Wayne Thompson, Andrew Mitchell, Wharton Pennock, Samuel Pennock, John Bernard, Calvin Russell, Isaac Walton, James Coates, Ellis P. Irvin, Geo. W. Irwin, testified that they knew the defendant Hanway, some of them having known him from boyhood. They all represented him as an “orderly, quiet, well-disposed and peaceable citizen.”
With this the testimony on the part of the defendant closed. They had proven all they promised—the notoriously bad character of Kline for truth and veracity, the good character of Hanway, the acts of kidnapping, and such other circumstances as repelled the presumption of combination; but most important of all, the fact that Hanway went suddenly to Parker’s house, upon information that there were kidnappers around it, to prevent if possible the recurrence of such scenes as had more than once appalled the neighborhood; that when shown the legal authority of the officer, he was going away, and only delayed his departure from the ground to use his exertions in preventing bloodshed.
The prosecution, in turn, offered rebutting testimony. Mr. G. L. Ashmead, in his opening remarks, offered to sustain the character of Kline, which, it seems, was thought to have been somewhat damaged by the attack made upon it; to prove (if the attendance of witnesses could be procured) that the seizure from the house of Chamberlain was not a case of kidnapping; that in September, 1850, armed bands of negroes paraded the “streets of Lancaster” (city) in search of slave-hunters; that in April, 1851, a Mr. Samuel Worthington had been prevented from making arrest of an alleged fugitive from labor, in the vicinity of Christiana; to contradict some witnesses who had related conversations with Kline; to prove that Harvey Scott was at Parker’s house, by the testimony of Scott himself; to prove that after the riot Kline had acted as a good officer; and that sundry meetings had been held in Lancaster county in favor of the “higher law.”
E. G. Wood, (police officer,) James Buckley, (Lieutenant of city police,) John Hence, Samuel Goldy, Peter Keller, (an ex-police officer,) Charles Worrell, (innkeeper,) William McDaniels, (tax collector,) Wm. B. Rankin, (attorney,) Alderman Brazier, Thomas Stainroop, John S. Keyser, (marshal of police,) Jacob Weightman, (bar-tender,) John Gamble, (police officer,) John Millward, W. W. Weeks, Andrew Flick, (constable,) F. M. Adams, (attorney,) C. B. F. O’Neill, (do.,) Aaron Green, James Barber, (constable,) James Brown, Sr., (innkeeper,) John H. Moore, (police officer,) Daniel Weyman, Thomas Connell, John Martin, Robert L. Curry, E. J. Charnley, (clerk,) D. A. Davis, (interpreter,) D. L. Wilson, (carriage driver,) Jacob Dulther, John McElroy, (clerk,) J. W. Stanroop, Egbert Summerdyke, Nathan Lucans, Lafayette Stainroop, Thomas Downing, W. D. Haylett, D. D. Emerick, D. W. Rickafus, James Pidgeon, Albert G. Stevens, James Brown, Jr., David Vicely, W. L. Gray, John Selets, Henry Cornish, Samuel Babb, Thomas Wallace, John C. Lamb, Wm. Ray, (innkeeper,) Joseph A. Nunes, (attorney,) Joseph Abrams, (attorney,) Michael Barr, (innkeeper,) W. W. Hankinson, Charles H. Lex, Thomas E. Connell, Jr., J. L. Thomas, (attorney,) William Connell, (gas-fitter,) Joseph S. Brewster, (attorney,) E. E. Pettit, (do.,) Wm. E. Lehman, (do.,) Dr. Vondersmith, Alderman White, Charles P. Buckingham, Phillip Winnemore, J. C. Smith, George Carter, J. P. Loughead, (attorney,) were called to support Kline’s character. Many of them said, they had heard his character called in question, but that they would believe him on his oath.
William Noble was next called, to prove that “in the month of September, 1851, the county of Lancaster, and particularly the neighborhood of Christiana, was patrolled by armed bodies of negroes, after a report that slaveholders had come up there for slaves. That these armed bands of negroes went from house to house, in that neighborhood, searching for the slaveholders, swearing vengeance against them, and expressing a determination to kill them.”
The object of this was to sustain the allegation of combination—the gist of the entire case, in the proof of which the prosecution had so signally failed.