John Phoenix

Released

Full name:John Harding Phoenix

Date of birth:27. 07. 1819

Date of death:19. 12. 1908

Age:89^{† Deceased}

Gender:Male

Era:1800s

State:New York

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Tenant Rights Anti-Rent War

Biography

John Phoenix was a Delaware County, New York Anti-Renter imprisoned after the August 7, 1845 killing of Undersheriff Osman N. Steele at the Moses Earle farm in Andes, Delaware County, New York, where a rent-distress sale on a patroon-system leasehold drew hundreds of disguised "Calico Indian" Anti-Rent militants. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and received seven years in state prison, and was freed by Governor John Young's mass Anti-Rent pardon on January 27, 1847. Born John Harding Phoenix on July 27, 1819, he outlived every other man imprisoned in the case, dying on December 19, 1908 at the age of 89.

Case

Charges: First-degree manslaughter.

Arrested: August 1845

Incarcerated: August 1845

Released: Jan 27, 1847

Sentence: Seven years in state prison. Freed by Governor John Young's mass Anti-Rent pardon of January 27, 1847. One account says eighteen Anti-Rent prisoners were still in the state prisons at that point, so one of the nineteen recorded here had already left custody — the surviving lists do not agree on which — and the pardon date recorded as the release may overstate one man's term. Accounts differ on where the Anti-Rent prisoners were held: some say the Delaware County men went first to Sing Sing, while later accounts place at least Boughton and Earle at Clinton Prison before the pardon, transfers likely explaining the disagreement — so no institution is asserted here. Verdict as recorded: Yes — by guilty plea to first-degree manslaughter at the Delhi sessions, 1845. Charges as recorded: First-degree manslaughter — the Andes rent-distress confrontation and the killing of Undersheriff Osman N. Steele, August 7, 1845.

Convicted: Yes

Plead: Guilty — to first-degree manslaughter

John Phoenix

Biography

Case

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