William Joscelyn

AKA: William Jocelyn
Released
Gender:Male
Era:1800s
State:New York
Support
Tenant Rights Anti-Rent War
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Biography

William Joscelyn — the surname is also spelled Jocelyn — 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. Convicted of fourth-degree manslaughter, he received two years in state prison and was freed by Governor John Young's mass Anti-Rent pardon on January 27, 1847.

Case

Charges: Fourth-degree manslaughter.
Arrested: August 1845
Incarcerated: August 1845
Released: Jan 27, 1847
Sentence: Two 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 — of fourth-degree manslaughter at the Delhi sessions, 1845. Charges as recorded: Fourth-degree manslaughter — the Andes rent-distress confrontation and the killing of Undersheriff Osman N. Steele, August 7, 1845.
Convicted: Yes

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