First Recorded Murder Trial with a Death Sentence in Cortland County

     Patrick O'Donahue, murderer, was hung at the County Court House on September 2, 1853. He was tried for the murder of Mrs. Jane Ann Kinney and her daughter Amanda Jane and found guilty by a jury on August 3, 1853. This was the first recorded murder trial with a death sentence in Cortland County.
     The facts and events were preserved by historian H.P. Smith in his History of Cortland County published in 1885. He condensed an earlier version of the events that were recorded in Cortland County and the Border Wars of New York (1859) by historian H.C. Goodwin.
     Smith's condensed narrative follows:
 
    
     On the 2d day of September, 1853, the first and only death penalty ever inflicted in Cortland county was paid by Patrick O'Donohue, for the murder of Mrs. Jane Ann Kinney, of Truxton, on the 3d of September, 1852. The following account of the tragedy is condensed from Goodwin's history: ---

     "O'Donohue's daughter, Elizabeth, a girl of ten years, had been forbidden to visit the house of Mrs. Kinney. This command she disobeyed, and to escape the vengeance of her father's fiend-like temper, her two elder sisters secreted her in a ledge of jagged rocks, and then informed their father that she had been stolen. O'Donohue hastened from his work in the woods, accompanied by his wife and two or three children, all in a high state of excitement. He was falsely made to believe that the abductor was no other than the husband of Mrs. Kinney, whom he presumed to be his enemy.

     "A search for the little girl was instituted by the father and his son, the former carrying a loaded gun. The search was given up about the middle of the forenoon; at about this time Mrs. Kinney and her daughter were on their way to the residence of a neighbor, and of necessity had to pass by the house of O'Donohue. Just as they drew near it they were met by the murderer, who angrily asked Mrs. Kinney if she had seen Elizabeth. Receiving a negative answer, he flew into a terrible passion, leveled his gun and fired at Mrs. Kinney; the contents of the weapon grazed her side, causing her to stagger forward. O'Donohue was now more enraged than before. Reversing his gun he struck the defenseless woman several blows, the second of which dislocated her neck.

     "Not yet satisfied he flew at the daughter, who had fallen from fright, and plunged the bayonet of the gun into her body; although she seized the weapon, the demon wrenched it from her grasp and thrust it again and again into her body.

     "The tragedy was discovered, soon after it was committed, by Charles McKnight. As he approached the spot his life was threatened by O'Donohue, but he gained a full view of the victims. He advised the murderer to go to the village and give himself up to the authorities, presuming him to be crazy. He told him that men suffering from a diseased mind were not always responsible for their acts; perhaps he would not be punished.

     "The murderer seemed to accept the counsel, for he, with his wife and son, started toward the village, where he was afterward arrested. His indictment followed at the October term of the County Court, and he was tried at the following July Court of Oyer and Terminer. Hon. Schuyler Cripen was the presiding judge, associated with John S. Dyer and Noah H. Osborne. R. Holland Duell, then district attorney, and General Nye, appeared in behalf of the people; Horatio Ballard and Daniel Gott, counsel. The prisoner was found guilty of murder in the first degree, on the 3d of August, 1853. O'Donohue was hung in the court-house on the date before mentioned."

    
     It took forty minutes for the jury to return a verdict.
     Frederick Ives was the sheriff of Cortland County.
     The Village of Cortland was incorporated two months later on November 5, 1853.
     On October 29, 1853, another person with the name Patrick O'Donohue arrived in New York City. Exiled in 1848 for treason by Great Britain for rebellion at County Tipperary, he was sent to Van Diemen's Island (Tasmania) and placed on a chain gang. He escaped in March 1851, travelled by ship to San Francisco and then to New York City. He died in 1854.

Reference:
1) Google ebooks--Cortland County and the Border Wars of New York
2) RootsWeb.Ancestry--History of Cortland County 1885