MURDER AND SUICIDE

This is a view of Lime Hollow Road, looking southwest, the likely "cross road" mentioned in the news article. The marl pond can be seen in the upper left quadrant.

This is a northeast view of Lime Hollow Road. If Mr. Galpin was on his way to Cortland when he was shot, he would not have "turned to the southwest" as reported. He would be have traveled northeast. CC contributors have examined this neighborhood  and suspect that the Tripp residence was located on the south side of Lime Hollow Road. The dried-out marl pond can be seen in the lower right of this Google map section.

Cortland Evening Standard, Wednesday, December 18, 1895.

MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Cold-Blooded Shooting Affair Near Cortland This Morning.

END OF A TWO YEARS' FEUD.

Cat and Chickens Start a Neighborhood Quarrel.

R. W. Tripp Lay in Wait for George W. Galpin and Blew His Brains Out with a Shot Gun, then Shot Himself.

   A cat fight under a bedroom window, the shooting of one of the cats, hot words between neighbors, depredations of hens, the shooting of hens, a suit in justice's court, more words, a neighborhood quarrel, a murder, a suicide. These are the successive steps which cover a period of more than two years and which brought it about that to-day Rensselaer W. Tripp and George W. Galpin are both lying dead in their respective homes nearly across the street from each other, the former a murderer and a suicide and the latter his victim, and two families are nearly prostrated with deepest grief.  

   Mr. Tripp has lived for seventeen years on a farm on a cross road between the South Cortland and McLean roads about two miles south of Cortland and near the marl pond. His farm of twenty-nine acres he held under a life lease from his first wife. Across the street from him was another little farm of forty acres which he used to own, but which about seven years ago was sold under mortgage foreclosure and was bought by R. Bruce Smith. A year later Mr. Smith sold this place to George W. Galpin, who is well-known all through this vicinity as a skilled painter and paper hanger. Mr. Galpin has been able with the help of his sons and hired assistants to carry on the farm in addition to his regular business. Mr. Tripp was a native of Missouri and had a fierce ungovernable temper that manifested itself in many ways. He was remarkably strong in his likes and dislikes.

   About two years ago a pet cat of Mr. Galpin's got into a fight with Mr. Tripp's cat under the bedroom window of the latter. Mr. Tripp, who was an expert marksman, shot it. Some high words followed between the two neighbors and a bad feeling has existed ever since. Mr. Galpin's barns are close to the line fence between his own property and a meadow of Mr. Tripp's across the street from his house. During the past summer Mr. Galpin's hens have at intervals gone through upon the meadow and Mr. Tripp showed his feelings upon the subject by at intervals shooting a hen until he had finally shot six of them. More hot words followed and Mrs. Tripp stated to a STANDARD reporter that Mr. Galpin's family had frequently called Mr. Tripp hard names, sometimes using profanity. Mrs. Galpin told a reporter that Mr. Tripp had often used threatening language to her boys and once chased Clarence, her second son, with a hatchet.

   On September 13, 1895, Officer Goldsmith served papers upon Mr. Tripp summoning him to appear before Justice T. H. Dowd to settle damages for the shooting of the hens. Other papers were served on Oct. 17 and on Oct. 24 a judgment was obtained for $3.75.

   Elmer Chaffee, a neighbor, told a reporter this morning that only last Sunday Mr. Galpin had told him that Tripp had lately threatened to shoot him sometime. Galpin had said to Chaffee that he didn't believe Tripp would ever do so, but he wouldn't be surprised if he did shoot a horse or a cow some time. Wells Niles, another neighbor, said that Mr. Galpin recently said to him "he may pick me off some time."

   At about 8 o'clock this morning Mr. Galpin started for Cortland to finish painting the house owned by the Bernard Dowd estate, 32 Port Watson-st. His wife helped him harness his horse and as he started away she turned into the barn for a minute, while her eldest son Will who had also been there went to the house. As Mr. Galpin left his own yard, driving in an open wagon, he turned to the southwest and passed the house of Mr. Tripp, the two being about ten rods apart and on opposite sides of the street.

   Just beyond Mr. Tripp's house is a carriage shed which is about 10 by 25 feet in size and which is enclosed on all except the end away from the street. On the side of the shed away from both the houses is a window hole about two feet square. This is usually kept closed by a slide, but this morning was found open. A ladder hangs on pegs on one side of the shed so that one end protrudes across the open hole. Inside this window stood Tripp with a double barrel shot gun loaded with heavy slugs, the muzzle resting over the ladder. When Mr. Galpin had passed the shed some five or six rods Tripp must have made a noise to attract the attention of his victim, so that he turned his face half way around toward the shed. It was then that Tripp fired. The heavy slug struck Mr. Galpin on the left cheek just under the temple and passed clear through his head coming out in about the same place on the other side of the face.

   Mrs. Galpin heard the report of the gun, but did not suspect its awful import. She stepped out, however, from the barn to a place where she could see and discovered the horse on a full run and the empty wagon going up a little hill beyond. She started out that way, thinking that the shot must have frightened the horse which is a young animal and that he had thrown her husband out. When she reached the street she saw his body lying in the road. She called to her sons and hastened at full speed to the scene. Not until she reached his side and saw the blood, which in fresh clots mingled with parts of the brain, was pouring out of the gaping wound, did she realize the awful fact. Then she gave a scream that roused the neighbors in all directions. Dropping on her knees by his side she raised up the head of the murdered man and pressed her ear down to his lips to catch the sound of a breath and felt of his heart to catch a faint beat, but there was no response to either. He was stone dead.

   While the two were hovering over the husband and father a percussion cap snapped in the shed and Will said to his mother "Tripp is trying to shoot us too, let's go back to the house," but the wife would not stir. In two or three minutes more another loud report rang out from the shed and this time the murderer had become a suicide.

   Will Galpin ran over to Cyrus Hatfield's, close by, and Mr. Hatfield started at full speed to Cortland to summon Dr. Bennett. Mrs. Michael McNiff, a neighbor, heard Mrs. Galpin's calls and reached her side very quickly. John Bristol, another neighbor, quickly arrived and carried Mr. Galpin's body to the house, where it was laid upon a bed.

   Mrs. Tripp was in her house busying herself about her morning work and says that she never heard the sound of the gun. She looked out and saw neighbors running up the road past the house and wondered where her husband was. She went out to the horse barn to see if he was there, but didn't find him and as she came out of the barn saw him lying in a heap near the open side of the shed. She ran over there and saw that he was dead.

   At just about this time Elmer Chaffee, a neighbor, came. Tripp had evidently stood the gun up on end and rested the muzzle of it against his breast. A little stick with a carefully prepared notch in one end had been used to push off the trigger. Gun and stick lay partly resting across his body. Tripp had taken off his coat and hung it on a ladder in the shed. He had on a flannel shirt, a pair of arctic rubbers. The wadding of the charge at such short range had set his shirt on fire and, surrounding the great wound in his chest were stains of powder smoke and the shirt was on fire. The neighbors rolled the suicide upon his back and extinguished the fire with snow.

   Dr. Bennett, hearing that both the men were dead, tried to find Coroner Moore, but he had gone to Binghamton. He then went to Homer and found Coroner Bradford. The two physicians arrived at about noon. The coroner ordered the remains of Mr. Tripp removed from the shed where they had been lying to the house and impaneled the following jury: Charles H. Danes, foreman, E. J. Bockes, Henry Bates, Charles Munson, Elmer Chaffee, John Kane, Wells Niles, Henry Ellsworth, John Bristol, J. J. Lamont and Samuel Miller.

   Dr. Bennett was performing the autopsy and Dr. Bradford was summoning the witnesses when the reporter left.

   This murder is the most awful thing that has ever occurred in Cortland county. That a man should deliberately wait in a place of concealment for a neighbor to shoot him down in cold blood is something too dreadful to contemplate in a civilized country.

   Mrs. Tripp told a reporter that she had tried again and again to pacify her husband when he began to rage about the Galpins. She had always tried to turn his attention to something else then. A week ago he took his gun to go hunting squirrels in the woods near by and left his gun in the barn when he came back. She felt uneasy about it then and asked what had become of it. He told her it was just as safe in the barn as anywhere. She thinks he had this thing in contemplation last night.

   He waked her up in the night by railing to her "Woman," as he always addressed her. She inquired what was wanted, and after a brief silence he said "Nothing." About a week ago she said Mr. Galpin passed the house and gazed at Mr. Tripp quite steadily as he stood outside. Tripp told his wife right after this "He won't stare at me many times more like that."

   Mrs. Tripp did not know that her husband and Mr. Galpin had had any words lately. Mrs. Galpin did not know of such an occurrence either. She only returned last night from a visit of four weeks with her husband's relatives in Coudersport, Pa. The boys said their father had had no encounter of late with Mr. Tripp as he had only been at the house nights and had been away at work all day long of late.

   Tripp must have reloaded his gun after shooting Galpin, as the left barrel was found loaded after the shooting. The cap on this was snapped and the charge evidently failed to go off. This was what Mrs. Galpin and the boys heard [in the] road. The charge in the gun is an enormous one. In the coat pocket of Tripp's coat, as it hung in the barn, were found some lead slugs that would weigh an ounce each. They were made of flat strips of lead rolled up into coils until they made a size as large as would go into the barrel of the double barrel shot gun. In the side pocket of Tripp's coat was also found a dangerous looking dirk knife in the sheath with double blade ground to a keen edge. His powder flask rested on a beam close by and the ramrod of the gun lay on the ground at his feet.

   Mr. Galpin was 45 years old. He leaves an invalid wife and three sons: William, Clarence and George, aged 17, 15 and 13 respectively. They have been married nineteen years and have lived in Cortland seventeen years. He also leaves a brother, John Galpin, who lives near Blodgett Mills: a sister and an uncle, Mrs. Mary Snyder and Mr. Frank Galpin, both of Coudersport, Pa.

   Mr. Tripp was 73 years old. He was now living with his second wife, to whom he has been married about seven years. He leaves a daughter and two sons all residents of Dryden: Mrs. Barton A. Davis and Frank and John Tripp.

   Mr. Tripp was the third husband of the present Mrs. Tripp and a strange fact is that all three of her husbands have been carried dead into her home. Her first husband was Henry Danes of Cortland, who was killed in an explosion of a boiler at the Normal school Feb. 21, 1870. Her second husband was Amasa Brewer of Homer who died of heart failure in his garden and now her third husband has committed suicide. Her only son is Mr. Charles H. Danes of the Homer Republican.

   All the neighbors were well aware of the quarrel between these two. There is an impression that Tripp felt unkindly toward any one who lived on the Galpin place which he had himself formerly owned, but which he had lost under mortgage foreclosure.

   William Aldrich told a STANDARD reporter this morning that he lived on this farm the year that it was owned by R. Bruce Smith. He was one day passing a barn of Tripp's that stood on the road and having a small stone in his hand chanced to throw is against the barn. He did not see Mr. Tripp around, but suddenly turning around after passing a little way along saw Tripp coming after him bareheaded with a gun in his hands. He started off at full speed and Tripp cut across lots to head him off. Abner Niles was with Aldrich and he verified the fact to-day to the reporter. John C. Kelley was plowing near by and saw this and he too verified the fact to-day. Tripp followed the two young men until Mr. R. B. Smith who came along spoke to Tripp and told him not to do anything he would be sorry for. He then stopped. Mr. Kelly said Mr. Smith and Mr. Tripp both came up into the field where he was right after this and Tripp stormed around a good deal about Aldrich's throwing stones at his barn.

   At 1 o'clock to-day Hyatt & Tooke photographed the site of the shooting.

Ref:

Galpin, George H, d. 1895-Dec-18, age 45, Section: B, Lot: 34, Male. Cortland Rural cemetery.

R. W. Tripp: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/145215233/rensselaer-w.-tripp

NEW BICYCLE FRAME.

Cortland Interested in a Washington Man's Invention.

   During the present year it is estimated there have been made and sold in the United States about five hundred thousand bicycles, and yet the supply was not equal to the demand. New factories for the making of bicycles and bicycle specialties are starting up everywhere, and close calculation places the number of wheels to be built in 1896 at one million. Of this number Cortland expects to supply about seven thousand.

   The great demand for wheels has severely taxed the wheel material men, however, and the smaller factories find it difficult to obtain tubing and fittings for bicycle frames. The large consumers have gobbled up everything in sight for months to come, and the little fellows will have to take their chances till the supply equals the demand.

   Cortland is just now particularly interested in the invention of a frame material which is expected to become a substitute for steel tubing in bicycles The inventor, Mr. A. M. Dewey, of Washington, D. C., has been in town several weeks on business connected with the national department of statistics, and while here has had Cortland expert mechanics at work on a wheel, which is now completed, and was exhibited at the STANDARD office this morning.

   The frame is of wood, and in appearance is not unlike any other frame. The claims made by the inventor for superiority of material are, that it is lighter, stronger and cheaper than steel tubing, or any other frame material yet offered to the public. The wood is imported, and each cylinder is made of a large number of pieces, each one so cut and put together as to make the same when completed several times stronger than steel tubing of the same size. The wheel is a beauty to look at, and competent judges have pronounced it a perfect success. The frame is ingeniously put together, and appears to be as rigid and strong as can be derived. A patent has been applied for, and it is expected will soon be granted.

   Cortland parties are negotiating for the control of the material. If successful, employment will be furnished for nearly one hundred men. One argument put forward by Mr. Dewey in favor of his frame is, that it will make the manufacturers of wheels independent of the tube men, as this material, which is better, lighter and cheaper, can be furnished in any quantity within a week after order is given. It is not intended at first to build a complete wheel, but only to supply material for frames, either set up complete or "knock down."

   Cortland is in need of new enterprises just now to furnish employment to idle labor, and it is to be hoped that the manufacture of these bicycle frames may become one of our leading industries.