The Voice Of Freedom

From the Plattsburgh Republican.

EXECUTION OF JOSEPH LEVERT.

This unfortunate individual was executed in the jail yard of this place, on the 16th Nov. at a quarter before three o'clock, P. M.

From the day of the murder, until within a few days past, Levert manifested but little contrition for the crime which required his own life as the adequate penalty; but when the hope of pardon or commutation of his sentence was gone, and the reality of the great change became more apparent, he softened and confessed the commission of a deed that shocks, alike by the depravity that prompted, and the brutality of the details that accompanied it.

At 11 o'clock, A.M., the excellently equipped and well disciplined artillery company, commanded by Capt. F. McMurray, were drawn out and paraded as a guard about the County buildings and jail yard, and the final preparation began. At half past 2, P. M. the prisoner mounted the scaffold, attended by the Rev. Mr. Rooney, the Catholic clergyman at this place, (who, with a constancy and devotion peculiar to that Church, and the well known humane and benevolent feelings of the reverend gentleman, has devoted much of his time, both night and day, to the spiritual welfare of the prisoner.) and after spending a few remaining moments of his existence in the exercise and consolations of religion—with perfect self-possession, giving directions about adjusting the rope, and requesting in a firm voice that the cap should be drawn entirely over his face—underwent the dreadful sentence of the law, and calmly and with scarcely a perceptible struggle, passed to his final account.

After hanging twenty minutes, his body was taken down, placed in a coffin, and delivered to his friends for interment.

THE CONFESSION.

PLATTSBURGH, NOV. 13, 1847.

The Declaration of Joseph Levert of the murder of his wife, which took place on the 17th day of December, 1846.

On this day I took my wife to Bushy's, on the south side of the river Saranac, near Treadwell's Mills, to make a visit, and she was pleased to go. I put the axe in the wagon that day with the intention of killing her, and on my return from Bushy's, on the plains, I told her that something about the wagon was out of order, and she got out of the wagon. I told her that a screw was loose, and I wished her to hold the shafts while I fixed it: and at the time I had the axe in my hand, and I struck her on the right side of the head with the flat of the axe. She was stooping a little at the time. Her hood was on at the time. As I struck her she fell on the left side.

I then took off the left forward wheel and drew the wagon a short distance forward, and I then came back and gave her another blow with the flat of the axe, in the same place.

I then threw the axe out into the bushes and started for the house of St. Dennis. I thought that it was going to snow and would cover up the axe. I found young St. Dennis at the stable door with a span of horses harnessed, and told him that the left wheel of my wagon had run off, and that my wife had broke her neck, or split her head open.

I went back on foot, and St. Dennis came with his horses and wagon as fast as he could. I got back a little the first. I found my wife tried to talk to me, and I took up the wheel and struck her with it on the forehead once.

This deed was done for the purpose of getting my wife out of the way, that I might marry a girl with whom I had had improper intercourse and save myself from prosecution, and save my money.

Joseph Levert.

Signed in the presence of Zeph. C. Platt, M. K. Platt, Smith Mead.