New Hampshire Statesman

Execution of a murderer.—On Friday last John F. Van Patten was executed in Schenectady county, for the murder of Mrs. Schermerhorn. The story of the hardened sufferer is a brief one. He was a respectable young man of 26 and taught a school in the town of Rotterdam. It appears that he was paying his addresses to a young woman and that Mrs. Schermerhorn cautioned her against marrying him. Her parents interfered and he was desired to discontinue his visits. He thereupon went to a neighbor of Mr. S and borrowed a gun under the pretext of hunting squirrels. With this at noon day, he proceeded to the house of Mr. S. went in and after bidding good morning asked Mrs. S. who was sitting by the fire with her mother and children to give him some tow for wadding. As she rose and turned from him to go up stairs and get it, he discharged the contents of the gun into her back, and she fell and expired instantly. An effort was made to prove insanity. but in vain. Nor was the horrid deed the effect of a sudden gust of passion; for it appeared in evidence, that on a former occasion a match had been broken of between him and another female, and he then declared that if such a case ever occurred again, he would kill the person who should produce such a result. It also appeared that the day before the commission of the crime. he enquired of a man whether death would most certainly ensue from a shot in the head or body. Efforts were made to procure a pardon, or a commutation of punishment; but the executive very properly, considered it too aggravated a case to warrant an interposition of the prerogative of mercy. And I am told that he has appeared hardened and indifferent to his fate to the last, He is now no more.