Litchfield Enquirer

Matthias the Prophet. The Circuit Court and the Court of Oyer and Terminer, for the County of Westchester, N. Y. is in session at White Plains. On Monday the noted Robert Matthews, alias Matthias the Prophet, was brought into Court, dressed in his usual eccentric manner, with the exception of his canonicals, which will be remembered in connexion with the murder of a Mr. Pierson. Second indictment has been found against him by the Grand Jury, for an assault of an aggravated nature upon the body of his own daughter; and it is said a third bill will be found against him for another heinous offence though not of murder. His trial on the first indictment is progressing and reporters are in attendance for the New York Courier and Enquirer and the Transcript. Speaking of his impostures they say:

It is a lamentable instance of the weakness of human nature that any of the people in the neighborhood of White Plains should still place implicit faith in this outrageous impostor. He lately issued a decree from the jail, ordering all the farmers to lay down their ploughs, for, says he, there shall be no more sowing in the earth, the twelfth and last of the ages is delivered out of the house of bondage. He prophesied, that if he be false he should be destroyed by fire, and not an inhabitant left to tell the tale of its destruction.

(Matthias was acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pierson, but found guilty of the assault upon his daughter, and sentenced to imprisonment for three months, and to one month for contempt of court.)