A Note From 1847 About A Broken Engagement

From the August 31, 1847 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“A very melancholy affair occurred at Mount Pleasant, near Sing Sing, on Sunday last, the facts of which case have been furnished by a gentleman who came down from the place yesterday morning. A man named Amos Northrup, aged 45 years, a native of Newcastle, had been for some time engaged to marry Miss Mary Goodheart, a young woman 15 years of age. But from recent exhibitions he made of violent and ungovernable temper, she felt it her duty to break off the match, and so stated to him Sunday last, at the residence of her sister. On hearing this he immediately stabbed her, when she cried out to her sister, ‘He is murdering me!’ and ‘Jump out the window!’ Both young women then jumped out of the window together and fell upon the ground, uninjured by the fall. Mary was mortally wounded and died in a few minutes. Her sister states that she saw the handle of the dirk, as Northrup plunged it into her breast. The murderer escaped while the brother and sister were carrying the body into the house. Parties of citizens assembled and commenced searching the country for him, but he had not been taken at the last accounts. He is six feet high, stout built, rather bony. Has light hair and complexion, down cast look. He may have escaped to N.Y. city.”

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