On May 27, 1791, Thomas Mount, a white man born in New Jersey, was hanged in the small village of Little Rest, now called Kingston, in South Kingstown. What makes Mount’s hanging extraordinary was the crime that led to his death sentence: burglary. The crime of burglary does not seem particularly egregious in the modern world, and even then many questioned whether it was a hanging offense. While burglary was a hanging offense under Rhode Island statutes, it was rarely applied by the courts. Rhode Island’s list of capital crimes included arson, rape, robbery, burglary, as well as murder. Mount’s death caused Rhode Islanders to question this harsh punishment in the case of petty crimes.
The 27-year old Mount was caught stealing from a store in Hopkinton, Rhode Island, and was tied to earlier thefts in Newport. He was sent to the Newport jail, probably because at the time the Washington County jail in Little Rest was in poor condition and was easy to break out of, and Mount was a known jail breaker. While confined in jail, and after his conviction at trial and death sentence, Mount decided to write his “confession.” He admitted to numerous acts of theft. Perhaps Mount wrote the remarkable document in the hope that his honest account and repentance would win sympathetic support and perhaps a reprieve from the death sentence by the state governor. Or perhaps Mount simply felt a need to unburden himself before he met his fate. In the eighteenth century, these types of confessions were not uncommon with condemned men in early America (and before that in Great Britain).
According to Thomas Mount, he was born in 1764 in New Jersey, the son of unmarried parents. He began a life of crime when he moved to New York by playing truant and “upon Sundays especially was fond of doing mischief such as robbing orchards and spreading my wicked example among all the boys I could get acquainted with.” In the Revolutionary War, seeking enlistment bounties, he joined the Continental Army, later deserted to join the British ranks, and then returned to patriot ranks. Tiring of the army, Mount left for the sea where. he led a life of securing advance pay and “jumping” ships.
This is an image of Thomas Mount’s signature that he signed to a petition he submitted to the Rhode Island General Assembly (Rhode Island State Archives)
For the next twelve years, back on land, he engaged in thefts, robberies, and house and jail breakings throughout the colonies. He was set in the stocks, pilloried, and made to sit upon more than one gallows with a noose around his neck. He bore the scars of many legally-imposed lashes on his back. For getting caught at one act of theft, he was given 100 lashes and 25 more for “giving the court saucy answers.”
Mount then came to Newport where he engaged in further thefts. After committing more thefts at rural Hopkinton, in December 1790 he was caught.
Here is Mount’s own account from his “Confession,” which he wrote in May 1791, while incarcerated in the Newport County Jail.
“Next night Stanton, Williams, and I set off to break into Joseph Potter’s store; I broke open a mill and took a crowbar out of it, and we all three went in, I first, and they following, I being most forward in this business. I lighted a candle and handed down the goods, about several hundred dollars’ worth, and some money, two or three dollars, and carried them to Stanton’s house, where we divided them into three parts and cast lots. Williams and I took our shares, after giving Stanton out of my share 8 or 9 pounds worth of goods for a mare, and hiding the goods under two corn stalks and under a barn about five miles from Stanton’s house, we set off for Voluntown [in Connecticut], there were apprehended and brought back to Hopkinton, where Stanton, I and my wife were tried for breaking open the mill; Stanton’s wife and Williams were admitted as State’s evidence. Accordingly I was sentence to receive 20 lashes and my wife 10 (although she was innocent). I paid the fine by giving up part of my clothes, then committed to Newport gaol, tried for breaking Potter’s shop, found guilty, and received the sentence of death.
—And the Lord have mercy upon me.”
The trial of the accused was held in Newport in May 1791. One of his attorneys was Elisha Reynolds Potter, Sr., the prominent citizen of Little Rest and a stentorian speaker. Potter apparently assisted Mount on humanitarian grounds. Potter’s efforts were to no avail, as the jury convicted him.
The death penalty was rarely imposed by Rhode Island judges for the crime of burglary. An unfortunate man, John Shearman, had been convicted of burglary and hanged in Newport in 1764, but he had been the last. Late one night in October 1761, at Newport, Shearman broke into the house of a female shopkeeper named Sarah Kumroil and stole substantial amounts of paper money and coins, as well as a tortoise-shell snuffbox set with silver and pearls, and a pair of gold cufflinks. Tried at Newport, Shearman was sentenced to death. The Rhode Island General Assembly agreed to postpone the hanging until Shearman’s appeal could be considered back in London (Rhode Island was still a British colony). But when the impatient Shearman got tired of waiting and broke out of jail, and was caught, an angry General Assembly revoked Shearman’s reprieve. Shearman was hanged in Newport on November 16, 1764. But that was 26 years ago, before the American Revolution.
Shockingly, the three-judge panel sentenced Mount to “be hanged by the Neck till he be dead.” They were likely influenced by the high value of goods stolen—“several hundred dollars’ worth” of goods, according to Mount. Such theft may have resulted in the bankruptcy of the storeowner, Joseph Potter. Mount’s accomplice, Joseph Stanton, also received a death sentence.
Both Mount and Stanton filed petitions for pardons with the General Assembly. Stanton’s petition was granted, but Mount’s was not. Perhaps the General Assembly felt that Mount was beyond redemption and applied an early and harsh form of the “three strikes and you are out” rule.
In the trial, Mount also failed to show remorse, which did not help his cause. The fact that he was only a recent arrival in Rhode Island also likely played a role. The General Assembly may have wanted to send a message to criminals outside the state not to enter Rhode Island to commit crimes. An important factor was that Rhode Island lacked a proper prison for long-term incarceration; there were not many alternatives for sentencing nonviolent repeat offenders.
Mount was ordered back to the Newport jail, where he tried two jail breaks. One attempt failed due to Mount’s “unaccountable absence of mind.” Mount reacted, “I have broke every Prison in which I hitherto have been confined — but defeated twice — in this I see the Hand of God.”
It was decided that Thomas Mount should be hanged in Washington County, presumably because Mount committed his first crime in the county. Little Rest was the location of the Washington County Court House and Jail.
Thomas Mount was tried and sentenced to hang in the Newport County Court House (the Old Colony House) in 1791 (Library of Congress)
Four days before his execution, Washington County deputy sheriff Robert Sands transported Mount and his wife Catherine to the Little Rest jail (Sands, from Little Rest, also helped to capture Mount). Washington County Sheriff Beriah Brown and jailer William Wilson Pollack took no chances. They hired about a dozen men to guard against a last-minute escape by Mount. Leg irons were used to keep Mount contained. Elisha Potter, to his credit, spent Mount’s last night with Mount to hearten his spirits.
Many people, unsurprisingly, thought that execution was too harsh a penalty for burglary. This feeling seems quite evident from the following account in the United States Chronicle, a Providence newspaper, dated June 16, 1791:
“Passing over many Things relative to his Behavior while in prison at Little Rest, and during the Interval of his leaving the Prison, and going to the Place of Execution, suffice it to be remarked, that firm to the last, his Mind averted from Sublimary Things and steadfastly fixed on God and ascending up to Heaven in Holy Extacy of Prayer he declared his “willingness to be offered up a Sacrifice to divine & human Justice—he forgave all men in Hopes of finding Forgiveness with God”—and after he was turned off—he was distinctly heard to breath his last in prayer—”Lord have mercy on me—Lord”—here he was suffocated.”
Multitudes mourned and bewailed him—No triumph over his melancholy end disgraced the feelings of humanity—for the space of a quarter of an hour nothing was to be heard but prayers mixed with sighs and groans. Every face displayed the signs of being affected with the solemnities of his death and most tender sympathies of woe trickled down almost every cheek.”
The place of execution is not know for sure, but one recollection said it was in the “hanging lot” were parking is now at the bottom of Kingston Hill where the university athletic fields and facilities are located.
Mount left behind his wife Catherine and their two children.
The place of execution reportedly was about one-quarter mile below the Court House down Little Rest Hill (probably where the parking lot for the University of Rhode Island now sits opposite the athletic fields). Reportedly, Mount was buried close by and his grave was visible as late as 1869, but his gravesite now is unknown.
Here is a poignant poem written by Thomas Mount in his “confession”:
Thomas Mount it is my name
And to my shame cannot deny;
In New Jersey I was born,
And on Little Rest now must die.
The Westerly Historical Society holds a small keg of rum that is claimed to have been one of the items stolen by Thomas Mount from Joseph Potter’s store. The following inscription has been attached to it probably since the early 1900s. The accuracy of the claims cannot be proved by the author, in part because Mount’s court record could not be located in the Rhode Island Judicial Center, at least for the time being. From Mount’s own words, we do know that he stole much more than a single runlet of rum.
The bucolic village of Little Rest, now Kingston, was the scene of Thomas Mount’s hanging in 1791 (Sanford Neuschatz Collection)
“For stealing this runlet, filled with rum, that last man hanged for theft in this county, received his sentence.”
“The runlet was the property of the Potters of Potter Hill, and was taken at night from their store that was attached to their dwelling. The lawyer defending the culprit maintained that since the runlet was taken from a store, his client could not receive more than imprisonment. The lawyer for the state maintained that the runlet was stolen from a dwelling in the night time, and that hence the punishment must be death, as the law then stood.”
“The judge determined that this point could be settled only by determining whether the store and house were one building, and to settle this, shingles were torn off and it was found that the beams were mortised into those of the house. So the man was hanged.”
Mount’s execution apparently caused some judges and the General Assembly (which could and did grant pardons) to be more reluctant to impose the death penalty in cases of burglary and other property crimes. From 1798 to 1833, there were no executions by the state of Rhode Island other than two for murder, although there were many instances of criminals convicted of burglary. On December 27, 1834, Charles Brown, a black mariner, was convicted of robbing and assaulting Richard Smith of Providence. His sentence of hanging was not commuted, probably because he struck the victim with a heavy club, and perhaps because of his race. But that is another sad story.
Sources:
The article is based mainly on a chapter in Christian McBurney, A History of Kingston, R.I., 1700-1900, Heart of Rural South County (Pettaquamcustt Historical Society, 2004).
For Thomas Mount, see Thomas Mount’s Petition, May 10, 1791, vol. 25, #116, Rhode Island State Archives; Miller, William Davis, “Thomas Mount,” Rhode Island Historical Society Collections 53-58 (April 1927); Bickford, Christopher, Crime, Punishment, and the Washington County Jail (Pettaquamscutt Historical Society, 2002), 42-43; Wells, J. Hagadorn, “Kingston Annals,” transcript in South County History Center, 48 (location of hanging). Cole refers to a “Hanging Lot” where Mount was hung. Cole, J. R., History of Washington and Kent Counties (W.W. Preston, 1889), 483. For fees paid to Robert Sands of Little Rest, as deputy sheriff of Washington County, apparently for capturing and guarding Thomas Mount, see Rhode Island Acts & Resolves, Feb. 1791 Session, v. I, 20-21 (“for apprehending and committing divers Persons charged with high Crimes and Misdemeanors”); Rhode Island Acts & Resolves, May 1791 Session, v. I, 27 (audit of accounts of Sands and another man who helped bring Mount from Newport). The author thanks Ed Fazio for bringing to his attention the runlet of rum held by the Westerly Historical Society said to have been stolen by Thomas Mount and the photograph of it.
This runlet of rum was said to have been one of the items stolen by Thomas Mount from Joseph Potter’s store in Hopkinton (Westerly Historical Society Collections)For John Shearman and Charles Brown, see Daniel Allen Hearn, Legal Executions in New England, A Comprehensive Reference, 1623-1960 (McFarland, 1999), 146 and 219.
For more expenses incurred in handling Mount, and more on the hangings of John Sherman and Charles Brown, see Kenneth Carlson, “List of Executions in Rhode Island,” in the Rhode Island Review of History (smallstatebighistory), at http://smallstatebighistory.com/list-of-executions-in-rhode-island-1670-to-1845/.
The Author
