Logging in Smithville

New Ipswich Historical Society

Charles Blood & John Burton logging in Smithville.

A Wife Murdered by Her Husband

You probably have noticed the use of language in the early obituaries that we have been posting. It is very descriptive and almost poetic. Here is a another example of an event that happened in nearby Mason, NH. I am certain that everyone talking about “Diamond Billy” after reading this account of a Thanksgiving gone wrong.

Fitchburg Sentinel

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1889 - MASON, N. H.

William Hodgman, while drunk on Thanksgiving day, fatally shot his wife. She lived but a short time. The couple were married five or six years ago, when Mrs. Hodgman was only 15 years of age. Three children, the youngest about 1 years old, are left motherless. The murderer is son of Lewis Hodgman, a respected citizen who owns several farms and also gets out a large quantity of hoop-poles. The tragedy cast a gloom over usual joyful Thanksgiving reunions throughout the vicinity.

DETAILS OF THE MURDER.

About 630 a. m., William Hodgman, commonly known as "Diamond Billy," a young farmer, shot and instantly killed his wife, Jennie, in the kitchen of their house on Merriam hill. "Diamond Billy" is a young man of somewhat dissolute habits, who married his wife, then a young girl of 15, about five years ago. They have not lived together very amicably, having had occasional quarrels, and once having separated for a short time.

The previous evening, Hodgman and his brother-in-law, Will Hill, were over in: the village drinking somewhat till about midnight. On arrival home, finding that Mrs. Hodgman had retired for the night, Hodgman went to sleep in a chair, while Hill lay on a lounge, both in the kitchen Hill says he heard nothing more till about daylight, when a ery from Mrs. Hodgman awoke him and he found her trying to get free from her husband, who was pinching her arms and wrists. On being requested to desist, Hodgman went out into the hallway, where he kept a gun in a closet. While he was out there the couple continued to scold and swear at each other through the closet door.

Finally, Hodgman said: "Come out here and I will fight you," or something to that effect. Mrs. Hodgman opened the door, as if to accept the challenge, and in an instant fell to the floor, pierced by a charge of shot from an ordinary fowling piece, fired by her husband. Mrs. Hodgman breathed only a few times after she struck the floor. The muzzle of the gun. was so near that it set her clothing on fire and scorched the flesh around the wound.

After the fatal shot, Hodgman exclaimed, " "What have I done?" put down the gun and went out of the house. Hill carried the body of his sister to the bedroom and started out to alarm his folks. Alice Hill, a 10-years-old sister of the murdered woman, saw the whole transaction and started on the run to alarm a neighbor, Mrs. Blodgett, who went to the house with the little girl. When Mrs. Blodgett arrived, Hodgman was in the kitchen and, on being asked what he had done, merely asked Mrs. Blodgett to take care of his three-years-old boy, Guy. He then went out, and mounting his horse rode off across the fields by a circuitous route to his father's, some three miles away. Arriving there, he told his father, Lewis Hodgman, that his wife Jennie was dead, but claimed that the shooting was accidental. He got in a carriage with his father and mother and drove back to his home, where he was arrested by Policeman White and Detective Newbegin, word having been previously sent to the village.

In the afternoon, Coroner Taft and Sheriff Whitney impaneled a jury of three - O. D. Prescott, W. E. White and C. E. Hall, who proceeded to view the remains and hold an inquest at the house. Drs. Munsey and Wood made the autopsy a found a wound one inch long and three-fourths of an inch wide below the left breast. The shot broke one rib in front, passed through the stomach, left lobe of the liver, diaphragm, lower lobe of the lung, broke two ribs near the spine and lodged in the back under the skin. The large artery near the spine was also cut so that about two quarts of blood escaped internally.

The testimony at the inquest being so direct and positive, the finding of the jury was that Mrs. Hodgman came to her death by a gun shot wound, the gun having been fired by her husband with felonious intent. A preliminary hearing was held at the town house, to-day, and the prisoner was remanded to the county jail to await the action of the grand jury in March next. While confined in the lobby at Greenville, the prisoner was interviewed by your reporter, but he was taciturn and refused to say anything.

James Roger diary entries

1st November 1912 (Friday)

Fine Bright Morning. Afterwards cloudy and rain. Wind SE to South. David Ploughing Myron Taylor’s garden in forenoon and sorting apples in wagon shed, then went to Wilbur’s for oats and grass seeds from Prescott’s Hamish helped me with settees and I fixed hall for men’s meeting tonight. Got PC from Alice saying the apples for Johnnie arrived.

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