d in
Albany by about thirty thousand spectators. Judging from contemporary
accounts, the circumstances of the execution were not edifying. "We are
more than ever convinced," said the _Albany Gazette_, "of the bad effect
of public executions. Scenes of the most disgraceful drunkenness,
gambling, profanity, and almost all kinds of debauchery, were exhibited
in the vicinity of the gallows, and even at the time the culprit was
suffering. We do most sincerely hope that some law may be enacted
requiring that executions shall be performed in private." The _Albany
Argus_ was more hopeful of some moral benefit from the execution.
"Whilst we may question the utility," it said, "of such spectacles,
tending as they do in general, to gratify a morbid curiosity, and to
excite a sympathy for the criminal rather than an abhorrence, and
consequently a prevention of crime; we trust none who were witnesses of
the scene, will forget that this ignominious death was the consequence
of an indulgence of vicious courses and criminal passions."

Preliminary to the hanging there was the usual speech from the gallows.
Addressing the multitude the condemned murderer said he hoped his
execution would lead them to reflect upon the effects of sin and lust,
and induce them to avoid those acts for which he was about to suffer a
painful and ignominious death.

Among the spectators at this hanging was Levi Kelley of Cooperstown,
who, in order to witness the spectacle, had covered a distance of 75
miles, drawn by his favorite team of black horses, a noble span, of
which he was very proud. Kelley was much depressed in spirit by the
dreadful scene at the gallows, and to a friend who accompanied him on
the homeward journey remarked that no one who had ever witnessed such a
melancholy spectacle could ever be guilty of the crime of murder.

In Christ churchyard in Cooperstown, near the southern border of the
burial ground, and about twenty paces from River Street, stands a
tombstone which commemorates a former resident of the village, and is
unusual for the precision of terms in which it records the date of his
decease; for there is inscribed not merely the day, but the very hour,
of death. The inscription reads:

IN MEMORY OF
ABRAHAM SPAFARD
WHO DIED
AT 8 O'CLOCK P. M.
3D. SEPT. 1827
IN THE 49TH YEAR OF
HIS AGE.
THE TRUMP SHALL SOUND
AND THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED.

The passer-b