e plunged
into a confused heap, struggling for freedom amid the broken timbers.
The shrieks and groans that arose from the scrimmage terrified the
assemblage, and the wild rush of anxious friends and relatives toward
the scene of accident resulted almost in a riot. When order had been in
some measure restored the work of rescue began. Between twenty and
thirty persons were drawn forth from the wreckage severely injured.
Elisha C. Tracy, an engraver, was found to be dead, the upper part of
his face being crushed inward to the depth of more than an inch. Daniel
Williams, an elderly man resident at Richfield, had a leg and arm
broken, and died a few hours later. The dead and wounded were carried
from the field, and some of the spectators, having had enough of
tragedy, withdrew.

The ceremonies of the execution then proceeded, although amid an
atmosphere of intense nervous excitement. The condemned man was taken
from his sleigh, and, because of his illness, required assistance in
ascending the gallows. As he stood there, the centre of all eyes, he
seemed a different man from the passionate murderer of Abraham Spafard.
Weak and sick, he looked down upon the multitude assembled to see him
die. His look was one of regretful sympathy because of the unexpected
accident rather than of fear of his own impending fate. "Who are killed;
and how many are injured?" he inquired.

The rope was noosed about Kelley's neck. The Presbyterian minister
stepped forward, and commended the convict's soul to the mercy of God in
a prayer in which Kelley, with bowed head, seemed to participate. Then
the drop fell. After a few twitchings of the limbs, the body quivered,
and hung still. The show was over. The crowd dispersed.

The effect of this exhibition was to give voice to a growing sentiment
against public hangings. The next issue of the _Freeman's Journal_
protested against such spectacles as demoralizing, and suggested a
movement in the State legislature to amend the law. Kelley's was in
fact the last public hanging in Cooperstown.

The execution of Levi Kelley, with its unexpected accompanying
catastrophe, was long the talk of the neighborhood. It was commemorated
by Isaac Squire, an Otsego rhymester, in some verses that are of curious
interest as a survival of the old ballad form in which events were wont
to be celebrated. Many years afterward there were those who recalled
that the doleful lines were committed to memory by some of the vil