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Is
this the "murder weapon"? Jack Sherman, who has been diligently
tracking down evidence for his re-enactment of the Gillette trial next
summer, came across this tennis racket in sourthern Herkimer County.
The current owners can track its origins back to George Ward's law
partner. The only problem is that the weight of the racket is not the
same as the description at the trial. If this is the racket, it was with Chester and
Grace at the time of her death and was buried by Chester on the road
from Big Moose to Eagle Bay on July 11, 1906. It was later found by
sheriff's deputies after Chester told them were it was. George Ward
claimed that Chester used this racket to murder Grace.
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| The Trial Photo taken from the
balcony of the court
house in Herkimer, New York, November 1906. The "X" in the center of
the
photo is over Gillette's head. His lawyers are on either side of him.
The
jury is seated in front of the window on the left. The judge is at the
top
center of the picture, with the witness stand to the right. George
Ward,
the district attorney, is questionig a witness on the stand. The table
at
the left, in front of the judge, is full of reporters covering the
trial. |
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The Sentencing
Drawing from
the Saturday Globe of Gillette being sentenced to die by Judge Irving
Devendorf. |
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Grace Brown in 1901 Taken outside of the one-room
Tallett
Hill School on Stage Road in South Otselic, New York. Grace is at the
top
of the photo just to the right of her teacher, Maude Crumb. |
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Grace
Brown's South Otselic farm house. The photo was taken on the day
of her funeral in July 1906.
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Chester Gillette in 1900 Taken in Chico,
California in 1900 and originally published in the Salvation Army's
newspaper, the
Crier. Gillette is standing at the back. His father is in Salvation
Army
uniform. His mother is directly in front of him. Also pictured
are
his two sisters and his brother. |
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Chester at Oberlin - Chester was the captain of the
1901-1902
Oberlin Academy basketball team. He is in the first row, second from
the
right, with his hand on the basketball. |
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George W. Ward - The district attorney who prosecuted
the
case. |
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Albert Mills - One of Chester's two trial attorneys. |
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Charles Thomas - Chester's other trial attorney. |
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Map of Big Moose area - A map used at the trial
showing the
Glenmore Hotel, at the extreme west of Big Moose Lake, the spot where
Grace
Brown's body was found, and Chester's escape route through Eagle Bay to
the Arrowhead Hotel in Inlet. |
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Judge Irving Devendorf - The judge at the trial. |
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The Jury - Twelve men who decided Chester's fate. |
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Front Page - The New York Journal's front page
made-up story
about a lynch mob attempting to take Chester out of the jail. |
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Chester on July 4, 1906 -
A week
before the murder. Taken at Little York Lake, north of Cortland, by his
date,
Harriet Benedict. |
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"A
Place in the Sun" 1951 version of "An American Tragedy"
with Elizabeth Taylor as "the other woman" and Montgomery Clift as the
Chester Gillette character. Shelley Winters played the Grace Brown
character.
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"Ophelia"
by John Millais. This painting depicts the drowned body of
Ophelia, Hamlet's sister, from Shakespeare. In "A Place in the Sun" it
is hanging in Montgomery Clift's bedroom and is clearly seen in the
early part of the movie. Later, when George Eastman has to
decide what to do about Alice Trip, the audience sees only parts of the
painting, but the message is clear.
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The End - A drawing of Chester in the electric chair,
March
30, 1908. |
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"Entreating"
by Maud Gould, a piano teacher from Ilion, N.Y., she attended
the trial and used the words from Grace Brown's letters for the lyrics
to her 1907 waltz, which she dedicated to Grace Brown of South Otselic.
Nearly 100 years later, Gene Scheer, the libretist for the opera "An
American Tragedy" used the same words from the same letter for the aria
in Act II scene 1.
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A movie poster
from the 1931
film "An American Tragedy"
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All illustrations taken from Murder in
the Adirondacks
by Craig Brandon. (North Country Books 1986)
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Contents Copyright 1986 by Craig Brandon. All
Rights Reserved. |
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