by Shannon Butler
If you read the newspapers from 1848 you might start to believe that there was something in the water in Pleasant Valley that year. Or, at the very least, people were on edge for some strange reason. As we saw last week, a man named Wesley Pine shot Elizabeth Russell in the chest, rather abruptly. Well, not long after that, another murder took place where once again, a man shot someone (this time in the head) rather abruptly! Only this time, the court had a hard time deciding the verdict.
On the morning of May 25th, 1848, Richard Wall and several other men were employed by John Newcomb of Pleasant Valley to build a stone wall on his property. His next door neighbor, Dr. Joel Divine did not seem to approve of the location. Witnesses claimed that Dr. Divine was angry of the placement of the wall, that it blocked a road that Divine had access to. Dr. Divine had gone out to speak to the workers several times the day before and informed them that if they knew what was good for them, they would stop building the wall. Divine’s own workers were out in the field when they saw him go back and forth from his house to the work site. A young woman named Hannah, who had been working and living in the Divine household testified that Divine came storming into the house saying “that damned Irishman has torn up my bridge” and he ran upstairs to get his gun. His wife begged him not to go outside but he stormed out.
Other witnesses, including people who worked for the doctor saw him go in the direction of where Richard Wall was working. The other men who were working with Wall had gone off to collect more stones when the Doctor approached Wall. Edward Hilliker, who had been working for Divine said that he heard Divine say to the victim, “Richard, I have told you of this long enough” and he then heard a shot and saw the smoke and Richard disappeared behind the fence. Divine then turned and walked towards Hilliker and said “This is the second Pine case, if they won’t go according to the law they must suffer the consequences.” He was no doubt referring to the trial of Wesley Pine that had just taken place, in fact he was scheduled to be executed the next day. A rather shocked Hilliker responded to his employer by asking, “You haven’t shot one of Newcomb’s men?” and Divine answered “I have.”
Richard Wall was shot through the head and died very soon thereafter. Dr. Divine walked back to his house and it didn’t take long for him to be arrested. As you can see on the document on the right, it says at the bottom “filed Oct 4th 1848, Not Guilty” meaning that Divine pleaded Not guilty. During the case, the defense brought in several witnesses that claimed the Doctor was not well in the head, including his own father. Abraham Divine walked up to the bench and proclaimed “I am 84 years old and the father of the prisoner; my wife and myself were own cousins; on my wife’s side a brother and the mother were crazy some years ago.” So it would appear that there may have been a mental breakdown which then made the trial a bit less easy to call. The jury could not make a decision and Divine was sent back to jail to await a possible second trial.
On November 29th 1848, the sheriff was checking the cells in the county jail to check and see if all prisoners were secure. When he got to Divine’s cell, he found the prisoner face down on the ground in a pool of blood. The doctor had slit his own throat with a tool from a surgeon’s kit he had managed to conceal all this time. The sheriff had said that Divine had been acting very oddly in previous days, believing that he was afraid a second trial would condemn him and he would hang for his crime. Divine is buried at the cemetery at Washington Hollow, not far from the scene of the crime.
Resources: Poughkeepsie Journal 02-Dec-1848, 21 Oct 1848
Indictment document, Local History Archives, Doc Box 364.15 M
