Jasper Banner, Volume 2, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1856 — Horrible Murder and Suicide of an Abolitionist. [ARTICLE]

Horrible Murder and Suicide of an Abolitionist.

| About three weeks since, a young I man, a stranger, who stated that his ; name was Francis Auburn, and that | he was from Boston, .Mass., came to I this city and obtained worlfLin the cabinet establishment of Binford Porter, as a designer and carver.— [ After working a.-few days, and proving himself a first rate carver, and earning S3S, which jyere paid to hi in. lie rented a house on .Main street, j near ~dd street, and employing a ! carpenter to fit the same up for a ! grocery, which was to be opened on i Monday (to day ) On Friday night ‘last Auburn wa3 airested on a j charge of enticing two negro men belonging to Jesse Williams and i.' M. Grant, and who hai disappeared a few days previous. The time of arrest was about lil o’clock on Friday night, and was efleeted by the I police, who stationed themselves around Auburn’s house, and awaited his return, which was at the late hour named. He resisted the olficerswith pistols and bovvie knife in his hands,, but was overpowered and taken to the cage. On his way to the prison he drew from his pocket a \ial of strychnine, and drank a portion of it, and spit out a mouthful of poison in the faces of the officers who had him in charge. Two physicians were im- ■ mediately called to his relief, but he died from the effects of the strychninfe in about two hours after swallowing it, and the Coroner -held an inquest over his body cn Saturday morning.,.

| Tlie charge on which he was ar-' [rested was satisfiuttorily established: ’ He had received about §l'3o. from the too negrq m< n, on a promise to take them to the north, and had concealrd them in the third story us his house, preparatory to sending (Keih away. One of the negroes having : complained of being unwellj he gave him what he said itas a (lose of medicine, but which ’was no doubt strychnine, as the negro tjied shortly after taking the dose. Auburn th n dug a grave in Lis cellar, and with the assistance of the other negro, buried [ his murdered subject, first cutting his [throat, ripping out hie abdomen, and horribly mutilating his body in other places. This was done, it is supposed, to prevent the negro from recov(ering from the effects of the strychnine. The*c bloody scenes occurring before the eyes of the other ne■gro, naturhlly produced much’alarm and uneasiness in his mind, consequently, he embraced the first opportunity to escape from confinement, ' which he did by leaping from a win--1 dow in the third story of the houses .He tlit n re tor n»'d to his m aster, and ..Tvealed all he knew alukLt .gular and horrible transaction. 41 k believed Auburn was in league with 'otfters engaged, in the business of running off slaves, but no accomplices have yet been detected. i Auburn was a young man <>f genI teel appearance and manners, and bad capacities as a carver and de- ] signer, to earn from five to eight doli lars a day, lie .gave a reason for renting a house an 1 opening a gro eery, the expected visit of his mother and some of her family from the [north to reside with him in this city. —Richmond Enquirer.