"The Chincoteague Tragedy" Part 4 - And the Newspaper Articles Continue to Change

A week after Jennie Hill's shooting, on 25 June,  The Carlisle Weekly Herald of Pennsylvania printed the following on page 2:

      "TRIPLE TRAGEDY IN VIRGINIA.

   A dispatch from Chincoteague to the Philadelphia Times gives the following particulars of a tragedy enacted near that place Thursday morning last:

   "W. T. Freeman, an orphan employe [sic] of Timothy Hill, an oyster planter, shot and probably fatally injured Mrs. Hill and her daughter Jennie, aged 14 years, Thursday morning, about two miles from Chincoteague postoffice, at a place called Deep Hole.  A few minutes later he shot himself in the forehead, inflicting a fatal wound.  For some time past Freeman has been employed as a laborer on Mr. Hill's farm.

   The young man fell in love with Mr. Hill's pretty daughter, who did not reciprocate his affection, but permitted him to visit her occasionally, though discouraged by her parents.  Freeman grew moody and sullen at this treatment, and threatened to kill Wm. Bunting, son of the owner of a large fish factory here, whom he regarded as his favored rival.  Last night he was at the Atlantic Hotel, breathing vengeance against Bunting, but he failed to find him, and he returned home moody, but apparently nervous and excited.

   Thursday morning Freeman met Mrs. Hill and her daughter in the yard attached to the house and he renewed his advances to Jennie.  He was sharply rebuked by the child's mother, at which he became very angry, and declared the girl should marry no one else.  He walked behind them for some distance, when suddenly he stopped and cried that he would die for Jennie, and if he did not get her there would be some trouble on the island.  At this juncture Jennie said, "Well, Bill, you would not hurt me, would you?" and he replied: "No, but  you will see trouble before long."  Mrs. Hill and Jennie walked on, but no sooner had they turned their backs than Freeman pulled from his pocket a small pistol of thirty-two calibre and fired twice at the girl.  As the women started to run Freeman rushed upon them.  Mrs. Hill threw her arms around the infuriated man, exclaiming: "Oh, Bill, Bill, don't shoot; don't murder me."  He again fired twice in quick succession and his shots took effect.

   Freeman turned to flee, but seeing Mrs. Hill's son coming hurriedly up in response to his mother's cry of murder, he aimed the weapon at his own forehead and shot his brains out.  Freeman died in less than fifteen minutes.  His pockets were full of breech-loading cartridges for a shot-gun, one being in his right hand as he fell.  The women ran bleeding into the house of  Mrs. Hill's son Daniel, where they fell fainting on the floor.  One ball struck the girl under the right ear and came out at the back of the head.  The other entered the skull, just above the centre of the neck.  This ball has not been located by the surgeons in attendance.  The wound is causing the girl the most intense agony, and she has been vomiting blood at intervals since she was shot.  It is not believed she can recover.

   One ball struck Mrs. Hill in the forehead and glanced off.  The other lodged in the back of the head, penetrating some distance in the head.  She, too, is expected to die.  Up to this time none of the balls have been extracted.  All the doctors on the island were called to attend the injured women.  

   The Hill family are old residents of the island and very highly respected."

Immediately following the above article, directly below, in the same column, is:

         "FREEMAN'S VICTIMS DEAD.

   BALTIMORE, June 19.  -  Mrs. Timothy Hill and her daughter Jennie who were shot by William T. Freeman on Chincoteague Island yesterday morning, died this morning.  The youthful murderer and suicide, who was only eighteen years old, was found in the streets of New York ten years ago by Mrs. Hill, who adopted him.  Young Freeman, while very ambitious, had only a night school education.  Jennie Hill, with whom he was infatuated for the past year, was educated in Baltimore and when she returned home last summer she seems to have viewed with contempt the love of the youth whose companion she had been from childhood.  When William fired the first shot at his sweetheart Mrs. Hill jumped at him.  He again fired over her shoulder at the girl and then Mrs. Hill seized him.  Freeman was a powerful boy and held her at arm's length with one hand while he sent a bullet into her forehead with the other.  He fired the other shot at her as she tottered backwards and fell.  A laborer named William Dean was working only ten feet from the scene at the time, but the events passed too quickly for him to interfere.

   The grief of the islanders over the sad occurrence is one of the most remarkable features of the case.  The girl was beloved by all, and scarcely a man or woman who knew her could refer to her death without shedding tears.  Mr. Hill, since his wife and child died this morning, has been in a stupor of grief, which threatens to destroy his reason.  The bodies of the victims and their murderer will be interred on Sunday.

   The rush of the visitors to the island from the mainlands of Virginia and Maryland has been great to-day.  All available craft are busy carrying curious people to the scene."

    This was printed a week after the shooting.  Zipporah Hill was alive.  And I still find it curious that while Freeman was known on the island as Tom, and signed his name on his letters as "Thomas W. Freeman," the newspapers insist that people called him "Bill" or "Will," depending on the article and newspaper.  And in these two articles, printed in the same paper, on the same day, in the same column, we have Jennie as a 14-year-old in the first, and as someone who has finished her education in Baltimore, in the second.  And both have the ages of Jennie and Freeman wrong.  She was 13 and he was 20.

A 2019 view of 5418 Deep Hole Road, where the Hill family home was

located in 1885.

   The Star and Kansan, a weekly newspaper located in Independence, Kansas, printed on Friday, 26 June 1885, an article that is almost the same as the June 22nd Atlanta Constitution one.  I have used bold type to show the few differences.   The Atlanta headline is "Side By Side."

        "THE QUEEN OF CHINCOTEAGUE.

Her Lover Murders her and Her Mother and then Kills Himself Because she Refuses Him.

     The curious little island of Chincoteague is just now wild with excitement over the murder of Mrs. Timothy Hill and her daughter, Jennie, by Wm. T. Freeman, who afterwards killed himself.  The story of the tragedy has many remarkable features.  Ten years ago Mr. Timothy Hill, proprietor of a large fish factory on Chincoteague island, had his sympathies aroused by a street gamin whom he met on Broadway, New York.  The boy seemed bright, and Mr. Hill finally decided to bring him to Chincoteague.  From the date of the boy's arrival on the island he showed a very active spirit and evidently had a great deal of ambition.  He said that his name was William T. Freeman and that his father had been murdered by an Italian about two years before Mr. Hill found him.  "Bill," as he was universally known, was very industrious, and by going to school at night succeeded in getting a fair education.

   Miss Jennie Hill, the young daughter of the family, was about the same age as the boy, and during the first few years of his residence on the island they were great comrades.  Their favorite amusement was to take a small canoe and navigate together the many inlets and explore the small islands which abound along the rock-clad coast north and south of Chincoteague.  The boy was of a daring disposition and gained quite a local reputation for bravery.  The girl naturally looked upon him as a young hero, and the sturdy lad seemed proud of her admiration.  In 1879 a great change was affected in the lives of both by the girl being sent away to school in Snow Hill.  She only came to the island at rare intervals during the ensuing year.  In 1880 the father, being determined that she should have a full education with all modern accomplishments, sent her to a fashionable boarding school in Baltimore.  Here she grew to be a brilliant young society woman, graduating with great honors in 1884.

   When she returned to Chincoteague, she was a tall, fully developed young woman of eighteen, well versed in the usages of society.  She found young Freeman a roughly clad, handsome boy of the same age, intelligent and aspiring, but of course lacking in much of that refinement and polish common to the sphere of life in which she had moved in recent years.  It did not take many weeks for the young man to fall in love with the beautiful girl, in whom he found so little trace of the frolicsome tom-boy who had been his early companion.  The girl had learned enough of the world to appreciate her would-be lover's social short comings, and this, added to his youth, caused her to give small heed to his wooing.  Freeman's infatuation grew with time.  The girl soon became the idol of the rough pony-herders and fishermen who make up the greater part of the population of Chincoteague.  The women bowed down to her, and she soon became known as the queen of the island.  

   Young Freeman had frequent paroxysms of jealousy, and once or twice ventured to up-braid the young lady for disdaining his love.  During May he made a formal declaration to his employer, who pretty nearly turned him out of the house for it.  Only Jennie's intercession saved her lover from the old man's indignation.  The girl was unquestionably attached to her old comrade, but she showed scant ceremony in suppressing all his declarations of love.  His rage seemed to become uncontrollable about a month ago, when a young man named Wm. Bunting, who had been educated in Baltimore, arrived at Chincoteague, where his father had recently begun extensive operations as an oyster planter.  Young Bunting had met Miss Hill in Baltimore on one occasion, and hastened to renew the acquaintance.  He was of a well-to-do family and highly educated.  Freeman and he had several quarrels, in one of which Bunting, who is about 25 years old, called Freeman a country clodhopper and other contemptuous names.  On Wednesday Freeman heard at the family dinner table that Miss Jennie was going out sailing with Bunting the following day.  He quietly left the house and went to the Atlantic hotel, where Bunting was boarding.  When he found that his rival was absent the young man's rage seemed unbounded, and, drawing a pistol, he announced his intention of killing Bunting on sight.

   Yesterday about 10 a.m. Miss Jennie was feeding some chickens in the front yard when Freeman appeared.  Mrs. Hill came out a few moments later and heard the boy pleading with the girl to love him and give him something to live for.  She reproved the boy sharply, and called to her daughter to accompany them to the home.  Freeman turned away in another direction, but soon returned and confronted the two women.  "I love you, Jennie," he said.  "Once for all, will you promise to be my wife if I can make myself worthy of you?"

   The girl laughed lightly and said, "Oh, now, Willie, don't talk nonsense.  I will not marry you nor any one else."

   Freeman instantly drew a pistol and fired directly at the girl, who was not more than four feet away.  She staggered back and he fired again, just as Mrs. Hill rushed at him.  The desperate mother threw herself on his chest, and clasping her arms around his neck cried: "Oh, Bill, Bill,  for God's sake don't shoot."

   For an answer the desperate lover forced her out to arm's length and fired point blank in her face.  She turned away with a scream, and as she dropped Freeman  fired another shot standing over the two prostrate women.

   He saw a laborer named Dean rushing toward him from one direction, while Daniel Hill, a son of his employer, came running from the house.  The crazed youth stepped to the prostrate body of  his sweetheart and, muttering something to the effect that he would follow her, blew out his brains.  The two men, running to the scene, arrived  just as Freeman's corpse fell across the body of Miss Jennie.   The latter and her mother were taken into the house, where the five doctors soon congregated.  Mrs. Hill, it was found, had one bullet, the first one fired at her, full in the center of her forehead.  The second had penetrated her skull from the left rear.  Her daughter had received a bullet in the back of her neck while she was stooping forward and running for her assailant.  The bullet had penetrated in  a slanting direction toward her brain.  Both wounds were fatal and both ladies died this morning. 

   The corpse of Freeman was picked up and carried into the summer kitchen, where it now lies prepared for burial.  The islanders were bewildered by the triple killing, and are universally depressed over the death of their queen.  The three bodies will be buried on Sunday.  Mr. Hill says that the graves shall be side by side."

The grave marker of Zipporah Sharpley Hill;

Jennie's mother, in the Hill Family Cemetery.

It reads:   In Memory Of

Zipporah Hill

Wife Of

Timothy Hill

Born  June 28, 1828.

Died  Dec. 26, 1892.

Aged 63 yrs 5 mos

& 28 days.

A precious one from us has gone,

A voice we loved is stilled;

A place is vacant in our home,

Which never can be filled.

   Again, a quick recital of the facts.   Emma Virginia "Jennie" Hill was not yet 13 and 3 months old when she was killed.  She went to school on Chincoteague.  Her mother was shot twice, on the same day Jennie was shot and died; but Zipporah lived another 7 and 1/2 years.

   Thomas W. Freeman was born on Chincoteague; his mother died early in his life.  His father remarried and moved to Berlin, Maryland.  His father died before Tom was 15, and, at age 15, in the 1880 Census, Tom was living with his step-mother in Berlin.  Thomas worked on the Winter Quarter light-ship  as a deck-hand, and was known as "Tom" while working there, and on Chincoteague for Timothy Hill.