Betty's Critters - & History Views

 On Saturday, June 27, 1885, the local county newspaper, The Peninsula Enterprise , produced the local report of Jennie Hill's murder and Tom Freeman's suicide from Accomac (which was known as Drummondtown until 1892).  That article is in my first installation of this blog about  the Hill family tragedy.    On that same Saturday, The Inquirer  of Lancaster Pennsylvania, ran the article first printed on 22 June in The Atlanta Constitution , with a different headline, sub-headline, and their own final paragraph tacked on.  This is the article that tells of how Timothy Hill found the boy "William T. Freeman" on Broadway in New York, and took him to the island 12 (which this paper changes to 10) years ago.  How Jennie and "Bill" grew up together, and Jennie was sent off to school, returning at the age of 18, etc.  The new headline for the Lancaster paper's front page was:  "A CRAZED LOVER"S CRIME.  -  A Former Street Gamin of New Y...

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...

 The fourth article article mentioned here states in the first sentence that Chincoteague is in Maryland, then, in the body of the article, taken from a Georgia paper, states that Chincoteague is along the "rock-clad" coast of Virginia....  I've been on a lot of boats around the island and between Ocean City and Wallops, but, other than some rip-rap, I don't remember a "rock-clad" coast.      The Chicago Tribune , on Tuesday, 23 June, has two separate articles printed under the headline "Driven To Death By Love."  The first article is about a young couple in Norristown, New Jersey.  We are interested in the second sub-headline:  "A Baltimore Case.    BALTIMORE, Md., June 22.  -  [Special.]  -  Two funerals wended their way to the little cemetery on Chincoteague Island yesterday afternoon.  In one grave were laid the remains of Jennie Hill.  In another part of the cemetery was buried Thomas Freeman, her forme...

    Emma Virginia "Jennie" Hill was not quite 13 years and 3 months old when she died after receiving two gunshot wounds on Chincoteague Island on the morning of June 18, 1885.  She was on her way to visit the dressmaker with her mother when a farm hand, 20-year-old Thomas W. Freeman, stopped them both.   He had asked to marry Jennie several times and was denied by her parents with each proffer.  Tom asked Mrs. Hill that morning if she had changed her mind, and she replied, "No."  He pulled a pistol from his pocket, shot Mrs. Hill twice, shot Jennie twice, and, as they ran staggering for aid, he shot himself in the forehead.  Jennie died from her wounds at 11 p.m. that night.  Her mother recovered after 2 weeks of unconsciousness and fever.    Following is the first news article that appeared in newspapers, appearing in the morning edition of The Philadelphia Times  on Saturday, June 20, 1885, on the front page in column 2: ...

    First, a few facts:  Emma Virginia "Jennie" Hill was the youngest child of Timothy Hill, Jr. and Zipporah Sharpley.  Jennie was born on February 25, 1872, and died from her wounds on June 18, 1885; she was not quite 13 years and 3 months of age.  She attended one of the four schools on Chincoteague, and was considered very bright and a good pianist.  Her father Timothy Hill was mainly an oysterman, but he also farmed several acres around his home in Deep Hole.  Zipporah Sharpley Hill was just shy of her 57th birthday when she and Jennie were shot.  It wasn't known if Zipporah would recover from her wounds, but she did. (Many news stories reported her death.)  She provided the funds for a window in the old Methodist Church that was dedicated to Jennie's memory a few years after the shooting; and she died in 1892, at the age of 64.  Timothy Hill, father and husband, died in 1900 at the age of 74. -  And the Hill family was already...