Murder on the Mountain: Crime, Passion, and Punishment in Gilded Age New Jersey

Murder on the Mountain tells the story of Margaret Meierhofer, the last woman executed by the State of New Jersey, who was hung - along with a farmhand drifter named Frank Lammens -- in Newark at the Essex County Jail in January 1881 for murdering her husband John. In September 1879, a Dutch immigrant named Frank Lammens who described himself as a "professional tramp" arrived at the Meierhofer farmhouse. Margaret hired him and, on October 9, her husband was found dead in the basement with a pistol shot wound in the back of the head. Margaret and Frank each blamed the other for killing John, and the subsequent trial became front-page news throughout the nation. The trial proved especially sensational, and at one point the judge discouraged women from attending owing to the salacious testimony surrounding Margaret's supposed affairs. Neither Margaret nor Frank ever confessed to the crime, and both protested their innocence as they went to the gallows. Governor George McClellan, a fellow West Orange resident, refused to commute their sentences to life imprisonment despite the fact that they were convicted on purely circumstantial evidence. Their story opens an interesting window on issues concerning immigration, family tensions, gender roles, class, capital punishment, incarceration, and community life during the depression decade of the 1870s. This book embeds the story within this larger social context, seeking to both relate a fascinating story and to tease out the larger implications of the murder and execution.