Elmer Clawson, Boy Murderer, Part One

August 29, 1896.  Farmer Harry Hodgetts of Pluckemin, an Englishman who emigrated to America in 1885, had just finished breakfast with his wife and three small daughters and was heading outside to begin his day's work at his 64-acre farm on what today is Route 206.  He was met unexpectedly by eighteen-year-old Elmer Clawson, a lad who had worked for him the previous season, but who he hadn't seen in over a year.

Elmer Clawson, before his execution in 1897

Clawson set his bicycle down by the road and strode up to meet Hodgetts by the door of his home.  Clawson asked for work, and when Hodgetts refused, Clawson demanded to be paid wages that Hodgetts had withheld the previous year - an amount equal to what Hodgetts suspected the boy had been skimming from produce sales to local merchants.

Harry Hodgetts
(Photo Courtesy of Amy Bell Johnson)

When Hodgetts again rebuffed the youth, Clawson drew a pistol and fired three times - two of the shots hitting the farmer in the chest.

As Clawson sped away on his bike, the Powelsons, who occupied the neighboring farm and had heard the gunshots, arrived on the scene in time to hear the last words of the victim - "Be quick". They immediately took to their farm wagons and their own bicycles and followed the track of Clawson's tire clearly visible on the dusty Bedminster Township roads.

Although it was drawn 40 years after the incidents,
this 1935 map of the bridle paths and byways of the
Somerset Hills is useful to locate the scenes of the murder and chase.

By the time the pursuers reached Far Hills four miles away, their numbers had grown to include more men on bicycles, wagons, and buggies.  

The Far Hills train station circa 1890s

At the Far Hills train station, Clawson overheard the station agent repeating a phone message that included his description, and regaining his bicycle made a mad dash for Bedminster.

New York Times, 30 August 1896

The closing vigilantes forced Clawson to ditch his bike and take to the underbrush at the side of the road, but the posse cajoled him out of his hiding place.  Word of Hodgetts death having reached the mob, they considered lynching him on the spot.  Only Constable Thomas Moore, riding up through the crowd at a full gallop, dissuaded the men from committing an act that would surely leave a black mark on Somerset County.

more tomorrow....