Future U.S. Representative William Stanbery represented Peter Diamond in the 1825 murder trial

In 1825, Licking County witnessed the murder trial of Peter Diamond. Local court records are lost, but a series of articles and letters in the Newark Advocate in 1895 add details of what happened from court records and eyewitnesses.

The incident began on Sunday, May 22, 1825, with three miners working at the Mary Ann Kiln. Peter Diamond was 22 years old at the time and was described in a September 15, 1895 Newark Advocate as “handsome, well built, with blue eyes, light hair and a florid complexion.” The other minor involved was a man named Orange Mitchel; his age and any physical description were not recorded. Nothing is recorded about the third minor involved.

The story is that Diamond was drunk and while cleaning his gun he got into an argument with an unnamed juvenile. Mitchel tried to intervene and Diamond hit him in the head with the barrel of his gun. Mitchel was mortally wounded and died 17 days later on June 7.

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On August 15, 1825, 15 members of a grand jury heard the case and issued the following indictment which was printed in a Newark Advocate of September 8, 1895:

“Peter Diamond, late of Licking County, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, May 22, 1825 A.D., with force and arms, in the Perry Township. , in and upon one Orange Mitchel, in the peace of God and the State of Ohio, then and there, being criminally and willfully of deliberate and premeditated malice, and of his malice after the fact, he committed assault and that the said Peter Diamond with a certain iron cannon four feet long and one inch thick and worth two dollars, struck the said Orange Mitchel on the right side of the head at this moment and there in a criminal and deliberate manner of deliberate and premeditated malice and malice a premeditation inflicted on him a fatal wound three inches in length, two inches in width and one inch in depth.

Two days after the indictment was handed down, Diamond appeared in Common Pleas Court and pleaded not guilty. For his defense, he hired local lawyer and future U.S. Representative, William Stanbery. Stanbery was born in New Jersey and studied law in New York, where he was admitted to the bar. He settled in Newark in 1809 and was perhaps the city’s first lawyer. To help him with the case, Stanbery enlisted the help of Lancaster attorney Thomas Ewing Sr. If Ewing’s name sounds familiar, he would later become a U.S. senator and serve as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary inside. His adopted son and future son-in-law would be the famous General William Tecumseh Sherman.

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Stanbery and Ewing formed what one might call a defense dream team as they took on prosecutor Corrington Searle. Searle was seeking the death penalty for first-degree murder, while Stanbery and Ewing argued the killing was not premeditated and Diamond should be sentenced on a lesser charge.

On August 19, four days after the indictment, 36 potential jurors were summoned by the sheriff. That same day, 12 men were chosen to decide the fate of Peter Diamond.

Doug Stout is the local history coordinator for the Licking County Library. You can contact him at 740.349.5571 or [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: William Stanbery Represents Peter Diamond in 1825 Murder Trial.