The Hanging Tree of Washington Square Park.

A white male named John Banks, a laborer, was hanged in NYC July 11 for killing his wife, Margaret. Research so far has not established the place of execution, but it could well have been what is now Washington Square Park, near NYU. The site was used for executions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Tradition holds that a tree at the park's northeast corner was used that purpose until 1819; thus its name: "The Hanging Elm."

Banks, originally from Austrian Flanders, struck his wife on the head with a fire-shovel and then slit her throat. Under questioning, he complained that he often found his wife drunk, that she was lazy and that she failed to have meals ready even when asked and given time to prepare them.

As was a common practice in that era, a booklet about the case was rushed into print and promoted as providing "a full and particular narrative" including Bank's "confession, voluntarily made by himself, in the presence of his editor, attended by one of his keepers, who (if required) will testify to its truth."