On Sunday morning, November 18, 1855 David Ryder stabbed his wife Annah to death and then slit his own throat. One suggested motive was that he had fallen in love with his sister-in-law, who lived with the couple at their farm on Point Salubrious, Chaumont.
David Ryder (sometimes spelled Rider) was the oldest child of Joseph Ryder and Polly Hill. He was born in Boston on January 13, 1804, and moved with his family to Vermont, then Oswego, and then to Chaumont when he was about nine years old. The Ryder family was one of the first to settle in the Town of Lyme. David was first married to Alzada Bacon of Watertown. They had 3 children: Van Buren, Celestia, and Duane. Alzada died on May 22, 1836 at the age of 30, and was buried in the Point Salubrious cemetery. After Alzada’s death, David married Annah (or Anna or Hannah) Jackson, from the Onondaga Valley. They lived on a large farm on Point Salubrious, approximately where the Guffin Bay Resort and Marina now stands. David and Annah became parents to Lucina, James, Emily, and twins Ellis and Dallas. At some point during their marriage, Annah’s sister, Lucina Jackson (their daughter’s namesake), came to live with the family. The family was prosperous and respected; David was elected the Lyme town supervisor in 1852. Unfortunately, the marriage had been an unhappy one. In an article written a few days after the murder, the Skaneateles Democrat reported that the talk around Chaumont was that Ryder had fallen in love with Lucina Jackson. Before the murder, David had announced to the family that he had “frequently thought of blowing (his wife’s) brains out and then shooting himself.” Mrs. Ryder was evidently in fear for her life, as she had told her daughter Lucina to wake her up immediately if she ever heard her father rise first. On Saturday, November 17th, David went to the Point Salubrious fishing grounds and settled his bills, though the cisco season was only half over. He also bought a large dirk knife from one of the fishermen. That night David went to his father’s house (the current home of Diane and Donald Tedford) and talked to his father about how he wanted his affairs handled after his death, as he did not expect to live long. Surprisingly, this conversation doe not appear to have caused alarm. On Sunday morning, Annah woke in her downstairs bedchamber before 6 o’clock and began to stoke a fire in the parlor. David came downstairs from his room with the dirk knife and began to stab Annah in the back and neck. Lucina Ryder heard her mother’s screams, ran into the room, pulled her mother away, and dragged her into the dining room. The newspaper reports are vague, but it sounds as though Lucina Jackson (the sister-in-law) may have suffered a minor stab wound when she tried to stand between David and his wife. David was able to get into the dining room, where he stabbed Annah several more times. When it was clear that she was dead, he left the house and locked himself in the wood shed, where he “slit his throat from ear to ear.” After the murder, David’s papers revealed that he had willed his two farms to his sister-in-law, Lucina Jackson. All of his children were left out of the will. Hiram S. Pomeroy (David’s cousin and neighbor) petitioned the court to become the guardian of Duane, Lucina, Emily, and James Ryder. In these papers he stated that David Ryder had died an unnatural death by suicide and was intestate. In other words, any will which David had left was not considered legally-binding. Mysteriously, the 10-year-old twins Dallas and Ellis were not taken to live with their siblings. According to the probate papers of David Ryder’s estate, Dallas and Ellis were placed under the guardianship of George W. Pennock, who lived about where the Dollar General in Chaumont now stands. Mr. Pennock’s relationship to the Ryders is unclear. At some point the twins appear to have gone to live with Lucina Jackson in Adams Center. The separation of the twins from the other Ryder children and their close relationship with Lucina Jackson leads me to wonder if they were actually Lucina’s sons, not her nephews. Lucina Jackson later married Daniel Fuller at Adams Center; when he died she married Alva Green. She died at Dallas Ryder’s house in Three Mile Bay in 1906. Her obituary said that she was childless. It is not clear where David and Annah Ryder were buried. David’s parents, his first wife, and most of his siblings were buried in the Point Salubrious cemetery; if David and Annah were also buried there, their graves were left unmarked. The episode appears to have been quite successfully hushed up in subsequent years. Nineteenth-century histories of the Town of Lyme mention David and Annah Ryder only as deceased prosperous farmers, and the parents of successful children. The murder seems to have never been mentioned in print again after 1855. Perhaps a tendency toward depression ran in the family. David’s nephew, Dudley Ryder, shot himself at his father’s farm between Chaumont and Limerick in January 1878. Another nephew, Archie Ryder, an attorney from Three Mile Bay and a candidate for State Senate, jumped to his death from the Jefferson National Bank building in Watertown in September 1922. Sources:
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