“[The] prophecy of a Tuscarora medicine man, made years ago when the fishing grounds about Point Salubrious were closed to the red men, is again fulfilled in the double tragedy, according to historians of the town of Lyme. Legend of the township tells that it was the decree of the savage seer that once each century the community would be visited by a double homicide until the privileges of the Indian were restored.” -The Lockport Union Sun and Journal, August 25, 1922. Chaumont had a murder-suicide in each of its first two centuries. I’ve written about the first one on these pages before: on November 18, 1855, David Ryder stabbed his wife Annah to death and then slit his own throat at their farm on Point Salubrious. Chaumont’s 20th-century murder-suicide occurred on August 19, 1922, when Jessie Burlingame shot her husband Roy, and then herself, at their historic home on Main Street. Jessie Dillenback Stryker Burlingame was born in 1891 in New York City, where her grandfather, George, and her father, Alvah, were livestock dealers. George Dillenback was a native of Jefferson County, with many family and business connections here. In 1883 he bought the Musgrove Evans house in Chaumont for use as a summer home. George made the Chaumont house his full-time residence around 1900, shortly after the death of his son Alvah. He brought with him Alvah’s widow, Emma, and children, Jessie and Alvah Jr., among other family members. Jessie attended the Chaumont village school for a time before she was sent to a boarding school in Geneva, New York. She continued to live in Geneva until 1912, when she moved to Watertown. There she met and married James Stryker, a contractor building the new Asbury Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. and Mrs. Stryker traveled around the east coast to his construction jobs; James died in Virginia in the influenza epidemic of 1918, leaving his wife childless. Jessie then returned to Watertown and began studies to become a nurse. When Roy C. Burlingame met Jessie Dillenback Stryker, he was a 39-year-old auto salesman at a dealership on State Street. They were married in 1920 and moved to her family’s home in Chaumont, which she and an aunt in Maine had inherited after the death of her grandparents. The Burlingames planted lavish gardens around their home and entertained Chaumont friends. However, their short time together was troubled. Neighbors and family members recalled frequent quarreling and anxious questions from Jessie about women Roy had spoken with. Jessie had a major operation in the spring of 1922 to remove 150 gallstones, and was in lingering pain. On Saturday, August 19, 1922 Jessie’s brother Alvah, a farmer living on Point Salubrious, visited her. She was in agony from a toothache; she told her brother that the pain was so intense it was “almost making me crazy.” She said that she’d spent the day trying to locate her husband to ask him to make a dentist appointment for her. He was nowhere to be found. Alvah stayed with his sister until about 11 p.m., then he returned to Point Salubrious. Roy Burlingame returned home sometime soon thereafter. Shortly before midnight a neighbor heard four gunshots, but apparently was not concerned enough to rouse her household. On Sunday morning Alvah Dillenback returned to his sister’s house. (It’s not clear if he returned to Chaumont out of concern for his sister, or to attend church. When he came to the village it was his habit to park his horse and buggy in the Burlingame’s barn.) The lights were on in the house, but no one responded to his knocks at the door. He walked around the house peering in windows, and was shocked to see his brother-in-law lying naked in a pool of blood in the bathroom. He ran across the street to get Roy Schuyler; together they went down Main Street get Everett Giles, a state trooper, from his home. The three broke open the door. The evidence they found seemed to show the following scenario: Roy appeared to have been undressing to take a bath. Jessie came into the bathroom with a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. She shot Roy first in the side of his face; the bullet came out of his mouth, shattering his teeth. A second shot went into the ceiling, which indicates that they may have been struggling over the gun. The third shot hit Roy in the shoulder. Jessie then left the bathroom and went to the front room of the house, where she fired the fourth bullet through her heart. What they fought over is purely conjecture. Newspaper accounts hinted that Mr. Burlingame might have been unfaithful to his wife; one paper claimed to know the name of his paramour, but felt it would be indecent to print it. The pain Jessie was experiencing from the toothache and the gallstone operation could only have exacerbated the situation. A double funeral service was conducted in the house. The bodies were laid side-by-side in matching gray caskets in the Dillenback vault at Cedar Grove Cemetery. The tawdry story lingered in the press. In the fall the courts had to decide whose family would inherit the estate – Jessie’s survivors or Roy’s. (They had no children). The case hinged on who had died first: if Jessie outlived Roy by a few minutes, then she was the last survivor and her family would receive the estate. However, if Roy’s family could prove that he was still alive when Jessie died, then he would be considered the inheritor of the estate and the property would pass to his family. In the end the court decided that the estate should go to Roy’s father (of Boonville) and brother (of Watertown). The court established that Jessie had indeed survived her husband by a few minutes, but it ruled that she could not have inherited the estate since she had been the killer of the testator. The Dillenback and Burlingame families seem to have remained on surprisingly good terms. When it was later discovered that Roy had had a life insurance policy worth $10,000, his father and brother voluntarily split the money with Jessie’s mother and brother. Sources:
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