Lewis McWane

Lewis McWane was a resident of modern Nelson County in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He was accused of murdering another person in 1803, was brought to trial in Charlottesville and found guilty, and thus became the first white man to be judicially hanged in the history of Albemarle County, with the only other such known individual being the early twentieth century Charlottesville mayor J. Samuel McCue.

Circumstances behind hanging

Case

James Hopkins was the son of Dr. Arthur Hopkins, one of the earliest and largest landholders in Albemarle County. James was reported to have possessed considerable wealth and to have been very well-educated, having made choice of his father's profession and subsequently studying medicine abroad at the University of Edinburgh. Upon his return to the United States, he settled in modern Nelson County (then part of Amherst County), making his home under the shadow of Sugar Loaf Mountain and for many years being occupied with an extensive practice there.

James and his wife, Anne Sparks Martin (a relative of Thomas S. Martin) had one child, a daughter, who was married to Captain Richard Pollard. James was reported to have conceived a contempt for his son-in-law because he at least once caught him kidnapping enslaved workers from his plantation and selling them to others.

During the evening of March 4, 1803, while kneeling during the act of conducting family worship, James was shot through the window of the room and died of his injuries within the hour. After a careful measurement of the tracks made in the snow by the shoes of the guilty individual, Lewis McWane, another inhabitant of the county, was arrested for the crime. He was examined by the Amherst County Court and later sent on for trial in the District Court of Charlottesville, where he was convicted and sentenced to be hung there in late 1803.

Execution

On the scaffold during the day of his hanging, McWane continued to deny having performed the deed. He avowed that he had been employed by Pollard to commit the murder and had approached the window of James' house for that purpose but, upon seeing the old man kneeling in prayer, changed his mind and returned to Pollard a short distance off, declaring that he did not have the heart to perpetrate the act. Upon this exchange taking place, Pollard (according to McWane) forced him to switch shoes and went to the window himself, shooting his father-in-law with his own hand. McWane alleged that Pollard's motive in desiring James' death was to prevent him from making a will, having in some way formed the impression that he was to be excluded from all interest and control in the latter's estate. On the ground of this statement, Pollard was later arrested and tried but was ultimately acquitted in the absence of all other testimony; however, the belief was widely prevalent that McWane's declaration on the day of his execution had been true.

Aftermath

Pollard lived to a great age and was reported to have never by word nor act in the slightest degree betrayed his alleged guilt in James' murder. Indeed, James had in actual fact already made his will prior to his killing. His testament provided for the gradual emancipation of his slaves and the conveyance of his estate to his daughter and his grandson Dr. Arthur Pollard (contingent upon the latter individual changing his last name to Hopkins, with this requirement eventually being duly effected by the County Court of Amherst).