Love Triangle and Attempted Murder

The section of East Meadow and North Bellmore near Sabia’s Corner was known to 19th century locals as Hogshead, a name little used and long forgotten. The neighborhood was not known for its sophistication; it gained a reputation for having poorly educated, opioid-addicted, unhealthy, unhappy alcoholic laborers living in embarrassing shanties working for a few respectable farmers. Of course, this exposé in sensationalist newspaper The Sun unfairly painted locals as yokels who believed Hempstead was the big city, but the fact that several high-profile crimes in the 1880s were connected to the neighborhood did not help its image. “Hogshead” was connected by Bellmore Road, known then as Brush Road, to “The Brush,” a community of emancipated slaves and their families. Charles Rugg, a resident of that section, was executed in 1885 upon conviction of murder after an assault on the north side of East Meadow. The Brower Family provided much excitement a few years later.

For much of the 19th century, the Brower (or Brewer) Family lived near the intersection of Newbridge and North Jerusalem roads, with another farm a block away at Newbridge Avenue. Parmenus and Jane (Carman) Brower’s son Lewis married Sarah Ann Raynor around 1848 and took over operation of the family property with his parents. Lewis struck up a romantic relationship with Mary Jane Baldwin, who had been married twice and was previously known as Mrs. Samuel Lewis and Mrs. David Waring. Mary Jane was a younger woman who lived about a mile away on Bellmore Road in North Bellmore, across from brother DeWitt Clinton Baldwin and her mother Charity Southard’s family. She became known as Lewis’s “morganatic wife” who seemingly had free use of his farm’s bounties. As Lewis became increasingly enamored with Mary Jane, he moved livestock and household goods to her cottage, neglecting his sickly wife (with whom he had children and grandchildren).

Sarah Ann, sensing her husband’s growing estrangement, told her friend and neighbor (Mary) Elizabeth Spates that she might be murdered one night, as she was always alone. Elizabeth’s husband was Navy Captain Richard Nelson Spates, an adventurous and heroic Civil War veteran. Unfortunately, Sarah Ann had good precognition.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 10, 1887, Sarah Ann was axed in the head and suffered grave injuries. Lewis claimed to have been in bed, awakened by his wife’s cry. The community, knowing of the Brower-Baldwin affair, rendered swift moral judgment and failed to believe his story. Lewis Brower and Mary Jane Baldwin were both arrested for the “braining” and held in the Jamaica Town Hall. Lewis said he went a mile away to his grandson rather than going to Powers, his nearest neighbor, because he was frightened. Barney Powers, a respected farmer, said he saw Lewis washing blood off the ax. He went to the house with three sons, armed and ready to defend their neighbors. When they arrived, a dreadful sight met them. After searching in vain for “thieves,” Lewis claimed that $342 in cash had been stolen from the house. The furniture had been disturbed in a way that the Powers might believe a burglar had searched for the money. Neighbors knew, however, that Brower was in significant farm debt and wouldn’t have that kind of money in the house. Mrs. Spates found the weapon the following day, which had been suspiciously cleaned. Baldwin had seemingly fled to the Bellmore train station but was located. The coroner, Philip Cronin, was waiting to see if Sarah succumbed from her injuries before questioning the accused. Medical and legal professionals believed death was imminent.

After several comatose days, Sarah Ann awoke and was able to recall some of the incident. On the night of the crime, she had gone to bed with Lewis at 9:30 or 10:00 P.M. She gave a lengthy deathbed statement to authorities alleging that Mary Jane Baldwin likely struck her, before alleging that Lewis tried to kill her. Even if she were not partially paralyzed, the statement needed to be oral, as Mrs. Brower was illiterate.

On December 29, a coroner’s jury found evidence enough to move forward with the case. They believed Mr. Brower was responsible for his wife’s injuries and held Mrs. Baldwin as a witness. The trial for attempted murder was held in Freeport’s Euterpean or Union Hall. Mary Jane Lewis testified that she had not seen Brower since December 7. John Brower, Lewis’s grandson, thought his grandmother did not receive medical care in a timely fashion: Dr. William Rhame was not called until late Saturday morning, at which time Sarah Ann had no pulse. Two surgeons from Hempstead, Dr. Searing and Dr. Handford attended to Sarah Ann that night, almost an entire day after the attack. Dr. Rhame testified that after seeing her the next day, he did not think she would recover. She had a compound compressed skull fracture. Other wounds on her body were not made by the same axe.

Sarah Ann said that Lewis refused to come to bed that night. She was afraid to say who hit her, for fear that it would happen again, but said, “Well, I think Jane Baldwin struck the blows and father looked on and let her.” Sarah Ann’s daughter-in-law claimed the she saw an axe or iron bar at Mary Jane’s house. The bar had been kept for self-defense since the 1885 Rugg incident.

Phebe Merritt, Lewis Brower’s daughter, testified that she ran home when she heard about her mother. Her father said that two men, thought to be thieves, entered the room. They swung at him but missed and hit his wife. Lewis chased them naked into the street and then hid in a woodshed for half an hour. He then went to find his grandson, George Merritt. After arriving home, neighbor George Powers was there. Lewis said that thieves chased him into the kitchen – the location of Sarah Ann’s bed – and tried to hit him as well. He claimed to have followed footprints two miles to a Black family and re-entered the house through a garret window. Deputy Sheriff Solomon Allen debunked Lewis’s story, reporting that the window was covered with cobwebs and clearly not opened for a long time.

The crime was sensational by local standards and the trial was filled with East Meadow spectators. Even before the verdict, the general sentiment was that Brower was guilty as charged. Inquiries from jail about the condition of his livestock – but not his injured wife – did not help Brower’s case.

While on trial for attempting to kill his wife, Brower was sued by John Southard, the local undertaker, for failure to pay $37.50 toward his mother-in-law’s funeral expenses. Mrs. Baldwin sued her husband for divorce, of course. In one disturbing incident, Brower took his lover to the Queens County Fair and made sure to ride by his wife, laughing at her expense.

Lewis was convicted and served four years at Sing Sing Prison. Following her miraculous physical recovery, Sarah lost much of her memory and went to live in Westbury with her daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Isaac Wilson. After his release from prison, Lewis Brower lived a reclusive life back in East Meadow before dying in 1901.

It gets more complicated and more disturbing. Lewis Brower’s son, Parmenus married Mary Alice Bedell around 1872 but, sticking to the family tradition, fell in love with another woman named Kate Smith, née Baldwin – Mary Jane’s sister. Yes, you read that correctly. The younger Brower fell in love with the sister of his father’s lover. The key problem is that Kate was married to Valentine Smith, who caught his wife eloping in a wagon with Parmenus. Smith chased the pair, but Brower shot him and was convicted of second-degree assault in September 1887. Lewis served prison time with his son in Sing Sing.

But there’s more. Parmenus and Mary were living in the Ridgewood (Wantagh) area with Mary’s mother Maria Bedell, who made headlines for a high-profile late-in-life marriage-for-money arrangement with Solomon Southard, which quickly went south when neither partner held up his or her bargain to die quickly and leave their estate to the other. Parmenus and Mary’s 14-year-old son Harry was an inmate in a juvenile reformatory, the New York House of Refuge.

In an unscrupulous move, lawyer George Mott assured payment for legal services by obtaining power of attorney from Lewis while he was incarcerated. While Sarah Ann was still living there, Mott sold off their livestock and property and ended up owning the farm by February, though he gave Sarah Ann ten acres and a home. He continued to counsel Brower in prison who, upon release, persuaded Mott to pay more for the property.

Perhaps the old residents of Hogshead – descendants of the earliest town settlers – did indeed live up to the community’s reputation.

© Scott Eckers

Dr. Scott Eckers is the author of East Meadow (in Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series). He is a trustee on the East Meadow Board of Education and serves as a school administrator. He is also an entertainer and recording artist.