by Greg Marquis
"Between nine and ten o'clock on
Wednesday night I was in my stable
about watering my horse. As I was go-
ing from the stable with the horse, I
heard three shots. The report came
from the Bog. I said to myself, 'There is
some fun in the Bog.' . . . I met some
men at the corner of Spring street,
among whom was James Callaghan. I
said to him 'Jim, there is murder in the
bog.' "
— Testimony of Patrick Hand, Daily
Examiner, 16 August 1878, p. 2.
"Last night this usually quiet city of
ours was startled by the news that one
of the most cold blooded and deliberate
murders on record had been committed
in our midst, and that a young colored
boy, who had been a few moments
before young and full of spirits playing
with his comrades, was, without a mo-
ment's warning, hurled into eternity."
— Editorial, Patriot, 17 August 1878
(written 15 August).
a "nly a few facts were immediately
clear: on the evening of August 14,
1878, a bright moonlit night, George
Kelly, a 16-year-old mulatto was shot
and killed on the street in Charlotte-
town's West Bog. Kelly had been sit-
ting with two or three others on the
steps of a neighbour's home on
Rochford Street sometime after 9:30,
when two men drove down the street
from Dr. Hobkirk's corner (at Euston)
"in a light single-seated wagon drawn
by a black horse." They stopped by the
pump on the north side of Fitzroy near
Rochford. They possibly spoke to
Susan Inglis and Rose Cheverie, who
were standing near them.
Kelly left his group and walked down
Fitzroy toward them. A stone was
thrown from across the street, striking
either a wagon wheel or the fence in
front of St. Peter's Cathedral. The man
driving wheeled the wagon about, curs-
ing, while the other, who was wearing a
dark coat and a white, long-peaked
"bucko" cap, fired three rounds from a
.22 calibre pistol, the third of which
struck George Kelly in the chest, passed
down through the liver and lodged close
to the spine.
Kelly fell in the gutter on Fitzroy,
about 20 yards from the corner ac-
cording to David Inglis, the first person
to reach him and, according to several
witnesses, the one who had thrown the
stone. Inglis carried Kelly north to his
mother's place in an alley off Rochford
Street. Dr. Hobkirk was quickly sum-
moned, but could do little for the vic-
tim, who expired in 15 or 20 minutes
from internal bleeding.
When City Marshall Thomas Flynn
arrived, he immediately began a search
for the men and wagon, last seen
heading east on Euston Street after
speeding around Hobkirk's Corner.
Witness Patrick Hand told Flynn that
he recognized the gait of the black horse
as one belonging to George Millner.
Several children said that his son James
Millner was driving the wagon, and it
was discovered that young Millner and
19-year-old Louis Johnston had hired a
wagon at Stumbles' livery stable that
evening, and had been seen driving
around town. As a result, Millner was
arrested the next morning in front of his
father's place — seemingly, as the
police later testified, expecting their ar-
rival.
Johnston, identified by some witness-
es as the gunman, was not so easily
caught. He fled the police on foot near
the waterfront and was not found until
several days later when Flynn, acting on
information from the ship's drunken
steward, discovered him hiding in the
hold of the schooner Maria Catherine,
which was in Charlottetown harbour
under consignment to his father.
29
Sensational testimony
Sensational testimony was given
throughout the resulting coroner's in-
quest, examination by stipendiary
magistrate, and Supreme Court trial,
and spectators thronged to hear it.
Counsel for the defence, particularly
E.J. Hodgson who appeared for
Johnston, shamelessly mixed maudlin
theatrics with denunciations of Crown
witnesses and appeals to racial and class
biases directed against the im-
poverished, racially-mixed residents of
the Bog (as the West Bog was common-
ly known).
This trial seems to be a clear example
of such biases affecting the course of
justice in 19th century Prince Edward
Island. At times it appeared as if it were
Kelly and his Bog neighbours who were
on trial—for him being "shot down like
a dog" in the very shadow of St. Peter's.
Certainly his neighbours, the essential
witnesses testifying for the Crown, were
attacked by the defence lawyers for per-
juring themselves in a conspiracy to
maliciously convict two sons of middle-
class white society.
The suspects, living in the hazy area
between working and middle class,
might be described as "young bloods."
Johnston, recently arrived in Charlotte-
town, worked with his father, a steam-
fitter, and was described by his landlord
as a quiet boy of moderate habits. But
he admitted owning a small pistol that
was never located; the police would
testify that on his arrest Johnston said,
among other things, that he had given
his pistol to his father, presumably to
destroy the evidence. Testimony was
given that Johnston's father had been
concerned about his association with
young Millner, whose reputation was
said to be unsavoury. However Millner
senior, a tinsmith, mechanic and ar-
tisan, was clearly well regarded, and
tribute was paid to him along with ex-
pressions of regret by both Attorney-
General Peters and the Patriot.
Johnston, whose mother was ill and
not expected to live long, was portrayed
as caring nothing for himself, but only
for the feelings of his grieving parents.
Hodgson, appealing to Victorian senti-
ment in the~direct manner customary"
with defence lawyers, drew tears with
his appeals to the jury:
Gentlemen, I am speaking for
these two young men: and I ask
you not to consign them to a dis-
30
GOLD BLOODED MDRDEB!
A Mullato Boy Shot
Dmun like a Dog.
8CENEOFTHEMURDER
Coroner's Inquest
FULL PARTICULARS AS FAR
AS KNOWN.
IN the West Bog last night, George
Kelly, a mullato boy, about 16 years of age,
was shot dead. The fatal shot came from
a wagon in which were two m«i who drove
off as soon as the bloody deed was consum*
mated. The ball entered Kelly's left breast.
He uttered a loud scream; cried out " Lord
have mercy on my soul; I am shot," aiul in
twenty minutes was a lifeless corpse.
The following diagram represents the
scene of the murder :
* j
w !
p-t
HoUkirk's j H 8. Peters!
Corner. | 71 Church. 1
ROTCHFORD STREET.
|..|R o Susan Inglis and Rose Cheverie, the
--• Where Kelly fell.
1 Where the murderer fired from.
r Peakc's Pump.
R Pyan's House.
IJ layers' House.
The first report of the crime in the Daily
Examiner (15 August 1878).
graceful grave. I am speaking for
this gray head, all furrowed with
the marks of care and toil; I am
speaking for an honoured father
whose earthly hopes will be
blighted if his son be convicted; I
am speaking for the lonely mother
wrTo7~orTTier" becTof"sickness, fs
waiting to hear — oh, how anx-
iously, your verdict.
Hodgson graphically described the un-
pleasantness of hanging as a means of
death, and the effects on the parents of
the accused if they were found guilty,
concluding:
I appeal to you on behalf of those
young men whose now silent lips
may soon be trembling in the
death struggle; I appeal to you on
behalf of that gray-haired old
man, on behalf of an honored
father and loving mother.
The Attorney-General countered: "the
boy who was shot was poor, but he was
dear to his mother as the rich woman's
son was to her."
Court proceedings
The coroner's inquest, convened un-
der Dr. J.T. Jenkins, found on August
24 "that the deceased came to his death
by a pistol shot, fired from a wagon on
Rochford Street by a party or parties
unknown." Johnston and Millner were
then arraigned on a murder charge
before stipendiary magistrate Rowan
Fitzgerald. On September 4, 1878, they
were committed to stand trial before the
Supreme Court in January, on the
r_, reduced charge of manslaughter.
a'i
By the time this decision was reached,
a mass of testimony had been given,
ci
most of which was repeated at the later
trial. The two accused, as was
customary at the time, did not testify.
two people closest to the wagon, denied
testimony that they had conversed with
them or recognized them; Johnston
senior denied receiving his son's pistol
before his capture.
While the Crown's case was con-
structed from a number of pieces of
evidence, the key witnesses for the
prosecution were several young women
from the area, their ages ranging from
12 to. 22. Twelve-year-old Emily said
that she had seen James Millner many
times while housecieaning at his next-
door neighbour's house. She testified
that when the wagon came down
Rochford Street on the fatal night she
had caught and hung onto the back of
it, that James Millner had turned and
put his hand on her head to push her off,
and that George Kelly (otherwise
almost -faceless in the -published- ac-
counts) had warned her off lest she
receive "a cut across the eyes" from the
whip.
Even more sensational reports came
from two other young women, who
stated that as the wagon left the scene
the man who fired said "I killed one
black son of a bitch, and I'll kill another
before I leave."
The defence maligned Crown witness-
es without reservation, asking the two
teen-aged women if they knew the
meaning of the word "prostitute," and
stating that Emily was as ignorant of
acquaintance with Millner as she was of
the meaning of her sworn oath. Crown
witnesses were described as "the out-
scourings of the bog, the brothels, the
waifs and strays of the city." Hodgson
several times referred to the evidence of
" t h e c o l o u r e d b r i g a d e , " and
characterized Bog witnesses as
a strong battalion of thieves and
prostitutes from the lower part of
the town; perhaps there was never
seen such a motley collection as
the witnesses who assembled in
court on the first day of this trial.
. . . They were brought up in evil
This watercolour by Robert Harris shows some Bog dwellings on the left.
and vice from the time they were
children. . . . There is not one of
those girls who looked at us with
her bold, bad face but had been
led astray. . . . They are brought
here from sinks of vice, caring
nothing for an oath, and thinking
of nothing but the fleeting pas-
sions of the hour to obtain what
they desire.
The Attorney-General objected to the
accusation that the Bog witnesses were
incapable of honesty and were conspir-
ing against their betters:
I could not justify the sweeping
denunciation of all the people of
the Bog. Their colour may not be
so white as that of some other per-
sons; but if we believe the Scrip-
tures, they all belong to the same
great botherhood as ourselves. . . .
There are good and bad people in
the Bog, as well as anywhere else.
The base passions of humanity are
not confined to poor people or to
black people. . . .
In retrospect we may wonder if the
Crown's moderate and reasonable ob-
jections to such attacks on its witnesses
were as effective as the defence's
emotional bias-mongering. The
deceased, George Kelly, was termed a
member of "a strange, alien, weak and
degraded race," which indicates how
well blacks and mulattoes were in-
tegrated into society. Considerations of
the background of witnesses, together
with the fact that many were shabby,
unemployed and known to the police,
definitely favoured the defence.
Nor were the city police spared in the
defence's character demolition of
Crown witnesses. A key piece of
testimony was that Johnston, as he was
being led from the harbour to the jail on
31
Edward Jarvls Hodgson, barrister and
later Chief Justice, a Sunday School
teacher who stooped to using racial and
class biases on behalf of the defendants.
Pownal Square, had admitted firing the
three shots and expressed remorse. Both
Hodgson and Charles Palmer, attorney
for Millner, traced the hardly ex-
emplary careers of all the officers in-
volved. As Hodgson said in his summa-
tion of February 4, 1879, "There is
scarcely one of [the police witnesses]
who has not either been in jail for
beating their wives, or suspended for
drunkenness."
As well as attacking Crown witness-
es, the defence exaggerated discrepan-
cies in details and some conflicts over
facts to impugn all eyewitness evidence
that was damaging to their clients, as
most of it was. And further to put doubt
in the minds of the jury, Palmer brought
in almost at the last minute (February
1) four young women from the respec-
table side of town who said that they
had seen Johnston uptown on foot at
the time of the murder. Palmer took
care to contrast his "virtuous and un-
defined young women" (Ida Scott,
Florence Herbert, Maggie Jury, and
Nellie Baker) with the Crown's female
witnesses and their illegitimate children:
I want to know if the evidence of
these fine and virtuous ladies will
not be taken in preference to that
of . . . the poor, miserable and il-
literate creatures from the Bog.
32
The West Bog in an early map of Charlottetown.
The jury was charged on February 4,
and returned the next day, after 15
hours of deliberation, with a verdict of
"Not Guilty." The accused and their
families reacted with relief and ap-
plause. Reaction in the Bog was not
recorded, but most likely a sense of
resentment was reinforced.
The rhetoric of the trial was typically
overblown, but it indicated that Cana-
dian society was scarcely more tolerant
than American on questions of race,
and that second-class citizens did exist.
If a white citizen, such as Johnston or
Millner, had been killed in the Bog by a
black or mulatto, we may suspect that
someone would have been convicted.
Whether the stories told by young
Emily and other Bog residents, or the
alibis provided by the four respectable
young ladies, were fabricated is a mat-
ter of speculation: a reading of the case
shows that the evidence was com-
plicated. It is much easier to ascertain
notions of race, class and morality, such
as are found in the Daily Examiners
editorial of February 6, 1879:
If the victim were one of
ourselves, it would be natural to
desire that punishment should fall
upon the murderer. If he were the
son of a respectable citizen
brought up under the influences of
religion prepared to die suddenly
we should, even then, feel that an
outrage had been committed. But
as the victim had no such advan-
tages and he was (we may sup-
pose) a w i c k e d d e g r a d e d
character, the crime of suddenly
sending him into eternity, with all
his sins upon his head, is, in our
view, so much the more terrible.
Sources
The columns of the Daily Examiner
and Patriot are the primary sources, as
they contain detailed reports during
August and September, 1878, and
January and February, 1879. A search
for a casebook on the trial from
Supreme Court papers in the Public
Archives of Prince Edward Island
proved futile, although there is
reference to the case in the court's
Minute Book. Names of several witnes-
ses whose characters were attacked by
the defence have been omitted on
grounds of fairness and propriety.