A Hanging in Brooklyn, Part 1

Content note: This story contains strong language, descriptions of violence, and descriptions of racism.

On the morning of August 1st 1884, Alexander Jefferson, known to his family and friends as Alec, walked to the gallows surrounded by clergymen, doctors, and activists. His brother Celestial Jefferson did not attend, but spent time with him the night prior. A throng of spectators spilled out around Fort Greene’s Raymond Street Jail. The ministers sang “Nearer My God to Thee” and other hymns. Doctors stood by, waiting to autopsy and skeletonize his body for research and display. Sparrows filled the rafters above the prison cells. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle recounted every minute of Jefferson’s final hours, which culminated in a botched hanging that left the gawking crowds silent and sick. Jefferson’s crime was violent and deliberate. Local and national papers had reported on his imprisonment, trial, and hanging with breathless detail. Before and after his hanging, experts argued publicly about his sanity, chance for reform, and outlook on death. Alexander Jefferson was one of the last people to be executed by hanging in New York State. How did his case become a confluence for competing crusaders in the world of criminality and capital punishment?

From the start, the sheer violence of the crime drew national attention. From somewhat conflicting newspaper accounts and trial transcripts, held in the collections of the Center for Brooklyn History, the sequence of events emerges as follows:

On the night of December 21, 1882, in the Crow Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn¹ Alexander Jefferson, about twenty eight, left the house where he boarded on Hunterfly road at St. Marks avenue. He walked a block and a half up a steep slope to a small one story wooden house at 177 Buffalo avenue.² Crow Hill, a poor and predominantly Black neighborhood, rose to the south and east of the wealthier Black neighborhood of Weeksville. 177 Buffalo ave was set about fifteen feet from the dirt road, up a hill also of fifteen feet. Conflicting cadastral maps, the tendency of mapmakers to exclude some wooden dwellings, and inconsistent street numbering make it difficult to determine the exact location of the buildings, but they were likely on the east side of Buffalo avenue near St. Marks place.³ 

Inside, five people sat around a small stove near the center of the two-room dwelling’s main space: Alexander’s younger brother Celestial Jefferson, twenty seven, boarding there with people he had known from the neighborhood since he was a child; a boarder name Henry Hicks, about fifty, between the stove and a window next to the front door; the home’s owner, Emma Jackson, fifty eight; Emma’s daughter, Anne or Annie Jackson, twenty five; Juliet Jackson, twenty three, no relation. Around eight thirty, Juliet stood to hang washing on the line.⁴

In the front yard Alexander Jefferson raised a double-barreled shotgun, aimed through the window at Celestial’s head, and depressed both triggers. At the same time, Henry Hicks leaned forward in his chair. Hicks took most of the shot to his head and neck. He slumped to the ground and lay against the chair, groaning. Celestial was struck with a glancing shot to his forehead and eyes. He dropped to the ground beside the stove, blood seeping down his face. Blinded by blood in his eyes, he heard someone enter the home, and knew by the intruder's voice that it was Alexander. Alexander chased the three women into the bedroom, where he seized Emma, drew a knife, and began to slash. Juliet ran to the bedroom window, hoisted it open, climbed through, and fled to a nearby friend’s house and hid there in fear until the police found her the next day. Anna fled back into the big room, pursued by Alexander. He knocked her to the ground at Hicks’ feet and stabbed her nine times while shouting “you bitch” over and over again. From the floor, she saw her mother grab a shawl and run out the front door. Anna managed to get to her feet and follow her mother outside. On the way to a nearby grocery store to seek help, she saw her mother falling and rolling down the slope. Alexander ran from the house and away from the scene.⁵

Celestial was already gone from the house, grabbing the gun and rushing to a neighborhood store, where he asked for help inside. The proprietors, perhaps alarmed by the blood and the gun, drove him away. He ran instead to the nearby twelfth precinct where he alerted police Captain Folk to the violence. Anna and Celestial were taken by ambulance to Cumberland Street Hospital where Anna’s chances of survival were declared low.⁶ Rushing to 177 Buffalo avenue, the police found a grisly scene. Emma Jackson’s dead body rested at the foot of the hill and Henry Hicks lay lifeless inside, having bled to death. Captain Folk said of the scene, “I’ll swear that any person that saw either body on the night of the murder would never forget it.”⁷

The case made local and international headlines. The murderer and all of his victims were Black, a fact that was noted and sometimes emphasized in the coverage.⁸

A two-day manhunt ensued. Jefferson was already known to the police and was mugshot no. 1755 A at “the Rogue’s Gallery”.⁹ He was found in a muddy crawl space beneath a nearby fireworks factory at Park avenue and Utica, not far from the scene of the crime. He hid there until he heard two boys in the factory discussing the murder. To their surprise, he appeared from the hole and asked how Celestial and Anna were fairing. He then asked the boys to get him some food. Instead, they left and reported him to the police. When discovered, he attempted to take his own life, but only succeeded in shooting himself in the leg and injuring his eye in the skirmish. On his person, he had multiple letters explaining his intent to kill Anna Jackson and Celestial Jefferson, and expressing animosity to Emma Jackson, written in advance of the murder. It was discovered that he had sharpened his knife in preparation ten days before the murder, when he also made repeated threats to Celestial, Anna, and Juliet.

Alexander Jefferson was taken to Cumberland Street Hospital in Fort Greene to recover from his injuries and await trial. Celestial was taken to the same hospital and temporarily placed in the same basement room as his brother. When Alexander made further threats on his life, Celestial was moved to an upstairs ward. On January 19th, 1883, Alexander was moved to a cell at Raymond Street Jail.

A gruesome, explicitly premeditated double murder may not seem the likeliest target for anyone, much less religious figures or anti-capital punishment crusaders to associate themselves with. His community would have good reason to shun him, aside from the violence: an explicitly racist opinion piece in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle two days following the crime suggested not only that Black Long Islanders were concealing him, but that the murder and supposed concealment might have resulted from the unintended consequences of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.¹⁰ Newspapers in other states made snide comments not only about Alexander but also about his victim, Celestial, and ran headlines like “Brooklyn’s Bloodthirsty Negro”.¹¹ In defense, Reverend J. B. Stansberry of the Bridge Street African Methodist Episcopal Church wrote to the Eagle asking “whether it is fair to judge his people by the murderer [Jefferson], distancing Black Brooklynites from the fallout.¹²

Rather than causing universal condemnation, the murders may have actually attracted increased interest from multiple quarters precisely because of their brutality. In the two years leading to Jefferson’s execution, newspapers were filled with the drama and twists to this case. Over time, mass condemnation shifted as Jefferson repented of his crimes, resigned himself to his fate, recanted the resignation, met with both Celestial and Anna for forgiveness, appealed to the Governor, appealed once more on insanity, and articulated arguments against the death penalty. Famous names attached themselves to his cause, for reasons that appear alternatingly sincere and opportunistic. Sinners, after all, make the best saints. Who better to demonstrate God’s power than a sinner repenting of the worst evil? What other case could ever be put to capital punishment if this one could be proven unfit? Would not a defense lawyer who saved Jefferson’s life be one of the best? How could a physician in possession of a famous criminal’s remains research insanity while also raising his own profile?

Later, after he was hanged, the Daily Eagle observed: "Jefferson the hateful ruffian has been lost sight of, and another person has been executed, namely, the interesting colored man, to save whose soul pious friends entered into competition [...] and to study whose anatomy learned professors in great numbers have been invited."¹³ In part two, we will visit the events leading up to the murder, the attempts to plead insanity, and the competing interests that kept Jefferson’s name in the news as hungry journalists reported on every development.

[Edit made after publishing to correct that Celestial Jefferson was not present at the execution.]

¹ The name Crow Hill has several disputed origins. One possibility is that it referred derogatorily to the Black residents of the area. Despite this, I have chosen to use the neighborhood name in this post because Crow Hill is the name used for the area at the time of the killing and on at least one map the term serves to distinguish the hill from nearby, lower-lying Weeksville. Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly, Crown Heights and Weeksville (Arcadia Publishing, 2009).; “Sidney’s Map of Twelve Miles around New-York : With the Names of Property Holders, &c., from Entirely New & Original Surveys,” NYPL Digital Collections, accessed March 7, 2025, https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-efb8-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

² People of the State of New York against Alexander Jefferson (New York: Publisher not identified, 1883), p. 80.

³ Atlas of the City of Brooklyn, New York, Volume 01, G. M. Hopkins; Atlas of the Entire City of Brooklyn 1880, Geo. W. Bromley & E. Robinson

⁴ Where newspaper reporting and the trial transcript differ, I defer to the first hand accounting in the transcript of what occurred. For example, the Eagle reported that Anna was found, presumed to be dead, at the house, rather than having fled for a grocery store as she reports in the trial. People of the State of New York against Alexander Jefferson; “Fiendish. Shocking Tragedy in Buffalo Avenue,” Brooklyn Eagle, December 22, 1882.

⁵ People of the State of New York against Alexander Jefferson; “Fiendish. Shocking Tragedy in Buffalo Avenue,” Brooklyn Eagle, December 22, 1882.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ People of the State of New York against Alexander Jefferson, p. 96.

⁸ “Murder Most Foul. Terrible Tragedy in Buffalo Avenue Last Night.,” The Brooklyn Union, December 22, 1882; “MATTERS ABOUT THE CITY,” The New York Times, December 22, 1882; “The Day’s News,” The Morning Times, December 23, 1882; “Murderers Under Sentence,” Indianapolis Journal, April 22, 1884.

⁹ “Murder Most Foul. Terrible Tragedy in Buffalo Avenue Last Night.,” The Brooklyn Union, December 22, 1882.

¹⁰ “Jefferson’s Brutal Crime,” Brooklyn Eagle, December 23, 1882.

¹¹ Two Worthy and Colored Citizens...,” The Morning Times, December 27, 1882; “Brooklyn’s Bloodthirsty Negro,” National Republican, December 26, 1882.
¹² “The Colored Race. The Pastor of an African Church Asks Whether It Is Fair to Judge [...],” Brooklyn Eagle, December 27, 1882. The title of the article states “Johnson” but the rest of the piece states “Jefferson”.

¹³ “Jefferson’s Execution,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 1, 1884.