The Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy (sometimes called the Kentucky Tragedy) was the murder of Kentucky legislator Solomon P. Sharp by Jereboam O. Beauchamp. As a young lawyer, Beauchamp had been an admirer of Sharp until Sharp allegedly fathered an illegitimate child with Anna Cooke, a planter's daughter. Sharp denied paternity of the stillborn child. Later, Beauchamp began a relationship with Cooke, who, according to legend, agreed to marry him on the condition that he kill Sharp to avenge her honor. Beauchamp and Cooke married in June 1824, and in the early morning of November 7, 1825, Beauchamp murdered Sharp at Sharp's home in Frankfort.
An investigation soon revealed Beauchamp as the killer, and he was apprehended at his home in Glasgow four days after the murder. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging. He was granted a stay of execution to allow him to write a justification of his actions. Anna Cooke-Beauchamp was tried for complicity in the murder, but was acquitted for lack of evidence. Her devotion to Beauchamp prompted her to stay in his cell with him, where the two attempted a double suicide by drinking laudanum shortly before the execution. This attempt failed. On the morning of the execution, the couple again attempted suicide, this time by stabbing themselves with a knife Anna had smuggled into the cell. When the guards discovered them, Beauchamp was rushed to the gallows, where he was hanged before he could die of his stab wound. He was the first person legally executed in the state of Kentucky. Anna Cooke-Beauchamp died from her wounds shortly before her husband was hanged. In accordance with their wishes, the couple's bodies were positioned in an embrace when buried in the same coffin.
While Beauchamp's primary motive in killing Sharp was to defend the honor of his wife, speculation raged that Sharp's political opponents had instigated the crime. Sharp was a leader of the New Court party during the Old Court – New Court controversy in Kentucky. At least one Old Court partisan alleged that Sharp denied paternity of Cooke's son by claiming the child was a mulatto, the son of a family slave. Whether Sharp made such a claim has never been verified. New Court partisans insisted that the allegation was concocted to stir Beauchamp's anger and provoke him to murder. The Beauchamp–Sharp Tragedy served as the inspiration for numerous literary works, most notably Edgar Allan Poe's unfinished Politian and Robert Penn Warren's World Enough and Time (1950).
Background
Jereboam Beauchamp was born in Barren County, Kentucky, in 1802. Educated in the school of Dr. Benjamin Thurston, he resolved to study law at age eighteen. While observing the lawyers practicing in Glasgow and Bowling Green, Beauchamp was particularly impressed with the abilities of Solomon P. Sharp. Sharp had twice been elected to the state legislature and had served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Beauchamp became disenchanted with Sharp when, in 1820, a planter's daughter named Anna Cooke claimed Sharp was the father of her child, who was stillborn. Sharp denied paternity, and public opinion favored him. The disgraced Cooke became a recluse at her mother's plantation outside Bowling Green.
Beauchamp's father lived a mile (1.6 km) from Cooke's estate, and the young man wanted to meet her. Beauchamp gradually gained Cooke's trust by visiting under the guise of borrowing books from her library. By summer 1821, the two became friends and began a courtship. Beauchamp was eighteen; Cooke was at least thirty-four. As the courtship progressed, Cooke told Beauchamp that, before they could be married, he would have to kill Solomon Sharp. Beauchamp agreed to her request, expressing his own desire to dispatch Sharp.
The preferred method of honor killing in that day was a duel. Despite Cooke's admonition that Sharp would not accept a challenge to duel, Beauchamp traveled to Frankfort to gain an audience with him. He had recently been named the state's attorney general by Governor John Adair. Beauchamp's account of the interview states that he bullied and humiliated Sharp, that Sharp begged for his life, and that Beauchamp promised to horsewhip Sharp every day until he consented to the duel. For two days, Beauchamp remained in Frankfort, awaiting the duel. He discovered that Sharp had left town, allegedly destined for Bowling Green. Beauchamp rode to Bowling Green, only to find that Sharp was not there and was not expected. Sharp was saved from Beauchamp's first attempt on his life.
Cooke resolved to kill Sharp herself. The next time Sharp was in Bowling Green on business, she sent a letter to him that denounced Beauchamp's actions and claimed she had broken off all contact with him. She asked Sharp to visit her at her plantation before he left town. Sharp questioned the messenger who delivered the letter, as he suspected a trap. He replied to her, saying he would visit at the time appointed. Beauchamp and Cooke awaited the visit, but Sharp never arrived. When Beauchamp rode to Bowling Green to investigate, he learned that Sharp had left for Frankfort two days earlier, leaving substantial unfinished business. Beauchamp concluded that Sharp would eventually have to return to Bowling Green to finish his business there. Determined to await Sharp's return, Beauchamp opened a legal practice in the city. Throughout 1822 and 1823, Beauchamp practiced law and waited for Sharp to return. He never did.
Although Beauchamp had not completed the task she set him, Cooke married the younger man in mid-June 1824. Beauchamp immediately hatched another plot to kill Sharp. He began sending letters – each from a different post office and signed with a pseudonym – requesting Sharp's assistance in settling a land claim and asking when he would again be in Green River country. Sharp finally answered Beauchamp's last letter – mailed in June 1825 – but gave no date for his arrival.
Murder
Serving as attorney general in Governor Adair's administration, Sharp had become involved in the Old Court – New Court controversy. The conflict was primarily between debtors who sought relief from their financial burdens after the Panic of 1819 (the New Court, or Relief, faction) and the creditors to whom these obligations were owed (the Old Court, or Anti-Relief, faction). Sharp, who came from humble beginnings, sided with the New Court. By 1825, the New Court faction's power was on the decline. In an attempt to bolster the party's influence, Sharp resigned as attorney general in 1825 to run for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives. His opponent was Old Court stalwart John J. Crittenden.
During the campaign, Old Court supporters again raised the issue of Sharp's seduction and abandonment of Anna Cooke. Old Court supporter John Upshaw Waring printed handbills that not only accused Sharp of fathering Cooke's child, but said that Sharp had denied paternity of the child on the grounds that it was a mulatto and the son of a Cooke family slave. Whether Sharp made such a claim has never been determined. Despite the allegations, Sharp won the election.
Word of Sharp's alleged claims soon reached Jereboam Beauchamp, reviving his resolve to kill him. Beauchamp abandoned the idea of killing Sharp honorably in a duel. Instead, he decided to murder him and cast suspicion on his political enemies. To add to the intrigue, Beauchamp plotted to commit the murder on the eve of the General Assembly's opening session.
Beauchamp rode to Frankfort on business, arriving in the city on November 6. Unable to find lodging at the local inns, he rented a room in the private residence of Joel Scott, warden of the state penitentiary. Sometime after midnight, Scott heard a commotion from Beauchamp's room. When he investigated, he found the door latch open and the room unoccupied. Beauchamp, clad in a disguise, buried a set of his clothes near the Kentucky River, then proceeded to Sharp's house. Sharp was not at home, but Beauchamp soon found him at a local hotel. He returned to Sharp's house, concealed himself nearby, and waited for Sharp's return. He observed Sharp re-enter the house about midnight.
Beauchamp approached the house at approximately two o'clock in the morning on November 7, 1825. In his Confession, he described the encounter:
I put on my mask, drew my dagger and proceeded to the door; I knocked three times loud and quick, Colonel Sharp said; "Who's there" - "Covington" I replied, quickly Sharp's foot was heard upon the floor. I saw under the door as he approached without a light. I drew my mask over my face and immediately Colonel Sharp opened the door. I advanced into the room and with my left hand I grasped his right wrist. The violence of the grasp made him spring back and trying to disengage his wrist, he said, "What Covington is this." I replied John A. Covington. "I don't know you," said Colonel Sharp, "I know John W. Covington." Mrs. Sharp appeared at the partition door and then disappeared, seeing her disappear I said in a persuasive tone of voice, "Come to the light Colonel and you will know me," and pulling him by the arm he came readily to the door and still holding his wrist with my left hand I stripped my hat and handkerchief from over my forehead and looked into Sharp's face. He knew me the more readily I imagine, by my long, bush, curly suit of hair. He sprang back and exclaimed in a tone of horror and despair, "Great God it is him," and as he said that he fell on his knees. I let go of his wrist and grasped him by the throat dashing him against the facing of the door and muttered in his face, "die you villain." As I said that I plunged the dagger to his heart.
— Jereboam Beauchamp, Confession of Jereboam O. Beauchamp
The wound severed Sharp's aorta, killing him almost instantly. Sharp's wife Eliza witnessed the entire scene from the top of the stairs in the house, but Beauchamp fled before he could be identified or captured. Returning to the site where he had buried a change of clothes, he stripped off his disguise, tied it up with a rock, and sank them in the Kentucky River. In his regular clothes, he returned to his room at Scott's house, where he remained until the following morning.
Arrest
After learning of the murder, the Kentucky General Assembly authorized the governor to offer a reward of $3,000 for the arrest and conviction of Sharp's killer. The trustees of the city of Frankfort added a reward of $1,000, and friends of Sharp raised an additional $2,000 reward. Suspicion for the killing rested on three men: Beauchamp, Waring, and Patrick H. Darby. During Sharp's 1824 campaign for a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives, Darby had remarked that, should Sharp be elected, "he would never take his seat and would be as good as a dead man". Waring had made similar threats, boasting that he had already stabbed six men.
A warrant was sworn out for Waring's arrest, but officials soon learned that he was incapacitated, after being shot through both hips the day before Sharp's death. When Darby discovered that he was under suspicion, he began his own investigation into the murder. He traveled to Simpson County where he met Captain John F. Lowe, who told Darby that Beauchamp had related to him detailed plans for the assassination. He also furnished Darby with a letter that contained damaging admissions against Beauchamp.
The first night following the murder, Beauchamp stayed at the home of a relative in Bloomfield. The next day, he traveled to Bardstown, where he spent the night. He lodged with his brother-in-law in Bowling Green on the night of November 9 before returning to his home in Glasgow on November 10. He and Anna had planned to flee to Missouri, but before nightfall, a posse had arrived from Frankfort to arrest him.
He was taken to Frankfort and tried before an examining court, but Commonwealth's Attorney Charles S. Bibb said that he had not yet collected enough evidence to detain him. Beauchamp was released, but agreed to stay in Frankfort for ten days to allow the court to finish its investigation. During this time, Beauchamp wrote letters to John J. Crittenden and George M. Bibb requesting their legal aid in the matter. Neither letter was answered. Meanwhile, Beauchamp's uncle, a state senator, gathered a defense team that included former U.S. Senator John Pope.
During the investigation, unsuccessful attempts were made to match a knife taken from Beauchamp upon his arrest to the type of wound observed on Sharp's body. Efforts to match a footprint found near Sharp's house to Beauchamp were similarly unsuccessful. The posse that arrested Beauchamp had taken a bloody handkerchief from the crime scene, but had lost it on the trip back to Frankfort after the arrest. The best evidence presented by the prosecution was the testimony of Sharp's wife Eliza that she heard the killer's voice and that it was distinctly high-pitched. When given the opportunity to hear Beauchamp's voice, she identified it as that of the killer.
When questioned, Patrick Darby testified that in 1824, Beauchamp had solicited his services in order to bring suit against Sharp for unspecified charges. During their ensuing conversations, Beauchamp had related the story of Sharp's abandonment of Anna Cooke and her child, swearing that he would kill him one day, even if he had to come to Frankfort and shoot him down in the street. The combined testimonies of Eliza Sharp and Patrick Darby were sufficient to persuade the city magistrates to hold Beauchamp for trial during the circuit court's next term, which began in March 1826.
Trial
Beauchamp was indicted, and his trial began May 8, 1826. Beauchamp pleaded not guilty, but never testified during the trial. Captain Lowe was called to repeat the story he had originally related to Patrick Darby regarding Beauchamp's threats to kill Sharp. He further testified that Beauchamp returned home following the murder waving a red flag and declaring that he had "gained the victory." He also turned over to the court a letter from the Beauchamps regarding the murder. In the letter, Beauchamp maintained his innocence, but told Lowe that his enemies were plotting against him and asked him to testify in his behalf. The letter gave Lowe several talking points to mention if called to testify, some true and some otherwise.