Woodstock's Infamous Murder Trial

A local historian uncovers a racially charged murder trial in upstate New York in this examination of prejudice and punishment in the early twentieth century.

In 1905, the quiet rural community of Woodstock, New York, was shocked by the murder of Oscar Harrison, a member of a prominent local family. A suspect, Cornell Van Gaasbeek, was quickly identified. As a black man accused of killing a white man, Van Gaasbeek knew that he was doomed. Amid racist animus in the press, he fled across two counties before being apprehended by a vigilante and charged.

Local reformer and politician Augustus H. Van Buren stood up to community pressure and defended the accused pro bono. It took three years and multiple trials to overcome racial inequalities in the justice system. Local historian Richard Heppner documents the crime, arrest and trials that revealed racial tensions in upstate New York at the turn of the century.</