THE MURDERER, PETER STOUT.
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Since the Revolutionary war the only murder I now
remember of having been committed within the limits of
Ocean county, was the murder of a lad named Thomas
Williams, by Peter Stout, at Goodluck. The lad was
driving cattle to the meadows along the north side of
Stout's Creek one morning and met Stout and began to
ridicule him, calling him "eelhead," etc., which it seems
was a name sometimes applied to Stout. Stout let the
boy pass him and then slyly ran up behind him and
struck him over the head with an axe, which he was carrying
on his shoulder. The mother of the boy, anxious
at his long absence, went in search and found the body.
She carried it home - a distance of half a mile - but was
so distracted that she never remembered anything from
the time she saw the body until she came to her senses
at home, and found herself rocking the lifeless body. An
inquest was held and among the Coroner's Jury was
Peter Stout. An idea is often current in various places
that if the murderer was in the room, and touched the
body with his fingers, the blood would start afresh from
the wounds; this was started here and all the Jurymen
touched the body except Stout, who reached out his
hand part way then jerked it back, turned on his heel and
went off whistling. Some blood being observed on his
hand he said he had been killing a chicken. He was
tried at Freehold, found guilty and hanged. He made a
confession which was afterward printed in pamphlet
form. His body was buried on the south side of Stout's
Creek.
Very many people - and among them relatives of the
lad Williams - opposed the hanging of Stout, as he was
deficient in sense, and generally thought to be almost
crazy at all times. The spot of the murder is still
pointed out nearly opposite a pathway across Stout's
Creek. This murder occurred Nov. 19, 1802. Young
Williams is buried in Goodluck graveyard. The following
is the inscription on his tombstone:
THOMAS WILLIAMS.
DIED NOVEMBER 19, 1802
Aged 14 years. 9 months and 18 days.