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Illustrated Episode · Volume I, chapter 58 · 16 May 1691

Hanged in his own garden

Two men in dark wet coats stand bareheaded on a plank scaffold in the rain, one with a hand raised, before a packed crowd of weeping townspeople, under a timber gallows from which a single empty noose hangs.
New York, 16 May 1691. In a cold drizzle, Jacob Leisler and Jacob Milborne stand on the scaffold before the largest crowd the town has seen, Leisler speaking to people who weep for him. Rothbard says Leisler had ruled like a tax-hungry despot, but the old oligarchy came back thirsting for vengeance, packed the court and hanged them both. Parliament cleared them in 1695. Chapter 58 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

Rothbard tells Jacob Leisler's story without flattery. A militia captain who took control of New York in the name of William and Mary, Leisler then ruled by decree, taxed and confiscated to pay for an invasion of Canada, and turned his friends into enemies. When Governor Sloughter landed in March 1691 the old oligarchy, in Rothbard's words, "moved back in, thirsting for vengeance." A special court with a packed jury convicted Leisler and his son-in-law Jacob Milborne of treason and murder, Bayard's council pressed for their deaths, and petitions carrying more than 1,800 signatures were ignored. On Saturday 16 May 1691 the two men climbed the scaffold in Leisler's own garden north of the town, in a cold drizzle, before the largest crowd the small city of five thousand had ever gathered. Many in it had been Leisler's people, and they wept. One account has him telling the crowd that what he had done had been for the good of his country, and forgiving his enemies. One story, which Rothbard passes on without vouching for it, has no carpenter in New York willing to make the ladder, so a minister supplied one. Both men were hanged and then beheaded. Rothbard reads the killing as the vengeance of a privileged clique on a man the people had rallied to, and in 1695 Parliament agreed: it absolved both men and annulled their convictions.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. I, ch. 58, pp. 428-441. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. Charles Hemstreet, The Story of Manhattan (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901), the chapter on Leisler (scaffold in Leisler's garden, drizzling rain, weeping crowd; Project Gutenberg #13842). A popular history. Secondary source
  3. '1691: Jacob Leisler, a Walloon who has sett at the head of the Rable', Executed Today, 16 May 2011 (accessed 2026-09-29), citing David William Voorhees: drizzling rain, the largest crowd yet gathered in a city of 5,000, hanged until half dead and beheaded. Secondary source
  4. 'The Jacob Leisler Treason Trial, 1691', Historical Society of the New York Courts (accessed 2026-09-29): hanged on Saturday 16 May 1691; bodies beheaded before a large crowd. Secondary source
  5. Sophie Ploeg, '17th Century Dutch Dress' (accessed 2026-09-29): black wool with white linen, working women's kerchiefs, aprons and hats over caps. Secondary source
  6. '1690-1699', Fashion History Timeline, Fashion Institute of Technology (accessed 2026-09-29). Secondary source
  7. 'New Amsterdam and Old New York: Remnants of Netherlandic Architecture in Late-17th Century New York City', Gotham Center for New York City History (accessed 2026-09-29). Secondary source
  8. 'Chapter 3: History and Land Use of City Hall Park', NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission report (accessed 2026-09-29): the land north of the town used as the communal pasture called the Commons, 1653-1699. Secondary source