An Honorable Vengeance: Part 3

The Aftermath

After the trial, Nicholas Dukes and the twelve jury men became pariahs of Uniontown. Mobs and riots broke out in the streets and people burned effigies of Dukes. As a result of the trial verdict, members of the jury were chased out of their hometowns and one was fired from his job. A bipartisan effort was pushed to disbar Dukes, marking the demise of Dukes’ career. Knowing he was facing tremendous backlash from his colleagues, he resigned from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Love letters written by Nicholas Dukes to Lizzie Nutt came to light after the trial. Since they were not thought relevant to the murder of Captain Nutt, they were not read in court.

Supposedly, Dukes had known about Lizzie’s promiscuous behavior as early as March of 1882 and was planning on leaving her until she was thought to be pregnant to another man. (This claim by Dukes was never verified.) Dukes reportedly pressed Lizzie to get an abortion, but stayed with her to sustain her reputation. According to him, his renunciation of their engagement would confirm the rumors of Lizzie’s pregnancy and ruin her. He positioned his behavior as that of a gentleman.

However, Dukes is contradicted in a letter from June of 1882, where he wrote of his continuing passion and love for Lizzie.

Why did Dukes wait so long to break off the engagement if he had known about Lizzie’s improprieties? Rumors suggested that Dukes was in love with another woman named Mary Beeson, a descendant of one of Uniontown’s founding families. He supposedly intended to leave Lizzie for Mary, but needed a way to terminate the engagement without ruining his own reputation. To this end, he used his skills as a lawyer to build a case against Lizzie in his letters to Captain Nutt.

Dukes’ connection to Mary Beeson would be confirmed in the summer of 1883, after the lawyer had a fateful encounter on the streets of Uniontown.

Dukes was now an outcast in Uniontown. However, he still tried to go about life as he did before that infamous Christmas Eve.

On June 13, 1883, Dukes headed to the post office to receive his mail. Though he had been anxious about the death threats and cold receptions he received, on this day, Dukes met with friends on the street and was in a pleasant mood. Like many residents of Uniontown, he chose to visit the post office around 7:00 PM in order to socialize.

At the same time, James Nutt—the son of Captain Nutt—went to retrieve his mail.

Seeing Dukes pass by, the younger Nutt flew into a sudden rage. He pulled out a gun and shot Dukes in the back, using the same pistol that his father carried with him on the day of his death. Then, when Dukes began to flee, James chased after him. He shot his father’s killer a total of five times.

James quickly surrendered his gun and himself to a police officer. Not long after, Dukes was declared dead. Out of the five shots, two stray bullets struck and killed an innocent bystander. Still, people spoke in defense of James Nutt and thought his actions to be honorable. In response to hearing of his arrest, people sent donations to help pay for Nutt’s defense, ranging from one to fifty dollars.

Garnering even more attention than Nicholas Dukes’ case, the trial of James Nutt involved several distinguished members of the legal profession. For the side of the commonwealth, District Attorney Isaac Johnson, John Boyle, the son of Congressman Boyle, and R.H. Lindsey prosecuted James Nutt. The defense team included members such as William Playford and A.D. Boyd, who previously worked to prosecute Nicholas Dukes. Added to this team were Marshall Swartzhelder, a prominent lawyer from Pittsburgh, Major Brown, and Senator Daniel Voorhees. Voorhees was the United States district attorney for Indiana from 1858-1861 and served in the U.S. Congress intermittingly from 1861 to 1897.

The trial started on December 5, 1883. Almost all potential jury members showed bias towards James Nutt, with only two men making it through to the jury box. Playford then asked for a change of venue. On January 12, 1884, Nutt was transported to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the trial would be held. This time the jurors consisted of men from all types of professions, but as for politics, eleven were Republicans and one was a Democrat. Nutt pleaded “not guilty.”

The prosecution had eyewitness accounts of the killing and the confession from the defendant, but needed to convince the jury that the murder was premeditated and not impulsive. They called witnesses who testified to hearing target practice shots at the Nutt residence. Also, the coroner testified that James Nutt was carrying two loaded pistols at the time of Dukes’ murder, but only needed one to do the job.

James Nutt had apologized for the death of the innocent bystander, but as for killing Dukes, he “couldn’t help it.” The defense argued that Nutt killed N.L. Dukes in a fit of insanity—a claim that was corroborated by several doctors. They had proof that two of James’ relatives were certifiably insane, which showed a family history of mental illness. However, his attorneys told the court that he should not be sent away to a mental facility because he was no longer a danger. The object that drove him to madness was now gone.

On January 22, 1884, the jury came to their conclusion and announced the verdict: Not guilty.

After the trial, James Nutt avoided the limelight. By the 1890s, he moved to Kansas, where he managed a farm that was owned by his mother. There, James became close friends with the Peyton family, who helped him and worked on his farm. One day James decided to visit their house. Mr. Peyton was out on business, but his wife—a young mother of five—asked James to stay for supper. After the meal, unexpectedly and without warning, James fired his pistol at Mrs. Peyton.

Hearing the gun shots, Mrs. Peyton’s hired help, Leonard Colnan, ran into the room. James shot him twice, but Colnan grabbed an axe and struck the man, rendering him harmless. He tied James down and went for help. Both Mrs. Peyton and Colnan survived the attack, which meant James would stand trial for two counts of attempted murder. Once glorified as an American hero, James was cast out by society and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Mrs. Nutt faced further struggles after James’ trial, losing two of her young daughters in deaths attributed to contaminated water. As for Lizzie, she married a traveling salesman from a nearby town and went on to live a quiet life.

After all the hype of the murders calmed down, new things came to light. It was published in The Harrisburg Telegraph on March 29, 1886 that Captain Adam Nutt had been embezzling money from the Pennsylvania Treasury. In September of 1882, he took $10,000. Then, after sending his letter to Dukes, he took $32,000, which would amount to around a million dollars today. His family found out about the scandal soon after he died, but they kept it from the press.

Dukes’ connection with Mary Beeson was confirmed after his death. In the first line of his will, he left her $2,000, a sum that would roughly about to $50,000 today.

The Dukes-Nutt affair was an internationally famous murder case of romance, betrayal and honor. What started out as a small dispute and an unwanted engagement lead to multiple murders. But with time, the passion and recognition of this grandiose affair—which at times seems fictitious, due to its many plot twists and scandals—began to fade out. It became another page in the history of Uniontown.

More than a century later, a new book has revisited the murders, offering a modern view into one of the area’s most intriguing historical events.