The Otis Butchery: Jones Triple Murder

George Jones Sr.

George Jones Sr. left his Otis home in Cold Spring to attend church in the village center around 9:00 a.m. on September 7, 1862. As he started down the road, his son George asked if he could go. When his father told him, "Next time," - a decision he would later regret - young George returned home to where his mother, Emily, and his younger sister, Sarah, were. 

Emily planned on making a berry cake for supper, so with a bucket in hand, she and her two children went into the woods about a half-mile from their home to pick wild berries. 

  

Meanwhile, Thomas Callender and his son James ran out of food and decided to go on a sheep-stealing excursion. They planned to meet in some woods, which they did. There, they partook in drinking a quart of whiskey. 

The Callenders were well-known in the region. Not only did they have a bad reputation and run-ins with the law, but they were the frequent topic of town gossip due to Thomas being African-American and James' mother being Dutch. 

The Callenders, making their way to Belden's Hill, had just finished their whiskey when they saw Emily and her children berrying ahead. 

Thomas had a bone to pick with the Joneses as George had falsely accused the Callenders of milking his cows. Because of this, Thomas saw Emily and the children as an opportunity for the ultimate payback. With some convincing, Thomas got James on board with his dastardly plan.

When Emily bent over to pick berries, James threw her to the ground and held her while Thomas bludgeoned four-year-old George and two-year-old Sarah to death using large rocks; their heads were crushed as if picked up by their feet and smashed repeatedly against a tree or other hard object.

Thomas then turned his attention to Emily. James pulled Emily's clothes over her head and held her while his father raped her; then he took his turn. 

After being grossly violated, Emily met the same fate as her children.

A search party was formed after Emily and the children didn’t return home. 

Searchers found their bodies on Monday, Emily’s first, at about 2:00 p.m. The Callenders had dragged the bodies about 50 rods from where the killings occurred and hid them separately, each under a fallen tree and then covered with brush and leaves. 

The bodies were brought to the Jones' house for an inquest. Emily's clothes were torn. Her jawbone and cheekbone were broken, and pieces of her brain were outside her skull, which was severely fractured.

A triple murder was extremely rare for Western Massachusetts and the Berkshires. The horrific killing was quickly dubbed the “Otis Butchery.” The Town of Otis put up a $500* reward for the “detection of the murderers."

The morbidly curious crowded the killing site to see the trampled grass, leaves, and blood-stained stones.

Emily and the children's graves

Authorities arrested James in October as one of the principal parties in the killing, but their only evidence against him was that he lived in the area and was of bad moral character. James remained jailed at the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction in Lenox as the investigation continued. He ended up confessing on New Year’s Eve.

James was found guilty of killing Emily. (No one was arrested or tried for the deaths of the children.)

George Jones and Emily’s brother attended James’ execution by hanging at the Berkshire County Jail on November 6, 1863. 

Thomas Callender attended, but not by choice. Authorities arrested him on the day of James' execution for beating** his wife and confined him to a jail cell next to the gallows. 

James was still chewing part of his last meal (three apples) as he walked onto the gallows platform at 10:20 a.m.

The hangman placed the rope around James' neck before asking if he had anything to say. And did he: “I hain’t [sic] got much to say; only the old man filled my head with rum and led me into it with him to kill Mrs. Jones and her children, and now he’s left me here to hang. That’s all I’ve got to say.” 

Thomas interrupted his son, saying: “O James! You don’t want to die with a falsehood in your mouth.”*** He was about to tell more when a prison guard commanded him to stop. 

As James yelled back, “It’s the truth,” the trapdoor opened, causing him to fall about ten feet, breaking his neck and killing him instantly without fail.

No one claimed James’ body, so the prison immediately sent it to the Berkshire Medical College for dissection.

Postlude 

George Jones moved to Springfield. He married Hersey Ann Oliver on April 2, 1866. He and his new wife had a son in 1871. George and Hersey died in April 1921. (Reports of George Sr.’s death did not mention Emily, George Jr., or Sarah.) 

Some years later, Thomas Callender, wielding a hatchet, was shot and killed by police. 

George A. Jones Sr: October 11, 1839 – April 24, 1921.

Emily L. (Dunham) Jones: April 10, 1835 – September 7, 1862.

George A. Jones Jr.: October 7, 1858 – September 7, 1862.

Sarah E. Jones: Aug. 1, 1860 – Sept. 7, 1862.

Hersey Ann (Oliver) Jones: Jan. 1843 – April 20, 1921.

James Callender: abt. 1841 - November 6, 1863.

Edited Out

The rope used was about half an inch thick in diameter. Authorities had used it three times before James' hanging:

1. A guy who murdered the warden in the State Prison at Charlestown.
2. In Springfield, to hang the murderer of a little girl.
3. In Dedham, to hang a murderer who poisoned a young girl. 

George Jones was living in West Springfield when he died. At that time, he was reportedly the city's oldest resident. 

James also confessed to assisting John Henry Guilder in the rape of Mrs. Peasley the year before, leading to Guilder’s arrest.

Author’s Notes

Readers of the Southwick Time Machine asked for additional information about the Otis triple murder after it was briefly mentioned in a story about the Fowler murder-suicide, which took place in Southwick in 1862. 

      *Some sources put the amount at $1,000.

    **Beating or threatening. 

 ***Another source quoted him: “James, how can you die with such a falsehood in your mouth?”

Emily Jones' Headstone