This page is a part of our current exhibit, Fermenting a Communal Spirit: Morris County Tavern, Speakeasies & Social Clubs, on display through 2026. For the complete story, come visit any time during Acorn Hall’s regular hours.
May 11, 1833 was the date of one of the most infamous crimes in Morris County history and is still remembered nearly 200 years later. That night, Judge Samuel Sayre, his wife Sarah, and their servant Phebe were brutally murdered at their home on South Street in Morristown. The next morning, Phebe was found in her attic bedroom by concerned neighbors, bludgeoned to death with a hatchet. At first, there was no sign of the Sayres, but they were eventually located also beaten to death and buried in their stables’ manure pile. Suspicion quickly fell on Antoine Le Blanc, a French-speaking immigrant who had worked for the Sayres for a few weeks. He had fled in the night with some of the couple’s possessions as well as one of judge’s horses. The alarm went out immediately and Leblanc was traced along the turnpike from Morristown to Newark before being captured by the sheriff and returned to Morristown. His 10-day trial, full of lurid details, caused a sensation. A parade of witnesses testified in gory detail what they had seen at the crime scene, upon examining the bodies, and Leblanc’s appearance and demeanor at the hotel bar he visited the night of the murder. Found guilty by the jury after a deliberation of just 20 minutes, he was sentenced by the judge not only to be hanged, but also for his body to afterwards be taken for dissection. Just days later, on September 6, 12,000 spectators reportedly gathered to watch the last public hanging on Morristown’s Green. Leblanc’s remains were then taken to Dr. Canfield for dissection. A death mask was made, and in a final gruesome detail, his skin was taken to make souvenirs. Thus ended one the most horrific chapters in local history.