Trial of Harry Crawford Black for the killing of Col. W.W. McKaig, Jr. : in the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Maryland, sitting at Frederick City, April 11, 1871, before Hon. W.P. Maulsby, chief justice, Hon. John A. Lynch, associate justice, Hon. J. Veirs Bowic, associate justice

Harry Crawford Black, Maryland Circuit Court (Frederick County)

Chronicle Print, 1871

[The Account of an infamous Maryland murder trial of Harry Black who killed William McKaig and was acquitted by a jury in Frederick Co.] (v-xv, 172 pages) : portrait. Lacking the first 4 preliminary pages.  Bound in contemporary wraps.  Final leaf of acquittal detached, creased.  Some of the pages creased, worn (particularly at the beginning.) *Sold with all faults.*   

"Harry Crawford Black shot and killed William McKaig Jr. in 1870. No one doubted that. The question was "Why did Black do it?" That wras what Black’s murder trial was about as lawyers argued back and forth over what was an acceptable reason for one man to kill another.  The trial not only looked at excuses for murder, but also the differences in social class between the Black and McKaig families. Black's sister Myra was not considered a social match for William McKaig, despile the three of them having growrn up together The Blacks' fortunes had fallen during the Civil War, otherwise, Mvra and McKaig's friendship might have developed into a socially approved courtship and marriage. This wasn’t the case, though. The middle-class Myra wras no longer considered a suitable match for the upper-class McKaig, if she ever had been.  Not that it mattered to McKaig. According to the Cumberland Evening Times, McKaig then "conceived the hideous and unholy passion which terminated in her ruin and unutterable wretchedness of her parents and family." Myra was 21 years old al the time and painted as a young innocent during the trial.  No one suspected their affair, not even the other young woman whom McKaig began courting. Her name was Laura Hughes and McKaig married her in October 1865.  Marriage didn't stop McKaig's affair. The Hagerstown Herald and Torch reported that McKaig 'betrayed the love he knew this unhappy girl bore for him, to her absolute and fearful ruin. He seduced her. That was in 18C0. From that time forth he was complete master of her movements and will."  Myra even attended the welcome home party for the newlyweds where McKaig publicly lauded her virtue. His Svengali like hold over Myra was compounded by the fact that she feared exposure and the shame that it would bring her and her family. This only increased McKaig's hold over her, 'He held her fast with a steady, remorseless grasp, determined that nothing should withdraw her from his power and will until he saw fit to throw her back upon the bosom other family, destroyed and ruined in soul and honor and name, to be scorned by the good and blameless in life, and shunned by the world." the Hagerstown Herald and Torch reported.  The trial report noted that when another man proposed to Myra and would have taken her to live in the West, McKaig revealed to Myra's suitor "that he had seduced Myra and ruined her in the eyes of the world" Myra's mother apparently found out about the affair in April 1870. It appears that Myra may have told her mother that she was pregnant because shortly thereafter, Myra was sent from the city to an unknown location.  Harry Black and his father, Harrison, apparently stayed oblivious to Myra's situation. It was noted that they even campaigned for and voted for McKaig during his successful run for the Cumberland City Council in May 1870.  The birth of Myra's son in June changed matters. She named McKaig as the father and according to the trial report "the child which this day bears his image on its infant face, so plain and unmistakable that there is no mom for doubt."  However, McKaig not only denied seducing Myra, he set out to destroy her reputation, He 'declared that she had been long before, from her earliest girlhood, a prostitute,” according to the trial report. This would have covered much of the time that he had been publicly praising her virtue.  Now that Myra's indiscretion had become public, the Blacks weren't going to let McKaig walk away from his responsibility no matter what it took."  - Jim Rada,  Looking Back, 1870: Anatomy of a killing, The Cumberland Times-News, 2014.