After the opening of the Tombs in 1838 it was ordered by the authorities that all hangings should take place within the prison enclosure. As the walls of the prison were from ten to twelve feet high, the people that owned property around the Tombs took advantage of the occasion and charged from one to five dollars for seats on the roof of the houses for people who cared to see the hangings. As we have intimated, the city on such occasions presented a holiday appearance and brought together a large number of people from the surrounding villages. They remained within sight of the building from early morning till they saw the black flag hoisted, which announced that the victim had been launched into eternity. But the whole scene was such a gruesome spectacle that no refined person cared to see it, and a large number of people considered it a godsend when the hangman’s job was given to the State Electrician and the work transferred to the death house at Sing Sing. The first and earliest Tombs homicide that attracted much attention and excited the people of this city, was that of John C. Colt, charged with the murder of Samuel Adams. Colt was a professional penman and teacher of bookkeeping; he had an office on the second floor of a building on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. Samuel Adams, a printer, was in the same building. Colt had written a work on bookkeeping and Adams had printed it. On September 17th, 1841, Adams came into Colt’s office, where the two men had a heated discussion over the printing bill which Adams was trying to collect. Several hard words passed between the men, such as liar, cheat and so forth. Then Colt up with a hammer which lay on the table and rained several blows on Adams’ head. There was a brief struggle after which the printer lay on the floor in a pool of blood. In the next room a man named Wheeler was busy at work. He had heard the loud words between the two men and the struggle; he was curious to know what it all meant. In a few minutes he went to Colt’s door in the hall, peeped through the key hole, and was startled with what he saw; he returned to his room, but said nothing to any one. After a few days Wheeler reported what he saw to the authorities and became an important witness for the State. Next day Colt put Adams’ body in a box and shipped it to New Orleans.