A Matteawan Mystery

Did Nellie Seaman kill her husband?

Robin Lucas’s new 25-minute video, The Abraham Seaman Tragedy 1907, unfolds with a pitch-perfect flow of images.

The moment in Lucas’s narration when she mentions Lewis Ebert and his home, a shot of the house and his mustachioed face hits hard on the beat.

“Ebert was one of the wealthiest men in town, but owned perhaps the scummiest tenement,” Lucas says. 

Lucas spends much time in the video editing booth — actually, a reclining chair in the living room of her home at the foot of Mount Beacon, parts of which date to the 18th century.

She and her husband, Mark, provide IT support for businesses. Now, she’s marrying those skills with her passion: local history. 

The guiding force behind Beacon Walking Tours, Lucas created the video to augment her ghost tour, which only covers a chunk of the story that unfolded with soap-operatic intrigue in February 1907 in the village of Matteawan, which merged with Fishkill Landing in 1913 to form Beacon.

Her vivid material is gleaned from contemporary newspaper accounts. A sequel that sorts through unanswered questions about the case may be on the way, she says.

On that dark day in 1907, Abraham “Abe” Seaman died of a gunshot wound at 2 a.m. in a tenement owned by Ebert at Spring Valley Road and East Main Street. Seaman had 45 cents to his name. 

His wife, Nellie, called it a successful (second) suicide attempt, but rumors volleyed around the blue-collar factory town.

The story is gory, salacious and complicated, and the video attempts a brief study of Nellie’s mindset. Reporters at the time chronicled plenty of brawling, drunkenness and loose adherence to the commandment about adultery. In a letter to a local newspaper, Nellie disowned her daughter, Rose, who married into a rival family known for violence. 

Gossipmongers chewed over the case while the authorities investigated Nellie’s claim that Abe had killed himself. Based solely on a coroner’s report — no trial took place — a judge committed her to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Nellie wrote a local paper demanding to be given the “electric chair or liberty.” The day police came to take her to the asylum, crowds lined the streets. At one point, she bolted and ran a country mile before being caught.

Though the video is heavy on history and light on ghosts, Lucas contends that the spirit of Nellie Seaman still haunts Beacon, seeking justice.

“She’s my hero, and the reason why politicians and the legal system railroaded her is because she had dirt on them, but I’m not sure what,” Lucas says. “I’ll be looking until I die and hope to figure it out before then.”