Biography
John Phoenix was a Delaware County, New York Anti-Renter imprisoned after the August 7, 1845 killing of Undersheriff Osman N. Steele at the Moses Earle farm in Andes, Delaware County, New York, where a rent-distress sale on a patroon-system leasehold drew hundreds of disguised "Calico Indian" Anti-Rent militants. He pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and received seven years in state prison, and was freed by Governor John Young's mass Anti-Rent pardon on January 27, 1847. Born John Harding Phoenix on July 27, 1819, he outlived every other man imprisoned in the case, dying on December 19, 1908 at the age of 89.
