Biography
Silas Tompkins was one of the first Anti-Rent prisoners, prosecuted under New York's new law against appearing armed and disguised — the statute aimed at the "Calico Indians" — before the killing of Undersheriff Steele. Indicted on April 3, 1845 with Anson K. Burrill and Lewis Knapp, he was sentenced to two years in state prison and freed by Governor John Young's mass Anti-Rent pardon on January 27, 1847. A fourth co-defendant, Ezekiel C. Kelley, pleaded guilty but was fined $250 rather than imprisoned, and for that reason has no entry in this database.
