Levi Weeks

Levi Weeks (1776–1819) is one of the most fascinating figures of early American history, inextricably tied to a foundational era of architecture, local building trades, and a massive national scandal.

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Levi was the brother of Mercy (Weeks) Williams - wife of John Williams.

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While he is famous on a national level for being the defendant in the first recorded murder trial in United States history, his roots and foundational training belong entirely to Goshen, Massachusetts.

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His Early Life in Goshen

Levi was born in 1776. His father, Thomas Weeks, was a prominent local figure, an officer in the Revolutionary War, a surveyor, and a master builder and carpenter.

 

​Thomas Weeks moved his family to the small, rural hill town of Goshen, where Levi and his older brother, Ezra Weeks, spent their childhoods. It was right there in Goshen, under their father's strict tutelage, that Levi and Ezra learned the intricate trade of framing, carpentry, and New England building methods.

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The Move to New York & The Alexander Hamilton Connection

In 1798, a young Levi left the hills of Goshen for New York City to work for his brother Ezra, who had successfully established himself as one of Manhattan’s elite developers.

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As carpenters and master builders, the Weeks brothers worked on incredibly high-profile projects. Most notably, Ezra and Levi were heavily involved in building Hamilton Grange, the historic upper Manhattan country estate designed by John McComb Jr. for Alexander Hamilton.

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The Manhattan Well Murder Trial (1800)

Levi’s life took a sensational turn when he was accused of murdering a young woman named Gulielma "Elma" Sands. Elma had vanished just before Christmas in 1799 after telling her cousins she was secretly eloping with Levi. Days later, her body was found at the bottom of the newly constructed Manhattan Well near the intersection of Greene and Spring Streets in what is now SoHo.

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The case became an absolute media circus. Because of Ezra Weeks' wealth and political connections, they assembled an unprecedented "legal dream team" to defend Levi, consisting of three iconic American figures:

• Alexander Hamilton

• Aaron Burr

• Henry Brockholst Livingston (later a U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

In a courtroom lit only by candles, Hamilton and Burr tag-teamed the defense, casting suspicion onto other boarders. The jury acquitted Levi in just five minutes. However, the public was outraged by the verdict, and the "court of public opinion" effectively ostracized Levi, forcing him to flee New York City.

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Post-Trial: Becoming a Master Architect

After spending a brief period drifting and visiting old friends back in Western Massachusetts (including corresponding with Epaphras Hoyt of Deerfield), Levi permanently relocated south to Natchez, Mississippi.

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In Mississippi, Levi shed the stigma of the trial and fully came into his own using the architectural foundations that began in Goshen. He became one of the most prominent architects of the antebellum South.

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He designed the Auburn Mansion in Natchez (completed in 1812), which is today a National Historic Landmark. It was the very first home in the Mississippi Territory built to a formal architectural plan, heavily featuring classical Corinthian and Ionic orders.​​