Newfoundland’s Last Deadly Duel
The Life of a Nobleman: Scene the Eighth - The Duel, Public Domain
On March 30, 1826 in a clearing below Robinson’s Hill in St. John’s, Capt. Mark Rudkin and Ensign John Philpot squared off and, at 15 paces, drew their pistols . They fired.
Philpot fell to the ground. He was dead.
It was the last death by duel in Newfoundland.
The Night Before
There was a party. Capt. Willock of the Royal Newfoundland Veteran Companies (R.N.V.C.) invited John Philpot, Mark Rudkin and a collection of other military gentleman to spend the evening at his residence. It was a pleasant evening until the guests began to depart.
Philpot thought it was too early to call it a night; he wanted to have a drink and maybe play a game of cards. The remaining guests, including Rudkin, reluctantly gathered around the table.
When one of the gentleman suggested that they should not overstay their welcome and let their host go to bed, Philpot commanded:
“There’s the door — be off.”
“I can go home if I please, sir, without consulting you,” the gentleman retorted.
Philpot exploded, “Don’t ‘sir’ me, for if you do, damn! I’ll pull your nose and kick you out the door.” As the men left Philpot gestured to the door, “That nincompoop, I’d as soon shoot at him as not.”
As uncomfortable as the men now were, the card game resumed. When the hand was played, Rudkin had won.
Philpot’s temper flared again and he accused Rudkin of breaking the rules. “Damn you,” yelled Philpot, “I would think very little of pulling your nose and kicking you out the window.”
Rudkin had enough and left the table. Philpot followed. He threw a jug of water at him, then kicked him.
Willock, the owner of the home, had to separate the men.
The next morning, Willock urged Philpot to apologize to Rudkin. Philpot would have none of it.
As far as Rudkin was concerned it was an assault on his honour.
The Duel
For military men of the early 1800s issues of honour were settled by duelling. It was a formalized ritual in which men took pistols, faced each other, then took a shot. In most cases the shot was not intended to cause grave injury.
It was a way to settle a score symbolically.
So, with Philpot unwilling to apologize Rudkin felt it was his duty to preserve his honour by challenging him to a duel.
As was customary, Rudkin and Philpot chose their seconds. Seconds were friends who accompanied the duelists, their job was to prepare the weapons, make sure rules were followed and, ideally, diffuse the situation before any shots were fired. Philpot chose yacht captain George Morice as his second. Rudkin selected Dr. James Strachan, a surgeon at Fort Townshend.
At the appointed hour — early in the afternoon on March 30, 1826 — the men arrived at a small clearing at the base of Robinson’s Hill (near modern day Feildian Grounds). Morice and Strachan counted off 15 paces and prepared two identical pistols. Philpot, who had removed his coat and shirt, took his position opposite Rudkin.
Strachan bellowed: “Ready! Fire!”
The echo of gunshots ricocheted from the surrounding hills but both men stood, unharmed. This was the outcome most duelists wanted — a ceremonial face-saving gunshot, followed by an apology.
Everything was going to plan.
The seconds reclaimed the pistols and waited for Philpot to issue his apology. Philpot still had no intention of apologizing — there would need to be a second round. This was not what anyone expected.
The pistols were returned to the participants.
Uneasy, Morice called,“Fire!”
The pistols went off and Philpot fell to the ground. The three men rushed to his side. As they inspected his wound, Philpot gave one final breath — a pistol ball had torn through his chest, into his heart and lung.
Rudkin had killed him.
Distraught Rudkin went to his commanding officer at Fort Townshend. Shortly thereafter, he was charged with murder.
The seconds, Capt. Morice and Dr. Strachan, were charged with accessory to murder, second degree.
The Trial
On April 17, 1826 — not quite three weeks after the duel — the three men were in court.
The first witness called was Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Burke — Rudkin’s commanding officer at Fort Townshend.
He testified that Rudkin burst into the room as if he were out of his mind. He said Philpot had kicked him the night before, they had fought, and he had, just now, shot him dead.
This testimony pointed to Rudkin’s biggest problem — he had convince the jury that, while they did fight the night before, the killing was not pre-mediatated revenge.
Rudkin took the stand in his own defence with a prepared an address:
Here I plead before this tribunal, through whose decision I might, in a few hours, appear before the most high tribunal of my Creator. If this is so, I will do so knowing in my heart and soul that I had forgiven Philpot and entertained the same friendly disposition towards him that I felt from the first aquaintance.
— Capt. Mark Rudkin, April 17, 1826
While on the stand Rudkin offered further insight to the affair. In his remarks he chose not to focus on the allegations of cheating (at cards), nor that Philpot threw a pitcher of water at him but, instead, that Philpot kicked him.
I blush to acknowledge that I suffered the vile indignity, aye, and in the presence of a gentleman… Of all the personal insults one man can give another a kick is, gentleman, the most galling and degrading; a blow, is certainly a very gross provocation, but the man who strikes you treats you as if you were upon a level with himself in the scale of creation; but gentleman, in a kick contempt is coupled with violence; it sinks you in your estimation, as it were, below humanity… it leaves a stain upon the character of the injured party, especially, in military life, which verbal apologies never can efface.
— Capt. Mark Rudkin, April 17, 1826
Rudkin goes on to explain how the stigma of being kicked could have followed him throughout his military career and beyond. Had he submitted to that kind of behaviour, he said, he would “for ever have been branded a poltroon and coward.” In his mind, it was this slight against him that necessitated the duel.
Rudkin’s first shot was intentionally directed to miss, or so he said. He didn’t think that Philpot was approaching the duel with that intent. Before the second shot, he recalled, “I saw him change his position and fix his eye upon me as if to make sure of his intended victim.”
Further to that, the fact that Philpot took off his shirt and jacket was proof, Rudkin thought, that he was expecting an injury. In Rudkin’s estimation, Philpot removed his coat so that no flannel would be carried into a pistol wound.
At the end of the trial, the chief justice told the jury they had to decide whether Rudkin was guilty of manslaughter of murder. Morice, as Philpot’s second, might be acquitted, the judge said, but Rudkin and Strachan, he reminded them, had admitted their role in Philpot’s death.
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The Rudkin-Philpot duel was the last duel in Newfoundland resulting in death. It was not the last duel. Newfoundland’s — and Canada’s — last duel happened in St. John’s in 1873. Friends August Healy and Denis Dooley squared off, over a woman, near what is now The Rooms. The men selected seconds and ground rules. The men met, assumed their positions, and fired.
With the wound of the guns ringing, Dooley fell to the ground.
As it turned out, the seconds had removed the ammunition from the pistols - the pistols contained only gunpowder.
Dooley had merely fainted at the thought of having shot his friend.
Get the story in this CBC article.
The jury deliberated for an hour.
When they returned they offered a verdict of "‘guilty — without malice’ for all three defendants. The Chief Justice told them no such verdict was possible — if they believed there was no malice they had to return a verdict of manslaughter or offer an outright acquittal. The jury deliberated a further 20 minutes and decided to acquit all three men.
Rudkin, Strachan and Morice walked out of the courthouse free men.
Loose Ends & Legacies
Philpot’s Side
The story, as related above, is well-documented in newspaper coverage at the time (most notably in The Mercantile Journal, April 20, 1826). The quotes are taken from their coverage of the case. It’s worth pointing out that, as Philpot was dead, his version of events is missing.
A Lady’s Hand
Though not mentioned in The Mercantile Journal ‘s coverage of the court case it’s been widely suggested that the real source of friction between Philpot and Rudkin was a woman. There was “a competition between the two friends over a lady’s hand,” it says in the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Rudkin’s address does make mention of past altercations:
…the insults offered me by the deceased, on the night previous to the fatal meeting, were not the first that I received from him: it is, indeed, but too true. However, I should not at all have alluded to the subject, but that I am most anxious to efface from your minds any impression, which such a report might have created.
— Capt. Mark Rudkin, April 17, 1826
Were they over a woman? I don’t know.
What Happened to Rudkin?
It’s not entirely clear what became of Rudkin after the trial. Some reports (referenced in the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador) indicate that he resigned his commission and devoted his life to maintaining Philpot’s mother, others maintain he became the caretaker of William Carson’s “Rostellan” farm in the St. John’s area.
The Pistols
Whatever became of Rudkin, the fate of the pistols is clear. They wound up in the collection of the Rt. Hon. Sir William Whiteway, former prime minister of Newfoundland. Whiteway passed them along to his son, who eventually delivered them to the Hon. Joseph R. Smallwood, Newfoundland and Labrador’s first premier. Smallwood loaned them to the Newfoundland Military Museum.
Ghostly Reruns
While certainly venturing outside the realm of verifiable fact, the story of Newfoundland’s last fatal dual might not be completely over.
Some folks say that, from time to time, the events of March 30, 1826 replay themselves near Robinson’s Hill in St. John’s. It’s one of the city’s more enduring ghost stories. The TV series Creepy Canada profiled the tale.
Creepy Canada’s version of the duel doesn’t jibe completely with my understanding of the facts but, I suppose, they were in it mostly for the ghost story, not the history.
A final note: On June 19, 1880 during excavation on the Anglican Cathedral grounds a skeleton was discovered. It was believed to be that of Philpot.
What happened to the skeleton after that is a mystery to me…
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The Last Duel, Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Mercantile Journal, April 20, 1826
Customs of the Past, James Murphy
Notable Events in the History of Newfoundland, M.A, Devine
