Hennessey v. People

By the court, Sutherland, Justice.

The plaintiff in error was indicted and tried at the oyer and terminer for arson in the first degree; that is, for feloniously setting fire to the dwelling house of one Caroline Brown, in which, at the time, there was a human being. The jury found him guilty of arson in the third degree.

The evidence showed, that about two o’clock on the morning of the 26th March, 1860, a fire was discovered in the frame building No. 33 Goerck street, in the Thirteenth ward of the city of New York, which had been previously occupied by the prisoner as a grocery store, and as a…