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Join us to dissect the true crime murder that shocked the nation: the story of Margaret Klem, the last woman to be executed in the state in New Jersey in 1881. Was Margaret the calculating murderess and adulteress portrayed by the press? Or was she a battered wife pushed to the edge? Or was the West Orange immigrant, as she claimed to the end, innocent? Step into the past with us to hear how this case ignited public discussions on capital punishment, mental health, anti-immigrant sentiment, domestic violence, and women’s independence – that still resonate today. Join Dr. Peter J. Wosh to go behind the headlines of the murder of John Meierhofer and learn how Wosh and co-author Dr. Patricia L. Schall (1945-2020) uncovered this gripping story for Murder on the Mountain: Crime, Passion, and Punishment in Gilded Age New Jersey (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, April 2022).

 Funded by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners and the New Jersey Historical Commission, a Division of the Department of State

 For accessibility requests or questions, please email flora.boros@co.middlesex.nj.us

Dr. Peter J. Wosh directed the Archives/Public History graduate education program in the history department at New York University from 1994-2016. He previously served as archivist at both the American Bible Society in New York (1984-1994) and Seton Hall University in South Orange (1978-1984). In addition to Murder on the Mountain (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2022), Wosh’s previous books include Waldo Gifford Leland and the Origins of the American Archival Profession (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2011), Covenant House: Journey of a Faith-Based Charity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005); and Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). He currently serves as editor of the Archival Fundamentals Series III, which is being published by the Society of American Archivists. Wosh grew up in Perth Amboy, lived for over twenty-six years in West Orange where the Meierhofer murder took place, and recently moved to the Richmond suburb of Midlothian, Virginia, with Francis Albert, the amazing Bengal wonder cat.