4. John Lansing went to mail a letter and was never seen again
John Lansing worked with the Founding Fathers in the Congress of the Confederation and served briefly in the Constitutional Convention before withdrawing, considering the document to be detrimental to state’s rights. He was a leading figure in the legal system of the State of New York, serving as Chief Justice of the state’s Supreme Court from 1798 to 1801, and was Chancellor of New York (then its highest legal office) from 1801 until 1814. Lansing helped resolved the border and New York’s land claims with Vermont, at one point in his early career served as the Mayor of Albany, and was the father of ten children, five of whom survived into adulthood. From 1814 until he was presumed dead, Lansing was a Regent for the University of New York. He was well known, a respected jurist and educator, and in 1829 was 75 years of age.
On December 12, 1829, Lansing left his New York hotel room bound for the docks from which he intended to post a letter. Why he didn’t simply post the letter at his hotel is part of his mystery. He was never seen again. Whether he fell into the water, suffered some sort of seizure or other health catastrophe, or was attacked and murdered is unknown. His body was never found. In 1882 the memoirs of New York politician Thurlow Weed were published, in which Weed claimed to have in his possession documents which described the murder of Lansing, including the motives for it, but Weed refused to publish the documents out of respect for the families of the men who committed the crime. Other than that somewhat specious accusation, what happened to the New York jurist has never been discovered.