The Picture below is believed to be the tree in question which was discovered after subsequent matching to the details of the murder of Miss Peeling which was extensively covered in newspapers of the day giving approximate locations taken from statements of witnesses who saw Miss Peeling just before her murder. However no carvings have been found on the tree as detailed in the story below, although there are a lot of rounded nodules to be seen on the trunk, which could have been the carvings long ago. This tree is the only one in the area that is of a great age, but nothing can be certain that it is in fact the tree in question.
(transcribed from a newspaper entry of the story)
The scene of the tragic death of Miss Peeling has revived memories of another terrible tragedy which occurred early last century, and which has led to the name of Deadmans Tree being given to a tree, the branches of which overhang the very spot where Miss Peeling died, and the name of Deadmans Pond being given a pond situate at the extreme end of an adjoining field. In old days it used to be affirmed that the spot was haunted, but that is an old wives tale, which was long ago discredited. Anyone passing the spot would not notice that the trunks of carvings, which even time and the growth of the tree have not obliterated. These carvings were done by some unknown person about the time of the tragedy, sixty nine years ago, according to the date supplied us, and the they are as plain as ever. On the trunk of Deadmans Tree appears a carving of a figure hanging from a gibbet, and a gibbet with what looks like a "P" appears on the other. The story related by William Smith, grandson of the postman Hall who was the victim on that occasion, is as follows:-"In 1836 my grandfather, who lived in a cottage on Bramdean Common, opposite my fathers, was the village postman, and in those days he had to start away at five o'clock in the morning to walk to Alresford to fetch the letters. On the 19th June, a Sunday morning, he started away as usual, and from his bedroom window my father saw him leave his house and go up the common. Upon him he had a little money, not much, to pay for the letters, for in those days letters had to be paid for before they could be received. As he did not return between three and four o'clock in the afternoon some alarm was felt, and a party started out in search of him. When they reached the end of Old Park road they found him lying under a tree. He had been foully murdered. his head having been battered in with stones. There was no undergrowth on the spot as there is now. A hue and cry for the murderer was raised, and at first the perpetrator of the crime was a mystery. By and by it leaked out that a woman had seen John Deadman, a well known road Waggoner, washing his hands at the pond now known as Deadmans Pond, shortly after five o'clock, and suspicion falling upon him, a search was made for him. He was captured a few days afterwards in a public house at Four Marks. It is supposed that he came up behind my grandfather with a crook stick, which he used to throw him down with by crooking his leg. He then dragged him beneath the tree and stoned him to death, afterwards robbing him of the little money he had; the exact sum was never known. He was taken to Winchester gaol and tried at the Winchester Assizes. He never confessed to the crime, but the circumstantial evidence was so strong against him that he was found guilty. He told a great many falsehoods, all of which were proved to be such. For instance he accounted for the blood stains which were on his clothing as having been caused through killing a dog, and a worm, though it is said that he did remark to somebody that he would have accounted for them by saying that his nose bled if he had thought of the excuse. He also said his sister had given him the money he had upon him, but that she denied. He was condemned to death and hanged at Winchester gaol. He was the first man ever hanged on circumstantial evidence. It is curious to note that Mr. Edward Hawkins, the foreman of the jury on Thursday, was also a near relative of the murdered man, and he informs me that his father went to Winchester to see Deadman hanged.
