by Paul Collins
88in the Garden Street home for only two weeks: Ibid., 253.
88two parlors, six bedrooms, sumptuous carpeting: Burnett, Amelia Burnett Diary, n.d., Folder 1.
88up every morning at five o’clock: Ibid., 22 March 1847.
88Websters kept their house stoked so warm: Ibid., n.d., Folder 1.
88illustrated edition of Milton’s pastoral “L’Allegro”: TGB, 252.
89Hattie had even built herself a little studio: Burnett, Amelia Burnett Diary, 18 August 1848.
89none shared the doctor’s enthusiasm: Ibid., 22 March 1847.
89installed an open-air gym on Harvard’s grounds: Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics, 6 May 1826. This was very much an undertaking of the moment; gymnastics were a new fitness craze in 1826, and Webster was joined in the effort by his friend and colleague Dr. Charles Follen. Along with painstakingly keeping track of weights and repetitions, they set up a “a dynamometer . . . by which the strength of every part of the body can be ascertained.”
89nectarines, pears: Newburyport Herald, 21 September 1830.
89currants: Burnett, Amelia Burnett Diary, 3 July 1847.
89provided fruit and floral displays: Newburyport Herald, 21 September 1830; BT, 24 November 1833.
89carefully packed boxes of precious bulbs: TDM, 42.
90they’d been flying in formations overhead: BC, 29 November 1849.
90“a very porous wood”: TGB, 567.
90a new method of tanning leather: Ibid., 570.
90missed the rush of the gutta-percha trade: Burnett, Amelia Burnett Diary, December 1847.
90his knife had slipped: TDM, 36.
90boarded the six-twenty p.m. omnibus: TGB, 252.
90Mrs. Webster and daughter Hattie both stayed home: Ibid., 252.
90Hattie had recently become engaged: Jarnagin, A Confluence of Transatlantic Networks, 103.
90Sarah and Hattie who took after their father: Burnett, Amelia Burnett Diary, n.d., Folder 1.
91Mrs. Cunningham’s house on Vine Street: The Boston Directory (1849), 109.
91a tangle of maritime trading clans: Jarnagin, A Confluence of Transatlantic Networks, 103. Jarnagin’s study is especially helpful and comprehensive in explaining the web of familial and commercial relationships between these families.
91“dignified and severely polite”: State Street Trust Company, Some Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, 17.
91Andrew and Charles sat atop fortunes: Our First Men, 19.
91through a hole cut into: State Street Trust Company, Some Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, 17.
91with little economies visible: Burnett, Amelia Burnett Diary, 24 November 1846.
91an inordinate love of Italian opera: Ibid., 22 March 1847
91is trying to bring over Jenny Lind: CC, 22 November 1849.
91imported Sicilian lemons and Portuguese Madeira: State Street Trust Company, Some Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston, 17.
92“They think only professional men”: LAN, Amelia Nye letter to Marianne Ivens, 4 October 1850.
92engaged to yet another Dabney brother: Jarnagin, A Confluence of Transatlantic Networks, 102.
92The very doors and sheds of the college: TTD, 29.
92“you were the last person”: LAN, Amelia Nye letter to Marianne Ivens, 4 October 1850.
92The Websters left at ten-thirty: TGB, 252.
92the theater omnibus, it was called: TDM, 59.
93“livery stable keepers, omnibus proprietors”: BT, 30 November 1849.
93piggybacked up to the tollbooth: CC, 29 November 1849.
93craning to look up at yet another new handbill: TGB, 254.
93“$1000 REWARD”: Ibid., 48.
94railroad to Cambridge would not be ready: BC, 29 November 1849.
94the remains of the old Cow Common: Howe, “The History of Garden Street,” 37.
94Mr. Sanderson: TDM, 59.
94Hattie hadn’t stayed up: TGB, 252.
94a devotee of the Evening Transcript: Ibid., 251.
94shifted into his nightgown and stayed up: Ibid., 252.
94“How many circles have been thinned”: BT, 28 November 1849. The remainder of this section, except as noted, draws from that day’s Evening Transcript.
95oyster sauce: Howland, The New England Economical Housekeeper, 72. Oyster sauce, along with some other dishes no longer associated with the holiday—chicken pie and turnip sauce, for instance—is noted under this 1845 book’s entry for “Thanksgiving Dinner.” (Cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, though, are indeed reassuringly present.)
11. Wickedness Takes Eleven
96“What a contrast”: BT, 28 November 1849.
96one man upbraiding another’s son: Christian Watchman (Boston), 19 July 1846.
96The officers were trampled: Ibid.
96“his knowledge-box”: Savage, A Chronological History, 323.
97running a bakery in Salem: Salem Gazette, 31 October 1834.
97he was hauled before a judge: Newark Daily Advertiser (New Jersey), 22 October 1839.
97declared himself insolvent: Law Reporter 2 (February 1840): 319.
97a new charge of selling liquor: Boston Traveler, 9 July 1841.
97“nobody, probably, but Tukey”: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Francis Tukey, 15.
97passed the bar in 1844: BT, 18 March 1844.
97city marshal job in 1846: BT, 23 June 1846.
97“a more promising candidate”: Salem Register, 25 June 1846.
97an embezzler: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Francis Tukey, 24.
97a necrophiliac: Ibid., 6.
97a seducer of Sunday school teachers: Ibid., 17.
97had in fact later died: Ibid., 15.
97“a three-cent rumseller”: BH, 11 September 1848.
97Tukey declared insolvency again: Law Reporter 10 (June 1847): 48.
97“that he might go to hell”: BH, 11 September 1848.
98Officer Burnham: BH, 1 December 1849.
98Burnham was clobbered with a brick: BT, 30 November 1849. The shopbreaker, one Michael Murphy, was finally hauled in and charged, and the wielder of the brick that injured Burnham proved to be none other than his would-be lookout, Dennis McCarty. When searched, McCarty was jangling with curious bits of metal that turned out to be barber’s tools—peculiar things to take out on a holiday stroll, but much more explicable when a Broad Street barber’s shop was found to have been broken into as well.
98window pried open and some $700: BT, 30 November 1849.
98picked a house on Lexington Street: BB, 1 December 1849.
98“I fought in Mexico”: BC, 1 December 1849.
98still trying their luck at dragging the river: Ibid.
99a missing Bostonian: Ibid.
99this one down in Braintree: Ibid.
99“an honest old cobbler”: Ibid.
99Their turkey sat uneaten: TGB, 412.
99they’d had turkey every Thanksgiving: Ibid., 140.
99Just as much as I am standing here: Ibid., 135.
99“What makes you think so?”: Ibid., 23.
100children had been scattering them: Ibid., 24.
100three small pine boxes marked, in red chalk: Ibid., 148.
100“You see?”: Ibid., 24.
100“He never gave me a present before this time”: TNY, 26.
100He’d had a sledgehammer: TGB, 102.
101hammer on the floor four times: Ibid., 114.
101slid down the trap door: Ibid.
101member of the Geological Society of London: Davies, Whatever Is Under the Earth, 66.
102“Nature requires five”: CC, 25 October 1849.
102out dancing until four in the morning: TGB, 115.
102his wife had been waiting an hour: Ibid., 115.
102managed to remove only a few bricks: Ibid.
102“Is there any more news?”: Ibid.
102plenty of news that day: BB, 29 November 1849.
103taken the
omnibus into the city with a friend: BA, 3 December 1849.
103stopped by Mr. Henchman’s: TGB, 115.
103decreed the licensing and numbering: Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 42.
103It was covered: TGB, 137.
103“There are a great many stories”: Ibid.
103He knows more than he lets on: Ibid.
12. “I Shal Be Kiled”
104“the whole region of animal propensities”: Jackson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Warren Museum, 714.
104Madeline Albert: Ibid., 727. The catalog is a fascinating work in itself. Among its entries is one for a mask of a man named Hey: “A gentleman who considered if he tried, could ruin the government by gaining all the prizes in the lotteries; constantly inventing machines; immense hope” (718). Another intriguing entry is for “Abraham Courtney, a blind man, and formerly well known in this city. Remarkable for his sense of travelling, and faculty of finding places; being familiar with all the streets and lanes in Boston, Cincinnati, and New York. He travelled by himself in nearly every state in the Union, after he became blind. Locality uncommonly large” (725).
104hauling plaster busts into Dr. Holmes’s anatomy lecture: TGB, 115.
104acquired the immense holdings in plaster heads: Warren, “The Collection of the Boston Phrenological Society,” 1.
105gentle suggestion of this emeritus: Holmes, letter of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to John Collins Warren, 28 February 1850.
105a $5,000 donation: Harvard University, Twenty-third Annual Report, Treasurer’s Statement (unpaginated). As noted elsewhere in the text, for a few years Harvard, largely at its president’s behest, called itself the University at Cambridge.
105“diffident to approach the subject”: Holmes, letter of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to John Collins Warren, 28 February 1850.
105“degenerates and celebrated criminals”: Warren, “The Collection of the Boston Phrenological Society,” 1.
105He took the doctor aside: TGB, 115.
105about to become engaged to Dr. Parkman’s son: Milwaukee Sentinel, 21 May 1850.
105“Go ahead with it”: TGB, 115.
106Jackson who’d been among the first: BH, 14 June 1848.
106“Go to Dr. Holmes”: TGB, 116.
106book of poetry coming out: BT, 1 December 1849.
106“Go to the elder Dr. Bigelow”: TGB, 116.
107“which poured a feeble stream of cold water”: Lawrence, Old Park Street and Its Vicinity, 99.
107produced many of the cast-iron pipes: American Traveller (Boston), 21 November 1846.
107“I guess you do”: TGB, 116.
107a letter addressed to Marshal Tukey: Ibid., 196.
108“Dr Parkman was took on Bord”: Ibid., 210.
108Herculean—and it had set sail: Boston Courier, 29 November 1849.
108unremarkable cotton runs: Boston Daily Advertiser, 15 March 1841.
108save a sinking ship’s crew: Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchant’s Transcript (New Bedford, MA), 20 January 1849.
108it didn’t budge: TGB, 37.
108Clink: Ibid., 138.
108overalls muddy: Ibid., 57.
109“I’ve made a fool of you this time”: Ibid., 116.
109“Let us go into his laboratory”: Ibid.
109“Can we not get in, then?”: Ibid., 181
109Littlefield had known George: Ibid., 144.
109he pointed out the entryway: Ibid.
110“You have just saved your bacon”: Ibid., 117.
110collected the long-neglected grapevines: Ibid., 137.
110“What about that twenty-dollar bill?”: Ibid., 144.
110A draft was pulling cold air: Ibid., 117.
111water could collect to the height of a man: Ibid., 118.
13. Pistols Drawn
115sitting down to his dinner: William Sturgis Bigelow, A Memoir of Henry Jacob Bigelow, 117.
115“a whole bushel of locks”: Ibid., 295. The remainder of this scene is drawn from William Sturgis Bigelow’s account.
116the marshal, Kingsley, the lawyer James Blake: TGB, 49.
116highwaymen had held up a cab up: BA, 3 December 1849.
116Trenholm had already beat them to the scene: TGB, 145.
117he asked the detective to pass him the lamp: Ibid., 49.
117water had been left running: Ibid., 50.
117was this, a human?: Ibid., 50.
117“No”: TNY, 11.
117every single one of them had descended: TGB, 145.
117“That is Webster”: Ibid., 50.
117Webster kept a loaded pistol in the lab: Ibid., 122.
118Tukey toward the lab: Ibid., 50.
118professor’s hidden store of wine and liquor: TNY, 43.
118sloping auditorium rows: Ibid., 50.
118keep it slightly out of sight: TJS, 89.
119still in his slippers: TNY, 38.
119show a visitor to the gate: TGB, 155.
119“How do you do, Mr. Clapp?”: BB, 3 December 1849.
119must be in great pain: BA, 3 December 1849.
119into the professor’s study: Ibid.
119“I should like to go back”: TGB, 155.
119one favorite trick at the omnibus stops: Savage, A Chronological History, 237.
120sweethearts who hanged themselves: Ibid., 72.
120Rat-fighting matches in saloons: Ibid., 166.
120crackled over the Craigie Bridge: TGB, 156.
120“There is a lady over there”: Ibid.
120She’d apparently also seen Dr. Parkman: TNY, 43.
120“Suppose we ride over there?”: TGB, 156.
121“Dr. Webster, it is no use to disguise our purpose”: BJ, 3 December 1849. Starkweather’s and Clapp’s trial accounts of the arrest give similar if slightly varied versions of this speech; Clapp’s is the more florid of the two. This particular line, though, is not in either’s trial recollections four months later—but it was noted by both the Boston Daily Journal and the Boston Daily Evening Transcript at the time of the arrest.
121“You recollect that I called your attention”: TGB, 156.
121a writ of mittimus to be drawn: Ibid., 178.
121“You are now in custody”: Ibid., 156.
14. A Ruined Man
122“What!” Dr. Webster blurted: TGB, 128.
122an inventory taken: Ibid., 157.
122“Don’t commit the doctor”: Ibid.
122“Have they found Dr. Parkman?”: Ibid., 179.
123old cannonballs had deliberately been embedded: Drake, Old Landmarks and Historic Personages, 375.
123“My children, what will they do!”: Ibid.
124Despite the cold of the jail: Ibid., 38.
124Should they call a doctor?: Ibid., 179.
124something like five thousand prisoners: BT, 8 August 1849. There is a more specific breakdown in this report. For instance, Andrews reported to an inspection of county commissioners that between 4 December 1848 and 23 July 1849, the Leverett Street Jail had taken in “2177 criminals, 106 Commonwealth and United States witnesses, [and] 527 debtors.”
124“I expected this”: TGB, 192.
124he’d known John Webster and his father: Ibid., 190.
124alumni secretary for the Class of ’35: “News from the Classes,” 732.
124“my wife and children!”: TGB, 109.
125“We do not come here to distress you”: BJ, 3 December 1849.
125There isn’t anything to explain: TGB, 38.
125“We’ve got Dr. Webster here!”: Ibid., 119.
126“is the coat that I lecture in”: Ibid., 192.
126“This is where I make examinations”: BA, 3 December 1849.
126discovered a parcel wrapped in paper: TGB, 179.
126“Force the door!”: Ibid., 119.
126“You will find nothing but some bottles”: Ibid., 59.
126a set of filed keys: Ibid., 181.
126“Where is the chimney that was so heated?”: Ibid., 60.
127a right calf, a right thigh, and a pelvis: Ibid., 38.
127Tears were now streaming down his face: TDM, 21.
127“I have nothing to say”: TGB, 193.
127body parts into the privy: Ibid., 146.
127drove a nail halfway into the door frame: Ibid., 147.
127folded the pants into the semblance of a pillow: Ibid., 257. Though some caution was already being exercised—as in Coroner Pratt telling officers to leave Webster’s furnace alone—it would be nearly fifty years before the work of Hans Gross more widely popularized the idea of securing a crime scene.
128arms and legs had stiffened: Ibid., 194.
128his pants and coat both now soaked: TJS, 110.
128dapper counterfeiters to the wild murderer: BT, 27 April 1846; and Nantucket Inquirer, 3 May 1848.
128“I pity you”: TJS, 110.
129bolstered Webster’s head: TGB, 194.
129three scraps of paper: Ibid., 153. The alternate readings of “ale” and “axe” are noted in the court transcript.
15. Old Grimes Is Dead
131Mrs. Webster’s in-law Charles Cunningham: TGB, 158.
131signature of the Cambridge town judge: TDM, 28.
131“I thought it would be a disagreeable business”: TGB, 158.
131they’d sent out invitations: Trenton State Gazette, 6 December 1849.
131checkbook for the Charles River Bank: TGB, 158.
132“STRANGE RUMOR”: BH, 1 December 1849.
132“DISCOVERY OF THE BODY OF DR. PARKMAN”: BB, 1 December 1849.
133“This is atrocious”: Willard, Half a Century with Judges and Lawyers, 152.
133father had once been the president: Winsor, Biographical Contributions, 52:33.
133“I always knew Dr. Webster”: Willard, Half a Century with Judges and Lawyers, 152.
133His partner had been screaming: TGB, 172.
134officials at eight-thirty that morning: TJS, 90.
134teeth spilled out from between the gridirons: TGB, 61.
134earthenware plate with dried black ink: Ibid., 173.
134chiastolite, spodumene, green feldspar: “Additions to the Cabinet of Minerals at Cambridge,” 299.
134His fingers sank into another object: TGB, 172.
134“Starkweather!”: Ibid., 180.