A Disposition to Be Rich: Ferdinand Ward, the Greatest Swindler of the Gilded Age
Page 43
He was as sorry a scoundrel as ever the light of publicity ever brought blinking out of his rat-hole.… There he was performing petty purgatorial tasks until his “foul crimes had been burnt and purged away.” He could not have been more dead so far as the world was concerned, if the grass had been growing on his dishonoured grave.
He was not dead, of course; he was just biding his time. Claude Fayette Bragdon, Secret Springs: An Autobiography, p. 65.
† A reference both to Pomfret’s founding principal, William E. Peck, and to best-selling books by a newspaperman named George W. Peck about a mischievous child who became known as “Peck’s Bad Boy.”
‡ The Association of Descendants of Andrew Warde, the first member of the family to reach the New World, was established in 1910. Warde landed in Massachusetts Colony in 1630 and was instrumental in building up the towns of Watertown, Massachusetts, and Wethersfield, Stamford, and Fairfield in Connecticut.
§ He liked to quote one of the town’s handful of Democrats who supposedly wandered by accident into a Republican meeting and afterward said, “I felt like one grain of wheat in a whole barrel of rat turd.” Interview with Clarence Ward by Andrew Ward, 1967.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My grandfather turned over to me the contents of his father’s Sing Sing trunk in 1965, so I’ve been thinking about this book, or reading for it, or actually writing it, for nearly fifty years, off and on. Any author whose book has a gestation period that long piles up debts to a remarkable number of people. I will do my best to thank them all here but beg forgiveness in advance if I have inadvertently left out someone’s name.
It took so long to complete this book that some without whom it could never have been written did not live to see the final result: my grandparents, Helen and Clarence Ward, and my father, Champ Ward; my cousins Judge Jasper Brinton and his children, John H. and Pamela Brinton, who shared my fascination with this story and made it possible for me to read more than a thousand family letters; Mrs. Lawrence Eyre, who recounted to me her encounters with Ferdinand Ward; Harold A. and William S. Ward Jr., who talked with me about their parents, William and Kate Ward; and their cousins Allen and Alice Ward, who generously shared their original research into family history; Miss Margaret E. Gilmore, the town historian of Geneseo, who took me around the village where my forebears lived and made it seem as if they had just left town; and Professor John Y. Simon, executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association.
Again and again, as he has so many times in the past, Mike Hill has come through for me, finding materials I never thought I’d see; I can’t imagine tackling any topic without his help and counsel. I’m also grateful to the current Jasper Brinton, Judge Brinton’s grandson, for welcoming me into his lovely Pennsylvania home and providing me with a sizable cache of still more family letters; Sonny Mehta and my old friend Ashbel Green of Alfred A. Knopf, who thought this book might be a good idea, and my new friend and editor, Andrew Miller, whose suggestions made it better; Kevin Bourke, Kathy Hourigan, Amy Stackhouse, and Maggie Hinders, who helped bring coherence to the manuscript; and Dr. Jody M. Davies, who did the same for its author; my longtime agent and friend Carl Brandt, who kept me going when it seemed unlikely I would ever finish; Professors Alan Brinkley and Akeel Belgrami, who made available to me Columbia University’s invaluable online resources; Amy Halstead, the great-granddaughter of James D. Fish, who shares my fascination with finding out exactly what our ancestors were up to; Edith Matthews of Geneseo’s Central Presbyterian Church, who opened church records that allowed me to piece together the story of the schism that split her church and her town; Joe Lamartino, town historian of Thompson, Connecticut, who patiently answered a host of questions about the village where my grandfather grew up; Dr. Karl F. Stofko, who holds the same post in East Haddam and helped me get straight the story of the Champion House; and Richard Rubin of Florentine Films, who took time out to help me solve several vexing genealogical questions.
I’m also grateful to several readers who saved me from embarrassment of one kind or another: Martha Saxton and Enrico Ferorelli; Richard White, whose splendid book, Railroaded, offers enough sordid details about my ancestors’ contemporaries in banking and finance to make me feel a little less defensive about his crimes; my forbearing brother, Andrew; my sister, Helen; my sharp-eyed daughter, Kelly; and my mother, Duira Ward, whose firsthand knowledge of life in a small-town Presbyterian parsonage—and aversion to adverbs and the passive voice—proved invaluable.
Here are the names of a host of men and women who also helped me along the way. I’m grateful to all of them.
John B. Ahouse, Specialized Libraries and Archival Collections, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Amie Alden, historian, Livingston County
Robert B. Allen
Elizabeth P. Andrew
Kevin Baker
Anthony and Elizabeth Bannon
Ray Barber
William R. Battey
Roland M. Baumann, archivist, Oberlin College Archives
Janet Begnoche, archivist, Princeton University
Edward Blair
Sarah Botstein
Carole M. Bowker, Mystic Seaport Museum
Robert F. Bryan
Julian Gerard Buckley
Ken Burns
Mrs. Ward C. Campbell
Scott Chase
Heather Cole, Houghton Library, Harvard University
J. Richard Collins
Helaine Dauphinais, Thompson Public Library
Carlotta DeFillo, Staten Island Historical Society
Ulysses S. Grant Dietz
Stephen Dudley
Joanne Dunn
Leigh C. Eckmair, Local History Collection, Gilbertsville Free Library
Paul Rogers Fish III
Ellen Fladger, head of special collections, Schaffer Library, Union College
Ann Gardiner
Jim Gerencser, special collections librarian, Dickinson College
Timothy J. Gilfoyle
Richard Goldhurst
Dorothy S. Grimm
Ken Grossi, archivist, Oberlin College
Helen M. Hall, Rathbun Free Memorial Library, East Haddam, Connecticut
Barbara Halsted
Professor Paul Harris
Rev. William O. Harris, librarian and archivist for special collections, Princeton Seminary Library
Catherine D. Hayes
Melissa Lewis Heim
Dorothy C. Howard
James T. Ivy
Bob and Trisha Jones
Karl Kabelac, University of Rochester Library
George Kurian
Gerald Lauderdale
Charles M. Lee
David Littlefield
Frank K. Lorenz, curator of special collections, Hamilton College
Gerald McCauley
David McCullough
Claire McCurdy, archivist, Union Theological Seminary
Blake McKelvey, Rochester City Historian
Mrs. Frances Marsh
Marie Varrelman Melchiori
Diane Melves, U. S. Grant Network
John D. Milligan
Allen P. Mills
Anne D. Moffett
Marisa Morigi, registrar, Historical Society of New Jersey
Michael Musick
Tal Nada, New York Public Library
Julian Nieman
Lynn Novick
Patricia J. Palmer, manuscript librarian, Stanford University Libraries
David W. Parish, town historian, Geneseo
Richard Peek, Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, University of Rochester
Thomas M. Pitkin
Robert Poole
Marie C. Preston, historian, Livingston County
Helen R. Purtle, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology
Walter Ray, political papers archivist, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
G. P. Reuben, librarian, American College Madurai
Rev. Cally Rogers-Witte, Global Ministries
Paul R. Rugen, keeper of manuscripts, New York Public Library
Mary Ellen A. Sarbaugh
Morgan Sawn, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Mrs. R. Meyer de Schauensee
Sylvan Schendler
Georgiana M. Searles
Martha Slotten, archivist, Dickinson College
Christine Hill Smith
Richard F. Snow
Wallace Stegner
Karl P. Stofko, DDS, municipal historian, East Haddam
Gary E. Swinson
Mattie Taormina, Green Library, Stanford University
Anne Thacher Tate, library director, Stonington Historical Society
Rick Teller, archivist, Williston Northampton School
Gabriele Tenebaum
Henry Thiagaraj
Professor Elizabeth Tooker
Mrs. O. Leslie Van Camp
Cynthia Van Ness, Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society
Jennifer Vega
John G. Wait
Mary Walker
Jasper Ward
Mike Ward
Judith Wastcott, East Haddam Free Public Library
John W. Watson, Long Island Historical Society
Pastor C. F. Yoos, Central Presbyterian Church, Geneseo, New York
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Diane, who has endured life with the family sociopath for thirty years without complaint, and who makes all things—including books—possible.
Khem Villas
Sherpur Village
Rajasthan, 2011
NOTES
A Note on Sources
Ferdinand Ward, his crimes, and their aftermath made sporadic headlines for some twenty-five years. The reporting style of the period was vivid, prolix, and richly detailed. Thus, everything in this book, from the artwork hanging on the walls of Ferdinand Ward’s house on Brooklyn Heights to the color of the gloves he carried as he left Sing Sing, was described by at least one reporter and often by several. When newspapers differed as to precisely what was said by one character or another I have tried to use the least gaudy, most plausible version. But nothing is invented.
To calculate the current value of nineteenth-century dollars, I used the consumer price index provided by the Web site www.measuringworth.com.
PROLOGUE
1. Richard Goldhurst, Many Are the Hearts, p. 241.
2. Ferdinand Ward, “General Grant as I Knew Him.”
3. Jane Shaw Ward to Ferdinand Ward, August 17, 1888, author’s collection.
CHAPTER ONE
1. Geoffrey C. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
2. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, “Letter from Mr. Ward: The Wants of Madras” to the ABCFM Board, January 22, 1845, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
3. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, India and the Hindoos, p. 107.
4. Ibid.
5. George K. Ward, ed., Andrew Warde and His Descendants 1597–1910, p. 86. The laudatory profile of Deacon Ward was written by his son, Ferdinand.
6. Ibid., p. 87.
7. Ibid., p. 2.
8. Anonymous, Home Volume Dedicated to the Bergen Wards and Their Descendants (Rochester, 1886), p. 36.
9. Austin Warren, The Elder Henry James, p. 21.
10. Religious Intelligencer, April 5, 1828.
11. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, Diary—No. 1, p. 2, Brinton Collection.
12. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, typed manuscript of Diary—No. 1, Extending from January 9th, 1831, to September 20th, 1831, pp. 2–3, Brinton Collection.
13. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, November 27, 1829, Freeman Clarke Family Papers, Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation, University of Rochester.
14. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, n.d. 1830, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
15. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, June 16, 1831, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
16. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, June 25, 1831, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
17. Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millennium, p. 94.
18. Ibid., p. 95.
19. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, March 31, 1831, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
20. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, July 6, 1831, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
21. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, Auto-Biography, p. 4, Brinton Collection.
22. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, July 7, 1832, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
23. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, July 7, 1832, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
24. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, January 1, 1833, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
25. Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years, p. 50.
26. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward, July 7, 1832, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
27. Reverend Doctors Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller to Rev. Rufus Anderson, Corresponding Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), March 15, 1836, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
28. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, typed manuscript of Auto-Biography, p. 4, Brinton Collection.
29. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Henrietta Ward Clarke, October 8, 1834, Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
30. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Rev. Rufus Anderson, November 4, 1835, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
31. Mary Zwiep, Pilgrim Path, p. 16.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p. 5.
34. Ibid., p. 6.
35. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, typed manuscript of Auto-Biography No. 2, p. 7, Brinton Collection.
36. Ibid.
37. Jane Shaw Ward to Sarah Ward Brinton, October 1, 1875, Brinton Collection.
38. Rev. Charles Hall to Rev. Rufus Anderson, August 5, 1836, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
39. Rev. Asa D. Smith to Rev. Rufus Anderson, August 5, 1836, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
40. Jane Shaw to Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, August 29, 1836, Brinton Collection.
41. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
42. Brinton Collection.
43. Henrietta Schuck, pioneer missionary to China, quoted in Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission, p. 49.
44. Ferdinand to Dr. and Mrs. Levi Ward, September 18, 1836, Brinton Collection.
45. New-York Evangelist, December 3, 1836.
46. Ibid.
47. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Dr. and Mrs. Levi Ward, November 20, 1836, Brinton Collection.
48. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Dr. Levi Ward, November 23, 1863, Brinton Collection.
49. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward (on behalf of the ship’s company) to Rufus Anderson, March 21, 1837, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
50. Clifton J. Phillips, Protestant America and the Pagan World, p. 52.
51. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward (on behalf of the ship’s company) to Rufus Anderson, March 21, 1837, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
52. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Dr. and Mrs. Levi Ward, n.d., but written aboard the Saracen, Brinton Collection.
53. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward (on behalf of the ship’s company) to Rufus Anderson, March 21, 1837, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
CHAPTER TWO
1. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Journal, March 27, 1837, Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Collection, Waidner-Spahr Library, Dickinson College.
2. Ibid., March 26, 1837.
3. Ibid., April 22, 1837.
4. Geoffrey C. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
5. Ibid.
6. “A Lady” (Mrs. Julia Charlotte Maitland), Letters from Madras During the Year
s 1836–1839, p. 28.
7. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Dr. and Mrs. Levi Ward, n.d., 1837, Brinton Collection.
8. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Journal, April 30, 1837, Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Collection.
9. Ibid., August 26, 1839.
10. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, India and the Hindoos, p. 120.
11. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Rufus Anderson, October n.d., 1839, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
12. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, “Madras-Madura Travel Diary,” October 1837, Brinton Collection.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
16. Ibid.
17. John S. Chandler, Seventy-five Years in the Madura Mission, p. 35.
18. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
19. Ferdinand Ward to Henrietta Ward, n.d., Freeman Clarke Family Papers.
20. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
21. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Journal, Ferdinand De Wilton Ward Collection.
22. Jane Shaw Ward to Ferdinand De Wilton Ward, n.d. 1838, Brinton Collection.
23. Miron Winslow, quoted in Ferdinand De Wilton’s notes on a discussion held at the Jaffna mission on “The Question of What Are the Limits of the Duties of the Wives of Missionaries?” February 13, 1840, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
24. Mary Zwiep, Pilgrim Path, p. 17.
25. Ibid., p. 16.
26. Quoted in Ferdinand De Wilton’s notes on a discussion held at the Jaffna mission on “The Question of What Are the Limits of the Duties of the Wives of Missionaries?” February 13, 1840. American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
27. Ferdinand De Wilton Ward to Rev. Rufus Anderson, n.d. 1837, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archive.
28. Ward, India and the Hindoos, p. 74.
29. Ibid., p. 212.
30. Ibid., p. 225.
31. Ward, “Two Missionaries’ Ordeal by Faith in a Distant Clime.”
32. Ibid.
33. “A Lady,” Letters from Madras During the Years 1836–1839, p. 30.
34. Ferdinand De Wilton and Jane Shaw Ward to Henrietta Ward Clarke, n.d., Freeman Clarke Family Papers.