The Linda Wolfe Collection

by Linda Wolfe

  Sheriff Morris had so many nightmares about having pulled the rope that ended Lino’s life that he quit law enforcement and became a tavernkeeper.

  William Du Bois became a department head at the U.S. Mint, where he falsified numismatic facts and earned a reputation as a crook.

  High Constable Blayney’s twenty-five-year-old son was murdered in a street brawl.

  And what of Lino? Only this, that a year after his execution he was blamed for a terrible natural disaster. The waters of the Neshaminy, the creek alongside which he’d been hanged, roiled and rose and swept away all the bridges that crossed the creek. It was the dead man’s vengeance, said the locals, and they named the catastrophe the “Mina Flood.”

  Endnotes

  ABOUT THE RESEARCH

  Years ago, when I first began writing about legal and criminal matters, an attorney friend who wanted to encourage my new interest gave me as a gift a rare copy of William E. Du Bois’s Trial of Lucretia Chapman, with its supplement on the trial of Lino Amalia Espos y Mina. “Read this,” my friend said. “Maybe you could write something comparing how murder trials were conducted in the early nineteenth century with how they’re conducted now. Besides, it’s a great read. A scandal, plus a murder by chicken soup!” But I was busy, preoccupied with scandals and murders of the moment, and I put aside the decaying volume with its crumbling pages and minuscule print. Twenty years rolled by and the book languished on my shelf. Then one day in a moment of leisure, I picked it up, and when I did I was immediately enthralled. After finishing the book I immersed myself in the Chapman case, delving into old newspapers, memoirs, and biographies, and discovering in the process that the murder of William Chapman, although altogether forgotten now, had been one of the major crime stories of the nineteenth century. I understood why, for I was hooked by the tale, and eventually I began writing this book.

  For anyone who wants to know more about the case, the three best resources are the Du Bois work, the newspapers of the period, and David Paul Brown’s The Forum, or Forty Years Full Practice at the Philadelphia Bar.

  Du Bois produced what was, in effect, the equivalent of a modern-day trial transcript, recording almost every word of the witnesses’ testimony; the lawyers’ opening statements, legal arguments, and florid summations; and the rulings made by the judges. His account does not, however, read the way a contemporary court transcript does. For example, Du Bois often didn’t write down the lawyers’ questions, merely the witnesses’ answers, so I have at times had to surmise the questions from the answers.

  The newspapers covered Lucretia and Lino’s trials in great detail and with increasing prominence. Indeed one paper, the Barnstable Patriot, after running several pieces about the case in its inner pages, moved the story to the front page, apologizing for this unprecedented placement of a murder story by explaining, “We supposed it would be as interesting to many … as the President’s Message,” a standard front-page item.

  Brown’s book is interesting on the subject of himself—he was a man of vast ego—as well as on his various cases and what it was like to be a criminal defense attorney in mid-nineteenth-century America. Alas, his account of Lucretia’s trial is short. Still, he does explain his strategy and talk about some of his personal experiences during the trial.

  In addition to these three resources, a fourth that is of considerable interest is a collection of documents concerning the trial and its principals that was donated to the Bucks County Historical Society by the late George B. Ross, a descendant of prosecutor Thomas Ross. The collection, the Mina-Chapman Murder Case Papers, includes originals of the letters exchanged between Lucretia and Lino, as well as Mary Ross’s letter urging her son to visit Lino before his execution, William Chapman’s alien registration and citizenship papers, Dr. Hopkinson’s autopsy report, some of Lucretia’s tuition bills, and many other fascinating tidbits.

  I would also recommend looking at Lucretia and William’s book on their United States Institution for the Treatment of Defective Utterance, and Lino’s The Life and Confession of Carolino Estradas de Mina. The latter, filled with miraculous events and lush descriptions of tropical scenes, reads in places like a tale by Gabriel García Márquez.

  These were my principal research tools. I also used many additional sources, including books, newspaper articles, government documents, and information provided by the individuals cited in my acknowledgments.

  In reconstructing events and providing dialogue, I have adhered to the historical record. Regarding the dialogue, while it was occasionally necessary to render as direct quotation remarks that appeared in the source material as indirect discourse, the remarks all come from the court testimony recorded by Du Bois or the accounts written by Brown and various contemporary journalists. Only rarely have I made alterations in these remarks, other than to clarify a speaker’s meaning with small grammatical changes, and wherever I deemed it requisite to make an alteration, I have provided the original words and an explanation for my change in the chapter notes that follow.

  ABBREVIATIONS

  DPB Brown, David Paul, The Forum, or Forty Years Full Practice at the Philadelphia Bar, 2 volumes, Philadelphia, 1856.

  WC Chapman, Mr. and Mrs. William, United States Institution for the Treatment of Cases of Defective Utterance Such as Partial Speechlessness, Stuttering, Stammering, Hesitancy, Weakness of Voice, Mis-Enunciation, Lisping, Etc., Etc., Philadelphia, 1826.

  TLC Du Bois, William E., The Trial of Lucretia Chapman, Philadelphia, 1832.

  STMC Du Bois, William E., Supplement to the Trial of Mrs. Chapman: The Trial of Lino Amalia Espos y Mina, Philadelphia, 1832.

  CEM Mina, Carolino Estradas, The Life and Confession of Carolino Estradas de Mina, Philadelphia, 1832.

  M-CMCP Mina-Chapman Murder Case Papers, Spruance Library, Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa.

  CHAPTER NOTES

  CHAPTER 1 BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

  1 Dr. John Phillips’s eminence, his willingness to see patients, and his attitude toward doctors who had not been trained at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School: Green, A History of Bristol Borough, pp. 181–82.

  1 Lino’s appearance: Germantown Telegraph, Feb. 22, 1832.

  1 Phillips’s height: Green, A History of Bristol Borough, p. 181.

  2 My description of Dr. Phillips’s visits to the dying William Chapman is drawn from his testimony as well as from testimony given by Dr. Knight, Ann Bantom, and little Lucretia Chapman; see TLC, pp. 24, 32–33, 69, and 89–91.

  3 Lucretia’s appearance: Germantown Telegraph, Feb. 22, 1832; see also DPB, vol. 2, p. 419.

  3 “A beefsteak would do me more good than anything else”: TLC, p. 33.

  4 “Not much” and “He may eat plenty of that”: TLC, p. 90.

  4 Calomel drops: Calomel drops were considered effective against even Asiatic cholera. I came across a yellowed newspaper clipping from Hall’s Journal of Health, pinned inside an 1849 cookbook, Mrs. Putnam’s Receipt Book and Young Housekeeper’s Assistant, that stated that “a pill made up of ten grains of calomel with a little gum-water” could arrest cholera “unless it is in the very last stages … in nine cases out of ten.”

  5 “I’m drowsy from waiting on Mr. Chapman” and “Call me if I’m wanted”: TLC, p. 34.

  CHAPTER 2 CAPE COD AND PHILADELPHIA

  7 Cape Cod: I am indebted to Thoreau for my description of the Cape: see Thoreau, Cape Cod, p. 14.

  7 Mark Holman: The story of Lucretia’s girlhood romance with Holman was told to me by Al Clark of the Barre Historical Society. Clark wasn’t sure whether the young couple’s indiscretion occurred in Barre or at the Cape, and I have set the incident at the Cape because it seemed to me for a variety of reasons more likely to have happened there.

  8 Lucretia’s grandfather and great-grandfather: Holton, Winslow Memorial, pp. 71–89, 130–131, and 403.

  8 Zenas Winslow’s history: Holton, Winslow Memorial, p. 403, see also Josiah Paine, A History of Harwich
, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, 1620–1800, Rutland, Vt., 1937, p. 340.

  8 Disgraced girl written about by Lucretia’s neighbor: See Vicery, Emily Hamilton, a Novel, Founded on Incidents in Real Life, published in Worcester, Massachusetts.

  8 An age well past that at which most of the girls she knew were not just already married but already mothers: See Wright, Views of Society and Manners in America, p. 33.

  9 Lucretia goes to Philadelphia: In a letter to a friend, reprinted in the Germantown Telegraph on February 15, 1832, Lucretia remarks that she left the Cape and went to Philadelphia in 1813. She does not say just when in 1813 she went there. I discovered the month of her arrival serendipitously, while leafing through 1813 advertisements in Philadelphia newspapers: see Germantown Telegraph, Feb. 15, 1832.

  9 Endured such a rattling and shaking … skulls would be crushed: My description of Lucretia’s harrowing stagecoach ride was inspired by Charles Dickens’s description of a stagecoach ride he took several years later; see his American Notes, p. 254.

  10 Heavily accented English: Bergerac’s accent is an assumption on my part, based on the fact that he was already in his thirties when he emigrated from France. See Naturalization Records, 1789–1880.

  10 Location of Bergerac’s academy: See the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, Sept. 7, 1813.

  10 Somewhere en route, all her possessions had disappeared: See the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, Sept. 7, 1813.

  12 Lucretia’s sallies around Philadelphia: In constructing a likely itinerary for Lucretia, I drew upon numerous sources, among them Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette and Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser for the months of September to November 1813, an article by Frederic Trautman that excerpted the diary of the early nineteenth century traveler Ludwig Gall, an album of watercolor illustrations of old Philadelphia houses painted by G. Albert Lewis (now in the possession of the Library Company of Philadelphia), and the books of Merritt Ierley, Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, John F. Watson, and Edwin Wolf. The books portray, for the most part, a Philadelphia that was orderly and sparklingly clean. But Gall, who was there in 1819, noted that the streets were muddy and the houses draped with drying laundry. The odd information that dentists of the time transplanted human teeth is something I came across in both Watson and Oberholtzer. Watson, writing in 1830, says, “It may surprise some of the present generation to learn that some of the aged persons who they may now meet have teeth which were originally in the heads of others” (Annals of Philadelphia, p. 167). Oberholtzer cites an Eighth Street dentist’s 1818 advertisement suggesting that patients “who have objections to the use of … human teeth can be supplied with natural teeth which are not human, to answer all the valuable purposes of the grafted human teeth” (Philadelphia, p. 119). Such teeth were apparently taken from the jaws of horses, hippopotami, and other animals (Philadelphia, p. 118).

  12 ablaze with a … fiery light: The illumination of Philadelphia occurred on September 24, 1813. See Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette, Sept. 25, 1813.

  12 The office would specialize, he announced … collecting overdue debts: See Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, Sept. 24, 1813.

  13 William’s emigration from England on the Roebuck: see Passenger and Immigration Lists, Philadelphia, 1800–1850.

  13 Information about the Roebuck and about the hardships experienced by passengers at the start of the nineteenth century: Interview with Norman Brewer of the South Street Seaport Museum in New York, and Diane Snyder Ptak, A Passage in Time: The Ships That Brought Our Ancestors, 1620–1940 (Albany, N.Y., 1992).

  13 William’s sparse possessions: See Baggage Entries, 1799–1856, Records of the Port of Philadelphia.

  13 Schoolteacher: See “Visa of William Chapman,” M-CMCP.

  14 When he spoke … fearsome grimaces: See WC, pp. 2 and 4.

  14 “A stammering tongue signifies a weak understanding, and a wavering mind”: Aristotle’s Master-Piece Completed (New York, 1798), p. 101.

  14 “Painful commiseration” WC, p. 2.

  14 “the most respectable references”: Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, Sept. 24, 1813

  14 He had also applied to become a citizen of America: See Naturalization Records, Philadelphia, 1789–1880.

  14 Interviewing prospective citizens in local taverns: See the Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, Sept. 22, 1813.

  14 Officially an alien, and as such, forced to register: “Registration as Alien of William Chapman” and “Visa of William Chapman,” M-CMCP.

  15 William promptly signed up: It is certain that William, who according to Kite’s Philadelphia Directory for 1814 was the only William Chapman residing in Philadelphia that year, volunteered to serve his new country. Pennsylvania’s archives contain several references to a militia volunteer named William Chapman, one to a William Chapman serving under a Captain Tucker, the others to a William Chapman serving under a Captain whose name is given variously as McMillen, McMillin and McMullen. It is less clear whether these references are to one man or two, and consequently I have simply placed William in the militia, without specifying in which company he served. See Pennsylvania Archives, 6th Series, vol. 7, pp. 80, 347, and 351, and vol. 8, p. 15.

  15 Called to an onerous duty: According to Oberholtzer, “all [italics added] the old companies [of volunteers] and several new ones were formed into one body” to protect the approaches to the city. See Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, p. 18.

  15 “Not a stitch of dry clothing in the camp. Never rained harder since the flood”: Thackara, Diary of William Wood Thackara, p. 305.

  16 “Three cheers for Cadwalader”: Thackara, Diary of William Wood Thackara, p. 308.

  17 For the rest of his life he would revere that year, mark it as a turning point: See WC, p. 2.

  17 The edict of Philadelphia’s administrators and the exodus from Philadelphia: Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, p. 17.

  18 “The damned British have been defeated and their general killed”: Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, p. 20.

  18 The investigation of Mark and Edward Winslow: Commonwealth v. Edward Winslow, 1814–1818.

  19 LeBrun’s method: see Charles LeBrun, Le Directeur des Enfants Depuis l’Age de Cinq Ans Jusqu’à Douze, Philadelphia, 1811.

  19 A bee who so surfeited himself on nectar that he could no longer fly: The bee story appears in N. Picket, The Juvenile Expositor, or Sequel to the Common Spelling-Book (New York, 1810), pp. 28–29.

  19 The good little boy who broke his family’s best mirror but confessed: The mirror story, one of many such stories about children who couldn’t tell lies—most notably George Washington—appears in Picket, The Juvenile Expositor, p. 24.

  19 “Without frugality, none can be rich”: Picket, The Juvenile Expositor, p. 33.

  19 “Diligence, industry, and proper improvement of time are material duties of the young”: Picket, The Juvenile Expositor, p. 35.

  20 An expensive instrument cost as much as a small house, while even an inexpensive one … a half-year’s wages: Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790–1840, pp. 249–250.

  20 “To beautify the room by so superb an ornament” and “the only thing that distinguishes ‘decent people’ from the lower and less distinguished”: Larkin, Reshaping of Everyday Life, p. 143.

  20 “masculine”: Germantown Telegraph, February 22, 1832.

  21 Girls … being educated would benefit the country: See Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution, p. 106.

  21 “A new race” and “any nation on earth”: Wright, Views of Society and Manners in America, p. 35.

  21 “Miss Winslow most respectfully informs her friends and the public … useful and ornamental branches of a polite education”: Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette, Sept. 27, 1817.

  22 “rely on the most scrupulous attention being paid to … morals and improvement”: Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette, Sept. 27, 1817.

  22 “Have you rose early enough for the duties of the morning.… Have you combed your h
air with a fine tooth comb, and cleaned your teeth every morning”: from “Rules for the School and Academy,” written in 1814 by Eliza Ann Mulford, a student at Miss Sarah Pierce’s Female Seminary in Litchfield, Connecticut, and printed in Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, compiler, Chronicles of a Pioneer School from 1792 to 1838, Being the History of Miss Sarah Pierce and Her Litchfield School (Cambridge, Mass., 1903), p. 147.

  23 “Show” meat: Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, pp. 82–85.

  23 Waxwork displays, balloon ascensions, inhalation of nitrous oxide gas: Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, pp. 46–47.

  24 “crowds upon crowds of buyers, sellers, and gazers”: Oberholtzer, p. 103.

  CHAPTER 3 MARRIAGE

  27 Methods of correcting stammering: see Alfred Appelt, Stammering and Its Permanent Cure: A Treatise on Individual Psychological Lines (London, 1929), pp. 31–38, and Benson Bobrick, Knotted Tongues: Stuttering in History and the Quest for a Cure (New York, 1995), pp. 85–94.

  28 “tell, reveal … Rules thereunto belonging”: Agreement, M-CMCP. 28 “the” cure: Germantown Telegraph, August 3, 1831.

  28 Sign language schools: Wilson, Picture of Philadelphia, pp. 85–86 and 91–92; see also Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, p. 128.

  28 Lino’s birthplace and family: Davis, History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1876, p. 858–59.

  29 Lino’s father’s employment: Davis, History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 1905, p. 357.

  29 Lino as a daydreamer and tale-teller: See CEM.

  29 The idealization of mothers and the appearance of the first child-rearing manuals: Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, pp. 52–53 and 70.

  30 “tender” and “seemed to enjoy an uninterrupted happiness in each other’s society”: TLC, p. 95.

  31 “The bills are true except for the signature of the bank’s president”: See testimony of Nathaniel Crocker, Commonwealth v. Edward Winslow, 1814–1818. Crocker’s exact words were: “the Bills were true except the signing of the President’s name.”

  31 “Here I stood to make some money, but there must always be some damn fool in the way”: See testimony of Nathaniel Crocker, Commonwealth v. Edward Winslow, 1814–1818. Crocker’s exact words were that Winslow “stated there had been a great chance for him to make some money but there must always be some damn fool in the [illegible word].”