CHAPTER XV. A TRUE WIFE AND HOME AT LAST. Where Were All my Wives? Sense

of Security. An Imprudent Acquaintance. Moving from Maine. My Property

in Rensselaer County. How I Lived. Selling a Recipe. About Buying a

Carpet. Nineteen Lawsuits. Sudden Departure for the West. A Vagabond

Life for Two Years. Life in California. Return to the East. Divorce from

any First Wife. A Genuine Marriage. My Farm. Home at Last.

SEVEN WIVES AND SEVEN PRISONS

CHAPTER I. THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE

My Early History--THE FIRST MARRIAGE--LEAVING HOME TO PROSPECT--SENDING

FOR MY WIFE--HER MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY--WHERE I FOUND HER--TEN DOLLARS FOR

NOTHING--A FASCINATING HOTEL CLERK--MY WIFE’S CONFESSION--FROM BAD TO

WORSE--FINAL SEPARATION--TRIAL FOR FORGERY--A PRIVATE MARRIAGE--SUMMARY

SEPARATION.

SOME one has said that if any man would faithfully write his

autobiography, giving truly his own history and experiences, the ills

and joys, the haps and mishaps that had fallen to his lot, he could not

fail to make an interesting story; and Disraeli makes Sidonia say

that there is romance in every life. How much romance, as well as sad

reality, there is in the life of a man who, among other experiences,

has married seven wives, and has been seven times in prison--solely on

account of the seven wives, may be learned from the pages that follow.

I was born in the town of Chatham, Columbia County, New York, in

September, 1813. My father was a New Englander, who married three times,

and I was the eldest son of his third wife, a woman of Dutch descent,

or, as she would have boosted if she had been rich, one of the

old Knickerbockers of New York. My parents were simply honest,

hard--working, worthy people, who earned a good livelihood, brought up

their children to work, behaved themselves, and were respected by their

neighbors. They had a homestead and a small farm of thirty acres, and on

the place was a blacksmith shop in which my father worked daily, shoeing

horses and cattle for farmers and others who came to the shop from miles

around.

There were three young boys of us at home, and we had a chance to go to

school in the winter, while during the summer we worked on the little

farm and did the “chores” about the house and barn. But by the time I

was twelve years old I began to blow and strike in the blacksmith

shop, and when I was sixteen years old I could shoe horses well, and

considered myself master of the trade. At the age of eighteen, I went

into business with my father, and as I was now entitled to a share

of the profits, I married the daughter of a well-to-do neighboring

farmer, and we began our new life in part of my father’s house, setting

up for ourselves, and doing our own house-keeping.

I ought to have known then that marrying thus early in life, and

especially marrying the woman I did, was about the most foolish thing

I could do. I found it out afterwards, and was frequently and painfully

reminded of it through many long years. But all seemed bright enough

at the start. My wife was a good-looking woman of just my own age; her

family was most respectable; two of her brothers subsequently became

ministers of the gospel; and all the children had been carefully brought

up. I was thought to have made a good match; but a few years developed

that had wedded a most unworthy woman.

Seventeen months after our marriage, our oldest child, Henry, was born.

Meanwhile we had gone to Sidney, Delaware County, where my father opened

a shop. I still continued in business with him, and during our stay at

Sidney, my daughter, Elizabeth, was born. From Sidney, my father wanted

to go to Bainbridge, Chenango, County, N.Y., and I went with him,

leaving my wife and the children at Sidney, while we prospected. As

usual my father started a blacksmith-shop; but I bought a hundred acres

of timber land, went to lumbering, and made money. We had a house about

four miles from the village, I living with my father, and as soon as

found out that we were doing well in business, I sent to Sidney for

my wife and children. They were to come by stage, and were due, after

passing through Bainbridge, at our house at four o’clock in the morning.

We were up early to meet the stage; but when it arrived, the driver told

us that my wife had stopped at the public house in Bainbridge.

Wondering what this could mean, I at once set out with my brother and

walked over to the village. It was daylight when we arrived, and knocked

loudly at the public house door. After considerable delay, the clerk

came to the door and let us in. He also asked as to “take something,”

which we did. The clerk knew us well, and I inquired if my wife was in

the house; he said she was, told us what room she was in, and we went up

stairs and found her in bed with her children. Waking her, I asked her

why she did not come home, in the stage? She replied that the clerk down

stairs told her that the stage did not go beyond the house, and that she

expected to walk over, as soon as it was daylight, or that possibly we

might come for her.

I declare, I was so young and unsophisticated that I suspected nothing,

and blamed only the stupidity, as I supposed, of the clerk in telling

her that the stage did not go beyond Bainbridge. My wife got up and

dressed herself and the children, and then as it was broad daylight,

after endeavoring, ineffectually, to get a conveyance, we started for

home on foot, she leading the little boy, and I carrying the youngest

child. We were not far on our way when she suddenly stopped, stooped

down, and exclaimed:

“O! see what I have found in the road.”

And she showed me a ten dollar bill. I was quite surprised, and

verdantly enough, advised looking around for more money, which my wife,

brother and I industriously did for some minutes. It was full four weeks

before I found out where that ten dollar bill came from. Meanwhile, my

wife was received and was living in her new home, being treated with

great kindness by all of us. It was evident, however, that she had

something on her mind which troubled her, and one morning, about a

month after her arrival, I found her in tears. I asked her what was the

matter? She said that she had been deceiving me; that she did not pick

up the ten dollar bill in the road; but that it was given to her by the

clerk in the public house in Bainbridge; only, however, for this: he

had grossly insulted her; she had resented it, and he had given her the

money, partly as a reparation, and partly to prevent her from speaking

of the insult to me or to others.

But by this time my hitherto blinded eyes were opened, and I charged

her with being false to me. She protested she had not been; but finally

confessed that she had been too intimate with the clerk at the hotel.

I began a suit at law against the clerk; but finally, on account of my

wife’s family and for the sake of my children, I stopped proceedings,

the clerk paying the costs of the suit as far as it had gone, and giving

me what I should probably have got from him in the way of damages. My

wife too, was apparently so penitent, and I was so much infatuated with

her, that I forgave her, and even consented to continue to live with

her. But I removed to Greenville, Greene County, N. Y., where I went

into the black-smithing business, and was very successful. We lived

here long enough to add two children to our little family; but as time

went on, the woman became bad again, and displayed the worst depravity.

I could no longer live with her, and we finally mutually agreed upon

a life-long separation--she insisting upon keeping the children, and

going to Rochester where she subsequently developed the full extent of

her character.

This, as nearly as I remember, was in the year 1838, and with this came

a new trouble upon me. Just before the separation, I received from my

brother’s wife a note for one hundred dollars, and sold it. It proved to

be a forgery. I was temporarily in Troy, N. Y., when the discovery

was made, and as I made no secret of my whereabouts at any time, I was

followed to Troy, was there arrested, and after lying in jail at Albany

one night, was taken next morning to Coxsackie, Greene County, and front

thence to Catskill. After one day in jail there, I was brought before a

justice and examined on the charge of uttering a forged note. There was

a most exciting trial of four days duration. I had two good lawyers who

did their best to show that I did not know the note to be forged when

I sold it, but the justice seemed determined to bind me over for

trial, and he did so, putting me under five hundred dollars’ bonds. My

half-sister at Sidney was sent for, came to Catskill, and became bail

for me. I was released, and my lawyers advised me to leave, which I did

at once, and went to Pittsfield, and from there to Worthington,

Mass., where I had another half-sister, who was married to Mr. Josiah

Bartlett, and was well off.

Here I settled down, for all that I knew to the contrary, for life. For

some years past, I had devoted my leisure hours from the forge to

the honest endeavor to make up for the deficiencies in my youthful

education, and had acquired, among other things, a good knowledge

of medicine. I did not however, believe in any of the “schools”

particularly those schools that make use of mineral medicines in

their practice. I favored purely vegetable remedies, and had been very

successful in administering them. So I began life anew, in Worthington,

as a Doctor, and aided by my half-sister and her friends, I soon

secured a remunerative practice.

I was beginning to be truly happy. I supposed that the final separation,

mutually agreed upon between my wife and myself, was as effectual as all

the courts in the country could make it, and I looked upon myself as

a free man. Accordingly, after I had been in Worthington some months I

began to pay attentions to the daughter of a flourishing farmer. She was

a fine girl; she received my addresses favorably, and we were finally

privately married. This was the beginning of my life-long troubles. In

a few weeks her father found out that I had been previously married, and

was not, so far as he knew, either a divorced man or a widower. And

so it happened, that one day when I was at his house, and with his

daughter, he suddenly came home with a posse of people and a warrant for

my arrest. I was taken before a justice, and while we were waiting for

proceedings to begin, or, possibly for the justice to arrive, I took the

excited father aside and said:

“You know I have a fine horse and buggy at the door. Get in with me, and

ride down home. I will see your daughter and make everything right with

her, and if you will let me run away, I’ll give her her the horse and

buggy.”

The offer was too tempting to be refused. The father had the warrant in

his pocket, and he accepted my proposal. We rode to his house, and he

went into the back-room by direction of his daughter while she and I

talked in the hall. I explained matters as well as I could; I promised

to see her again, and that very soon. My horse and buggy were at the

door. Hastily bidding my new and young wife “good-bye,” I sprang into

the buggy and drove rapidly away. The father rushed to the door and

raised a great hue and cry, and what was more, raised the neighbors; I

had not driven five miles before all Worthington was after me. But I had

the start, the best horse, and I led in the race. I drove to Hancock,

N.Y., where my pursuers lost the trail; thence to Bennington, Vt., next

to Brattleboro, Vt., and from there to Templeton, Mass. What befel me at

Templeton, shall be related in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II. MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE.

LOVE-MAKING IN MASSACHUSETTS--ARREST FOR BIGAMY--TRIAL AT

NORTHAMPTON--A STUNNING SENTENCE--SENT TO STATE PRISON--LEARNING THE

BRUSH BUSINESS--SHARPENING PICKS--PRISON FARE--IN THE HOSPITAL--KIND

TREATMENT--SUCCESSFUL HORSE SHOEING--THE WARDEN MY FRIEND--EFFORTS FOR

MY RELEASE--A FULL PARDON.

At Templeton I speedily made known my profession, and soon had a very

good medical practice which one or two “remarkable cures” materially

increased. I was doing well and making money. I boarded in a respectable

farmer’s family, and after living there about six months there came

another most unhappy occurrence. From the day, almost, when I began

to board with this farmer there sprung up a strong attachment between

myself and his youngest daughter which soon ripened into mutual love.

She rode about with me when I went to see my patients, who were getting

to be numerous, and we were much in each other’s company.

On one occasion she accompanied me to Worcester where I had some

patients. We went to a public house where she and her family were well

known, and when she was asked by the landlord how she happened to come

there with the doctor, her prompt answer was:

“Why, we are married; did’nt you know it?”

She refused even to go to the table without my attendance, and when I

was out visiting some patients, she waited for her meals till I came

back. We stayed there but two days and returned together to Templeton.

A month afterward her brother was in Worcester, and stopped at this

house. The landlord, after some conversation about general matters,

said:

“So your sister is married to the Doctor?”

“I know nothing about it,” was the reply.

This led to a full and altogether too free disclosure to the astonished

brother about the particulars of our visit to the same house a month

before, and his sister’s representations that we were married. The

brother immediately started for home, and repeated the story, as it was

told to him, to his father and the family. Without seeing his daughter,

the father at once procured a warrant, and had me arrested and brought

before a justice on charge of seduction. The trial was brief; the

daughter herself swore positively, that though she had been imprudent

and indiscreet in going to Worcester with me, no improper communication

had ever, there or elsewhere, taken place between us.

Of course, there was nothing to do but to let me go and I was

discharged. But out of this affair came the worst that had yet fallen

to my lot in life. The story got into the papers, with particulars and

names of the parties, and in this way the people at Worthington, who had

chased me as far as Hancock and had there lost all trace of me, found

out where I was. If I had been aware of it, they might have looked

elsewhere for me; but while I was felicitating myself upon my escape

from the latest difficulty, down came an officer from Worthington with a

warrant for my arrest. This officer, the sheriff, was connected with the

family into which I had married in Worthington, and with him came two or

three more relatives, all bound, as they boasted, to “put me through.”

They were excessively irate against me and very much angered, especially

that their race after me to Hancock had been fruitless. I had fallen

into the worst possible hands.

They took me to Northampton and brought me before a Justice, on a

charge of bigamy: The sheriff who arrested me, and the relatives who

accompanied him were willing to swear my life away, if they could, and

the justice was ready enough to bind me over to take my trial in court,

which was not to be in session for full six months to come. Those long,

weary six months I passed in the county jail. Then came my trial. I had

good counsel. There was not a particle of proof that I was guilty of

bigamy; no attempt was made on the part of the prosecution to produce

my first wife, from whom I had separated, or, indeed, to show that there

was such a woman in existence. But, evidence or no evidence, with all

Worthington against me, conviction was inevitable. The jury found me

guilty. The judge promptly sentenced me to three years’ imprisonment in

the State Prison, at Charlestown, with hard labor, the first day to be

passed in solitary confinement.

This severe sentence fairly stunned me. I was taken back to jail, and

the following day I was conveyed to Charlestown with heavy irons on my

ankles and handcuffed. No murderer would have been more heavily ironed.

We started early in the morning, and by noon I was duly delivered to

the warden at Charlestown prison. I was taken into the office, measured,

asked my name, age, and other particulars, and then if I had a trade. To

this I at once answered, “no.” I wanted my twenty-four hours’

solitary confinement in which to reflect upon the kind of “hard labor,”

prescribed in my sentence, I was willing to follow for the next three

years; and I also wanted information about the branches of labor pursued

in that prison. The next words of the warden assured me that he was a

kind and compassionate man.

“Go,” he said to an officer, “and instantly take off those irons when

you take him inside the prison.”

I was taken in and the irons were taken off. I was then undressed, my

clothes were removed to another room, and I was redressed in the prison

uniform. This was a grotesque uniform indeed. The suit was red and blue,

half and half, like a harlequin’s, and to crown all came a hat or cap,

like a fool’s cap, a foot and a half high and running up to a peak.

Miserable as I was, I could scarcely help smiling at the utterly absurd

appearance I knew I then presented. I even ventured to remark upon it;

but was suddenly and sternly checked with the command:

“Silence! There’s no talking allowed here.”

Then began my twenty-four hours’ solitary confinement, and twenty-four

wretched hours they were. I had only bread and water to eat and drink,

and I need not say that my unhappy thoughts would not permit me to

sleep. At noon next day I was taken from my cell, and brought again

before the warden, Mr. Robinson, who kindly said:

“You have no trade, you say; what do you want to go to work at?”

“Anything light; I am not used to hard labor,” I replied.

So the warden directed that I should be put at work in the brush shop,

where all kinds of brushes were made. Mr. Eddy was the officer in charge

of this shop, and Mr. Knowles, the contractor for the labor employed in

the brush business, was present. Both of these gentlemen took pains to

instruct me in the work I was to begin upon, and were very kind in their

manner towards me. I went to work in a bungling way and with a sad and

heavy heart. At 12 o’clock we were marched from the shop to our

cells, each man taking from a trap in the wall, as he went by, his pan

containing his dinner, which consisted, that day, of boiled beef and

potatoes. It was probably the worst dinner I had ever eaten, but I had

yet to learn what prison fare was. From one o’clock to six I was in the

shop again; then came Supper--mush and molasses that evening which was

varied, as I learned afterwards, on different days by rye bread,

or Indian bread and rye coffee. These things were also served for

breakfast, and the dinners were varied on different days in the week.

The fare was very coarse, always, but abundant and wholesome. After

supper prisoners were expected to go to bed, as they were called out at

six o’clock in the morning.

I stayed in the brush shop three or four months, but I made very little

progress in learning the trade. I was willing enough to learn and did my

best. From the day I entered the prison I made up my mind to behave as

well as I could; to be docile and obedient, and to comply with every

rule and order. Consequently I had no trouble, and the officers all

treated me kindly. Warden Robinson was a model man for his position. He

believed that prisoners could be reformed more easily by mild than by

harsh measures--at least they would be more contented with their lot and

would be subordinate. Every now and then he would ask prisoners if they

were well treated by the officers; how they were getting on; if they had

enough to eat, and so on. The officers seemed imbued with the warden’s

spirit; the chaplain of the prison, who conducted the Sunday, services

and also held a Sunday school, was one of the finest men in the world,

and took a personal interest in every prisoner. Altogether, it was

a model institution. But in spite of good treatment I was intensely

miserable; my mind was morbid; I was nearly, if not quite, insane; and

one day during the dinner hour, I opened a vein in each arm in hopes

that I should bleed to death. Bleed I did, till I fainted away, and as

I did not come out when the other prisoners did, the officer came to

my cell and discovered my condition. He at once sent for the Doctor who

came and stopped the hemorrhage, and then sent me to the hospital where

I remained two weeks.

After I came out of the hospitals the Warden talked to me about my

situation and feelings. He advised me to go into the blacksmith shop,

of course not dreaming that I knew anything of the work; but he said I

would have more liberty there; that the men moved about freely and could

talk to each other; that the work mainly was sharpening picks and tools,

and that I could at least blow and strike. So I went into the blacksmith

shop, and remained their six weeks. But, debilitated as I was, the work

was too hard for me, and so the warden put me in the yard to do what I

could. I also swept the halls and assisted in the cook-room. One day

when the warden spoke to me, I told him that I knew something about

taking care of the sick, and after some conversation, he transferred me

to the hospital as a nurse.

Here, if there is such a things as contentment in prison, I was

comparatively happy. I nursed the sick and administered medicines under

direction of the doctor. I had too, with all easy position, more liberty

than any other prisoner. I could go anywhere about the halls and yard,

and in a few weeks I was frequently sent on an errand into the town.

Everyone seemed to have the fullest confidence in me. The Warden talked

to me whenever he saw me, and always had some kind word for me. One day

I ventured to speak to him about his horse, of which he was very proud,

and indeed the horse was a very fine one.

Mr. Warden, said I “that’s a noble horse of yours; but he interferes

badly, and that is only because he is badly shod. If you will trust me,

I can shoe him so as to prevent all that.”

“Can you?” exclaimed the Warden in great surprise; “Well, if you can,

I’ll give you a good piece of bread and butter, or, anything else you

want.”

“I don’t want your bread and butter,” said I “but I will shoe your horse

as he has never been shod before.”

“Well take the horse to the shop and see what you can do.”

Of course, I knew that by “bread and butter” the warden meant that if I

could shoe his favorite horse so as to prevent him from interfering, he

would gladly favor me as far as he could; and I knew, too, that I could

make as good a shoe as any horse need wear. I gladly led the horse to

the shop where I had so signally failed in pick and tool sharpening, and

was received with jeers by my old comrades who wanted to know what I was

going to do to that horse.

“O, simply shoe him,” I said.

This greatly increased the mirth of my former shopmates; but their

amusement speedily changed to amazement as they saw me make my nails,

turn the shoes and neatly put them on. In due time the horse was shod,

and I led him to the Warden for inspection; and before him and an

officer who stood by him, I led the horse up and down to show that he

did not interfere. The Warden’s delight was unbounded; he never saw such

a set of shoes; he declared that they fitted as if they had grown to the

horse’s hoofs. I need not say that from that day till the day I left the

prison, I had everything I wanted from the Warden’s own table; I fared

as well as he did, and had favors innumerable.

About once a month I shod that horse, little thinking that he was to

carry me over my three years’ imprisonment in just half that time. Yet

so it was. For talking now almost daily, in the hospital or in the

yard, with the Warden, he became interested in me, and in answer to his

inquiries I told him the whole story of my persecution, as I considered

it, my trial and my unjust and severe sentence. When he had heard all he

said:

“You ought not to be here another day; you ought to go out.”

The good chaplain also interested himself in my case, and after hearing

the story, he and the Warden took a lawyer named Bemis, into their

counsel, laid the whole matter before him and asked his opinion. Mr.

Bemis, after hearing all the circumstances, expressed the belief that I

might get a pardon. He entered into the matter with his whole heart. He

sent for my son Henry and my first wife, and they came and corroborated

my statement about the mutual agreement for separation, and told how

long we had been parted. Mr. Bemis and they then went to Governor

Briggs, and told him the story, and that I had served out half of

my severe sentence, and pressed for a pardon. The Governor after due

deliberation consented to their request. They came back to Charlestown

with the joyful intelligence. Warden Robinson advised my son, that

considering my present mental and physical condition, he had better

break the intelligence gradually to me, and so Henry came to me and

said, simply, that he thought he would soon have “good news” for me. The

next day I was told that my pardon was certain. The day following, at 12

o’clock, I walked out, after eighteen months’ imprisonment, a free man.

I was in the streets of Charlestown with my own clothes on and five

dollars, given to me by the Warden, in my pocket, I was poor, truly, but

I was at liberty, and that for the day was enough.

CHAPTER III. THE SCHEIMER SENSATION.

THE SCHEIMER FAMILY--IN LOVE WITH SARAH--ATTEMPT TO ELOPE--HOW IT WAS

PREVENTED--THE SECOND ATTEMPT--A MIDNIGHT EXPEDITION--THE ALARM--A

FRIGHTFUL BEATING--ESCAPE--FLOGGING THE DEVIL OUT OF SARAH--WINTER IN

NEW HAMPSHIRE--RETURN TO NEW JERSEY--“BOSTON YANKEE”--PLANS TO SECURE

SARAH.

I went at once to the Prisoners Home, where I was kindly received, and

I stayed there two days. The superintendent then paid my passage to

Pittsfield where I wished to go and meet my son. From Pittsfield I went

to Albany, then New York, and from there to Newtown N. J. Here I went

into practice, meeting with almost immediate success, and staid there

two months. It was my habit to go from town to town to attend to cases

of a certain class and to sell my vegetable preparations; and from

Newtown I went to Belvidere, stopping at intermediate towns on the way,

and from Belvidere I went to Harmony, a short distance below, to attend

a case of white swelling, which I cured.

Now just across the Delaware river, nine miles above Easton, Penn.,

lived a wealthy Dutch farmer, named Scheimer, who heard of the cure

I had effected in Harmony, and as he had a son, sixteen years of age,

afflicted in the same way, he sent for me to come and see him. I crossed

the river, saw the boy, and at Scheimer’s request took up my residence

with him to attend to the case. He was to give me, with my board, five

hundred dollars if I cured the boy; but though the boy recovered under

my treatment, I never received my fee for reasons which will appear

anon. I secured some other practice in the neighborhood, and frequently

visited Easton, Belvidere, Harmony, Oxford, and other near by places, on

either side of the river.

The Scheimer family consisted of the “old folks” and four sons and four

daughters, the children grown up, for my patient, sixteen years old, was

the youngest. The youngest daughter, Sarah, eighteen years old, was an

accomplished and beautiful girl. Now it would seem as if with my

sad experience I ought by this time, to have turned my back on women

forever. But I think I was a monomaniac on the subject of matrimony.

My first wife had so misused me that it was always in my mind that

some reparation was due me, and that I was fairly entitled to a good

helpmate. The ill-success of my efforts, hitherto, to secure one,

and my consequent sufferings were all lost upon me--experience, bitter

experience, had taught me nothing.

I had not been in the Scheimer family three months before I fell in love

with the daughter Sarah and she returned my passion. She promised to

marry me, but said there was no use in saying anything to her parents

about it; they would never consent on account of the disparity in

our ages, for I was then forty years old; but she would marry me

nevertheless, if we had to run away together. Meanwhile, the old

folks had seen enough of our intimacy to suspect that it might lead to

something yet closer, and one day Mr. Scheimer invited me to leave his

house and not to return. I asked for one last interview with Sarah,

which was accorded, and we then arranged a plan by which she should meet

me the next afternoon at four o’clock at the Jersey ferry, a mile below

the house, when we proposed to quietly cross over to Belvidere and get

married. I then took leave of her and the family and went away.

The next day, at the appointed time, I was at the ferry--Sarah, as I

learned afterwards, left the house at a much earlier hour to “take a

walk” and while she was, foolishly I think, making a circuitous route

to reach the ferry, her father, who suspected that she intended to run

away, went to the ferryman and told him his suspicions, directing him

if Sarah came there by no means to permit her to cross the river.

Consequently when Sarah met me at the ferry, the ferryman flatly refused

to let either of us go over. He knew all about it, he said, and it was

“no go.” I had two hundred dollars in my pocket and I offered him any

reasonable sum, if he would only let us cross; but no, he knew the

Scheimers better than he knew me, and their goodwill was worth more

than mine. Here was a block to the game, indeed. I had sent my baggage

forward in the morning to Belvidere; Sarah had nothing but the clothes

she wore, for she was so carefully watched that she could carry or send

nothing away; but she was ready to go if the obstinate ferryman had not

prevented us.

While we were pressing the ferryman to favor us, down came one of

Sarah’s brothers with a dozen neighbors, and told her she must return

home or he would carry her back by force. I interfered and said she

should not go. Whereupon one fellow took hold of me and I promptly

knocked him down, and notified the crowd that the first who laid hands

on me, or who attempted to take her home violently, would get a dose

from my pistol which I then exhibited:

“Sarah must go willingly or not at all,” said I.

The production of my pistol, the only weapon in the crowd, brought about

a new state of affairs, and the brother and others tried persuasion; but

Sarah stoutly insisted that she would not return. “Now hold on,” boys,

said I, “I am going to say something to her.” I then took her aside and

told her that there was no use in trying to run away then; that she had

better go home quietly, and tell the folks that she was sorry for what

she had done, that she had broken off with me, and would have nothing

more to do with me; that I would surely see her to-morrow, and then we

could make a new plan. So she announced her willingness to go quietly

home with her brother and she did so. I went to a public house half a

mile below the ferry. That night the gang came down to this house with

the intention of driving me away from the place, or, possibly, of doing

something worse; but while they were howling outside, the landlord sent

me to my room and then went out and told the crowd I had gone away.

The next morning I boldly walked up to Scheimer’s house to get a few

books and other things I had left there, and I saw Sarah. I told her

to be ready on the following Thursday night and I would have a ladder

against her window for her to escape by. She promised to be ready.

Meantime, though I had been in the house but a few minutes, some one who

had seen me go in gathered the crowd of the day before, and the first

thing I knew the house was beseiged. Mrs. Scheimer had gone up stairs

for my things. I went out and faced the little mob. I was told to leave

the place or they would kill me. One of Sarah’s brothers ran into the

house, brought out a musket and aimed it at me; but it missed fire. I

drew my pistol the crowd keeping well away then, and told him that if he

did not instantly bring that musket to me I would shoot him. He brought

it, and I threw it over the fence, Sarah crying out from the window,

“good! good!” The mob then turned and abused and blackguarded her. Then

the old lady came out, bringing a carpet bag containing my books and

things, asking me to see if “it was all right.” I had no disposition

to stop and examine just then; I told the mob I had no other business

there; that I was going away, and to my surprise, I confess, I was

permitted to leave the place unmolested.

It is quite certain the ferryman made no objection to my crossing, and

I went to Belvidere where I remained quietly till the appointed Thursday

night, when I started with a trusty man for Scheimer’s. We timed our

journey so as to arrive there at one o’clock in the morning. Ever since

her attempt to elope, Sarah had been watched night and day, and to

prevent her abduction by me, Mr. Scheimer had two or three men in the

house to stand guard at night. Sarah was locked in her room, which is

precisely what we had provided for, for no one in the house supposed

that she could escape by the window. There was a big dog on the

premises, but he and I were old friends, and he seemed very glad to see

me when I came on the ground on this eventful night. Sarah was watching,

and when I made the signal she opened the window and threw out her ready

prepared bundle. Then my man and I set the ladder and she came safely

to the ground. A moment more and we would have stolen away, when, as ill

luck would have it, the ladder fell with a great crash, and the infernal

dog, that a moment before seemed almost in our confidence, set up a howl

and then barked loud enough to wake the dead.

Forthwith issued from the house old Scheimer, two of his sons and his

hired guard--a half dozen in all. There was a time then. The girl was

instantly seized and taken into the house. Then all hands fell upon us

two, and though I and my man fought our best they managed to pound us

nearly to death. The dog, too, in revenge no doubt for the scare the

ladder had given him, or perhaps to show his loyalty to his master,

assisted in routing us, and put in a bite where he could. It is a wonder

we were not killed. Sarah, meanwhile, was calling out from the house,

and imploring them not to murder us. How we ever got away I hardly know

now, but presently we found ourselves in the road running for our lives,

and running also for the carriage we had concealed in the woods, half

a mile above. We reached it, and hastily unhitching and getting in we

drove rapidly for the bridge crossing over to Belvidere. That beautiful

August night had very few charms for us. It would have been different

indeed if I had succeeded in securing my Sarah; and to think of having

the prize in my very grasp, and the losing all!

We reached the hotel in Belvidere at about half-past two o’clock in

the morning, wearied, worn, bruised and disheartened. My man had not

suffered nearly as severely as I had; the bulk of their blows fell upon

me, and I had the sorest body and the worst looking face I had ever

exhibited. I rested one day and then hurried on to New York. Of course,

I had no means of knowing the feelings or condition of the loved girl

from whom I had been so suddenly and so violently parted. I only learned

from an Easton man whom I knew and whom I met in the city, that “Sarah

Scheimer was sick”--that was all; the man said he did’nt know the family

very well, but he had heard that Miss Scheimer had been “out of her

head, if not downright crazy.”

Crazy indeed! How mad and how miserable that poor girl was made by her

own family, I did not know till months afterward, and then I had the

terrible story from her own lips. It seems that when her father and his

gang returned from pursuing me, as they did a little way up the road

towards Belvidere, they found her almost frantic. They locked her up in

her room that night with no one to say so much as a kind word to her.

How she passed that night, after the scenes she had witnessed, and the

abuse with which her father and brothers had loaded her before they

thrust her into her prison, may be imagined. The next day she was

wrought up to a frenzy. Her parents pronounced her insane, and called in

a Dutch doctor who examined her and said she was “bewitched!” And this

is the remedy he proposed as a cure; he advised that she should be

soundly flogged, and the devil whipped out of her. Her family, intensely

angered at her for the trouble she had made them, or rather had caused

them to make for themselves, were only too glad to accept the advice.

The old man and two sons carried a sore bruise or two apiece they got

from me the night before, and seized the opportunity to pay them off

upon her. So they stripped her bare, and flogged her till her back was a

mass of welts and cuts, and then put her to bed. That bed she never left

for two months, and then came out the shadow of her former self. But the

Dutch doctor declared that the devil was whipped out of her, and that

she was entirely cured. A few months afterward the family had the best

of reasons for believing that they had whipped the devil into her,

instead of out of her.

After staying in New York a few days, I went to Dover, N.H., where I had

some acquaintances, and where I hoped to get into a medical practice,

which, with the help of my friends, I did very soon. I lived quietly in

that place all winter, earning a good living and laying by some money.

During the whole time I never heard a word from Sarah. I wrote at least

fifty letters to her, but as I learned afterward, and, indeed, surmised

at the time, every one of them was intercepted by her father or

brothers, and she did not know where I was and so could not write to me.

I left Dover in May and went down to New York. I had some business

there which was soon transacted, and early in June I went over to New

Jersey--to Oxford, a small place near Belvidere.

This place I meant to make my base of operations for the new campaign I

had been planning all winter. I “put up” at a public house kept by a man

who was known in the region round about as the “Boston Yankee,” for he

migrated from Boston to New Jersey and was doing a thriving business

at hotel keeping in Oxford. What a thorough good-fellow he was will

presently appear. I had been in the hotel four days and had become

pretty intimate with the landlord before I ventured to make inquiries

about what I was most anxious to learn; but finally I asked him if he

knew the Scheimers over the river? He looked at me in a very comical

way, and then broke out:

“Well, I declare, I thought I knew you, you’re the chap that tried to

run away with old Scheimer’s daughter Sarah, last August; and you’re

down here to get her this time, if you can.”

I owned up to my identity, but warned Boston Yankee that if he told any

one who I was, or that I was about there, I’d blow his brains out.

“You keep cool,” said he, “don’t you be uneasy; I’m your friend and the

gal’s friend, and I’ll help you both all I can; and if you want to carry

off Sarah Scheimer and marry her, I’ll tell you how to work it. You see

she has been watched as closely as possible all winter, ever since she

got well, for she was crazy-like, awhile. Well, you could’n’t get nearer

to her, first off, than you could to the North Pole; but do you remember

Mary Smith who was servant gal, there when you boarded with Scheimer?” I

remembered the girl well and told him so, and he continued: “Well, I saw

her the other day, and she told me she was living in Easton, and where

she could be found; now, I’ll give you full directions and do you take

my horse and buggy to-morrow morning early and go down and see her, and

get her to go over and let Sarah know that you’re round; meantime I’ll

keep dark; I know my business and you know yours.”

I need not say how overjoyed I was to find this new and most unexpected

friend, and how gratefully I accepted his offer. He gave me the street,

house and number where Mary Smith lived and during the evening we

planned together exactly how the whole affair was to be managed, from

beginning to end. I went to bed, but could scarcely sleep; and all night

long I was agitated by alternate hopes and fears for the success of the

scheme of to-morrow.

CHAPTER IV. SUCCESS WITH SARAH.

MARY SMITH AS A CONFEDERATE--THE PLOT--WAITING IN THE WOODS--THE

SPY OUTWITTED--SARAH SECURED--THE PURSUERS BAFFLED--NIGHT ON THE

ROAD--EFFORTS TO GET MARRIED--THE “OLD OFFENDER” MARRIED AT LAST--A

CONSTABLE AFTER SARAH--HE GIVES IT UP--AN ALE ORGIE--RETURN TO “BOSTON

YANKEE’S”--A HOME IN GOSHEN.

It was Saturday morning, and after an early breakfast I was on the road

with Boston Yankee’s fast horse; towards Easton. On my arrival there I

had no difficulty in finding Mary Smith, who recognized me at once, and

was very glad to see me. She knew I had come there to learn something

about Sarah; she had seen her only a week ago; she was well again, and

the girls had talked together about me. This was pleasant to hear, and

I at once proposed to Mary to go to Scheimer’s and tell Sarah that I

was there; I would give her ten dollars if she would go. “O! she would

gladly serve us both for nothing.”

So she made herself ready, got into the buggy, and we started for

Scheimer’s. When we were well on the road I said to her:

“Now, Mary, attend carefully to what I say: you will need to be very

cautious in breaking the news to Sarah that I am here; she has already

suffered a great deal on my account, and may be very timid about my

being in the neighborhood; but if she still loves me as you say she

does, she will run any risk to see me, and, if I know her, she will be

glad to go away with me. Now, this is what you must do; you must see her

alone and tell her my plan; here, take this diamond ring; she knows it

well; manage to let her see it on your finger; then tell her that if

she is willing to leave home and marry me, I will be in the woods half a

mile above her house to-morrow afternoon at 5 o’clock, with a horse

and buggy ready to carry her to Belvidere. If she will not, or dare not

come, give her the ring, and tell her we part, good friends, forever.”

It was a beautiful afternoon as we drove along the road. We talked about

Sarah and old times, and I made her repeat my instructions over and

over again and she promised to convey every word to Sarah. We neared

Scheimer’s house about six o’clock, and when we were a little way from

there I told Mary to get out, so as to excite no suspicions as to who I

was; she did so, and I waited till I saw her go into the house, and then

drove rapidly by towards the Belvidere bridge, and was safely at Oxford

by nightfall. I told my friend, the landlord, what I had done, and he

said that everything was well planned. He also promised to go with me

next day to assist me if necessary, and, said he:

“If everything is all right, do you carry off the girl and I’ll walk

up to Belvidere; but don’t bring Sarah this way--head toward Water Gap.

When you’re married fast and sure, you can come back here as leisurely

as you’re a mind to, and nobody can lay a hand upon you or her.”

We arranged some other minor details of our expedition and I went to

bed.

The next afternoon at four o’clock I was at the appointed place, and

Boston Yankee was with me. I did not look for Sarah before five o’clock,

so we tied our horse and kept a good watch upon the road. An hour went

by and no Sarah appeared. I told Boston Yankee I did not believe she

would come.

“Don’t be impatient; wait a little longer,” said my friend.

In twenty minutes we saw emerge, not from Scheimer’s house, but from his

eldest son’s house, which was still nearer to the place where we were

waiting, three women, two of whom I recognized as Sarah and Mary, and

the third I did not know, nor could I imagine why she was with the other

two; but as I saw them, leaving Boston Yankee in the woods, I drove the

horse down into the road. As Sarah drew near she kissed her hand to me

and came up to the wagon. “Are you ready to go with me?” I asked. “I

am, indeed,” was her reply, and I put out my hand to help her into the

buggy. But the third woman caught hold of her dress, tried to prevent

her from getting in, and began to scream so as to attract attention at

Sarah’s brother’s house. I told the woman to let her go, and threatened

her with my whip. “Get away,” shouted Boston Yankee, who had come upon

the scene. “Drive as fast as you can; never mind if you kill the horse.”

We started; the woman still shouting for help, and I drove on as rapidly

as the horse would go. When we had gone on a mile or two, I asked

Sarah what all this meant? She told me that the woman was her brother’s

servant; that Mary and herself left her father’s house a little after

four o’clock to go over and call at her brother’s; that just before

five, when she was to meet me, she and Mary proposed to go out for a

walk; that the whole family watched her constantly, and so her brother’s

wife told the servant woman to get on her things and go with them.

“You, may be sure,” she, added, “that the woman will arouse the whole

neighborhood, and that they will all be after us.” I needed no further

hint to push on. We were going toward Water Gap, as Boston Yankee had

advised, and when we were about eight miles on the way, I deemed it

prudent to drive into the woods and to wait till night before going on.

We drove in just off the road, and tied our horse. We were effectually

concealed; our pursuers, if there were any, would be sure to go by us,

and meantime we could talk over our plans for the future. Sarah told me

that when Mary came to the house the night before, she was not at all

surprised to see her, as she occasionally came up from Easton to

make them a little visit, and to stay all night; that she went to the

summer-house with Mary to sit down and talk, and almost immediately saw

the ring on Mary’s finger; that when she saw it she at once recognized

it, and asked her: “O! Mary, where did you get that ring?” “Keep

quiet,” said Mary: “don’t talk loud, or some one may hear you; don’t

be agitated; your lover is near, and has sent me to tell you.” It was

joyful news to Sarah, and how readily she had acquiesced in my plan for

an elopement was manifest in the fact that she was then by my side.

We bad not been in the woods an hour when, as I anticipated, we heard

our pursuers, we did not know how many there were, drive rapidly by.

“Now we can go on, I suppose,” said Sarah. “Oh no, my dear,” I replied,

“now is just the time to wait quietly here;” and wait we did till eight

o’clock, when our pursuers, having gone on a few miles, and having seen

or learned nothing of the fugitives, came by again “on the back track.”

They must have thought we had turned off into some other road. I waited

a while longer to let our friend’s get a little nearer home and further

away from us, and then took the road again toward Water Gap.

We reached Water Gap at midnight, had some supper and fed the horse. We

rested awhile, and then drove leisurely on nine miles further, where we

waited till daylight and crossed the river. We were in no great hurry

now; we were comparatively safe from pursuit. We soon came to a public

house, where we stopped and put out the horse, intending to take

breakfast. While I was inquiring of the landlord if there was a justice

of the peace in the neighborhood, the landlord’s wife had elicited from

Sarah the fact of our elopement, who she was, who her folks were, and so

on. The well-meaning landlady advised Sarah to go back home and get

her parents consent before she married. Sarah suggested that the very

impossibility of getting such consent was the reason for her running

away; nor did it appear how she was to go back home alone even if she

desired to. We saw that we could get no help there, so I countermanded

my order for breakfast, offering at the same time to pay for it as if we

had eaten it, ordered out my horse and drove on. After riding some

ten miles we arrived at another public house on the road, and as the

landlord come out to the door I immediately asked him where I could

find a justice of the peace? He laughed, for he at once comprehended the

whole situation, and said:

“Well, well! I am an old offender myself; I ran away with my wife; there

is a justice of the peace two miles from here, and if you’ll come in

I’ll have him here within an hour.”

We had reached the right place at last, for while the landlady was

getting breakfast for us, and doing her best to make us comfortable and

happy, the Old Offender himself took his horse and carriage and went for

the justice. By the time we had finished our breakfast he was back

with him, and Sarah and I were married in “less than no time,” the Old

Offender and his wife singing the certificate as witnesses. I never

paid a fee more gladly. We were married now, and all the Scheimers in

Pennsylvania were welcome to come and see us if they pleased.

No Scheimers came that day; but the day following came a deputation from

that family, some half dozen delegates, and with them a constable from

Easton, with a warrant to arrest Sarah for something--I never knew

what--but at any rate he was to take her home if necessary by force. The

Old Offender declined to let these people into his house; Sarah told me

to keep out of the way and she would see what was wanted. Whereupon she

boldly went to the door and greeted those of her acquaintances who were

in the party. The constable knew her, and told her he had come to take

her home. “But what if I refuse to go?” “Well then, I have a warrant

to take you; but if you are married, I have no power over you.” Well

married I am, said Sarah, and she produced the certificate, and the

Old Offender and his wife came out and declared that they witnessed the

ceremony.

What was to be done? evidently nothing; only the constable ordered a

whole barrel of ale to treat his posse and any one about tire town who

chose to drink, and the barrel was rolled out on the grass, tapped, and

for a half hour there was a great jollification, which was not exactly

in honor of our wedding, but which afforded the greatest gratification

to the constable, his retainers, and those who happened to gather to see

what was going on. This ended, and the bill paid, the Easton delegation

got into their wagons and turned their horses heads towards home.

We passed three delightful days under the Old Offender’s roof, and

then thanking our host for his kindness to us, and paying our bill, we

started on our return journey for Oxford. We arrived safely, and staid

with Boston Yankee a fortnight. We were close by the Scheimer homestead,

which was but a few miles away across the river; but we feared neither

father nor brothers, nor even the woman who was so unwilling to let

Sarah go with me. The constable, and the rest had carried home the news

of our marriage, and the old folks made the best of it. Indeed, after

they heard we had returned to Oxford, Sarah’s mother sent a man over to

tell her that if she would come home any day she could pack her clothes

and other things, and take them away with her. The day after we received

this invitation, Boston Yankee offered to take Sarah over home, and

promised to bring her safely back. So she went, was treated tolerably

well, at any rate, she secured her clothes and brought them home with

her.

It was now time to bid farewell to our staunch friend, Boston Yankee. I

had inducements to go to Goshen, Orange County, N. Y., where I had many

acquaintances, and to Goshen we went. We found a good boarding place,

and I began to practice medicine, After we had been there a while, Sarah

wrote home to let her family know where she was, and that she was well

and happy. Her father wrote in reply that we both might come there at

any time, and that if she would come home he would do as well by her as

he would by any of his children. This letter made Sarah uneasy. In spite

of all the ill usage she had received from her parents and family, she

was nevertheless homesick, and longed to get back again. I could see

that this feeling grew upon her daily. We were pleasantly situated

where we were; I had a good and growing practice, and we had made many

friends; but this did not satisfy her; she had some property in her own

right, but her father was trustee of it, and he had hitherto kept it

away from her from spite at her love affair with me. But now she was to

be taken into favor again, and she represented to me that we could go

back and get her money, and that I could establish myself there as well

as anywhere; we could live well and happily among her friends and old

associations. These things were dinged in my ears day after day, till I

was sick of the very sound. I could see that she was bound, or, as the

Dutch doctor would have said, “bewitched” to go back, and at last, after

five happy months in Goshen, in an evil hour I consented to go home with

her.

CHAPTER V. HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER.

RETURN TO SCHEIMER--PEACE AND THEN PANDEMONIUM--FRIGHTFUL FAMILY

ROW--RUNNING FOR REFUGE--THE GANG AGAIN--ARREST AT MIDNIGHT--STRUGGLE

WITH MY CAPTORS--IN JAIL ONCE MORE--PUT IN IRONS--A HORRIBLE PRISON

BREAKING OUT--THE DUNGEON--SARAH’S BABY--CURIOUS COMPROMISES--OLD

SCHEIMER MY JAILER--SIGNING A BOND--FREE AGAIN--LAST WORDS FROM SARAH.

We went back to the Scheimer homestead and were favorably received.

There was no special enthusiasm over our return, no marked

demonstrations of delight; but they seemed glad to see us, and all the

unpleasant things of the past, if not forgotten, were tacitly ignored

on all sides. We passed a pleasant evening together in what seemed a

re-united family circle--one of the brothers only was absent--and next

morning we met cordially around the breakfast table. I really began to

think it was possible that all the old difficulties might be healed, and

that the pleasant picture Sarah painted, at Goshen, about settling down

happily in Pennsylvania, could be fully realized.

After breakfast I took a conveyance to go three or four miles to see a

man who owed me some money for medical services in his family, and was

away from Scheimer’s three or four hours. During this brief absence I

could not help thinking with genuine satisfaction of the happiness Sarah

was experiencing in the gratification of her longing to return home

again. Surely, I thought, she must be happy now. No more homesickness,

and a full and complete reconciliation with her family; all the anger,

abuse, and blows forgotten or forgiven; she restored to her place in the

family; and even her objectionable husband received with open arms.

But what an enormous difference there is between fancy and fact. During

this brief absence of mine, had come home the brother who had always

seemed to concentrate the hatred of the whole family towards me for the

wrong they assumed I had done to the youngest daughter who loved me.

On my return I found the peaceful home I left in the morning a perfect

pandemonium. Sarah was fairly frantic. The whole family were abusing

her. The returned brother especially, was calling her all the vile names

he could lay his tongue to. I learned afterwards that he had been doing

it ever since he came into the house that day and found her at home and

heard that I was with her. They had picked, wrenched rather, out of her

the secret I had confided to her that I had another wife from whom I was

“separated,” but not divorced. My sudden presence on this scene was not

exactly oil on troubled waters; it was gunpowder to fire. As soon as

Sarah saw me at the door she cried out:

“O! husband, let us go away from here.”

Her mother turned and shouted at me that I had better fly at once or

they would kill me. Meanwhile, that mob, which the Scheimer boys seemed

always to have at hand, was gathering in the dooryard. I managed to get

near enough to Sarah to tell her that I would send a man for her next

day, and then if she was willing to come with me she must get away

from her family if possible. I then made a rush through the crowd, and

reached the road. I think the gang had an indistinct knowledge of the

situation, or they would have mobbed me, and perhaps killed me. They

knew something was “to pay” at Scheimer’s, but did not know exactly

what. Once on the road it was my intention to have gone over to

Belvidere, and then on to Oxford, where I should have found a sure

refuge with my friend Boston Yankee.

Would that I had done so; but I was a fool; I thought I could be of

service to Sarah by remaining near her; might see her next day; I might

even be able to get her out of the house, and then we could once more

elope together and go back again to Goshen where we had been so happy.

So I went to a public house three miles above Scheimer’s, and remained

there quietly during the rest of the day, revolving plans for the

deliverance of Sarah. I thought only of her. It is strange that I did

not once realize what a perilous position I was in myself--that, firmly

as I believed myself to be wedded to Sarah, I was in fact amenable to

the law, and liable to arrest and punishment. All this never occurred to

me. I saw one or two of the gang who were at Scheimer’s about the hotel,

but they did not offer to molest me, and I paid no particular attention

to them. I did not know then that they were spies and were watching my

movements. At nine o’clock I went to bed. At midnight, or thereabouts,

I was roughly awakened and told to get up. Without waiting for me,

to comply, five men who had entered my room pulled me out of bed, and

almost before I could huddle on my clothes I was handcuffed. Then one of

them, who said he was a constable from Easton, showed a warrant for my

arrest. What the arrest was for I was not informed. I was taken down

stairs, put into a wagon, the men followed, and the horses started in

the direction of Easton. By Scheimer’s on the way, and I could see a

light in Sarah’s window. I remembered how in, all the Bedlam in

the house that morning she still cried out: “I will go with him.” I

remembered how, only a few months before, she had been brutally flogged

in that very chamber, to “get the devil out of her.” I remembered, too,

the many happy, happy hours we had passed together. And here was I,

handcuffed and dragged in a wagon, I knew not whither.

This for thoughts--in the way of action, was all the while trying to

get my handcuffs off, and at last I succeeded in getting one hand free.

Waiting my opportunity till we came to a piece of woods, I suddenly

jumped up and sprang from the wagon. It was a very dark night, and in

running into the woods I struck against a tree with such force as

to knock me down and nearly stun me. Two of the men were on me in an

instant. After a brief struggle I managed to get away and ran again. I

should have escaped, only a high rail fence brought me to a sudden stop,

and I was too exhausted to climb over it. My pursuers who were hard at

my heels the whole while now laid hold of me. In the subsequent struggle

I got out my pocket knife, and stabbed one of them, cutting his arm

badly. Then they overpowered me. They dragged me to the roadside,

brought a rope out of the wagon, bound my arms and legs, and so at last

carried me to Easton.

It was nearly daylight when I was thrust into jail. There were no cells,

only large rooms for a dozen or more men, and I was put, into one of

these with several prisoners who were awaiting trial, or who had been

tried and were there till they could be sent to prison. It was a day

or two before I found out what I was there for. Then a Dutch Deputy

Sheriff, who was also keeper of the jail, came and told me that I was

held for bigamy, adding the consoling intelligence that it would be a

very hard job for me, and that I would get five or six years in State

prison sure. I was well acquainted in Easton, and I sent for lawyer

Litgreave for assistance and advice. I sent also to my half-sister in

Delaware County, N. Y., and in a day or two she came and saw me, and

gave Mr. Litgreave one hundred dollars retaining fee. My lawyer went to

see the Scheimers and when he returned he told me that he hoped to save

me from State prison--at all events he would exercise the influence he

had over the family to that end; but I must expect to remain in jail a

long time. Precisely what this meant I did not know then; but I found

out afterwards.

Soon after this visit from the lawyer, the Deputy Sheriff came in and

said that he was ordered “by the Judge” to iron me, and it was done.

They were heavy leg-irons weighing full twelve pounds, and I may say

here that I wore them during the whole term of my imprisonment in this

jail, or rather they wore me--wearing their way in time almost into

the bone. I had been here a week now, and was well acquainted with the

character of the place. It was indescribably filthy; no pretence was

made of cleansing it. The prisoners were half fed, and, at that, the

food was oftentimes so vile that starving men rejected it. The deputy

who kept the jail was cruel and malignant, and took delight in torturing

his prisoners. He would come in sometimes under pretence of looking at

my irons to see if they were safe, and would twist and turn them about

so that I suffered intolerable pain, and blood flowed from my wounds

made by these cruel irons. Such abuse as he could give with his tongue

he dispensed freely. Of course he was a coward, and he never dared to

come into one of the prisoner’s rooms unless he was armed. This is a

faithful photograph of the interior of the jail at Easton, Penn., as

it was a few years ago; there may have been some improvement since that

time; for the sake of humanity, I hope there has been.

After I had been in this jail about six weeks, and had become well

acquainted with my room-mates, I communicated to them one day, the

result of my observation:

“There,” said I, showing them a certain place in the wall, “is a loose

stone that with a little labor can be lifted out, and it will leave a

hole large enough for us to get out of and go where we like.”

Examination elicited a unanimous verdict in favor of making the attempt.

With no tools but a case knife we dug out the mortar on all sides of the

stone doing the work by turns and covering the stone by hanging up an

old blanket--which excited no suspicion, as it was at the head of one of

the iron bedsteads--whenever the Deputy or any of his men were likely to

visit us. In twelve days we completed the work, and could lift out the

stone. The hole was large enough to let a man through, and there was

nothing for us to do but to crawl out one after the other and drop down

a few feet into the yard. This yard was surrounded by a board fence that

could be easily surmounted. I intended to take the lead, after taking

off my irons (which I had learned to do, and indeed, did every day,

putting them on only when I was liable to be “inspected”) and after

leaving these irons at the Deputy’s door, I intended to put myself on

the Jersey side of the river as speedily as possible.

Liberty was within reach of every man in that room, and the night was

set for the escape. But one of the crowd turned traitor, and, under

pretence, of speaking to the Deputy about some matter, managed to be

called out of the room and disclosed the whole. The man was waiting

transportation to prison to serve out a sentence of ten years, and,

with the chance of escape before him, it seemed singular that he should

reveal a plan which promised to give him liberty; but probably he

feared a failure; or that he might be recaptured and his prison sentence

increased; while on the other hand by disclosing the plot he could

curry favor enough to get his term reduced, and perhaps he might gain a

pardon. Any how, he betrayed us. The Deputy came in and found the stone

in the condition described, and forthwith we were all removed to the

dungeon, or dark room, and kept there on bread and water for twelve

days. We heard afterwards that our betrayer did get five years less than

his original sentence for subjecting his comrades in misery to twelve

days of almost indescribable suffering. We were not only in a totally

dark and frightfully filthy hole, but we were half starved, and the

Deputy daily took delight in taunting us with our sufferings.

At the end of the twelve days we were taken back to the old room where

we found the stone securely fastened in with irons. Moreover, we were

now under stricter observation, and at stated hours every day, an

inspector came in and examined the walls. This soon wore off, however,

and when the inspection was finally abandoned, about two months from the

time of our first attempt, we managed to find another place in the old

wall where we could dig out and we went to work. We were a fortnight at

it, and had nearly completed our labor when we were discovered.

This time we spent fourteen days in the dungeon for our pains.

And now comes an extraordinary disclosure with regard to my

imprisonment. A few days after my removal from the dungeon to the old

quarters again, the Deputy, in one of his rare periods of what, with

him, passed for good humor, informed me that Sarah had been confined,

and had given birth to a fine boy; that she was crying for my release;

that Lawyer Sitgreave was interceding for me; but that the old man

Scheimer was still obstinate and would not let me out. Passing over

my feelings with regard to the birth of my son, here was a revelation

indeed! It will be remembered that I had only been told that I was under

indictment for bigamy. I had never been brought before a justice for

a preliminary examination; never bound over for trial; and now it

transpired that old Scheimer, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, had the

power to put me in jail, put me in irons, and subject me to long months,

perhaps years of imprisonment. I had something to occupy my thoughts

now, and for the remaining period of my jail life.

Next came a new dodge of the Scheimers, the object of which was to show

that Sarah’s marriage to me was no marriage at all, thus leaving her

free to marry any other man her family might force upon her. When I had

been in jail seven months, one day the Deputy came in and said that he

was going to take off my irons. I told him I wouldn’t trouble him to

do that, for though I had worn them when he and his subordinates were

around till the irons had nearly killed me, yet at other times I had

been in a habit of taking them off at pleasure; and to prove it, I sat

down and in a few minutes handed him the irons. The man was amazed; but

saying nothing about the irons, he approached me on another subject. He

said he thought if I would sign an acknowledgment that I was a married

man when I married Sarah Scheimer, and would leave the State forever, I

could get out of jail; would I do it? I told him I would give no answer

till I had seen my counsel.

Well, the next day Lawyer Sitgreave came to me and told me I had better

do it, and I consented. Shortly afterwards, I was taken to court, for

the first time in this whole affair, and was informed by the judge that

if I would sign a bond not to go near the Scheimer house or family he

would discharge me. I signed such a bond, and the judge then told me I

was discharged; but that I ought to have gone to State prison for ten

years for destroying the peace and happiness of the Scheimer family.

Truly the Scheimer family were a power, indeed, in that part of the

country!

My lawyer gave me five dollars and I went to Harmony and staid that

night. The next day I went to an old friend of mine, a Methodist

minister, and persuaded him to go over and see what Sarah Scheimer’s

feelings were towards me, and if she was willing to come to me with our

child. He went over there, but the old Scheimers suspected his errand,

and watched him closely to see that he held no communication with Sarah.

He did, however, have an opportunity to speak to her, and she sent me

word that if she could ever get her money and get away from her parents,

she would certainly join me in any part of the world. I was warned, at

the same time, not to come near the house, for fear that her father or

some of her brothers would kill me.

CHAPTER VI. FREE LIFE AND FISHING.

TAKING CARE OF CRAZY MEN--CARRYING OFF A BOY--ARRESTED FOR STEALING MY

OWN HORSE AND BUGGY--FISHING IN LAKE WINNIPISEOGEE--AN ODD LANDLORD--A

WOMAN AS BIG AS A HOGSHEAD--REDUCING THE HOGSHEAD TO A BARREL--WONDERFUL

VERIFICATION OF A DREAM--SUCCESSFUL MEDICAL PRACTICE--A BUSY WINTER

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE--BLANDISHMENTS OF CAPTAIN BROWN--I GO TO NEWARK, NEW

JERSEY.

The next day I left Harmony and walked to Port Jarvis, on the Erie

Railroad, N. Y., arriving late at night, and entirely footsore, sick,

and disheartened. I went to the hotel, and the next morning I found

myself seriously sick. Asking advice, I was directed to the house of

a widow, who promised to nurse and take care of me. I was ill for two

weeks, and meantime, my half-sister in Delaware County, to whom I

made known my condition, sent me money for my expenses, and when I

had sufficiently recovered to travel, I went to this sister’s house in

Sidney, and there I remained several days, till I was quite well and

strong again.

Casting about for something to do, a friend told me that he knew of

an opportunity for a good man at Newbury to take care of a young man,

eighteen years of age, who was insane. I went there and saw his father,

and he put him under my charge. I had the care of him four months, and

during the last two months of the time I traveled about with him,

and returned him, finally, to his friends in a materially improved

condition. The friends of another insane man in Montgomery, near

Newbury, hearing of my success with this young man, sent for me to come

and see them. I went there and found a man who had been insane seven

years, but who was quiet and well-behaved, only he was “out of his

head.” I engaged to do what I could for him. The father of my Newbury

patient had paid me well, and with my medical practice and the sale of

medicines in traveling about, I had accumulated several hundred dollars,

and when I went to Montgomery I had a good horse and buggy which cost me

five hundred dollars. So, when my new patient had been under my care and

control two months, I proposed that he should travel about with me in my

buggy, and visit various parts of the State in the immediate vicinity.

His friends thought well of the suggestion, and we traveled in this way

about four months, stopping a few days here and there, when I practiced

where I could, and sold medicines, making some money. At the end of

this time I went back to Montgomery with my patient, as I think, fully

restored, and his father, besides, paying the actual expenses of our

journey, gave me six hundred dollars.

Returning to Sidney I learned that my first and worst wife was then

living with the children at Unadilla, a few miles across the river in

Otsego County. I had no desire to see her, but I heard at the same time

that my youngest boy, a lad ten years old, had been sent to work on a

farm three miles beyond, and that he was not well taken care of. I drove

over to see about it, and after some inquiry I was told that the boy

was then in school. Going to the schoolhouse and asking for him, the

school-mistress, who knew me, denied that he was there, but I pushed

in, and found him, and a ragged, miserable looking little wretch he was.

I brought him out, put him into the carriage and took him with me on the

journey which I was then contemplating to Amsterdam, N. Y., stopping

at the first town to get him decently clothed. The boy went with me

willingly, indeed he was glad to go, and in due time we arrived at

Amsterdam, and from there we went to Troy.

I had not been in Troy two hours before I was arrested for stealing my

own horse and buggy! My turnout was taken from me, and I found myself in

durance vile. I was not long in procuring bail, and I then set myself,

to work to find out what this meant. I was shown a handbill describing

my person, giving my name, giving a description of my horse, and

offering a reward of fifty dollars for my arrest. This was signed by

a certain Benson, of Kingston, Sullivan County, N.Y. I then remembered

that while I was traveling with my insane patient from Montgomery

through Sullivan County, I fell in with a Benson who was a very

plausible fellow, and who scraped acquaintance with me, and while I was

at Kingston he rode about with me on one or two occasions. One day he

told me that he knew a girl just out of the place who was subject to

fits, and wanted to know if I could do anything for her; that her father

was rich and would pay a good price to have her cured. I went to see the

girl and did at least enough to earn a fee of one hundred dollars,

which her father gladly paid me. Benson also introduced me to some other

people whom I found profitable patients. I thought he was a very good

friend to me, but he was a cool, calculating rascal. He meant to rob me

of my horse and buggy, and went deliberately to work about it. First, he

issued the handbill which caused my arrest in Troy, where he knew I was

going. Next, as appeared when he came up to Troy to prosecute the suit

against me, he forged a bill of sale. The case was tried and decided

in my favor. Benson appealed, and again it was decided that the horse

belonged to me. I then had him indicted for perjury and forgery, and he

was put under bonds of fourteen hundred dollars in each case to appear

for trial. Some how or other he never appeared, and whether he forfeited

his bonds, or otherwise slipped through the “meshes of the law,” I never

learned, nor have I ever seen him since he attempted to swindle me.

But these proceedings kept me in Troy more than a month, and to pay

my lawyer and other expenses, I actually sold the horse and buggy the

scoundrel tried to steal from me.

Taking my boy to Sidney and putting him under the care of my half

sister, I went to Boston, where I met two friends of mine who were

about going to Meredith Bridge, N.H., to fish through the ice on Lake

Winnipiseogee. It was early in January, 1853, and good, clear, cold

weather. They represented the sport to be capital, and said that plenty

of superb lake trout and pickerel could be taken every day, and urged me

to go with them. As I had nothing special to do for a few days, I went.

When we reached Meredith we stopped at a tavern near the lake, kept by

one of the oddest landlords I have ever met. After a good supper, as

we were sitting in the barroom, the landlord came up to me and at once

opened conversation in the following manner:

“Waal, where do you come from, anyhow?”

“From Boston,” I replied.

“Waal, what be you, anyhow?”

“Well, I practice medicine, and take care of the sick.”

“Dew ye? Waal, do ye ever cure anybody?”

“O, sometimes; quite frequently, in fact.”

“Dew ye! waal, there’s a woman up here to Lake Village, ‘Squire

Blaisdell’s wife, who has had the dropsy more’n twelve years; been

filling’ all the time till they tell me she’s bigger’n a hogshead now,

and she’s had a hundred doctors, and the more doctors she has the bigger

she gets; what d’ ye think of that now?”

I answered that I thought it was quite likely, and then turned away

from the landlord to talk to my friends about our proposed sport for

to-morrow, mentally making note of ‘Squire Blaisdell’s wife in Lake

Village.

After breakfast next morning we went out on the lake, cut holes in the

ice, set our lines, and before dinner we had taken several fine trout

and pickerel, the largest and finest of which we put into a box with

ice, and sent as a present to President Pierce, in Washington. We had

agreed, the night before, to fish for him the first day, and to send

him the best specimens we could from his native state. After dinner my

friends started to go out on the ice again, and I told them “I guess’d I

wouldn’t go with them, I had fished enough for that day.” They insisted

I should go, but I told them I preferred to take a walk and explore the

country. So they went to the lake and I walked up to Lake Village.

I soon found Mr. Blaisdell’s house, and as the servant who came to the

door informed me that Mr. Blaisdell was not at home, I asked to see

Mrs. Blaisdell, And was shown in to that lady. She was not quite the

“hogshead” the landlord declared her to be, but she was one of the worst

cases of dropsy I had ever seen. I introduced myself to her, told her my

profession, and that I had called upon her in the hope of being able to

afford her some relief; that I wanted nothing for my services unless I

could really benefit her.

“O, Doctor,” said she, “you can do nothing for me; in the past twelve

years I have had at least forty different doctors, and none of them have

helped me.”

“But there can be no harm in trying the forty-first;” and as I said

it I took from my vest pocket and held out in the palm of my hand some

pills:

“Here, madame, are some pills made from a simple blossom, which cannot

possibly harm you, and which, I am sure, will do you a great deal of

good.”

“O, Mary!” she exclaimed to her niece, who was in attendance upon her,

“this is my dream! I dreamed last night that my father appeared to me

and told me that a stranger would come with a blossom in his hand; that

he would offer it to me, and that if I would take it I should recover.

Go and get a glass of water and I will take these pills at once.”

“Surely,” said Mary, “you are not going to take this stranger’s medicine

without knowing anything about it, or him?”

“I am indeed; go and get the water.”

She took the medicine and then told me that her father, who had died two

years ago, was a physician, and had carefully attended to her case as

long as he lived; but that she had a will of her own, and had sent far

and near for other doctors, though with no good result.

“You have come to me,” she continued, “and although I am not

superstitious, your coming with a blossom in your hand, figuratively

speaking, is so exactly in accordance with my dream, that I am going to

put myself under your care.”

She then asked me if I lived in the neighborhood, and I told her no;

that I had merely come up from Boston with two friends to try a few

days’ fishing through the ice on the lake.

“You can fish to better purpose here, I think,” she said; “you can get

plenty of practice in the villages and farm houses about here: at any

rate, stay for the present and undertake my case, and I will pay you

liberally.”

I went back to Meredith Bridge--I believe it is now called Laconia--and

had another day’s fishing with my friends. When they were ready to pack

up and return to Boston, I astonished them by informing them that I

should stay where I was for the present, perhaps for months, and that I

believed I could find a good practice in Meredith and adjoining places.

So they left me and I went to Lake Village, and made that pleasant place

my headquarters.

The weeks wore on, and if Mrs. Blaisdell was a hogshead, as the Meredith

landlord said, when I first saw her, she soon became a barrel under my

treatment, and in four months she was entirely cured, and was as sound

as any woman in the State. I had as much other business too as I could

attend to, and was very busy and happy all the time.

In May I went to Exeter, alternating between there and Portsmouth, and

finding enough to do till the end of July. While I was in Portsmouth

on one of my last visits to that place, I received a call from a

sea-captain by the name of Brown, who told me that he had heard of my

success in dropsical cases, and that I must go to Newark, N. J., and

see his daughter. “Pay,” he said, “was no object; I must go.” I told him

that I had early finished my business in that vicinity, and that when I

went to New York, as I proposed to do shortly, I would go over to

Newark and see his daughter. A few days afterward, when I had settled my

business and collected my bills in Portsmouth and Exeter, I went to New

York, and from there to Newark.

CHAPTER VII. WEDDING A WIDOW, AND THE CONSEQUENCES.

I MARRY A WIDOW--SIX WEEKS OF HAPPINESS--CONFIDING A SECRET AND THE

CONSEQUENCES--THE WIDOW’S BROTHER--SUDDEN FLIGHT FROM NEWARK--IN

HARTFORD, CONN.--MY WIFE’S SISTER BETRAYS ME--TRIAL FOR

BIGAMY--SENTENCED TO TEN YEARS IMPRISONMENT--I BECOME A “BOBBIN BOY”--A

GOOD FRIEND--GOVERNOR PRICE VISITS ME IN PRISON--HE PARDONS ME--TEN

YEARS’ SENTENCE FULFILLED IN SEVEN MONTHS.

Why in the world did Captain Brown ever tempt me with the prospect of

a profitable patient in Newark? I had no thought of going to that city,

and no business there except to see if I could cure Captain Brown’s

daughter. With my matrimonial monomania it was like putting my hand into

the fire to go to a fresh place, where I should see fresh faces, and

where fresh temptations would beset me. And when I went to Newark, I

went only as I supposed, to see a single patient; but Captain Brown

prevailed upon me to stay to take care of his daughter, and assured me

that he and his friends would secure me a good practice. They did. In

two months I was doing as well in my profession as I had ever done in

any place where I had located. I might have attended strictly to my

business, and in a few years have acquired a handsome competence. But,

as ill luck, which, strangely enough, I then considered good luck, would

have it, when I had been in Newark some two months, I became acquainted

with a buxom, good-looking widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts. I protest

to-day that she courted me--not I her. She was fair, fascinating, and

had a goodly share of property. I fell into the snare. She said she was

lonely; she sighed; she smiled, and I was lost.

Would that I had observed the elder Weller’s injunction: “Bevare of

vidders;” would that I had never seen the Widow Roberts, or rather that

she had never seen me. Eight weeks after we first met we were married.

We had a great wedding in her own house, and all her friends were

present. I was in good practice with as many patients as I could attend

to; she had a good home and we settled down to be very happy.

For six weeks, only six weeks, I think we were so. We might have been

so for six weeks, six months, six years longer; but alas! I was a fool I

confided to her the secret of my first marriage, and separation, and she

confided the same secret to her brother, a well-to-do wagon-maker in

Newark. So far as Elizabeth was concerned, she said she didn’t care;

so long as the separation was mutual and final, since so many years

had elapsed, and especially since I hadn’t seen the woman for full six

years, and was not supposed to know whether she was alive or dead, why,

it was as good as a divorce; so reasoned Elizabeth, and it was precisely

my own reasoning, and the reasoning which had got me into numberless

difficulties, to say nothing of jails and prisons. But the brother had

his doubts about it, and came and talked to me on the subject several

times. We quarrelled about it. He threatened to have me arrested for

bigamy. I told him that if he took a step in that direction I would flog

him. Then he had me brought before a justice for threatening him, with a

view to having me put under bonds to keep the peace. I employed a lawyer

who managed my case so well that the justice concluded there was no

cause of action against me.

But this lawyer informed me that the brother was putting, even then,

another rod in pickle for me, and that I had better clear out. I took

his advice, I went to the widow’s house, packed my trunk, gathered

together what money I could readily lay hands upon, and with about $300

in my pocket, I started for New York, staying that night at a hotel in

Courtland street.

The following morning I went over to Jersey City, hired a saddle-horse,

and rode to Newark. The precise object of my journey I do not think I

knew myself; but I must have had some vague idea of persuading Elizabeth

to leave Newark and join me in New York or elsewhere. I confess, too,

that I was more or less under the influence of liquor, and considerably

more than less. However, no one would have noticed this in my appearance

or demeanor. I rode directly to Elizabeth’s door, hitched my horse, and

went into the house. The moment my wife saw me she cried out:

“For God’s sake get out of this house and out of town as soon as you

can; they have been watching for you ever since yesterday; they’ve got a

warrant for your arrest; don’t stay here one moment.”

I asked her if she was willing to follow me, and she said she would

do so if she only dared but her brother had made an awful row, and had

sworn he would put me in prison anyhow; I had better go back to New York

and await events. I started for the door, and was unhitching my horse,

when the brother and a half dozen more were upon me. I sprang to the

saddle. They tried to stop me; the over-eager brother even caught me

by the foot; but I dashed through the crowd and rode like mad to Jersey

City, returned the horse to the livery stable, crossed the ferry to New

York, went to my hotel, got my trunk, and started for Hartford, Conn.,

where I arrived in the evening.

This was in the month of June, 1854. I went to the old Exchange Hotel in

State street, and very soon acquired a good practice. Indeed, it seems

as if I was always successful enough in my medical business--my mishaps

have been in the matrimonial line. When I had been in Hartford about

three months, and was well settled, I thought I would go down to New

York and see a married sister of Elizabeth’s, who was living there, and

try to find out how matters were going on over in Newark. That I found

out fully, if not exactly to my satisfaction, will appear anon.

When I called at the sister’s house, the servant told me she was out,

but would be back in an hour; so I left my name, promising to call

again. I returned again at one o’clock in the afternoon, and the sister

was in, but declined to see me. As I was coming down the steps, a

policeman who seemed to be lounging on the opposite side of the street,

beckoned to me, and suspecting nothing, I crossed over to see what he

wanted. He simply wanted to know my name, and when I gave it to him he

informed me that I was his prisoner. I asked for what? and he said “as a

fugitive from justice in New Jersey.”

This was for taking the pains to come down from Hartford to inquire

after the welfare of my wife! whose sister, the moment the servant told

her I had been there, and would call again, had gone to the nearest

police station and given information, or made statements, which led to

the setting of this latest trap for me. The policeman took me before a

justice who sent me to the Tombs. On my arrival there I managed to pick

up a lawyer, or rather one of the sharks of the place picked me up, and

said that for twenty-five dollars he would get me clear in three or

four hours. I gave him the money, and from that day till now, I have

never set eyes upon him. I lay in a cell all night, and next morning

Elizabeth’s brother, to whom the sister in New York had sent word that

I was caged, came over from Newark to see me. He said he felt sorry for

me, but that he was “bound to put me through.” He then asked me if I

would go over to Newark without a requisition from the Governor of

New Jersey, and I told him I would not; whereupon he went away without

saying another word, and I waited all day to hear from the lawyer to

whom I had given twenty-five dollars, but he did not come.

So next day when the brother came over and asked me the same question,

I said I would go; wherein I was a fool; for I ought to have reflected

that he had had twenty-four hours in which to get a requisition, and

that he might in fact have made application for one already, without

getting it, and every delay favored my chances of getting out. But I had

no one to advise me, and so I went quietly with him and an officer to

the ferry, where we crossed and went by cars to Newark. I was at once

taken before a justice, who, after a hearing of the case, bound me over,

under bonds of only one thousand dollars, to take my trial for bigamy.

If I could have gone into the street I could have procured this

comparatively trifling bail in half an hour; as it was, after I was in

jail I sent for a man whom I knew, and gave him my gold watch and one

hundred dollars, all the money I had, to procure me bail, which he

promised to do; but he never did a thing for me, except to rob me.

A lawyer came to me and offered to take my case in hand for one hundred

dollars, but I had not the money to give him. I then sent to New York

for a lawyer whom I knew, and when he came to see me he took the same

view of the case that Elizabeth and I did; that is, that the long

separation between my first wife and myself, and my presumed ignorance

as to whether she was alive or dead, gave me full liberty to marry

again. At least, he thought any court would consider it an extenuating

circumstance, and he promised to be present at my trial and aid me all

he could.

I lay in Newark jail nine months, awaiting my trial. During that time I

had almost daily quarrels with the jailor, who abused me shamefully, and

told me I ought to go to State prison and stay there for life. Once he

took hold of me and I struck him, for which I was put in the dark cell

forty-eight hours. At last came my trial. The court appointed counsel

for me, for I had no money to fee a lawyer, and my New York friend was

on hand to advise and assist. I lad witnesses to show the length of time

that had elapsed since my separation from my first wife, and we also

raised the point as to whether the justice who married me, was really

a legal justice of the peace or not. The trial occupied two days. I

suppose all prisoners think so, but the Judge charged against me in

every point; the jury was out two hours, and then came in for advice on

a doubtful question; the judge gave them another blast against me, and

an hour after they came in with a verdict of “guilty.” I went back to

jail and two days afterwards was brought up for sentence which was--“ten

years at hard labor in the State prison at Trenton.”

Good heavens! All this for being courted and won by a widow!

The day following, I was taken in irons to Trenton. The Warden of

the prison, who wanted to console me, said that, for the offence, my

sentence was an awful one, and that he didn’t believe I would be obliged

to serve out half of it. As I felt then, I did not believe I should live

out one-third of it. After I had gone through the routine of questions,

and had been put in the prison uniform, a cap was drawn down over my

face, as if I was about to be hung, and I was led, thus blind-folded,

around and around, evidently to confuse me, with regard to the interior

of the prison--in case I might ever have any idea of breaking out. At

last I was brought to a cell door and the cap was taken off. There were,

properly no “cells” in this prison--at least I never saw any; but good

sized rooms for two prisoners, not only to live in but to work in. I

found myself in a room with a man who was weaving carpets, and I was at

once instructed in the art of winding yarn on bobbins for him--in fact,

I was to be his “bobbin-boy.”

I pursued this monotonous occupation for two months, when I told the

keeper I did not like that business, and wanted to try something that

had a little more variety in it. Whereupon he put me at the cane chair

bottoming business, which gave me another room and another chum, and I

remained at this work while I was in the prison. In three weeks I could

bottom one chair, while my mate was bottoming nine or ten as his day’s

work; but I told the keeper I did not mean to work hard, or work at all,

if I could help it. He was a very nice fellow and he only laughed and

let me do as I pleased. Indeed, I could not complain of my treatment

in any respect; I had a good clean room, good bed, and the fare was

wholesome and abundant. But then, there was that terrible, terrible

sentence of ten long years of this kind of life, if I should live

through it.

After I had been in prison nearly seven months, one day a merchant

tailor whom I well knew in Newark, and who made my clothes, including

my wedding suit when I married the Widow Roberts, came to see me. The

legislature was in session and he was a member of the Senate. He knew

all the circumstances of my case, and was present at my trial. After the

first salutation, he laughingly said:

“Well, Doctor, those are not quite as nice clothes as I used to furnish

you with.”

“No,” I replied, “but perhaps they are more durable.”

After some other chaff and chat, he made me tell him all about my first

marriage and subsequent separation, and after talking awhile he went

away, promising to see me soon. I looked upon this only as a friendly

visit, for which I was grateful; and attached no great importance to it.

But he came again in a few days, and after some general conversation, he

told me that there was a movement on foot in my favor, which might bring

the best of news to me; that he had not only talked with his friends in

the legislature, and enlisted their sympathy and assistance, but he had

laid the whole circumstances, from beginning to end, before Governor

Price; that the Governor would visit the prison shortly, and then I must

do my best in pleading my own cause.

In a day or two the Governor came, and I had an opportunity to relate

my story. I told him all about my first unfortunate marriage, and the

separation. He said that he knew the facts, and also that he had lately

received a letter from my oldest son on the subject, and had read it

with great interest. I then appealed to the Governor for his clemency;

my sentence was an outrageously severe one, and seemed almost prompted

by private malice; I implored him to pardon me; I went down on my knees

before him, and asked his mercy. He told me to be encouraged; that he

would be in the prison again in a few days, and he would see me. He then

went away.

I at once drew up a petition which my friend in the Senate circulated

in the legislature for signatures, and afterwards sent it to Newark,

securing some of the best names in that city. It was then returned to

me, and two weeks afterwards when the Governor came again to the prison

I presented it to him, and he put it in his pocket.

In two days’ time, Governor Price sent my pardon into the prison. The

Warden came and told me of it, and said he would let me out in an hour.

Then came a keeper who once more put the cap over my face and led me

around the interior--I was willingly led now--till he brought me to a

room where he gave me my own clothes which I put on, and with a kind

parting word, and five dollars from the Warden, I was soon in the

street, once more a free man. My sentence of ten years had been

fulfilled by an imprisonment of exactly seven months.

I went and called on Governor Price to thank him for his great goodness

towards me. He received me kindly, talked to me for some time, and gave

me some good advice and a little money. With this and the five dollars I

received from the Warden of the prison I started for New York.

CHAPTER VII. ON THE KEEN SCENT.

GOOD RESOLUTIONS--ENJOYING FREEDOM--GOING AFTER A CRAZY MAN--THE

OLD TEMPTER IN A NEW FORM--MARY GORDON--MY NEW “COUSIN”--ENGAGED

AGAIN--VISIT TO THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME--ANOTHER MARRIAGE--STARTING FOR

OHIO--CHANGE OF PLANS--DOMESTIC QUARRELS--UNPLEASANT STORIES ABOUT

MARY--BOUND OVER TO KEEP THE PEACE--ANOTHER ARREST FOR BIGAMY--A

SUDDEN FLIGHT--SECRETED THREE WEEKS IN A FARM HOUSE--RECAPTURED AT

CONCORD--ESCAPED ONCE MORE--TRAVELING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD--IN

CANADA.

It would seem as if, by this time, I had had enough of miscellaneous

marrying and the imprisonment that almost invariably followed. I had

told Governor Price, when I first implored him for pardon, that if he

would release me I would begin a new life, and endeavor to be in all

respects a better man. I honestly meant to make every effort to be so,

and on my stay to New York I made numberless vows for my own future

good behavior. I bound myself over, as it were, to keep the pace--my own

peace and quiet especially--and became my own surety. That I could not

have had a poorer bondsman, subsequent events proved to my sorrow. But I

started fairly, and meant to let liquor alone; to attend strictly to my

medical business, which I always managed to make profitable, and above

all, to have nothing to do with women in the love-making or matrimonial

way.

With those good resolutions I arrived in New York and went to my old

hotel in Courtland Street, where I was well known and was well received.

My trunk, which I had left there sixteen months before, was safe, and

I had a good suit of clothes on my back--the clothes I took off when

I went to prison in Trenton--and which were returned to me when I came

away. I went to a friend who loaned me some money, and I remained two or

three days in town to try my new-found freedom, going about the city,

visiting places of amusement, enjoying myself very much, and keeping, so

far, the good resolutions I had formed.

From New York I went to Troy, and at the hotel where I stopped I became

acquainted with a woman who told me that her husband was in the Insane

Asylum at Brattleboro, Vt. She was going to see him, and if he was fit

to be removed, she proposed to take him home, with her. I told her

of the success I had had in taking care of two men at Newbury and

Montgomery; and how I had traveled about the country with them, and with

the most beneficial results to my patients. She was much interested,

inquired into the particulars, and finally thought the plan would be a

favorable one for her husband. She asked me to go with her to see him,

and said that if he was in condition to travel he should go about with

me if he would; at any rate, if he came out of the Asylum she would put

him under my care. We went together to Brattleboro, and the very day we

arrived her husband was taken in an apoplectic fit from which he did not

recover. She carried home his corpse, and I lost my expected patient.

But I must have something to do for my daily support, and so I went to

work and very soon sold some medicines and recipes, and secured a few

patients. I also visited the adjoining villages, and in a few weeks

I had a very good practice. I might have lived here quietly and made

money. Nobody knew anything of my former history, my marriages or my

misfortunes, and I was doing well, with a daily increasing business.

And so I went on for nearly three months, gaining new acquaintances, and

extending my practice every day.

Then came the old tempter in a new form, and my matrimonial monomania,

which I hoped was cured forever, broke out afresh. One day, at the

public house where I lived, I saw a fine girl from New Hampshire, with

whom I became acquainted--so easily, so far as she was concerned--that I

ought to have been warned to have nothing to do with her; but, as usual,

in such cases, my common sense left me, and I was infatuated enough to

fancy that I was in love.

Mary Gordon was the daughter of a farmer living near Keene, N. H., and

was a handsome girl about twenty years of age. She was going, she told

me, to visit some friends in Bennington, and would be there about a

month, during which time, if I was in that vicinity, she hoped I would

come and see her. We parted very lovingly, and when she had been in

Bennington a few days she wrote to me, setting a time for me to visit

her; but in business in Brattleboro was too good to leave, and I so

wrote to her. Whereupon, in another week, she came back to Brattleboro

and proposed to finish the remainder of her visit there, thus blinding

her friends at home who would think she was all the while at Bennington.

Our brief acquaintance when she was at the house before, attracted no

particular attention, and when she came now I told the landlord that she

was my cousin, and he gave her a room and I paid her bills. The cousin

business was a full cover to our intimacy; she sat next to me at the

table, rode about with me to see my patients, and when I went to places

near by to sell medicine, and we were almost constantly together. Of

course, we were engaged to be married, and that very soon.

In a fortnight after her arrival I went home with her to her father’s

farm near Keene, and she told her mother that we were “engaged.” The old

folks thought they would like to know me a little better, but she said

we were old friends, she knew me thoroughly, and meant to marry me.

There was no further objection on the part of her parents, and in the

few days following she and her mother were busily engaged in preparing

her clothes and outfit.

I then announced my intention of returning to Brattleboro to settle up

my business in that place, and she declared she would go with me; I

was sure to be lonesome; she might help me about my bills, and so on.

Strange as it may seem, her parents made no objection to her going,

though I was to be absent a fortnight, and was not to be married till

I came back. So we went together, and I and my “cousin” put up at the

hotel we had lately left. For two weeks I was busy in making my final

visits to my patients acquaintances, she generally going with me every

day.

At the end of that time we went back to Keene, and in three weeks we

were married in her father’s house, the old folks making a great wedding

for us, which was attended by all the neighbors and friends of the

family. We stayed at home two weeks, and meanwhile arranged our plans

for the future. We proposed to go out to Ohio, where she had some

relatives, and settle down. She had seven hundred dollars in bank in

Keene which she drew, and we started on our journey. We went to Troy,

where we stayed a few days, and during that time we both concluded that

we would not go West, but return to Keene and live in the town instead

of on the farm, so that I could open an office and practice there.

So we went back to her home again, but before I completed my plans for

settling down in Keene, Mary and I had several quarrels which were worse

than mere ordinary matrimonial squabbles. Two or three young men in

Keene, with whom I had become acquainted, twitted me with marrying Mary,

and told me enough about her to convince me that her former life had not

been altogether what it should have been. I had been too blinded by

her beauty when I first saw her in Brattleboro, to notice how extremely

easily she was won. Her parents, too, were wonderfully willing, if not

eager, to marry her to me. All these things came to me now, and we had

some very lively conversations on the subject, in which the old folks

joined, siding with their daughter of course. By and by the girl went

to Keene and made a complaint that she was afraid of her life, and I was

brought before a magistrate and put under bonds of four hundred dollars

to keep the peace. I gave a man fifty dollars to go bail for me, and

then, instead of going out to the farm with Mary, I went to the hotel in

Keene.

The well-known character of the girl, my marriage to her, the brief

honeymoon, the quarrels and the cause of the same, were all too tempting

material not to be served up in a paragraph, and as I expected and

feared, out came the whole story in the Keene paper.

This was copied in other journals, and presently came letters to the

family and to other persons in the place, giving some account of my

former adventures and marriages. Of this however I knew nothing, till

one day, while I was at the hotel, I was suddenly arrested for bigamy.

But I was used to this kind of arrest by this time, and I went before

the magistrate with my mind made up that I must suffer again for my

matrimonial monomania.

It was just after dinner when I was arrested, and the examination, which

was a long one, continued till evening. Every one in the magistrate’s

office was tired out with it, I especially, and so I took a favorable

opportunity to leave the premises. I bolted for the door, ran down

stairs into the street, and was well out of town before the astonished

magistrate, stunned constable, and amazed spectators realized that I had

gone.

Whether they than set out in pursuit of me I never knew, I only know

they did not catch me. I ran till I came to the house of a farmer whom

I had been attending for some ailment, and hurriedly narrating the

situation, I offered him one hundred dollars if he would secrete me till

the hue and cry was over and I could safely get away. I think he would

have done it from good will, but the hundred dollar bill I offered him

made the matter sure. He put my money into his pocket, and he put me

into a dark closet, not more than five feet square, and locked me in.

I stayed in that man’s house, never going out of doors, for more than

three weeks, and did my best to board out my hundred dollars. The day

after my flight the whole neighborhood was searched, that is, the woods,

roads, and adjacent villages. They never thought of looking in a house,

particularly in a house so near the town; and, as I heard from my

protector, they telegraphed and advertised far and near for me.

I anticipated all this, and for this very reason I remained quietly

where I was, in an unsuspected house, and with my dark closet to retire

to whenever any one came in; and gossiping neighbors coming in almost

every hour, kept me in that hole nearly half the time. I heard my own

story told in that house at least fifty times, and in fifty different

ways.

At last, when I thought it was safe, one night my host harnessed up his

horses and carried me some miles on my way to Concord. He drove as far

as he dared, for he wanted to get back home by daylight, so that his

expedition might excite no suspicion. Twenty miles away from Keene he

set me down in the road, and, bidding him “good-bye,” I began my march

toward Concord. When I arrived there, almost the first man I saw in the

street was a doctor from Keene. I did not think he saw me, but he did,

as I soon found out, for while I was waiting at the depot to take the

cars to the north, I was arrested.

The Keene doctor owed me a grudge for interfering, as he deemed it; with

his regular practice, and the moment he saw me he put an officer on my

trail. I thought it was safe here to take the cars, for I was footsore

and weary, nor did I get away from Keene as fast and as far as I wanted

to. I should have succeeded but for that doctor.

When the officer brought me before a justice, the doctor was a willing

witness to declare that I was a fugitive from justice, and he stated the

circumstances of my escape. So I was sent back to Keene under charge of

the very officer who arrested me at the depot.

I would not give this officer’s name if I could remember it, but he was

a fine fellow, and was exceedingly impressible. For instance, on our

arrival at Keene, he allowed me to go to the hotel and pack my trunk to

be forwarded to Meredith Bridge by express. He then handed me over to

the authorities, and I was immediately taken before the magistrate from

whom I had previously escaped, the Concord officer accompanying the

Keene officer who had charge of me.

The examination was short; I was bound over in the sum of one thousand

dollars to take my trial for bigamy. On my way to jail I persuaded the

Concord officer--with a hundred dollar bill which I slipped into his

hand--to induce the other officer to go with me to the hotel under

pretense of looking after my things, and getting what would be necessary

for my comfort in jail. My Concord friend kept the other officer down

stairs--in the bar-room, I presume--while I went to my room. I put a

single shirt in my pocket; the distance from my window to the ground

was not more than twelve or fifteen feet, and I let myself down from the

window sill and then dropped.

I was out of the yard, into the street, and out of town in less than no

time. It was already evening, and everything favored my escape. I had

no idea of spending months in jail at Keene, and months more, perhaps

years, in the New Hampshire State Prison. All my past bitter experiences

of wretched prison life urged me to flight.

And fly I did. No stopping at the friendly farmer’s, my former refuge,

this time; that would be too great a risk. No showing of myself in any

town or village where the telegraph might have conveyed a description

of my person. I traveled night and day on foot, and more at night than

during the day, taking by-roads, lying by in the woods, sleeping in

barns, and getting my meals in out-of-the-way farm houses.

I had plenty of money; but this kind of travelling is inexpensive, and,

paying twenty-five cents for one or two meals a day, as I dared to get

them, and sleeping in barns or under haystacks for nothing, my purse

did not materially diminish. I was a good walker, and in the course of

a week from the night when I left Keene, I found myself in Biddeford,

Maine.

There was some sense of security in being in another State, and here I

ventured to take the cars for Portland, where I staid two days, sending

in the meantime for my trunk from Meredith Bridge, and getting it by

express. Of course it went to a fictitious address at Meredith, and it

came to me under the same name which I had registered in my hotel at

Portland.