on the 17th; almost all the ribs, the lower jaw, and one of the hands
gone. Of all those who saw the body on Wednesday, the 4th, and on
Thursday, the 5th, there is not one person who discovered a single hair
of any other colour than light brown, although both Mr. _Laming_ and
Mr. _Ellis_ lifted up the head, and although the considerable quantity
of hair which Mr. _Taylor_ took was from the top of the head, and that
which _Ellis_ took was from behind it; yet, from the accounts of those
who saw it on the 17th, it appears that the hair on the back of the
head was found of dark brown, nearly approaching to black, although all
the front hair remaining was of the same light brown as that taken on
the 4th. It does not belong to me either to account for or to prove the
fact.
On Wednesday, September the 1st, I waited on Mr. _Dyson_, who was the
gentleman sent for on the 17th, to examine the corpse. I asked him
simply, whether, from what had then appeared before him, he judged it
to be male or female? His answer was that, having examined the pelvis
and the skull, he judged the corpse to be that of a man. I asked what
was the shape of the head? He said that the forehead was high and
erect, though the top of the head was flat; and added that the skull
was of that shape and flatness at the top which, differing from those
of blacks, is observed to be common and almost peculiar to persons
of very comprehensive intellects. I am a stranger to this sort of
knowledge, but the opinion is a strong confirmation that, from all the
premises before him, he judged the head to be that of _Milton_. On a
paper, which he showed me, enclosing a bit of the hair, he had written
‘_Milton’s hair_.’
Mr. _Dyson_ is a surgeon, who received his professional education under
the late Dr. _Hunter_, is in partnership with Mr. _Price_, in Fore
Street, where the church stands, is of easy access, and his affability
can be exceeded only by his skill in an extensive line of practice.
Mr. _Taylor_, too, who is a surgeon of considerable practice and
eminence in his county, judged the corpse, on the 4th, to be that of a
male.
A man, also, who has for many years acted as grave-digger in that
parish, and who was present on the 17th, decided, upon first sight of
the skull, that it was male; with as little hesitation, he pronounced
another, which had been thrown out of the ground in digging, to be that
of a woman. Decisions obviously the result of practical, rather than
of scientific knowledge; for, being asked his reasons, he could give
none, but that observation had taught him to distinguish such subjects.
Yet this latter sort of evidence is not to be too hastily rejected; it
may not be understood by everybody, but to anyone acquainted with those
who are eminently skilled in judging of the genuineness of ancient
coins, it will be perfectly intelligible. In that difficult and useful
art, the eye of a proficient decides at once; a novice, however, who
should inquire for the reasons of such decision, would seldom receive
a further answer than that the decision itself is the result of
experience and observation, and that the eye can be instructed only by
long familiarity with the subject; yet all numismatic knowledge rests
upon this sort of judgment.
After these evidences, what proofs are there, or what probable
presumptions, that the corpse is that of a woman?
It was necessary to relate these facts, not only as they belonged to
the subject, but lest, from the reports and papers above mentioned, I
might, otherwise, seem to have given either an unfaithful or a partial
statement of the evidences before me; whereas now it will clearly be
seen what facts appeared on the first disinterment, which preceded, and
what are to be attributed to the second, which succeeded the date of
the narrative.
I have now added every circumstance which has hitherto come to my
knowledge relative to this extraordinary transaction, and conclude with
this declaration, that I should be very glad if any person would, from
facts, give me reason to believe that the corpse in question is rather
that of _Elizabeth Smith_, whose name I know only from her monument,
than that of _John Milton_.
P. N.’
‘8th of September, 1790.’
THE TRUE STORY OF EUGENE ARAM.
The only knowledge which very many people possess of the life and crime
of Eugene Aram has been derived from the popular romance bearing his
name, written by the late Lord Lytton. And this nobleman, influenced
by his individual bias, has so woven fiction with a small modicum of
fact, as to render the story, as a history of a celebrated crime,
totally unreliable. Stripped of the gloss Lord Lytton has given it,
and revealed in its bare nakedness, it shows Eugene Aram in a very
different light from the solitary scholar, surrounded by books, with
high, romantic aspirations and noble thoughts, winning the love of a
pure and lovely girl; it shows us instead a poor country school-master,
clever, but self-taught, married to a common woman, whose very faith
he doubted, struggling with poverty, and heavily weighed down with
several children; it paints him as a man whose companions were sordid
and dishonest, whilst he himself was a liar, a thief, and a murderer,
a selfish man who scrupled not to leave wife and children to shift for
themselves, a man untrustworthy in his relations of life.
Eugenius, or Eugene Aram was born in the year 1704,[23] at Ramsgill, a
little village in Netherdale, Yorkshire, and his father was a gardener,
as he says, of great abilities in botany, and an excellent draughtsman,
who served Dr. Compton, Bishop of London, and, afterwards, Sir Edward
Blackett, of Newby, and Sir John Ingilby, of Ripley. When he was five
or six years of age, the family removed to Bondgate, near Ripon, his
father having purchased a little property there. Here he was sent to
school, and was taught in a purely elementary manner to be capable of
reading the New Testament, and this was all the education his parents
gave him, with the exception of about a month’s schooling some long
time afterwards with the Rev. Mr. Alcock of Burnsal.
When about thirteen or fourteen, he joined his father at Newby, till
the death of Sir Edward Blackett, and, his father having several
books on mathematics, and the boy being of a studious turn of mind,
he mastered their contents, and laid the foundation of his future
scholarship. When about sixteen years of age, he went to London to
be in the counting-house of Mr. Christopher Blackett as bookkeeper;
but he had not been there more than a year or two when he caught
the small-pox, and, on his recovery, went home into Yorkshire. His
native air soon restored him to health, and he studied hard at poetry,
history, and antiquities. He thus fitted himself for keeping a school,
which he opened in Netherdale, and continued there for many years
teaching and studying. There he married, as he says, ‘unfortunately
enough for me, for the misconduct of the wife which that place afforded
me has procured for me this place, this prosecution, this infamy, and
this sentence.’
During these years he read the Latin and Greek authors, and obtained
such a name for scholarship that he was invited to Knaresborough to
keep a school there. He removed thither in the year 1734, and continued
there until about six weeks after the murder of Daniel Clark. In the
meantime he had mastered Hebrew, and when he went to London he got a
situation to teach Latin, and writing, at a school in Piccadilly, kept
by a Monsieur Painblanc, who not only gave him a salary, but taught
him French. There he remained over two years, then went to Hays as a
writing-master, after which he wandered from situation to situation, at
one time earning his living by copying for a law-stationer. At last,
somehow, he found himself an usher at the Free School at Lynn, where he
lived until he was arrested for the murder of Daniel Clark.
This man was a shoemaker at Knaresborough, and was an intimate visitor
at Aram’s house--too intimate, indeed, Aram thought, with his wife,
hence the reference to his wife previously quoted. He was a man of
bad character, and was more than suspected of having, in company of
another vagabond named Houseman, murdered a Jew boy, who travelled the
country for one Levi as a pedlar, carrying a box containing watches and
jewellery. The poor lad was decoyed to a place called Thistle Hill,
where he was robbed, murdered, and buried. This was about the year
1744, and his bones were not found until 1758.
Richard Houseman, who was born the same year as Aram, was a near
neighbour of the latter’s--in fact, he lived next door, and his
occupation was that of a heckler of flax, when he gave out to the women
of the village to spin for him. But, according to his own statement, he
was a most unscrupulous black-guard.
Another intimate of Aram’s was a publican, named Terry, but he only
played a subsidiary part in the drama, and nothing was ever brought
home to him.
In January, 1745, Clark married a woman with a small fortune of about
two hundred pounds, and, immediately afterwards, this little nest of
rogues contrived and carried out the following swindle. Clark, as he
was known to have married a woman of some little money, was to obtain
goods of any description from whomsoever would part with them on
credit; these goods were to be deposited with, and hidden by, Aram and
Houseman, and, after plundering all that was possible, Clark was to
decamp, and leave his young wife to do the best she could. This was the
scheme in which the noble and refined Eugene Aram of Lord Lytton was
to, and did, bear his full part.
Velvet from one man, leather from another, whips from a third, table
and bed linen from a fourth, money lent by a fifth--all was fish that
came to their net; and, when obtained, they were hidden on the premises
either of Aram or Houseman, or else in a place called St. Robert’s
Cave, which was situated in a field adjoining the Nid, a river near
Knaresborough. When this source was thoroughly exploited, a new scheme
was hit on by this ‘long firm.’ Clark should pretend to be about to
give a great wedding-feast, and he went about gaily, borrowing silver
tankards, salvers, salts, spoons, &c., from whoever would lend them.
Indeed, so multifarious were his perquisitions, that, according to one
contemporary account, he got, among other goods, the following: ‘three
silver tankards, four silver pints, one silver milk-pot, one ring set
with an emerald, and two brilliant diamonds, another with three rose
diamonds, a third with an amethyst in the shape of a heart, and six
plain rings, eight watches, two snuff-boxes, Chambers’ Dictionary, two
vols. folio, Pope’s “Homer,” six vols., bound.’
Having got all that could be got, it was now high time that Clark
should disappear. He was last seen on the early morning of the 8th
February, 1745, and from that time until August 1, 1758, nothing
was heard of him. He was supposed to have gone away with all his
booty--and yet not all of it, for suspicion was aroused that both Aram
and Houseman, from their intimacy with Clark, were accomplices in his
frauds. And so it clearly proved, for, on Aram’s house being searched,
several articles were found the produce of their joint roguery, and
in his garden were found buried, cambric and other goods, wrapped
in coarse canvas. Still, neither he, nor Houseman, nor Terry were
prosecuted,[24] but Aram thought it prudent to change his residence;
so one fine day he left his wife and family, and wandered forth. We
have seen the roving life he led, restless, and always changing his
abode; yet, during those thirteen years of shifting exile, it must be
said, to his credit, that no breath of scandal attached to him; he was
studious, somewhat morose, yet he was so liked by the boys at the
grammar-school at Lynn, that, when he was taken thence by the officers
of justice, they cried at losing him.
Whilst at Lynn, he was recognised in June, 1758, by a horse-dealer,
and this recognition eventually led to his apprehension; for, during
that summer, a labourer, digging for stone or gravel at a place
called Thistle Hill, near Knaresborough, found, at the depth of two
feet, a skeleton, which appeared to have been buried doubled up. The
remembrance of Clark’s disappearance was at once awakened, and the body
was set down as being his.
A country town has a keen recollection of anything which has occurred
disturbing its equal pace, and the connection of Aram and Houseman
with Clark was duly remembered. Aram was away, but Houseman still
lived among them, and he was ordered by the coroner to attend the
inquest. The principal witness was Anna Aram, Eugene’s wife, and she
had frequently, since her husband’s departure, dropped hints of her
suspicion that Clark had been murdered. Her evidence is clear. She
said that Daniel Clark was an intimate acquaintance of her husband’s,
and that they had frequent transactions together before the 8th of
February, 1744-5, and that Richard Houseman was often with them;
particularly that, on the 7th of February, 1744-5, about six o’clock
in the evening, Aram came home when she was washing in the kitchen,
upon which he directed her to put out the fire, and make one above
stairs; she accordingly did so. About two o’clock in the morning of the
8th of February, Aram, Clark, and Houseman came to Aram’s house, and
went upstairs to the room where she was. They stayed about an hour.
Her husband asked her for a handkerchief for Dickey (meaning Richard
Houseman) to tie about his head; she accordingly lent him one. Then
Clark said, ‘It will soon be morning, and we must get off.’ After which
Aram, Houseman, and Clark all went out together; that, upon Clark’s
going out, she observed him take a sack or wallet upon his back, which
he carried along with him; whither they went she could not tell. That
about five o’clock the same morning her husband and Houseman returned,
but Clark did not come with them. Her husband came upstairs, and
desired to have a candle that he might make a fire below. To which she
objected, and said, ‘There was no occasion for two fires, as there was
a good one in the room above, where she then was.’ To which Aram, her
husband, answered, ‘Dickey’ (meaning Richard Houseman) ‘was below,
and did not choose to come upstairs.’ Upon which she asked (Clark not
returning with them), ‘What had they done with Daniel?’ To this her
husband gave her no answer, but desired her to go to bed, which she
refused to do, and told him, ‘They had been doing something bad.’ Then
Aram went down with the candle.
She, being desirous to know what her husband and Houseman were doing,
and being about to go downstairs, she heard Houseman say to Aram,
‘She is coming.’
Her husband replied, ‘We’ll not let her.’
Houseman then said, ‘If she does, she’ll tell.’
‘What can she tell?’ replied Aram. ‘Poor simple thing! she knows
nothing.’
To which Houseman said, ‘If she tells that I am here, ‘twill be
enough.’
Her husband then said, ‘I will hold the door to prevent her from
coming.’
Whereupon Houseman said, ‘Something must be done to prevent her
telling,’ and pressed him to it very much, and said, ‘If she does not
tell now, she may at some other time.’
‘No,’ said her husband, ‘we will coax her a little until her passion be
off, and then take an opportunity to shoot her.’
Upon which Houseman appeared satisfied and said, ‘What must be done
with her clothes?’ Whereupon they both agreed that they would let her
lie where she was shot in her clothes.
She, hearing this discourse, was much terrified, but remained quiet,
until near seven o’clock in the same morning, when Aram and Houseman
went out of the house. Upon which Mrs. Aram, coming down-stairs, and
seeing there had been a fire below and all the ashes taken out of the
grate, she went and examined the dung-hill; and, perceiving ashes of
a different kind to lie upon it, she searched amongst them, and found
several pieces of linen and woollen cloth, very near burnt, which had
the appearance of belonging to wearing apparel. When she returned into
the house from the dung-hill, she found the handkerchief she had lent
Houseman the night before; and, looking at it, she found some blood
upon it, about the size of a shilling. Upon which she immediately went
to Houseman, and showed him the pieces of cloth she had found, and said
‘she was afraid they had done something bad to Clark.’ But Houseman
then pretended he was a stranger to her accusation, and said ‘he knew
nothing what she meant.’
From the above circumstances she believed Daniel Clark to have been
murdered by Richard Houseman and Eugene Aram, on the 8th of February,
1744-5.
Several witnesses gave evidence that the last persons seen with Clark
were Aram and Houseman, and two surgeons gave it as their opinion that
the body might have lain in the ground about thirteen or fourteen years.
During the inquiry Houseman seemed very uneasy: he trembled, turned
pale, and faltered in his speech; and when, at the instigation of the
coroner, in accordance with the superstitious practice of the time,
he went to touch the bones, he was very averse so to do. At last he
mustered up courage enough to take up one of the bones in his hand;
but, immediately throwing it down again, he exclaimed: ‘This is no more
Dan Clark’s bone than it is mine!’ He further said he could produce a
witness who had seen Clark after the 8th of February; and he called on
Parkinson, who deposed that, personally, he had not seen Clark after
that time, but a friend of his (Parkinson’s) had told him that he had
met a person like Daniel Clark, but as it was a snowy day, and the
person had the cape of his great-coat up, he could not say with the
least degree of certainty who he was.
Of course, this witness did not help Houseman a bit, and then the
suspicion increased that he was either the principal, or an accomplice
in Clark’s murder. Application was made to a magistrate, who granted a
warrant for his apprehension. At his examination he made a statement,
which he would not sign, saying, ‘He chose to waive it for the present;
for he might have something to add, and therefore desired to have time
to consider of it.’ This confirmed former suspicions, and he was
committed to York Castle.
On his way thither he was very uneasy, and, hearing that the magistrate
who committed him was at that time in York, he asked him to be sent
for, and he made the following statement:
_The examination of Richard Houseman, of Knaresbrough, flax-dresser._
‘This examinant saies that true it is that Daniel Clark was murdered by
Eugene Aram, late of Knaresbrough, schoolmaster, and, as he believes,
it was on Friday morning, the 8th of February, 1744, as set forth by
other informations, as to matter of time; for that he, and Eugene Aram
and Daniel Clark were together at Aram’s house early in the morning,
when there was snow on the ground, and moonlight, and went out of
Aram’s house a little before them, and went up the street a little
before them, and they called to him to go a little way with them; and
he accordingly went with them to a place called St. Robert’s Cave, near
Grimble Bridge, where Aram and Clark stopt a little; and then he saw
Aram strike him several times over the breast and head, and saw him
fall, as if he was dead, and he, the examinant, came away and left them
together, but whether Aram used any weapon or not to kill him with, he
can’t tell, nor does he know what he did with the body afterwards, but
believes Aram left it at the Cave’s mouth; for this examinant, seeing
Aram do this, to which, he declares, he was no way abetting, or privy
to, nor knew of his design to kill him at all. This made the examinant
make the best of his way from him, lest he might share the same fate;
and got to the bridge-end, and then lookt back, and saw him coming from
the Caveside, which is in a private rock adjoining the river; and he
could discern some bundle in his hand, but does not know what it was.
On which he, this informant, made the best of his way to the town,
without joining Aram again, or seeing him again till the next day, and
from that time to this, he has never had any private discourse with
him.’
After signing this statement, Houseman said that Clark’s body would be
found in St. Robert’s Cave, in the turn at the entrance of the cave,
its head lying to the right; and, sure enough, in the spot described,
and in that position, was a skeleton found, with two holes in its
skull, made apparently with a pickaxe or hammer.
A warrant was at once issued for the apprehension of Aram, and duly
executed at Lynn. When first questioned, he denied ever having been at
Knaresborough, or that he had ever known Daniel Clark; but when he was
confronted with the constable from Knaresborough, he was obliged to
retract his words. On the journey to York, Aram was restless, inquiring
after his old neighbours, and what they said of him. He was told
that they were much enraged against him for the loss of their goods.
Whereupon he asked if it would not be possible to make up the matter?
and the answer was, perhaps it might be, if he restored what they had
lost. He then said that was impossible, but he might, perhaps, find
them an equivalent.
On his arrival at York, he was taken before a magistrate, to whom he
made a statement, which was a parcel of lies. He was committed to York
Castle, but had not gone more than a mile on his way thither when he
wished to return and make a second statement, which was as follows:
‘That he was at his own house on the 7th of February, 1744-5, at night,
when Richard Houseman and Daniel Clark came to him with some plate;
and both of them went for more, several times, and came back with
several pieces of plate, of which Clark was endeavouring to defraud his
neighbours; that he could not but observe that Houseman was all night
very diligent to assist him to the utmost of his power, and insisted
that this was Houseman’s business that night, and not the signing any
note or instrument, as is pretended by Houseman; that Henry Terry,
then of Knaresborough, ale-keeper, was as much concerned in abetting
the said frauds as either Houseman or Clark; but was not now at Aram’s
house, because as it was market-day--his absence from his guests might
have occasioned some suspicion; that Terry, notwithstanding, brought
two silver tankards that night, upon Clark’s account, which had been
fraudulently obtained; and that Clark, so far from having borrowed
twenty pounds of Houseman, to his knowledge never borrowed more than
nine pounds, which he paid again before that night.
‘That all the leather Clark had--which amounted to a considerable
value--he well knows was concealed under flax in Houseman’s house, with
intent to be disposed of by little and little, in order to prevent
suspicion of his being concerned in Clark’s fraudulent practices.
‘That Terry took the plate in a bag, as Clark and Houseman did the
watches, rings, and several small things of value, and carried them
into the flat, where they and he’ (Aram) ‘went together to St. Robert’s
Cave, and beat most of the plate flat. It was thought too late in the
morning, being about four o’clock, on the 8th of February, 1744-5, for
Clark to go off, so as to get to any distance; it was therefore agreed
he should stay there till the night following, and Clark, accordingly,
stayed there all that day, as he believes, they having agreed to send
him victuals, which were carried to him by Henry Terry, he being judged
the most likely person to do it without suspicion; for, as he was a
shooter, he might go thither under the pretence of sporting; that the
next night, in order to give Clark more time to get off, Henry Terry,
Richard Houseman, and himself went down to the cave very early; but he’
(Aram) ‘did not go in, or see Clark at all; that Richard Houseman and
Henry Terry only went into the cave, he staying to watch at a little
distance on the outside, lest anybody should surprise them.