Christmas in Early New Hampshire

First of all, I want to apologize for the vast expanse of time between posts--- life has been crazy! And this blog requires a lot of research! Ok, enough excuses…

Well, given the time of year, I thought it might be a good time to write about something not quite so dark and sinister, though the celebration of Christmas in New Hampshire was not without controversy. While the general public might think that modern Christmas celebrations originated during the mid-nineteenth century heeded by Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, the origins of holiday tradition we enjoy today actually began much earlier. And the typical stereotype about colonial New England is that the observance of Christmas was taboo because in the minds of the the Puritans, it was a holiday linked to the papacy and the pagan yuletide festival celebrating the winter solstice.  But in New Hampshire at least, this was far from the reality. 

The historical evidence reveals that Christmas was actually quite boisterous in Portsmouth before the American Revolution, much more so than the quaint, contrived tourist attraction it has become today. In the December 28, 1770 issue of the New Hampshire Gazette published in downtown Portsmouth, printer and editor Daniel Fowle commented that local celebrations of Christmas in fact reflected the “degeneracy of Christians…Why the evening preceeding and whole Night is spent by many in Rioting & Drunkeness, Tumult and Noise.”  But apparently early Christmas celebrations in New Hampshire had a much darker side than a bunch of noisy drunkards. Fowle was far more disturbed by the "cruel mode of Diversion of torturing the helpless Feathered Species, by throwing of them ‘till they are murdered disgraces our Religion and insults our Humanity.”  Despite their quest for authenticity, I don’t think we’ll be seeing that recreated at any historical holiday events such as the Candle Light Stroll at Strawbery Banke!

Anyway,  even in 1770, Fowle believed this custom to be a "vestige of Gothic Cruelty", and my research shows that he may well have been largely accurate about its origins. The practice of sacrifice around the winter solstice was a very ancient ancient one, and even the word "Yule" associated with Christmas for a very long time, is believed to have origins in the Norse word "jul" which translates as "cycle" or "sacrifice."  In Britain in particular, surviving letters of those who converted the island, such as St. Augustine, reveal that this pagan custom was allowed to continue under the veil of Christianity to ease the transition between the two belief systems.  While it certainly changed over the centuries and logically made it way across the Atlantic to the British colonies, even today in Britain the treatment of animals, particularly fowl, on Christmas is a topic of considerable controversy: 
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/CAMPAIGNS/living/ALL/563/

 An early proponent of animal rights perhaps (though it is beyond doubt that Fowle participated in the slave trade via his newspaper), in 1770 he urged action to stop the abuse of animals on Christmas: “We can impute the Continuance of this brutal Custom to nothing but Inattention, for even out Select-men and others…by a law may put an effectual stop to such Cruelty.” And his compelling plea for reform did not fall on deaf ears. In fact, only two days before Christmas Day the following year in 1771, the provincial assembly of New Hampshire passed a law to “prevent and punish Disorders usually committed on the twenty-fifth Day of December, commonly called Christmas-Day, the Evening preceding and following said day.”  The language of this legislation provides further insight into how wild these colonial Christmas celebrations were. Specifically the authorities ordered that, “no person or persons, within the town of Portsmouth, shall on the evening or night next immediately preceding Christmas-Day, assemble with others, in a routerous and tumultuous manner…or travel though the streets with beating of drums, and firing guns, or hallowing and huzzaing…and any boys playing with balls in any streets, whereby there is danger of breaking the windows of any building, public or private, may be ordered to remove to any place where there will be no such danger.”  Those darn kids!

The potential penalty for anyone caught engaging in the above activities ranged from a fine not more than five shillings, imprisonment in the colony’s jail for not more than two days, or sitting in the stocks for up to two hours. Interestingly, the colonial authorities stipulated that “boys under twelve years of age, be excepted from suffering the penalties aforesaid.” This law suggests that the provincial authorities were primarily concerned that Christmas celebrations had dissolved into chaotic, unruly gatherings that could potentially ferment rebellious sentiment towards the Crown.  For Christmas 240 years ago, in 1774, colonial New Hampshire was teetering on the edge of outright rebellion. Portsmouth became the stage for the first armed assault against a royal military installation, when New Hampshire militiamen raided Fort William & Mary in New Castle for its valuable barrels of gunpowder and other provisions. Days after on December 17, the New Hampshire Gazette reported residents of nearby Greenland celebrated this event by raising "a Liberty-Pole" at Folsom's tavern to symbolize their "fix'd Determination to defend the Privilege of Americans with their lives and fortunes." To see what this event could have looked like, click here to visit the page of my living history unit, Cherry's Company, 2nd NH Regiment and see the photos: https://www.facebook.com/CherrysCompany.2ndNH


Once American independence was achieved after eight long grueling years of war, there is no doubt that all segments of New Hampshire's citizens definitely observed the Christmas holiday. On December 25, 1789, the New-Hampshire Spy in Portsmouth reported that “This day, being Christmas, His Excellency the President of this State, the Members of the Hon. Council, Senate and House of Representatives, attended divine service at the Episcopalian church in this town.” The “president” of New Hampshire at this time was my hometown of Rollinsford’s most famous son, General John Sullivan. Three years later in Concord, according to the editor of The Mirror, Christmas was “observed with grateful hearts--- In the evening, an ingenious…discourse, suited to the occasion, was delivered in the court house, to a crowded and respectable auditory.” Christmas also became a time for smaller, yet no less significant celebrations in everyday life; for example, on Christmas Eve 1805, the Political Observatory of Concord announced that on “Christmas evening” in Alstead, Mr. Anson Graves married Aceneth Slade.” One can only hope they lived happily ever after. 

Another revelation is that the tradition of using pine saplings to decorate homes in New Hampshire really did begin during the 18th century. As early as 1791, on July 2 in fact, the New-Hampshire Spy published an article that discussed ancient pagan British customs “as the reason of evergreens being used on Christmas Day,” which indicates this practice was already prevalent in New Hampshire before 1800. By the mid-nineteenth century, many New Hampshire homes were adorned with fresh cut hemlocks or pines from the nearby woods. In 1850, Joseph Cilley of Nottingham noted in his diary that his family had erected “a Christmas tree this eve-it looked well.” On January 3, 1852, the New-Hampshire Statesman in Concord mentioned that at the Christmas party at the Sunday school of St. Paul’s Church, “the chief charm of the occasion…was the Christmas Tree, which was loaded with some concealed gift, for each member of the school. The ceremony of plucking the tree and presenting to every scholar his own, was novel and interesting.”

 But how did folks actually put up a Christmas tree a century or two ago before modern stands were invented? An article which appeared in Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine in December 1860 indicated that large stone jars or crocks were used as a base and were filled with damp sand or earth to keep the tree upright and from drying out too quickly. According to the Farmer’s Cabinet of Amherst, in December 1855, the congregation of the First Church in Mason paid thanks to their pastor by putting up a Christmas Tree in his parlor and soon “its branches became the depository of a liberal sum of money, and many useful articles, which, together with hay, wood and provisions…amounted to upwards of $80.” New Hampshire’s strong holiday tradition also directly contributed to our national obsession with the Christmas tree. In December 1856, it is widely believed that New Hampshire native Franklin Pierce became the first President to put up a Christmas tree in the White House, establishing an annual tradition that continues today. So if you like Christmas today, you can in a large part thank the people of New Hampshire's past!

Sources

1. Medieval Celebrations, Daniel Diehl and Mark Donnelly, Stackpole Books: 2011. 

2. Christmas: A Candid History, Bruce David Forbes, Berkely: University of California               Press, 2007. 
3. Merry Christmas! Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday, Karal Ann Marling,                           Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

A Tale of Two Boys: A Strange Story of Somnabulism

 This remarkable tale also involves children, yet with a strange twist, for both the perpetrator and victim were both minors. It began not in New Hampshire, but in Richmond, Virginia just before the outbreak of the Civil War, where on January 13, 1859, John Sherman Emerson was born to thirty-six year old Richard Emerson and his wife. Emerson was originally from Candia, New Hampshire, fought in the Mexican War during the late 1840s, and relocated to Virginia, where he married Margaret Wade and started a family. By 1860, the federal census documents that John Emerson was the youngest of five children, including Clara, Margaret, Mary, and Sarah. This document captured a moment in time before the turmoil of the Civil War changed the fortunes of the Emerson family.

John S Emerson recorded as a one year old child of Richard and Margaret Emerson in the 1860 US Census

 Even though he was from New Hampshire and had served previously in the U.S. Army, during the Civil War Richard Emerson served as a private in the 25^th Battalion Virginia Infantry, which was organized to defend the city of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. However, in May 1864, Emerson’s ragtag regiment was called into the field by General Robert E. Lee to reinforce the decimated Southern army in the massive battle of Spotsylvania. By the time he was discharged from the Army of Northern Virginia in 1865, Richard Emerson was listed on the official records as being a musician.¹ But for some unknown reason, Emerson abandoned his young family after the war ended and went to California, where he died soon after. A few years later, his estranged wife Margaret Emerson also passed away, and John Emerson, only eight years old, was left an orphan. There was nothing left for him in Virginia, so he traveled north to the birthplace of his father, and where some of his older siblings had already relocated: New Hampshire. And yet it was in the Granite State, where young John Emerson sought refuge in a land desolated by war, that he would nearly lose his life in what one contemporary described as one of the “most singular tragedies of which there is any record in criminal annals.”²

 While John Emerson spent his early childhood in Virginia, another boy about the same age named Wilfred Fitts was growing up in Candia. Wilfred was described as having a “pleasing appearance” and he was also “a good scholar in school, and well liked by his teachers.” Once arriving in New Hampshire, John Emerson began living with different families in Candia who had known his father’s family and doing chores on their farms. He soon became “a favorite among the citizens of that town” and was described as being “very intelligent.” At one point, John lived with Wilfred Fitts’ uncle, Jesse, and the two boys got to know each other well. According to those who knew them, “there had never been much trouble between the boys and they appeared to enjoy each other’s company.”³ But in April 1873, when both John and Alfred had entered their teens, a bizarre incident occurred that would change the course of both their lives.

On the night of Monday, April 14, young Emerson was boarding at the farm of Charles Rowe, a farmer who lived with his wife, two children, and his elderly mother on North Road in Candia. Earlier that evening, Mr. Rowe had left for Exeter, where by some odd coincidence he had been summoned for jury duty the next day. Rowe must have been shocked to learn that during his absence a murder had nearly transpired at his own home. According to riveting account from the Independent Statesman of Concord on April 17, John Emerson and seventy-six year old Sarah Rowe, who perhaps served as a surrogate grandmother figure for him, slept in adjacent rooms and around midnight, a commotion in John’s room caused her to awake. After calling to him twice and receiving no reply, Mrs. Rowe rose out of bed to see what was wrong. Groping in the darkness, she touched the bed and was “horror-struck by feeling his body and the hot blood pouring...into the bed.” The rest of the household had been awakened by her screams and ran to get help at the nearest farm, which belonged to Jesse Fitts where Alfred was staying, some three-quarters of a mile away. When he arrived at the scene of the crime, Mr. Fitts was astonished to discover that lying near John Emerson’s bed was an axe smeared with blood which he instantly recognized to be from his own workshop. But how did it get there?

But before that disturbing question could be answered, the Rowe family turned their attention to the young victim who was life was ebbing away before their very eyes.  Jesse Fitts rode hard through the darkness to the residence of Dr. Edward Berry, who quickly traveled to the Rowe residence and found John Emerson “very much exhausted from the loss of blood, but having his senses. He found a terrible gash extending from the right corner of the mouth into it and back to the neck, under the ear; another gash extending from just below the nose on the left side, about two inches long, penetrating into the mouth and separating the jaw and cutting out a piece thereof, and pushing out several teeth.” During what must have been his attempts to fend off his attacker, John Emerson’s thumb on his right hand was severed completely and two other fingers cut so badly that they had to be amputated. Despite these serious injuries, Dr. Berry “entertained strong hopes of his recovery, the lad being conscious and bearing his pain with much fortitude.” Here we get a prophetic insight into the resilient character of this teenager who had an intimate brush with death.

While John Emerson’s condition was stabilized, an inquiry began the next morning to determine who had perpetrated the attempted murder and why. Who would have had access to that particular axe? Suspicions immediately fell on fifteen-year old Wildred Fitts, who apparently for some months had been known in Candia for being a somnambulist. This obscure medical term is derived from the Latin words for sleep (somnus) and walking (ambulus). For months, stories had circulated around town that in the middle of the night Wilfred would “conceal his school books and clothing in obscure parts of the house, being unable to find them afterward, and accusing others of having hid them.” Only about a week before the assault on John Emerson, Wilfred had been found sleepwalking inside the nearby home of Augustus Robbins, standing upright with an axe in his hands. When Robbins approached the teenager carefully and discovered he was asleep, Wilfred had to be escorted back to his uncle Jesse’s farm.  After this incident, the Fitts family had taken measures to make sure he stayed in his room at night but did he?

Modern medical research has demonstrated that sleepwalking occurs often in children as they enter their teens. They may get up and walk around, or do complex activities such as moving furniture, going to the bathroom, and dressing or undressing. The episode can be very brief or it can last for thirty minutes or longer, but most episodes last for less than ten minutes. If they are not disturbed, sleepwalkers will go back to sleep.  This is an relevant observation, since an examination of the crime scene at the Rowe’s home in 1873 “showed that whoever committed the crime took an old chair from the barn, placed it to the parlor window and got in there, passed through into the hall, up stairs and through an intricate hallway to the rear of the house, where Emerson was asleep, and went out...the same way. On the window-sill was some blood.”⁴

The morning after John was assaulted, Wilfred was found asleep in his bed and there was no apparent blood on his clothing, but there was a track of footprints leading away from the house. Later that morning, he was told to return to his parents in Lowell, and while passing the Rowe farm, “desired to call and bid John Emerson goodbye, appearing to have no knowledge that his friend was injured.” To those who believed this was indeed an incidence of somnambulistic violence, Wilfred’s behavior seemed to provide more convincing evidence that he was completely oblivious about the attack. Nevertheless, on Wednesday April 16, Wilfred Fitts was taken into custody by authorities and brought to Exeter, where the Rockingham county prosecutor, J. S.H Frink had to decide how to proceed with this unorthodox case. How could he prosecute an attempted murder committed without an apparent motive or malice and a defendant who claimed not to remember committing the crime?

In the meantime, more information came from the Fitts family which seemed to confirm that Wilfred may have inherited his sleepwalking condition from his mother, who told reporters that “she herself was accustomed, when young, to rise from her bed without knowing it; and that on two or three occasions in her earlier married life she had, in her sleep, clutched her husband by the throat in fancied defense of some assaulter..” The theory that Mrs. Fitts could have passed on her past sleepwalking behavior genetically to her son is actually supported today by clinical research. In a recent book on the subject, three prominent psychologists affirmed that “it is clear that sleepwalking is highly hereditary...If both parents sleepwalk, there is a 60% chance any child will sleepwalk. If only one parent sleepwalks, the risk is 45%.”⁵ In Candia, where people knew both of boys well, most citizens agreed that the deed had been committed by Wilfred in his sleep.  The Farmer’s Cabinet of Amherst described the incident as “one of the most horrible freaks of a somnambulist ever recorded.”

But according to the Independent Statesman in Concord on May 1, some residents  of Candia were skeptical and believed that “Fitts committed the assault in full possession of his faculties.” This wasn’t the first time in nineteenth-century New England that sleepwalking had been used as an alibi by a defendant. In New Hampshire during the 1830s, Abraham Prescott attempted to elude the gallows by claiming he was a somnambulist but was still hanged in 1836 for the murder of Sally Cochran. In the 1840s, Albert Tirrell of Boston was tried for murdering his wife and then setting fire to the crime scene, though he was acquitted partly thanks to attributing his actions to sleepwalking.⁶ In a way reminiscent of modern debates about the impact of violent video games and television, some of Wilfred Fitts’ contemporaries believed that the sensational print media had incited the teenager to commit an act of violence. They claimed he was “impelled to it by a morbid craving after notoriety, superinduced by reading accounts of murders and assassinations, in the papers, and dime novels.” But the legal authorities of New Hampshire were to take a much more lenient view of the case.

 By late April, fortunately John Emerson had begun recovering from his wounds and his survival seemed certain, indeed he would thrive. On Tuesday, May 6, 1873 a hearing was held at the Congregational Church in Exeter because the crowd who came to witness the unique proceedings was so large. After visiting the scene of the crime, and hearing the testimony from about a dozen witnesses, including the Fitts family who claimed that their son had shown symptoms of somnambulism for an extended time and that they had sent him to live in Candia to get better, “Judge Cross and the County Solicitor said they did not regard the boy as responsible for the assault.” They requested that if the boy was placed in an asylum to treat his condition, no charges would be filed.  Whether Wilfred Fitts did actually attempt to murder John Emerson while sleepwalking will always remain an enigma, but even today psychologists continue to document and study cases of somnambulistic assaults and even alleged homicides.⁷ 

After their probable nocturnal encounter in April 1873, the lives of Wilfred Fitts, and his friend and victim, John Emerson, could not have been more dissimilar. Emerson fully recuperated and lived with one of his older sisters in Somersworth before returning to public school, and in January 1874, James Shapleigh became John’s legal guardian and was able to obtain a cash settlement of $750 from the Fitts family.⁸ Meanwhile, Wilfred was first sent to the New Hampshire State Asylum in Concord, but by the end of June the superintendent of the institution requested that he be released back to his parent’s custody because he had never been observed to sleepwalk there. For the rest of that summer, Wilfred lived with his parents in Lowell, but his mental state apparently deteriorated. On September 30, 1873, the Boston Daily Advertiser reported that he “ran out of his father’s house Saturday last, without hat or shoes, under an aberration of mind. It was feared that he injured himself, but after along search was found in his father’s barn.” A few days later, the “boy somnambulist...who is seventeen years of age, yet weighs but seventy-five pounds” was accompanied by his father to the Worcester State Asylum, where it was hoped his health would improve.

But about a year later, Wilfred Fitts was involved in a tragic demise that was no less bizarre than the strange crime he had allegedly committed. On February 8, 1875, the Boston Daily Advertiser informed its readers that when he had been left unsupervised for a few moments, the teenager “filled a bath-tub with scalding water then jumped into it, suffering injuries from which he died in twenty-four hours.”The circumstances of his death were so alarming that in "A Report of the Commissioners of Lunacy to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts", which investigated the incident, reported that during his final excruciating hours, Wilfred claimed it was not suicide but an accident. But in the Massachusetts vital records, Wilfred’s death was listed as “injury (self-inflicted).” His father Isaac Fitts must have mourned the loss of his son on the verge of manhood until his own death on August 23, 1890 in Lowell at the age of eighty-one. We don't know the last time Wilfred and John spoke to each other, but when John heard of this news, it must have been shocking.

But the rest of John Emerson’s life couldn’t have been more different from the sad fate of his childhood friend. It’s interesting to ponder the impact the ax attack had on young John, and though the historian of Candia said Emerson would “always bear the marks of the ugly wounds he received on that terrible night”, it seems to have had a completely unexpected psychological effect on him.⁹ In fact, it may not be coincidence that after nearly having his life taken by a childhood friend, John Emerson became a highly respected teacher.  By December 1879, at age twenty, John was educating the youth of Candia at the local high school, where the Independent Statesman noted “the success which has hitherto attended Mr. Emerson in his teaching, and the character of the scholars in attendance, a pleasant and profitable term is anticipated.”

Over the next decade, Emerson moved on to teach in different communities in suburban Boston and built himself quite a resume. In Quincy, John fell in love with another teacher, twenty-eight year old Charlotte Poison, and the Massachusetts vital records show they were married on April 3, 1890 in Malden, “a union which...contributed greatly to Mr. Emerson’s success.” Four years later, Emerson became principal of the Knapp School in Somerville, where he would remain for many years. 

In 1897, a book about Somerville discussed the history of the schools in great detail, and  described John Emerson“to have been born for the work of teaching, and his success commenced with his first experience...and yet he is most unassuming.” The photo of him in that book below remarkably shows that any scars of the attack which nearly killed him as a teenager had virtunally disappeared when he was in his late thirties. Ten years later, in 1907, Emerson authored an essay titled “The teaching of local history in the public schools” which would still make interesting reading today.¹⁰ 

The 1910 census documents that middle-aged John and Charlotte Emerson were still married and teaching in Somerville as the first decade of the twentieth century ended.  John Emerson’s narrow escape from death in Candia, New Hampshire and subsequent success as an educator is indeed a remarkable life worthy of remembrance.

 

Endnotes

1. Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Spotsylvania Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998) 155, 168; National Park Service Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System, http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/soldiers.cfm, accessed on July 24, 2011.

2. Edward Samuels and Henry Kimball, eds., Somerville, Past and Present: An Illustrated Historical Souvenir (Boston: 1897) 660.

3. Independent Statesman, April 17, 24, 1873.

4. Independent Statesman, April 17, 24, 1873; “Somnambulism”, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine website, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001811/, accessed August 14, 2011.

5. Independent Statesman, May 1, 1873; Martin Reite, Michael P. Weissburg, John Ruddy, Clinical Manual for Evaluation and Treatment of Sleep Disorders (Arlington, Virginia: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2009) 152.

6. New Hampshire Sentinel, October 1, 1836, April 1, 1846.

7. Michael J. Thorpy, Giuseppe Plazzi, The Parasomnias and Other Sleep-Related Movement Disorders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) 8.

8. Independent Statesman, January 29, 1874.

9. J. Bailey Moore, History of the Town of Candia, Rockingham County, N.H. (Manchester: George Brown, 1893) 318.

10. Samuels and Kimball, Somerville, Past and Present, 660; Annual Report of the American Historical Association, Volume 2 (Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1907) 576.

Granite Gallows Book Published!

I'm thrilled to announce the arrival of my book, Granite Gallows: True Tales of the Death Penalty & More from New Hampshire's History. It weaves together stories similar to those that have appeared in my blog, but on a far greater scope and length.

This process has been nearly ten years in the making, but it has been worth the journey!

To get a preview and purchase your copy through Amazon, please click here  http://www.amazon.com/Granite-Gallows-Tales-Penalty-Hampshires/dp/1499282621/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400088084&sr=8-1&keywords=granite+gallows

   

"Disordered in his Senses": Murder and Madness in Colonial Chester

On December 27, 1768, sixty-eight year old Lieutenant Thomas Wells, one of the founders of Chester, New Hampshire, drafted his last will and testament, and the witnesses included his son Thomas, age 29, and John Haseltine. While this date seemed insignificant to them at the time, the date December 27 would prove most sinister for the Wells family in the future. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the document, Wells noted that he was in a "Weake and Low State of Health in Body but yet of Sound Disposing mind and memory." This was certainly true, as probate records reveal that Wells died and the will was proved less than six months later in May 1769.  His son Thomas received a large chunk of land from his father but also he assumed a much greater responsibility; the guardianship of his eleven-year-old sister Pheobe.  Pheobe was granted her mother Elizabeth's remaining clothes, who we must assume had died prior to the will being drawn up since there is no mention of her. Upon her eighteenth birthday in 1775 or marriage if it came first, Pheobe would also inherit two thirds of her father's household goods and furniture, one cow, six sheep, and five pounds cash.(1)

Five years passed in Chester. But across New England, there was tremendous turmoil during this period. In March 1770, colonists had taunted British Regulars on the streets of Boston, resulting in the bloody Massacre. In March 1772, rebellious citizens of Rhode Island burnt HMS Gaspee, sent by the Royal authoritites to stop smuggling along the shore. A month later in New Hampshire, angry farmers and merchants in Weare had beaten the sheriff with sticks when he attempted to arrest them for illegally cutting down trees marked for the Royal Navy in what became known as the Pine Tree Riot. Then only a week earlier, crates of expensive tea were infamously thrown into Boston Harbor, inspiring boycotts of imported tea in towns across the region.

But it appears that even in bucolic Chester far from most of this turbulence, some relationships had begun to sour or even become violent. Exactly 240 years ago today on December 27, 1773, Thomas Wells paid a visit to the home of Deacon William Tolford, who had emigrated with his brother John from Londonderry, Ireland decades before and became quite prominent members of the community. In fact, Thomas Wells Sr. had served as lieutenant and John Tolford captain of the Chester militia company back in 1744, so the two families had known each thirty years by the 1760s. John achieved the rank of Major in the New Hampshire militia and conducted a scouting party with John Stark in 1754.(2) The reason why Wells went to the Tolford's home is unclear, but it certainly involved the conduct of Willliam's thirty-one year old son John, named in honour of his brother. But tragically John apparently suffered from acute mental illness but somehow got his hands on the family firearms. That's when the trouble started.

Here is an original early to mid 18th century fowling gun, which might be close to the weapon owned by William Tolford.

In the Rockingham County Superior Court records, the depositions of the witnesses provide a chaotic but account of what occurred. William Tolford was perhaps the most important since it was his house and his son who committed murder: "John...took a gun and pistel and went to the End of the House and then came into the House again after Mr Thomas Wells and I had took the pistol from him and I tok Hold of the gun with an Intent to Take it from him but he broke my Hold and the gun and shot     Thomas Wells through the Body Who Died immediately."

Major John Tolford evidently lived nearby, because he recalled: "My Brother William Tolfords Wife came runnning to my house and said their was a sad accident Happned at their house and I went Immediately to my Brothers house and as I was going I met John Tolford Juner my Bothers son With a gun and pistol I asked him Where he Was going and he gave me no direct answer I Laid hold of the gun and pistol in order to take them from him but did not then.  We Came Into my Brother house together and When We came in Thomas Wells was Laying Dead on the flowar and upon my Repremanding him for the Deed he Had done he said he Had not Done it but it was Just he should die and I judged him not to have the Exercise of his Reason at that time."

Peter Haseltine also went to the Tolford home when he heard rumors of the tragedy there, and confirmed the observation that John Toldford was either drunk or insane: "I had Word that Thomas Wells was Dead upon Which I Went to Deacon Tolfords wioth my Brother We knocked at the Door and Were bid come in When We came to the Inter Door my Brother being formost John Tolford presented a gun at us the gun was Took from him then he made an attemt to point a pistol at us and that was taken from him When We came in Thomas Wells Who Laying dead on the flowar John Tolford was asked Why he Kild him he said it was just that he should die and said Tolford appeared to me to be in Liquor or Delireus or Both."

So whatever motivated Tolford to shoot, there is no doubt that Thomas Wells was dead. The news reached Portsmouth by at least December 31, when the New-Hampshire Gazette noted that "we hear from Chester...one Thomas Wells of that Town was shot through the Body, and died Instantly. The person who committed the fact, is taken into Custody in order for Trial." There is no known gravestone for Thomas Wells, but it's likely he is buried here:

John Tolford's trial began in Portsmouth on March 3, 1774, "in the presence of a great concourse of people" hungry for every juicy detail as they are still today. The newspaper further divulged that "it was clearly proved he shot Wells dead on the spot with a loaded Musket, but it also appearing by a number of Witnesses, he was at the time Disordered of his Senses, he was acquitted." This verdict did show some compassion among the populace. A century earlier he most certainly would have been hanged. However, Daniel Fowle, printer of the New Hampshire Gazette on March 13, 1774, added an editorial of his own: It is hoped and expected, that this will be a sufficient Warning, and that the Friends of the above Mr. Tolford, and the Friends of all other Disordered Persons, will take proper care of them in Time, particularly keep Guns, ect out of their Way."

Isn't it ironic and sad that 240 years later,  we are still struggling with this same issue? 

What happened to Phoebe Wells after her guardian's death and whether she finally received her full inheritance from her father is currently unknown. There was a Phoebe Sargent living in Chester in 1790 when the first Federal Census was taken, but it is unclear if she ever married. Also tragic is the fate suffered by John Tolford, who escaped the gallows but suffered a fate perhaps much worse. The town historian of Chester in the 19th century, Benjamin Chase, reported with a sense of horror that Tolford "was so insane afterwards that he was kept in a cage about forty years."(3) That just sends chills down my spine.

Notes
1. Probate Records of the Province of New Hampshire,  State Papers Series, Volume 39, pages 203-206. 
2. Benjamin Chase, History of Old Chester From 1719 to 1869 (Auburn, 1869) pgs. 365, 599.

3. Chase, History of Old Chester From 1719 to 1869, p. 128.

Musket Mishaps: Black Powder Safety (or Not) of the Past

 When people and firearms mix, accidents often happen, and during the days of yore when blackpowder was commonplace in many homes of New Hampshire, the chance of something going wrong was high. What follows are some of the most tragic and gruesome of these firearms, and black powder mishaps, and the fact that gun safety was a serious issue centuries ago.

Only two years after Daniel Fowle began printing the New Hampshire Gazette in Portsmouth in 1756, he reported a terrible incident which occurred only a few miles away on the quaint island of New Castle, still the state's smallest and perhaps wealthiest town. "We hear...of a melancholy accident," Fowle wrote on April 4, 1758,"which happened...at the house of Deacon Jonathan Pierce's; one person being left at home to take care of the children, who was obliged to step out to a neighbor's house for a few minutes; and while she was gone, the children got a canister of powder about six pounds weight, carried it to the fire, not knowing the consequence of powder, put a coal to the same, which blowing up, damaged the house very much...and burnt one child of four years old in such a manner, that it died within a few hours; and another child of seven years old it burnt in such a manner, that its life is not expected."  Fowle warned his readers, using italics to catch their attention, "It is hoped this (and many of the like instances which has happened by the carelessness of leaving guns loaded and powder in children's way) will be sufficient warning to persons to take care in the future."

But children continued to be victims of accidents. In May 1798, the NH Gazette reported the death of a boy who had his brains blown out when his friend fired a musket he did not realize was loaded. On October 11, 1824, the NH Statesman reported the death of a boy curiously named John Kennedy:

Adults also had plenty of mishaps as well, which often cost limbs or lives. Militia musters were often the scene of these accidents. The April 4, 1758 issue of the NH Gazette mentioned, "We hear from Dover, that at a late Regimental muster there, an insisting officer had one of his feet shot away by the carelessness of a soldier." In October 1825 a rather gruesome incident occurred in Amherst:

Hunting accidents were also common place, though sometimes wounds were self-inflicted. Here is rather graphic example from the Dover Gazette on November 18, 1848:

On the Fourth of July, cannons were often fired to celebrate the holiday, and often with horrific consequences. In my own town, Rollinsford aka Salmon Falls, in July 1855 two men were badly injured when the gun prematurely fired, one of them losing his left hand. However, the worst accident transpired in Dover a year later in Novemeber 1856:

The Confession of Andrew Howard

On September 19, a young man named Andrew Howard, armed with a handgun and desperate for cash to satisfy his lust for liquor, brutally invaded the home of Ms. Phoebe Hanson, an elderly woman who was alone and utterly vulnerable. After she gave Hanson all the cash she had on hand, he shot her dead in cold blood.

While this story could appear in the contemporary headlines anywhere in America,  it transpired in Rochester, New Hampshire 170 years ago in 1843. What makes this story also noteworthy is that three years later, on July 8, 1846, Andrew Howard become the last person to be hanged in Dover, the seat of Strafford County. While state law then dictated that executions be confined to the jail yard and no longer be fodder for public entertainment as they had been for more than a century, newspapers reported that "a mob of several thousands gathered about the prison and threatened to tear down the walls, unless they were allowed to gaze on the spectacle, and that the sherrif felt obliged to yield to their violence so far as to remove the canvas from the top of the wall, thus exposing the platform to view. The body was allowed to hang 35 minutes, and then was conffined and given to his friends."   Below, on the left hand column, is Howard's "Confession" from the July 17, 1846 issue of the New Hampshire Statesman, which tells his sad story:

In the Line of Fire: The Trefethen Tragedy of August 1863

On this day 150 years ago, William Trefethen and his wife Izette, and their children John, William, and George of New Castle, New Hampshire near Portsmouth were enjoying a relaxing summer excursion on a small island in the Piscataqua River, which during the previous century had been used to quarantine small pox patients (click here for more info http://www.seacoastnh.com/Places-%26-Events/Brewster%27s-Rambles/Smallpox-Parties-on-Pest-Island/. 

But on that warm, idyllic August day, death must have been furthest thing from their minds. The bloodiest summer of the Civil War that had recently transpired on the gruesome fields of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg must have seemed a world away. But the war was about to make a violent intrusion far from the battlefield, and shatter the Trefethen's world. 

After President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect on January 1, 1863, many states and the Federal government began organizing units of black troops. During the summer of 1863 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which was only across the river from Pest Island and New Castle, black troops were brought in to garrison Fort Sullivan and learn how to fire the cannons which lined the river in case of an enemy attack from Confederate raiders such as thee Alabama. Click here to see post-war images of Fort Sullivan: http://www.northamericanforts.com/East/Maine/Fort_Sullivan/history.html

But on August 28, 1863 the Trefethen family suddently found themselves in the line of fire and this newspaper clipping from the New Hampshire Statesman on September 4 described the horrific scene:

A gravestone at the Riverside Cemetery in New Castle identifies John Trefethen as the boy who was killed. Additional records reveal that Mrs. Trefethen was also pregnant at the time of incident,  making her heroic actions even more remarkable (see here
http://kristinhall.org/fambly/Neal/IzetteNeal.html). 

 I am still searching for documents at the National Archives that might reveal the internal investigation by the Shipyard into the incident. Given how controversial blacks serving in the military was in 1863, my guess is that the Trefethen tragedy only served as confirmation to those who doubted former slaves could be competent soldiers. One can only imagine the remorse and embarrassment the unidentified soldiers themselves felt about the innocent loss of life they had caused.

The impact of that errant cannonball on August 28, 1863 lasted for decades. A document written more than twenty years later tragically hints at the severe psychological scars, probably post-traumatic stress, which Mrs. Trefethen suffered. On April 27, 1886, William Trefethen submitted a petition to Committee of Claims of the U.S. House of Representatives of the 49th Congress, which responded to his claim below:

The facts in this case are that on the 28th day of August, 1863, the wife and sons of the petitioner...were gathering berries on Pest Island , about three-fourths of a mile from Fort Sullivan, and that while so engaged a detachment of United States colored troops, stationed at said Fort, commenced firing shells upon the island, the result of which was that the petitioner's son was killed, and his wife was rendered insane from the fright received by the firing and the shock produced by the killing of her son. These facts are abundantly proven by affidavits...

Your committee are of the opinion that petitioner has not strictly legal claim for compensation, yet, in view of the facts that the gun firing was, according to the testimony of Rear-Admiral Murray, the result of carelessness and ignorance on the part of the United States troops, we report a bill allowing petitioner the sum  of $5,000, and respectfully recomment that it do pass. 

(Click here for the original document from the Congressional Record): http://books.google.com/books?id=ylFHAQAAIAAJ&pg=PR433&dq=son+of+William+Trefethen+killed+1863&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%20William%20Trefethen%20killed%201863&f=false

Unfortunately for historians today, I was informed by the Center for Legislative Archives that all of the affidavits mentioned in the petition above have been lost. But the monetary compensation would never heal the invisible wounds suffered by the Trefethen family. Back in New Hampshire, Izette Trefethen died in March 1887, according to her headstone in the same cemetery as her poor son, where they lie for eternity within sight of the island which witnessed the tragedy that shattered their world.