USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Sullivan > A history of the town of Sullivan, New Hampshire, 1777-1917, Volume I > Part 34
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was a glass lid to the coffin and, as the friends were taking their leave of the body, the under side of the glass was so clouded with moisture that the face could hardly be seen. Notwithstanding this circumstance, the body was buried, his own family relatives being all ill and, of course, absent. It is quite probable that there was life in the body ; but it is hardly possible that there was any return of conscious- ness. When, later on, the family were made acquainted with these facts, it dis- tressed them greatly, but it would, obviously, have been too late to change any of the conditions. The two brothers of young Seward were seized with the distem- per several days before the latter's death. His parents were both taken seriously ill of the same disease on the day of his death. All recovered, after much suffering, except the father, Josiah Seward, Jr., who died on the 14th of Septem- ber, the day that his son David was 15. Miss Betsey Seward, a sister of Josiah, Jr. was also very sick of the same fever. One of their nurses, Miss Sarah Locke, daughter of Samuel Locke, Esq., of Sullivan, caught the distemper and died of it on the second of October. Milan Wright died of the same trouble on Aug. 17. Many other citizens of the town were prostrated by this malady during the year and some are supposed to have died of it whose deaths were attributed to other causes.
Oct. 24, 1832, Rev. Nahum Osgood, a native of Sullivan, an unmarried man, a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal church, died of cholera in Kentucky.
Dec. 8, 1833, Capt. Samuel Seward died very suddenly at Stoddard village of apoplexy. He had gone to a store to trade. He was hitching his horse in a shed in the rear of the store, when he fell. Bystanders, at the first, thought the man was intoxicated, but as soon as the merchant saw who it was, he exclaimed, " You never saw that man intoxicated." The funeral at his home in Sullivan was the first at which Rev. Joel Wright officiated, shortly before his insallation.
Oct. 16, 1835, occurred the second murder in town. Like the preceding, there can be no rational doubt that the author of the tragedy was in an abnormal con- dition of mind. George Baker was living in the house of Mr. Enoch Woods, the house where Chas. F. Jewett now lives. Baker was a great favorite of Woods. There was no enmity between them. For several years, Mr. Woods had shown signs of a disordered mind. He would disfigure the doors of his white house with charcoal. He would ride through town singing and dancing in his wagon. He had spent a long time in making an ugly knife or dirk in his blacksmith-shop. He is said to have remarked, as he was at work upon it, that he " was making it to defend himself against robbers." At the time, all these eccentricities in his words and actions were wholly attributed to the influence of liquor. Insanity in those times was very imperfectly understood. These acts and words of Mr. Woods were the vagaries of an abnormal mind, but, owing to an almost total ignorance respecting the nature of insanity, they were wholly ascribed to intemp- erance. Mr. Woods had kept a tavern. In those days, liquors were used freely and were served on all occasions, at weddings, funerals, and festive functions of every kind. Almost every adult man drank more or less, publicly and privately. Mr. Woods was not an exception. He used such stimulants, and too freely, but, back and behind all this use of liquor, there was, in his case an undoubted abnormality of mind, which, at the present time, in the light of modern medical science, would be clearly recognized as such.
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Mr. Baker had taken the farm of Mr. Woods "at the halves," as men say. There had been a disagreement between them about the nature of the contract. This had doubtless excited to an unusual degree these abnormal tendencies in the mind of Mr. Woods. On the evening of Friday, Oct. 15, 1835, as the latter step- ped from the north-west room of his house into the kitchen, carrying the dirk in his hand, Baker suddenly rose, perhaps intending to pass out the door to the north upon the lawn. In a second, Baker's breast was in collision with the dirk which penetrated to his heart. Mr. Woods is said to have exclaimed, " Your time has come." He was really not responsible for anything that he said or did. The dirk was very long, with brass handle, barbed upon both sides. The fact that Mr. Woods had been a long time in making it in his shop, that he had frequently spoken of killing "a robber," and that he had persisted in other eccentric habits, tends to confirm the theory of insanity. An intoxicated man will conceive of horrible things, but there is no persistent uniformity of purpose and design in his madness. An insane man will do absurd and irrational things, but there is often an obstinate persistency in the same line of thought, day after day, and even year after year.
After the fatal encounter, Mr. Woods ran to his bedroom, crawled into bed, still clenching the fatal knife, and bade defiance to any who should approach him. Baker lived about twenty minutes after the affair occurred and expired. His wife and a neighbor had witnessed the act. Others soon arrived. It was deemed necessary to secure Mr. Woods. The arrest was made by Joseph Seward, the constable for the year, who was then a man in the prime of life. A neighbor who ventured into the presence of Mr. Woods asked the latter if he were not willing to shake hands with him in a friendly way. Mr. Woods replied, " Yes." As soon as the neighbor took his hand, he held it firmly until Mr. Seward had secured him with ropes. There was no harsh feeling. The pitiable mental condition of Mr. Woods really called only for sympathy. Three young men of that day, Caleb Winch, C. Franklin Wilson, and Charles C. Comstock, remained with Mr. Woods that night and attended to his needs. The writer has conversed with all of them, and they all agreed in every particular respecting the tragedy, and were all firmly convinced that Mr. Woods was irresponsible for the act. A coroner's inquest, hastily summoned, resulted in a verdict that Baker's death was due to wilful murder by Enoch Woods, but the men on that jury were utterly unac- quainted with the psychological laws governing insanity. Their judgment has no scientific value whatever. On Saturday, Oct. 17, Mr. Woods was arraigned before Elijah Parker, Esq., in the old meetinghouse. He was held for the court and committed to the jail in Keene. He refused all food, even water, until the following Wednesday, when he was persuaded to take some coffee. He became rapidly nervous and delirious. On the twenty- fifth of March, 1836, before the sitting of the court, he committed suicide in his cell, by hanging himself with a bandanna handkerchief to the grate. His body, in accordance with arrange- ments which he had made, was buried upon the lawn north of his former dwell- ing, where he had placed rose bushes to decorate the place which he had selected as the family burial lot. On Nov. 2, 1904, his body was moved, as previously stated (see bottom of page 317), to the Four Corners Cemetery.
The late Gen. James Wilson, Jr., a noted lawyer of Keene, who was retained
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on one side or the other of this case, told the writer that, if the case had ever come to trial, the evidence of insanity was so decisive that Mr. Woods would surely have been acquitted. He might have been ordered to be kept in detention in consequence of insanity, but not held to be morally accountable for the death of Mr. Baker.
The descendants of Mr. Woods are eminently respectable persons, and it is due to them, as well as to the memory of their ancestor, that his name should be redeemed from any odium that might have been attached to it at a time when mental diseases were so imperfectly understood. He was a man of many strong and commendable traits of character. He was very intelligent, a great reader, and a good thinker. He studied the political, social, and even theological problems of his time, and his views upon many questions of that day were far in advance of those of many of his townsmen. This sad tragedy was simply the outcome of a disordered mind, aggravated by use of stimulants.
Jan. 6, 1836, John Mason, Sr., who formerly lived where Hon. D. W. Rugg resides and built that house, died at Lancaster, N. H., as the result of a tree falling upon him the previous day.
March 28, 1837, Miss Miriam Bolster was found dead in her cottage at Keene. She had just died suddenly, probably of some heart affection. She was an unmarried daughter of the late Nathan Bolster of Sullivan.
July 22, 1838, Luther Wilder died very suddenly, just after church, near the old second meetinghouse. As he approached the horse-sheds to get his horse, he remarked to some one, " I am as dizzy as a coot." He had no sooner spoken than he fell dead, probably of some affection of the heart.
June 2, 1839, Nathan Ellis of Gilsum, formerly, for many years, of Sullivan, died suddenly. He left his house about 4 P. M., and, two hours later, was found dead near his home. He had seemed as well as usual that day. It was proba- bly a sudden heart trouble. In Sullivan he lived on the Joseph Seward farm. His house was the L of the present house.
July 8, 1839, Mason Adams Nims, the little son of Daniel Adams Nims, was killed by lightning. He was between two and three years of age. He was dressed for a ride, when his father, seeing a shower approaching, placed him in the cradle. A bolt of lightning struck a corner of the chimney, near the roof, and passed horizontally to the centre, then down, breaking the wall boards on the inside from the wall and dividing the wall nearly to the foundation, passing under a boiler and out the mouth of the furnace, across the hearth. A part of the bolt reached the earth through the foundation of the chimney, breaking a large stone and vitrifying a small portion of it. The remainder of the bolt passed along about five feet, between the boards of a double floor, then came up and entered the corner of the cradle where the child was lying, pierced the heel of its shoe and foot, and passed up its back, burning the skin on its head. Mr. Nims, who was lying upon the floor, with his foot against the cradle, received considerable injury. The lightning tore the sole from his right boot and slit the leather above to the length of about three inches, burning his foot and leg badly. It then passed to his left side and burned nearly the whole of that side and his left arm to a blister. Mrs. Nims was sitting at the other side of the cradle, with her hand upon it. Both she and a babe in her lap escaped injury. With the rain and hail
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pouring, Mrs. Nims ran to the neighbors for help. Mr. Nims recovered. The child was probably killed instantly. This account has been principally taken from a contemporary account in the Keene Sentinel. Later in life, Mr. Nims was fatally injured, as we shall recount in a subsequent paragraph in this chapter.
July 20, 1840, Mrs. Elizabeth, wife of Reuben Morse, Jr., so-called in Sullivan, although both his father and grandfather were named Reuben, died, on the same day that her father, Henry Wheeler, hanged himself, in his barn.
Sept. 10, 1842, Mrs. Lucy [Hastings] Foster, a daughter of Benjamin Hastings of Sullivan, and a sister of Abijah and William Hastings, was burned to death at Warner. Like many old ladies of the ancient time, she smoked occasionally. While smoking, upon the great hearth, near an open fire, she fell asleep. Cinders from her pipe set her clothes on fire and she was fatally burned. On Apr. 13, 1846, her husband. John Foster, was drowned in Willow Brook at Henniker, where he was engaged in engineering the construction of a new dam. These persons were the parents of the princely merchant, John Foster, Jr., of Boston, who accumulated a great fortune. Among his bequests was a statue of Wm. Ellery Channing, the great light of the Unitarian denomination, which he bequeathed to the city of Boston. This elegant work of art, costing many thousand dollars, has been placed upon the Public Garden, so that the standing figure of Channing faces the entrance of the Arlington St. Unitarian Church, the edifice of the society which formerly worshipped in Federal St., where Channing preached.
Aug. 12, 1843, Calvin Locke died very suddenly, while sitting at dinner, probably from some heart difficulty.
Aug. 12, 1843, Elbridge, eldest child of Lyman Gates, formerly of Sullivan, was drowned in the river at Swanzey, about two years of age. He wandered away with another boy of about the same age. His mother had seen the boys in a safe place not more than fifteen minutes before they were discovered in the water.
Feb. 6, 1844, Mehetabel, widow of Abijah, and mother of Capt. T. T. Wether- bee, died on the very morning of her eightieth birthday anniversary.
Feb. 6, 1845, Erastus Kemp, Jr., died of small-pox, in the city of New York, in his twenty-third year.
Sept. 19, 1845, Joseph Warren Kemp, a native of Sullivan, and a young son of David Kemp, was accidentally shot at school, in Deerfield, Mass.
Mar. 12, 1846, Capt. Eliakim Nims died, the last survivor, in Sullivan, of the American Revolution.
June 10, 1846, Samuel Seward White, one of Sullivan's most brilliant young men, was killed at Mobile, Alabama, by being thrown from a horse which he was riding. He was in the company of a son of Gen. (afterwards President) Zachary Taylor. They were about to join the American forces in the Mexican war. He was the only Sullivan man, so far as known, who enlisted for that war. Young White was a popular clerk at the St. Charles Hotel, at that time the most famous hotel in New Orleans. The inscription upon his monument at New Or- leans has already been given upon page 308 of this book.
May 7, 1847, Mrs. Waitstill G., wife of Jacob Spaulding, died of a malady which occasioned an extraordinary dropsy. According to the Cheshire Repub-
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lican, "by the process of tapping, 158 pounds of water were taken from her, at seven different times," between Dec. 3, 1845, and her death.
Aug. 16, 1849, George S. Kendall, a Sullivan boy, died at Boston, Mass., of cholera, at the age of 26. He was a bright, active, energetic young man, much respected. His body was buried in the old Sullivan cemetery. He was the second and last native of Sullivan to die of that dread disease. The other was Rev. Nahum Osgood, whose death we have already chronicled in this chapter.
Sept. 1, 1849, Dr. Timothy Livingston Lane, a former physician of Sullivan, died at Fillmore, Ill., on his 49th birthday anniversary. His wife had died there, exactly eight months to a day before him.
Apr. 2, 1850, Samuel Seward, son of the late Capt. Samuel Seward, died at Keene, as the result of a surgical operation, in which Dr. Amos Twitchell ampu- tated one of his legs. The operation was made necessary in consequence of a disease of the limb of long standing. His body was buried at Claremont, where he had lived on moving from Sullivan.
Apr. 25, 1851, James Bolster, a native and, for many years, a resident of Sullivan, died from the effects of being thrown from his wagon, two days before, on the 23d, near Luther Abbott's, in Stoddard, on his way home from that town to Gilsum, where he was then living. He died in Stoddard, not being able to be removed to his own house.
May 23, 1852, Phædrus E. Parker of Sullivan, a grandson of Dea. Dalphon Gibbs, was drowned in Gilsum, while bathing in Silsby's mill pond, back of the old dam near the tannery. He was 15 years of age.
Feb. 4, 1856, George Franklin Proctor was fatally injured while sliding on his sled. He was going face downward, "belly- bump," as the boys used to term it, when his head came in violent collision with a tree, producing a fatal concus- sion.
Sept. 24, 1856, Mrs. Lucius Nims died and, as we have seen, page 341, was the first person whose body was buried at East Sullivan.
March 24, 1,857, George Wardwell was found dead in his barn. He was living where Mason A. Nims resides. The barn was then opposite the house on the south side of the road. Mr. Wardwell was not a strong man. In early life, he had been severely injured in a forest, by a tree falling upon him which he had just felled. He was physically injured for life. He had the care of a large farm, was of a very nervous temperament, and being overworked and weak, in a state of melancholy, while undoubtedly laboring under some form of mental disturb- ance, he had hanged himself and life was extinct before the fact was discovered. He was an upright man, square in all his dealings and social relations, and this unfortunate accident, for it should really be so considered, was a lamentable affair.
June 24, 1858, Rev. Granville Wardwell, a former resident of the town, hanged himself at Westminster West, Vt. He was afflicted with insanity, which was the explanation of the act. Mr. Wardwell was a bright, scholarly man, a college graduate, and a preacher of the Trinitarian Congregational denomination.
Oct. 14, 1857, Curtis Spaulding, a former resident of Sullivan, died very suddenly in his bed, at the hotel at Swanzey Factory Village, where he was boarding. He had been to Keene that day and had not complained of feeling ill.
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His lifeless body was found in his room the following morning. His ailment is thought to have been painter's colic. He was a painter.
Oct. 21, 1858, Martin Rugg died. His body was the first buried in the Meetinghouse Cemetery.
Feb. 28, 1860, Martin Spaulding was fatally injured in the woods, by a tree falling upon him which he had felled. Owing to his unusual absence from the house, his wife went in search of him and found him in that terrible situation. She summoned aid as quickly as she could. He was still alive when she reached him, but he could not be extricated in time to save his life.
Dec. 20, 1861, Silas L. Black died at Budd's Ferry, Md. He was in the 2d N. H. Reg. in the Civil War. His body was that of the first deceased soldier brought to Sullivan during the war. It occasioned a universal and sympathetic interest throughout the town. On arriving at East Sullivan, the body was taken into the tannery building, where it was transferred from the very plain coffin furnished by the government to a much better one, such as the town then fur- nished for deceased citizens. There was a large attendance at the obsequies. The interment was at East Sullivan. The epitaph on his headstone was written by D. W. Wilson, Esq.
Feb. 3, 1862, Sylvester C. Abbott, a son of James C. Abbott of Sullivan, died in the army at Hatteras Inlet, N. C., a member of the 6th N. H. Reg. His body was not brought to New Hampshire. He was about 27 years of age. His only legal residence was Sullivan, although he happened to be working away from home at the outbreak of the war and his enlistment was credited to Dublin. His name should have a place on the Soldiers' Mouument. There are still vacant spaces on the west side. Several, whose names are on the monument, were like him credited to other towns, though properly they all seemed to belong to us.
July 22, 1862, Andrew J. Rugg died at Philadelphia. He was of the 2d N. H. Reg., in the war. His mother reached him before his death. His body was returned and buried in the Meetinghouse Cemetery. The funeral was at the church, which was crowded with sympathetic friends and citizens.
Aug. 28, 1862, Henry McDonald, of the 6th N. H. Reg., in the war, was killed in the second Bull Run battle. His body was not recovered. When the war began, he was living in the Dauphin Spaulding, 2d, house above East Sullivan. He left a widow and two sons.
Dec. 18, 1862, Edwin T. Nims died in the service of his country, at Pooles- ville, Md. He was of the 14th N. H. Reg. His body was returned to town and buried in the Meetinghouse Cemetery.
Apr. 6, 1863, Geo. R. Morse, a son of Reuben Morse, Jr., who formerly lived where S. E. Jenkins lives, was accidentally shot in the thigh, while gunning, in Marlborough, and died in that town, on the same day, from the effects of the wound. He was eleven years of age.
June 21, 1863, Russell T. Holt died at Washington, D. C. He was of the 14th Reg. N. H. Vols., in the Civil War. His wife had reached him before he died. His body was brought to town. The funeral was at the house where Geo. Kingsbury lives. Mr. Holt had been renting a part of that house. The burial was at the Meetinghouse Cemetery.
Oct. 11, 1863, Joseph Vryling Mason, son of Sylvester, died at South Gardner,
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Mass., about a month after he had been honorably discharged from the army on account of ill health. He was in the 53d Reg., Mass. Vols., and in his twentieth year. He was a native of Sullivan.
Feb. 7, 1864, Dauphin Spaulding, 2d, died at Washington, D. C., in a govern- ment hospital. His body was brought to town and buried at East Sullivan. The funeral was at the house of his father, Dexter Spaulding. He had enlisted from Keene, but nearly his whole life was passed in Sullivan. He was in the 14th Reg. N. H. Vols.
June 3, 1864, Edwin Brant Frost, a native of Sullivan, and a brother of Dr. C. P. Frost, Dean of the Dartmouth College Medical School, was killed at the battle of Cold Harbor.
July 11, 1864, Henry D. Spaulding, son of Dexter, died of disease, at Natchez, Miss. His body was buried in that place, in the national cemetery, in grave No. 120. He was in the 14th Reg., N. H. Vols.
Sept. 19, 1864, Charles C. Wilson, son of C. F. Wilson, was killed in the battle of Opequan, near Winchester, Va. His body was buried on the battle- field, with many others of the same regiment, over which New Hampshire has erected a splendid monument, on which are inscribed the names of those who are buried at its base. Young Wilson was a scholar and a promising young man. Memorial services were held in his honor at the church in Sullivan.
Mar. 12, 1865, Orland K. Spaulding died in a hospital at Cypress Hill, L. I., near the city of New York. He was a soldier of the TIIth Iowa Vols. He was born and had lived the most of his life in Sullivan. His body was buried in the old Four Corners Cemetery.
Apr. 21, 1866, Gardner H. Rugg died at Carbondale, Ill. He had been a member of the 38th Ill. Reg. in the war.
May 28, 1868, Stephen Carter Joslin, Jr., was fatally injured in the tannery at East Sullivan, then standing in the corner of the roads, opposite the house where Mr. Harris now lives. Mr. Joslin was adjusting machinery in the tannery, when his clothing caught in the shafting and he was carried, with great velocity, scores of times around the shaft. He was hurled around with such force that his limbs broke the floor. He was horribly crushed and mutilated, all the larger bones being broken. He was carried into the house where Mr. Harris now lives and Dr. G. B. Twitchell was summoned from Keene, but it was impossible to save him. The injuries were so many and so serious that nothing could be done beyond an effort to administer anæsthetics. Even these were overcome by the pain. In this trying hour, he was comforted and sustained by a wonderful relig- ious hope and resignation, retaining consciousness for a few hours, notwithstand- ing the terrible ordeal through which his body had passed. To one of the relatives he observed " I have escaped consumption," a malady which he had feared and dreaded. He left a young widow, but no children. He expired before midnight of the day he was injured.
Nov. 21, 1871, Daniel Adams Nims died almost instantly from the effects of a fatal injury, received by a timber falling upon his head, while taking down a barn, on the Hubbard farm, near his former residence. He then resided at the house where Hersey Wardwell had formerly lived.
Nov. 2, 1872, Miss Grata Kingsbury wandered from the place where she
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was stopping, which had been her father's old homestead, and drowned herself in the Ferry Brook, near the Keene line. The water was so shallow that she is supposed to have crept to it on her hands and knees and deliberately held her head in the stream until she was dead. She was mentally deranged.
May 9, 1874, David W. Buckminster, who lived at one time where T. A. Hastings resides, fell dead upon Valley St., in Keene, as the result of apoplexy.
May 9, 1877, Rev. J. M. Stow, for seven years pastor of the First Congrega- tional Church of Sullivan, died from the effects of a fatal injury, by being thrown from his carriage on that day.
June 5, 1878, Frank L. Pearson, a young unmarried man from Chester, Vt., who was working for Alanson A. Nims, fatally shot himself, in the door-yard of Justus Dunn, and died in a few moments. He and a companion named Howard, from Keene, had started for Bolster Pond. The companion kept on to the pond, while Pearson hitched the horse at Mr. Dunn's. After caring for his horse, Pearson went to the rear of his wagon, to pull out a gun which he had taken along. The gun was loaded and was discharged as he pulled it forward, the charge entering his breast and the bullet piercing his heart. He lived long enough to enter the house of Mr. Dunn, through the long back passage, and had just reached the kitchen when he fell. He spoke once or twice and requested that some one go for his companion. His body was buried at Chester.
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