Seven Wives and Seven Prisons; Or, Experiences in the Life of a Matrimonial Monomaniac. a True Story / Abbott, L. A., 1813-

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Title: Seven Wives and Seven Prisons

Author: L.A. Abbott

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SEVEN WIVES AND SEVEN PRISONS:

OR EXPERIENCES IN THE LIFE OF A
MATRIMONIAL MANIAC. A TRUE STORY.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 1870.






CONTENTS





CHAPTER 1. THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE My Early History. The First
Marriage. Leaving Home to Prospect. Sending for My Wife. Her
Mysterious Journey. Where I Found Her. Ten Dollars for Nothing. A
Fascinating Hotel Clerk. My Wife's Confession. From Bad to Worse.
Final Separation. Trial for Forgery. A Private Marriage. Summary
Separation.

CHAPTER II. MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE. Love-Making in
Massachusetts. Arrest for Bigamy. Trial at Northampton. A Stunning
Sentence. Sent to State Prison. Learning the Brush Business.
Sharpening Picks. Prison Fare. In the Hospital. Kind Treatment.
Successful Horse-Shoeing. The Warden my Friend. Efforts for my
Release. A Full Pardon.

CHAPTER III. THE SCHEIMER SENSATION. The Scheimer Family. In Love
With Sarah. Attempt to Elope. How it was Prevented. Second Attempt.
A Midnight Expedition. The Alarm. A Frightful Beating. Escape,
Flogging the Devil out of Sarah. Return to New Jersey. "Boston
Yankee." Plans to Secure Sarah.

CHAPTER IV. SUCCESS WITH SARAH. Mary Smith as a Confederate. The
Plot. Waiting in the Woods. The Spy Outwitted. Sarah Secured. The
Pursuers Baffled. Night on the Road. Efforts to Get Married. "The
Old Offender." Married at Last. A Constable after Sarah. He Gives it
Up. An Ale Orgie. Return to "Boston Yankee's." A Home in Goshen.

CHAPTER V. HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER. Return to Scheimer's.
Peace, and then Pandemonium. Frightful Family Row. Running for
Refuge. The Gang Again. Arrest at Midnight. Struggle with my
Captors. In Jail Once More. Put in Irons. A Horrible Prison.
Breaking Out. The Dungeon. Sarah's Baby. . Curious Compromises. Old
Scheimer my Jailer. Signing a Bond. Free Again. Last Words from
Sarah.

CHAPTER VI. FREE LIFE AND FISHING. Taking Care of Crazy Men.
Carrying off a Boy. Arrested for Stealing my Own Horse and Buggy.
Fishing in Lake Winnepisiogee. An Odd Landlord. A Woman as Big as a
Hogshead. Reducing the Hogshead to a Barrel. Wonderful Verification
of a Dream. Successful Medical Practice. A Busy Winter in New
Hampshire. Blandishments of Captain Brown. I go to Newark, New
Jersey.

CHAPTER VII. WEDDING A WIDOW AND THE CONSEQUENCES. I Marry a Widow.
Six Weeks of Happiness. Confiding a Secret, and the Consequences.
The Widow's Brother. Sudden Flight from Newark. In Hartford, Conn.
My Wife's Sister Betrays Me. Trial for Bigamy. Sentenced to Ten
Years' Imprisonment. I Become a "Bobbin Boy." A Good Friend.
Governor Price Visits me in Prison. He Pardons Me. Ten Years'
Sentence Fulfilled in Seven Months.

CHAPTER VIII. ON THE KEEN SCENT. Good Resolutions. Enjoying Freedom.
Going After a Crazy Man. The Old Tempter in a New Form. Mary Gordon.
My New "Cousin." Engaged Again. Visit to the Old Folks at Home.
Another Marriage. Starting for Ohio. Change of Plans. Domestic
Quarrels. Unpleasant Stories about Mary. Bound Over to Keep the
Peace. Another Arrest for Bigamy. A Sudden Flight. Secreted Three
Weeks in a Farm House. Recaptured at Concord. Escaped Once More.
Traveling on the Underground Railroad. In Canada.

CHAPTER IX. MARRYING TWO MILLINERS. Back in Vermont. Fresh
Temptations. Margaret Bradley. Wine and Women. A Mock Marriage in
Troy. The False Certificate. Medicine and Millinery. Eliza Gurnsey.
A Spree at Saratoga. Marrying Another Milliner. Again Arrested for
Bigamy. In Jail Eleven Months. A Tedious Trial. Found Guilty. Appeal
to Supreme Court. Trying to Break Out of Jail. A Governor's Promise.
Second Trial. Sentenced to Three Years' Imprisonment.

CHAPTER X. PRISON LIFE IN VERMONT. Entering Prison. The Scythe Snath
Business. Blistered Hands. I Learn Nothing. Threaten to Kill the
Shop Keeper. Locksmithing. Open Rebellion. Six Weeks in the Dungeon.
Escape of a Prisoner. In the Dungeon Again. The Mad Man Hall. He
Attempts to Murder the Deputy. I Save Morey's Life. Howling in the
Black Hole. Taking Off Hall's Irons. A Ghastly Spectacle. A Prison
Funeral. I am Let Alone. The Full Term of my Imprisonment.

CHAPTER XI. ON THE TRAMP. The Day of my Deliverance. Out of Clothes.
Sharing with a Beggar. A Good Friend. Tramping Through the Snow.
Weary Walks. Trusting to Luck. Comfort at Concord. At Meredith
Bridge. The Blaisdells. Last of the "Blossom" Business. Making Money
at Portsmouth. Revisiting Windsor. An Astonished Warden. Making
Friends of Enemies. Inspecting the Prison. Going to Port Jervis.

CHAPTER XII. ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP SARAH SCHEIMER'S BOY. Starting to See
Sarah. The Long Separation. What I Learned About Her. Her Drunken
Husband. Change of Plan. A Suddenly-Formed Scheme. I Find Sarah's
Son. The First Interview. Resolve to Kidnap the Boy. Remonstrance of
my Son Henry. The Attempt. A Desperate Struggle. The Rescue. Arrest
of Henry. My Flight into Pennsylvania. Sending Assistance to my Son.
Return to Port Jervis. Bailing Henry. His Return to Belvidere. He is
Bound Over to be Tried for Kidnapping. My folly.

CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER WIDOW. Waiting for the Verdict. My Son Sent to
State Prison. What Sarah Would Have Done. Interview with my First
Wife. Help for Henry. The Biddeford Widow. Her Effort to Marry Me.
Our Visit to Boston. A Warning. A Generous Gift. Henry Pardoned.
Close of the Scheimer Account. Visit to Ontario County. My Rich
Cousins. What Might Have Been. My Birthplace Revisited.

CHAPTER XIV. MY SON TRIES TO MURDER ME. Settling Down in Maine.
Henry's Health. Tour Through the South. Secession Times. December in
New Orleans. Up the Mississippi. Leaving Henry in Massachusetts.
Back in Maine Again. Return to Boston, Profitable Horse-Trading.
Plenty of Money. My First Wife's Children. How they Have Been
Brought Up. A Barefaced Robbery. Attempt to Blackmail Me. My Son
Tries to Rob and Kill Me. My Rescue Last of the Young Man.

CHAPTER XV. A TRUE WIFE AND HOME AT LAST. Where Were All my Wives?
Sense of Security. An Imprudent Acquaintance. Moving from Maine. My
Property in Rensselaer County. How I Lived. Selling a Recipe. About
Buying a Carpet. Nineteen Lawsuits. Sudden Departure for the West. A
Vagabond Life for Two Years. Life in California. Return to the East.
Divorce from any First Wife. A Genuine Marriage. My Farm. Home at
Last.






SEVEN WIVES AND SEVEN PRISONS

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST AND WORST WIFE

My Early History-THE FIRST MARRIAGE-LEAVING HOME TO PROSPECT-SENDING
FOR MY WIFE-HER MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY-WHERE I FOUND HER-TEN DOLLARS FOR
NOTHING-A FASCINATING HOTEL CLERK-MY WIFE'S CONFESSION-FROM BAD TO
WORSE-FINAL SEPARATION-TRIAL FOR FORGERY-A PRIVATE MARRIAGE-SUMMARY
SEPARATION.





SOME one has said that if any man would faithfully write his
autobiography, giving truly his own history and experiences, the
ills and joys, the haps and mishaps that had fallen to his lot, he
could not fail to make an interesting story; and Disraeli makes
Sidonia say that there is romance in every life. How much romance,
as well as sad reality, there is in the life of a man who, among
other experiences, has married seven wives, and has been seven times
in prison-solely on account of the seven wives, may be learned from
the pages that follow.

I was born in the town of Chatham, Columbia County, New York, in
September, 1813. My father was a New Englander, who married three
times, and I was the eldest son of his third wife, a woman of Dutch
descent, or, as she would have boosted if she had been rich, one of
the old Knickerbockers of New York. My parents were simply honest,
hard-working, worthy people, who earned a good livelihood, brought
up their children to work, behaved themselves, and were respected by
their neighbors. They had a homestead and a small farm of thirty
acres, and on the place was a blacksmith shop in which my father
worked daily, shoeing horses and cattle for farmers and others who
came to the shop from miles around.

There were three young boys of us at home, and we had a chance to go
to school in the winter, while during the summer we worked on the
little farm and did the "chores" about the house and barn. But by
the time I was twelve years old I began to blow and strike in the
blacksmith shop, and when I was sixteen years old I could shoe
horses well, and considered myself master of the trade. At the age
of eighteen, I went into business with my father, and as I was now
entitled to a share of the profits, I married the daughter of a
well-to-do neighboring farmer, and we began our new life in part of
my father's house, setting up for ourselves, and doing our own
house-keeping.

I ought to have known then that marrying thus early in life, and
especially marrying the woman I did, was about the most foolish
thing I could do. I found it out afterwards, and was frequently and
painfully reminded of it through many long years. But all seemed
bright enough at the start. My wife was a good-looking woman of just
my own age; her family was most respectable; two of her brothers
subsequently became ministers of the gospel; and all the children
had been carefully brought up. I was thought to have made a good
match; but a few years developed that had wedded a most unworthy
woman.

Seventeen months after our marriage, our oldest child, Henry, was
born. Meanwhile we had gone to Sidney, Delaware County, where my
father opened a shop. I still continued in business with him, and
during our stay at Sidney, my daughter, Elizabeth, was born. From
Sidney, my father wanted to go to Bainbridge, Chenango, County, N.Y.,
and I went with him, leaving my wife and the children at Sidney,
while we prospected. As usual my father started a blacksmith-shop;
but I bought a hundred acres of timber land, went to lumbering, and
made money. We had a house about four miles from the village, I
living with my father, and as soon as found out that we were doing
well in business, I sent to Sidney for my wife and children. They
were to come by stage, and were due, after passing through
Bainbridge, at our house at four o'clock in the morning. We were up
early to meet the stage; but when it arrived, the driver told us
that my wife had stopped at the public house in Bainbridge.

Wondering what this could mean, I at once set out with my brother
and walked over to the village. It was daylight when we arrived, and
knocked loudly at the public house door. After considerable delay,
the clerk came to the door and let us in. He also asked as to "take
something," which we did. The clerk knew us well, and I inquired if
my wife was in the house; he said she was, told us what room she was
in, and we went up stairs and found her in bed with her children.
Waking her, I asked her why she did not come home, in the stage? She
replied that the clerk down stairs told her that the stage did not
go beyond the house, and that she expected to walk over, as soon as
it was daylight, or that possibly we might come for her.

I declare, I was so young and unsophisticated that I suspected
nothing, and blamed only the stupidity, as I supposed, of the clerk
in telling her that the stage did not go beyond Bainbridge. My wife
got up and dressed herself and the children, and then as it was
broad daylight, after endeavoring, ineffectually, to get a
conveyance, we started for home on foot, she leading the little boy,
and I carrying the youngest child. We were not far on our way when
she suddenly stopped, stooped down, and exclaimed:

"O! see what I have found in the road."

And she showed me a ten dollar bill. I was quite surprised, and
verdantly enough, advised looking around for more money, which my
wife, brother and I industriously did for some minutes. It was full
four weeks before I found out where that ten dollar bill came from.
Meanwhile, my wife was received and was living in her new home,
being treated with great kindness by all of us. It was evident,
however, that she had something on her mind which troubled her, and
one morning, about a month after her arrival, I found her in tears.
I asked her what was the matter? She said that she had been
deceiving me; that she did not pick up the ten dollar bill in the
road; but that it was given to her by the clerk in the public house
in Bainbridge; only, however, for this: he had grossly insulted her;
she had resented it, and he had given her the money, partly as a
reparation, and partly to prevent her from speaking of the insult to
me or to others.

But by this time my hitherto blinded eyes were opened, and I charged
her with being false to me. She protested she had not been; but
finally confessed that she had been too intimate with the clerk at
the hotel. I began a suit at law against the clerk; but finally, on
account of my wife's family and for the sake of my children, I
stopped proceedings, the clerk paying the costs of the suit as far
as it had gone, and giving me what I should probably have got from
him in the way of damages. My wife too, was apparently so penitent,
and I was so much infatuated with her, that I forgave her, and even
consented to continue to live with her. But I removed to Greenville,
Greene County, N. Y., where I went into the black-smithing business,
and was very successful. We lived here long enough to add two
children to our little family; but as time went on, the woman became
bad again, and displayed the worst depravity. I could no longer live
with her, and we finally mutually agreed upon a life-long
separation--she insisting upon keeping the children, and going to
Rochester where she subsequently developed the full extent of her
character.

This, as nearly as I remember, was in the year 1838, and with this
came a new trouble upon me. Just before the separation, I received
from my brother's wife a note for one hundred dollars, and sold it.
It proved to be a forgery. I was temporarily in Troy, N. Y., when
the discovery was made, and as I made no secret of my whereabouts at
any time, I was followed to Troy, was there arrested, and after
lying in jail at Albany one night, was taken next morning to
Coxsackie, Greene County, and front thence to Catskill. After one
day in jail there, I was brought before a justice and examined on
the charge of uttering a forged note. There was a most exciting
trial of four days duration. I had two good lawyers who did their
best to show that I did not know the note to be forged when I sold
it, but the justice seemed determined to bind me over for trial, and
he did so, putting me under five hundred dollars' bonds. My
half-sister at Sidney was sent for, came to Catskill, and became
bail for me. I was released, and my lawyers advised me to leave,
which I did at once, and went to Pittsfield, and from there to
Worthington, Mass., where I had another half-sister, who was married
to Mr. Josiah Bartlett, and was well off.

Here I settled down, for all that I knew to the contrary, for life.
For some years past, I had devoted my leisure hours from the forge
to the honest endeavor to make up for the deficiencies in my
youthful education, and had acquired, among other things, a good
knowledge of medicine. I did not however, believe in any of the
"schools" particularly those schools that make use of mineral
medicines in their practice. I favored purely vegetable remedies,
and had been very successful in administering them. So I began life
anew, in Worthington, as a Doctor, and aided by my half-sister and
her friends, I soon secured a remunerative practice.

I was beginning to be truly happy. I supposed that the final
separation, mutually agreed upon between my wife and myself, was as
effectual as all the courts in the country could make it, and I
looked upon myself as a free man. Accordingly, after I had been in
Worthington some months I began to pay attentions to the daughter of
a flourishing farmer. She was a fine girl; she received my addresses
favorably, and we were finally privately married. This was the
beginning of my life-long troubles. In a few weeks her father found
out that I had been previously married, and was not, so far as he
knew, either a divorced man or a widower. And so it happened, that
one day when I was at his house, and with his daughter, he suddenly
came home with a posse of people and a warrant for my arrest. I was
taken before a justice, and while we were waiting for proceedings to
begin, or, possibly for the justice to arrive, I took the excited
father aside and said:

"You know I have a fine horse and buggy at the door. Get in with me,
and ride down home. I will see your daughter and make everything
right with her, and if you will let me run away, I'll give her her
the horse and buggy."

The offer was too tempting to be refused. The father had the warrant
in his pocket, and he accepted my proposal. We rode to his house,
and he went into the back-room by direction of his daughter while
she and I talked in the hall. I explained matters as well as I
could; I promised to see her again, and that very soon. My horse and
buggy were at the door. Hastily bidding my new and young wife
"good-bye," I sprang into the buggy and drove rapidly away. The
father rushed to the door and raised a great hue and cry, and what
was more, raised the neighbors; I had not driven five miles before
all Worthington was after me. But I had the start, the best horse,
and I led in the race. I drove to Hancock, N.Y., where my pursuers
lost the trail; thence to Bennington, Vt., next to Brattleboro, Vt.,
and from there to Templeton, Mass. What befel me at Templeton, shall
be related in the next chapter.






CHAPTER II.

MISERIES FROM MY SECOND MARRIAGE.

LOVE-MAKING IN MASSACHUSETTS-ARREST FOR BIGAMY-TRIAL AT
NORTHAMPTON-A STUNNING SENTENCE-SENT TO STATE PRISON-LEARNING THE
BRUSH BUSINESS-SHARPENING PICKS-PRISON FARE-IN THE HOSPITAL-KIND
TREATMENT-SUCCESSFUL HORSE SHOEING-THE WARDEN MY FRIEND-EFFORTS FOR
MY RELEASE-A FULL PARDON.





At Templeton I speedily made known my profession, and soon had a
very good medical practice which one or two "remarkable cures"
materially increased. I was doing well and making money. I boarded
in a respectable farmer's family, and after living there about six
months there came another most unhappy occurrence. From the day,
almost, when I began to board with this farmer there sprung up a
strong attachment between myself and his youngest daughter which
soon ripened into mutual love. She rode about with me when I went to
see my patients, who were getting to be numerous, and we were much
in each other's company.

On one occasion she accompanied me to Worcester where I had some
patients. We went to a public house where she and her family were
well known, and when she was asked by the landlord how she happened
to come there with the doctor, her prompt answer was:

"Why, we are married; did'nt you know it?"

She refused even to go to the table without my attendance, and when
I was out visiting some patients, she waited for her meals till I
came back. We stayed there but two days and returned together to
Templeton.

A month afterward her brother was in Worcester, and stopped at this
house. The landlord, after some conversation about general matters,
said:

"So your sister is married to the Doctor?"

"I know nothing about it," was the reply.

This led to a full and altogether too free disclosure to the
astonished brother about the particulars of our visit to the same
house a month before, and his sister's representations that we were
married. The brother immediately started for home, and repeated the
story, as it was told to him, to his father and the family. Without
seeing his daughter, the father at once procured a warrant, and had
me arrested and brought before a justice on charge of seduction.
The trial was brief; the daughter herself swore positively, that
though she had been imprudent and indiscreet in going to Worcester
with me, no improper communication had ever, there or elsewhere,
taken place between us.

Of course, there was nothing to do but to let me go and I was
discharged. But out of this affair came the worst that had yet
fallen to my lot in life. The story got into the papers, with
particulars and names of the parties, and in this way the people at
Worthington, who had chased me as far as Hancock and had there lost
all trace of me, found out where I was. If I had been aware of it,
they might have looked elsewhere for me; but while I was
felicitating myself upon my escape from the latest difficulty, down
came an officer from Worthington with a warrant for my arrest. This
officer, the sheriff, was connected with the family into which I had
married in Worthington, and with him came two or three more
relatives, all bound, as they boasted, to "put me through." They
were excessively irate against me and very much angered, especially
that their race after me to Hancock had been fruitless. I had fallen
into the worst possible hands.

They took me to Northampton and brought me before a Justice, on a
charge of bigamy: The sheriff who arrested me, and the relatives who
accompanied him were willing to swear my life away, if they could,
and the justice was ready enough to bind me over to take my trial in
court, which was not to be in session for full six months to come.
Those long, weary six months I passed in the county jail. Then came
my trial. I had good counsel. There was not a particle of proof that
I was guilty of bigamy; no attempt was made on the part of the
prosecution to produce my first wife, from whom I had separated, or,
indeed, to show that there was such a woman in existence. But,
evidence or no evidence, with all Worthington against me, conviction
was inevitable. The jury found me guilty. The judge promptly
sentenced me to three years' imprisonment in the State Prison, at
Charlestown, with hard labor, the first day to be passed in solitary
confinement.

This severe sentence fairly stunned me. I was taken back to jail,
and the following day I was conveyed to Charlestown with heavy irons
on my ankles and handcuffed. No murderer would have been more
heavily ironed. We started early in the morning, and by noon I was
duly delivered to the warden at Charlestown prison. I was taken into
the office, measured, asked my name, age, and other particulars, and
then if I had a trade. To this I at once answered, "no." I wanted my
twenty-four hours' solitary confinement in which to reflect upon the
kind of "hard labor," prescribed in my sentence, I was willing to
follow for the next three years; and I also wanted information about
the branches of labor pursued in that prison. The next words of the
warden assured me that he was a kind and compassionate man.

"Go," he said to an officer, "and instantly take off those irons
when you take him inside the prison."

I was taken in and the irons were taken off. I was then undressed,
my clothes were removed to another room, and I was redressed in the
prison uniform. This was a grotesque uniform indeed. The suit was
red and blue, half and half, like a harlequin's, and to crown all
came a hat or cap, like a fool's cap, a foot and a half high and
running up to a peak. Miserable as I was, I could scarcely help
smiling at the utterly absurd appearance I knew I then presented. I
even ventured to remark upon it; but was suddenly and sternly
checked with the command:

"Silence! There's no talking allowed here."

Then began my twenty-four hours' solitary confinement, and
twenty-four wretched hours they were. I had only bread and water to
eat and drink, and I need not say that my unhappy thoughts would not
permit me to sleep. At noon next day I was taken from my cell, and
brought again before the warden, Mr. Robinson, who kindly said:

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

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

So the warden directed that I should be put at work in the brush
shop, where all kinds of brushes were made. Mr. Eddy was the officer
in charge of this shop, and Mr. Knowles, the contractor for the
labor employed in the brush business, was present. Both of these
gentlemen took pains to instruct me in the work I was to begin upon,
and were very kind in their manner towards me. I went to work in a
bungling way and with a sad and heavy heart. At 12 o'clock we were
marched from the shop to our cells, each man taking from a trap in
the wall, as he went by, his pan containing his dinner, which
consisted, that day, of boiled beef and potatoes. It was probably
the worst dinner I had ever eaten, but I had yet to learn what
prison fare was. From one o'clock to six I was in the shop again;
then came Supper-mush and molasses that evening which was varied, as
I learned afterwards, on different days by rye bread, or Indian
bread and rye coffee. These things were also served for breakfast,
and the dinners were varied on different days in the week. The fare
was very coarse, always, but abundant and wholesome. After supper
prisoners were expected to go to bed, as they were called out at six
o'clock in the morning.

I stayed in the brush shop three or four months, but I made very
little progress in learning the trade. I was willing enough to learn
and did my best. From the day I entered the prison I made up my mind
to behave as well as I could; to be docile and obedient, and to
comply with every rule and order. Consequently I had no trouble, and
the officers all treated me kindly. Warden Robinson was a model man
for his position. He believed that prisoners could be reformed more
easily by mild than by harsh measures--at least they would be more
contented with their lot and would be subordinate. Every now and
then he would ask prisoners if they were well treated by the
officers; how they were getting on; if they had enough to eat, and
so on. The officers seemed imbued with the warden's spirit; the
chaplain of the prison, who conducted the Sunday, services and also
held a Sunday school, was one of the finest men in the world, and
took a personal interest in every prisoner. Altogether, it was a
model institution. But in spite of good treatment I was intensely
miserable; my mind was morbid; I was nearly, if not quite, insane;
and one day during the dinner hour, I opened a vein in each arm in
hopes that I should bleed to death. Bleed I did, till I fainted
away, and as I did not come out when the other prisoners did, the
officer came to my cell and discovered my condition. He at once sent
for the Doctor who came and stopped the hemorrhage, and then sent me
to the hospital where I remained two weeks.

After I came out of the hospitals the Warden talked to me about my
situation and feelings. He advised me to go into the blacksmith
shop, of course not dreaming that I knew anything of the work; but
he said I would have more liberty there; that the men moved about
freely and could talk to each other; that the work mainly was
sharpening picks and tools, and that I could at least blow and
strike. So I went into the blacksmith shop, and remained their six
weeks. But, debilitated as I was, the work was too hard for me, and
so the warden put me in the yard to do what I could. I also swept
the halls and assisted in the cook-room. One day when the warden
spoke to me, I told him that I knew something about taking care of
the sick, and after some conversation, he transferred me to the
hospital as a nurse.

Here, if there is such a things as contentment in prison, I was
comparatively happy. I nursed the sick and administered medicines
under direction of the doctor. I had too, with all easy position,
more liberty than any other prisoner. I could go anywhere about the
halls and yard, and in a few weeks I was frequently sent on an
errand into the town. Everyone seemed to have the fullest confidence
in me. The Warden talked to me whenever he saw me, and always had
some kind word for me. One day I ventured to speak to him about his
horse, of which he was very proud, and indeed the horse was a very
fine one.

Mr. Warden, said I "that's a noble horse of yours; but he interferes
badly, and that is only because he is badly shod. If you will
trust me, I can shoe him so as to prevent all that."

"Can you?" exclaimed the Warden in great surprise; "Well, if you
can, I'll give you a good piece of bread and butter, or, anything
else you want."

"I don't want your bread and butter," said I "but I will shoe your
horse as he has never been shod before."

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

Of course, I knew that by "bread and butter" the warden meant that
if I could shoe his favorite horse so as to prevent him from
interfering, he would gladly favor me as far as he could; and I
knew, too, that I could make as good a shoe as any horse need wear.
I gladly led the horse to the shop where I had so signally failed in
pick and tool sharpening, and was received with jeers by my old
comrades who wanted to know what I was going to do to that horse.

"O, simply shoe him," I said.

This greatly increased the mirth of my former shopmates; but their
amusement speedily changed to amazement as they saw me make my
nails, turn the shoes and neatly put them on. In due time the horse
was shod, and I led him to the Warden for inspection; and before him
and an officer who stood by him, I led the horse up and down to show
that he did not interfere. The Warden's delight was unbounded; he
never saw such a set of shoes; he declared that they fitted as if
they had grown to the horse's hoofs. I need not say that from that
day till the day I left the prison, I had everything I wanted from
the Warden's own table; I fared as well as he did, and had favors
innumerable.

About once a month I shod that horse, little thinking that he was to
carry me over my three years' imprisonment in just half that time.
Yet so it was. For talking now almost daily, in the hospital or in
the yard, with the Warden, he became interested in me, and in answer
to his inquiries I told him the whole story of my persecution, as I
considered it, my trial and my unjust and severe sentence. When he
had heard all he said:

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

The good chaplain also interested himself in my case, and after
hearing the story, he and the Warden took a lawyer named Bemis, into
their counsel, laid the whole matter before him and asked his
opinion. Mr. Bemis, after hearing all the circumstances, expressed
the belief that I might get a pardon. He entered into the matter
with his whole heart. He sent for my son Henry and my first wife,
and they came and corroborated my statement about the mutual
agreement for separation, and told how long we had been parted. Mr.
Bemis and they then went to Governor Briggs, and told him the story,
and that I had served out half of my severe sentence, and pressed
for a pardon. The Governor after due deliberation consented to their
request. They came back to Charlestown with the joyful intelligence.
Warden Robinson advised my son, that considering my present mental
and physical condition, he had better break the intelligence
gradually to me, and so Henry came to me and said, simply, that he
thought he would soon have "good news" for me. The next day I was
told that my pardon was certain. The day following, at 12 o'clock, I
walked out, after eighteen months' imprisonment, a free man. I was
in the streets of Charlestown with my own clothes on and five
dollars, given to me by the Warden, in my pocket, I was poor, truly,
but I was at liberty, and that for the day was enough.






CHAPTER III.

THE SCHEIMER SENSATION.

THE SCHEIMER FAMILY-IN LOVE WITH SARAH-ATTEMPT TO ELOPE-HOW IT WAS
PREVENTED-THE SECOND ATTEMPT-A MIDNIGHT EXPEDITION-THE ALARM-A
FRIGHTFUL BEATING-ESCAPE-FLOGGING THE DEVIL OUT OF SARAH-WINTER IN
NEW HAMPSHIRE-RETURN TO NEW JERSEY-"BOSTON YANKEE"-PLANS TO SECURE
SARAH.





I went at once to the Prisoners Home, where I was kindly received,
and I stayed there two days. The superintendent then paid my passage
to Pittsfield where I wished to go and meet my son. From Pittsfield
I went to Albany, then New York, and from there to Newtown N. J.
Here I went into practice, meeting with almost immediate success,
and staid there two months. It was my habit to go from town to town
to attend to cases of a certain class and to sell my vegetable
preparations; and from Newtown I went to Belvidere, stopping at
intermediate towns on the way, and from Belvidere I went to Harmony,
a short distance below, to attend a case of white swelling, which I
cured.

Now just across the Delaware river, nine miles above Easton,
Penn., lived a wealthy Dutch farmer, named Scheimer, who heard of
the cure I had effected in Harmony, and as he had a son, sixteen
years of age, afflicted in the same way, he sent for me to come and
see him. I crossed the river, saw the boy, and at Scheimer's request
took up my residence with him to attend to the case. He was to give
me, with my board, five hundred dollars if I cured the boy; but
though the boy recovered under my treatment, I never received my fee
for reasons which will appear anon. I secured some other practice in
the neighborhood, and frequently visited Easton, Belvidere, Harmony,
Oxford, and other near by places, on either side of the river.

The Scheimer family consisted of the "old folks" and four sons and
four daughters, the children grown up, for my patient, sixteen years
old, was the youngest. The youngest daughter, Sarah, eighteen years
old, was an accomplished and beautiful girl. Now it would seem as if
with my sad experience I ought by this time, to have turned my back
on women forever. But I think I was a monomaniac on the subject of
matrimony. My first wife had so misused me that it was always in my
mind that some reparation was due me, and that I was fairly entitled
to a good helpmate. The ill-success of my efforts, hitherto, to
secure one, and my consequent sufferings were all lost upon
me--experience, bitter experience, had taught me nothing.

I had not been in the Scheimer family three months before I fell in
love with the daughter Sarah and she returned my passion. She
promised to marry me, but said there was no use in saying anything
to her parents about it; they would never consent on account of the
disparity in our ages, for I was then forty years old; but she would
marry me nevertheless, if we had to run away together. Meanwhile,
the old folks had seen enough of our intimacy to suspect that it
might lead to something yet closer, and one day Mr. Scheimer invited
me to leave his house and not to return. I asked for one last
interview with Sarah, which was accorded, and we then arranged a
plan by which she should meet me the next afternoon at four o'clock
at the Jersey ferry, a mile below the house, when we proposed to
quietly cross over to Belvidere and get married. I then took leave
of her and the family and went away.

The next day, at the appointed time, I was at the ferry--Sarah, as I
learned afterwards, left the house at a much earlier hour to "take a
walk" and while she was, foolishly I think, making a circuitous
route to reach the ferry, her father, who suspected that she
intended to run away, went to the ferryman and told him his
suspicions, directing him if Sarah came there by no means to permit
her to cross the river. Consequently when Sarah met me at the ferry,
the ferryman flatly refused to let either of us go over. He knew all
about it, he said, and it was "no go." I had two hundred dollars in
my pocket and I offered him any reasonable sum, if he would only let
us cross; but no, he knew the Scheimers better than he knew me, and
their goodwill was worth more than mine. Here was a block to the
game, indeed. I had sent my baggage forward in the morning to
Belvidere; Sarah had nothing but the clothes she wore, for she was
so carefully watched that she could carry or send nothing away; but
she was ready to go if the obstinate ferryman had not prevented us.

While we were pressing the ferryman to favor us, down came one of
Sarah's brothers with a dozen neighbors, and told her she must
return home or he would carry her back by force. I interfered and
said she should not go. Whereupon one fellow took hold of me and I
promptly knocked him down, and notified the crowd that the first who
laid hands on me, or who attempted to take her home violently, would
get a dose from my pistol which I then exhibited:

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

The production of my pistol, the only weapon in the crowd, brought
about a new state of affairs, and the brother and others tried
persuasion; but Sarah stoutly insisted that she would not return.
"Now hold on," boys, said I, "I am going to say something to her." I
then took her aside and told her that there was no use in trying to
run away then; that she had better go home quietly, and tell the
folks that she was sorry for what she had done, that she had broken
off with me, and would have nothing more to do with me; that I would
surely see her to-morrow, and then we could make a new plan. So she
announced her willingness to go quietly home with her brother and
she did so. I went to a public house half a mile below the ferry.
That night the gang came down to this house with the intention of
driving me away from the place, or, possibly, of doing something
worse; but while they were howling outside, the landlord sent me to
my room and then went out and told the crowd I had gone away.

The next morning I boldly walked up to Scheimer's house to get a few
books and other things I had left there, and I saw Sarah. I told her
to be ready on the following Thursday night and I would have a
ladder against her window for her to escape by. She promised to be
ready. Meantime, though I had been in the house but a few minutes,
some one who had seen me go in gathered the crowd of the day before,
and the first thing I knew the house was beseiged. Mrs. Scheimer had
gone up stairs for my things. I went out and faced the little mob. I
was told to leave the place or they would kill me. One of Sarah's
brothers ran into the house, brought out a musket and aimed it at
me; but it missed fire. I drew my pistol the crowd keeping well away
then, and told him that if he did not instantly bring that musket to
me I would shoot him. He brought it, and I threw it over the fence,
Sarah crying out from the window, "good! good!" The mob then turned
and abused and blackguarded her. Then the old lady came out,
bringing a carpet bag containing my books and things, asking me to
see if "it was all right." I had no disposition to stop and examine
just then; I told the mob I had no other business there; that I was
going away, and to my surprise, I confess, I was permitted to leave
the place unmolested.

It is quite certain the ferryman made no objection to my crossing,
and I went to Belvidere where I remained quietly till the appointed
Thursday night, when I started with a trusty man for Scheimer's. We
timed our journey so as to arrive there at one o'clock in the
morning. Ever since her attempt to elope, Sarah had been watched
night and day, and to prevent her abduction by me, Mr. Scheimer had
two or three men in the house to stand guard at night. Sarah was
locked in her room, which is precisely what we had provided for, for
no one in the house supposed that she could escape by the window.
There was a big dog on the premises, but he and I were old friends,
and he seemed very glad to see me when I came on the ground on this
eventful night. Sarah was watching, and when I made the signal she
opened the window and threw out her ready prepared bundle. Then my
man and I set the ladder and she came safely to the ground. A moment
more and we would have stolen away, when, as ill luck would have it,
the ladder fell with a great crash, and the infernal dog, that a
moment before seemed almost in our confidence, set up a howl and
then barked loud enough to wake the dead.

Forthwith issued from the house old Scheimer, two of his sons and
his hired guard-a half dozen in all. There was a time then. The girl
was instantly seized and taken into the house. Then all hands fell
upon us two, and though I and my man fought our best they managed to
pound us nearly to death. The dog, too, in revenge no doubt for the
scare the ladder had given him, or perhaps to show his loyalty to
his master, assisted in routing us, and put in a bite where he
could. It is a wonder we were not killed. Sarah, meanwhile, was
calling out from the house, and imploring them not to murder us. How
we ever got away I hardly know now, but presently we found ourselves
in the road running for our lives, and running also for the carriage
we had concealed in the woods, half a mile above. We reached it, and
hastily unhitching and getting in we drove rapidly for the bridge
crossing over to Belvidere. That beautiful August night had very few
charms for us. It would have been different indeed if I had
succeeded in securing my Sarah; and to think of having the prize in
my very grasp, and the losing all!

We reached the hotel in Belvidere at about half-past two o'clock in
the morning, wearied, worn, bruised and disheartened. My man had not
suffered nearly as severely as I had; the bulk of their blows fell
upon me, and I had the sorest body and the worst looking face I had
ever exhibited. I rested one day and then hurried on to New York. Of
course, I had no means of knowing the feelings or condition of the
loved girl from whom I had been so suddenly and so violently parted.
I only learned from an Easton man whom I knew and whom I met in the
city, that "Sarah Scheimer was sick"-that was all; the man said he
did'nt know the family very well, but he had heard that Miss
Scheimer had been "out of her head, if not downright crazy."

Crazy indeed! How mad and how miserable that poor girl was made by
her own family, I did not know till months afterward, and then I had
the terrible story from her own lips. It seems that when her father
and his gang returned from pursuing me, as they did a little way up
the road towards Belvidere, they found her almost frantic. They
locked her up in her room that night with no one to say so much as a
kind word to her. How she passed that night, after the scenes she
had witnessed, and the abuse with which her father and brothers had
loaded her before they thrust her into her prison, may be imagined.
The next day she was wrought up to a frenzy. Her parents pronounced
her insane, and called in a Dutch doctor who examined her and said
she was "bewitched!" And this is the remedy he proposed as a cure;
he advised that she should be soundly flogged, and the devil whipped
out of her. Her family, intensely angered at her for the trouble she
had made them, or rather had caused them to make for themselves,
were only too glad to accept the advice. The old man and two sons
carried a sore bruise or two apiece they got from me the night
before, and seized the opportunity to pay them off upon her. So they
stripped her bare, and flogged her till her back was a mass of welts
and cuts, and then put her to bed. That bed she never left for two
months, and then came out the shadow of her former self. But the
Dutch doctor declared that the devil was whipped out of her, and
that she was entirely cured. A few months afterward the family had
the best of reasons for believing that they had whipped the devil
into her, instead of out of her.

After staying in New York a few days, I went to Dover, N.H., where I
had some acquaintances, and where I hoped to get into a medical
practice, which, with the help of my friends, I did very soon. I
lived quietly in that place all winter, earning a good living and
laying by some money. During the whole time I never heard a word
from Sarah. I wrote at least fifty letters to her, but as I learned
afterward, and, indeed, surmised at the time, every one of them was
intercepted by her father or brothers, and she did not know where I
was and so could not write to me. I left Dover in May and went down
to New York. I had some business there which was soon transacted,
and early in June I went over to New Jersey-to Oxford, a small place
near Belvidere.

This place I meant to make my base of operations for the new
campaign I had been planning all winter. I "put up" at a public
house kept by a man who was known in the region round about as the
"Boston Yankee," for he migrated from Boston to New Jersey and was
doing a thriving business at hotel keeping in Oxford. What a
thorough good-fellow he was will presently appear. I had been in the
hotel four days and had become pretty intimate with the landlord
before I ventured to make inquiries about what I was most anxious to
learn; but finally I asked him if he knew the Scheimers over the
river? He looked at me in a very comical way, and then broke out:

"Well, I declare, I thought I knew you, you're the chap that tried
to run away with old Scheimer's daughter Sarah, last August; and
you're down here to get her this time, if you can."

I owned up to my identity, but warned Boston Yankee that if he told
any one who I was, or that I was about there, I'd blow his brains
out.

"You keep cool," said he, "don't you be uneasy; I'm your friend and
the gal's friend, and I'll help you both all I can; and if you want
to carry off Sarah Scheimer and marry her, I'll tell you how to work
it. You see she has been watched as closely as possible all winter,
ever since she got well, for she was crazy-like, awhile. Well, you
could'nt get nearer to her, first off, than you could to the North
Pole; but do you remember Mary Smith who was servant gal, there when
you boarded with Scheimer?" I remembered the girl well and told him
so, and he continued: "Well, I saw her the other day, and she told
me she was living in Easton, and where she could be found; now, I'll
give you full directions and do you take my horse and buggy to-morrow
morning early and go down and see her, and get her to go over and
let Sarah know that you're round; meantime I'll keep dark; I know
my business and you know yours."

I need not say how overjoyed I was to find this new and most
unexpected friend, and how gratefully I accepted his offer. He gave
me the street, house and number where Mary Smith lived and during
the evening we planned together exactly how the whole affair was to
be managed, from beginning to end. I went to bed, but could scarcely
sleep; and all night long I was agitated by alternate hopes and
fears for the success of the scheme of to-morrow.






CHAPTER IV.

SUCCESS WITH SARAH.

MARY SMITH AS A CONFEDERATE-THE PLOT-WAITING IN THE WOODS-THE SPY
OUTWITTED-SARAH SECURED-THE PURSUERS BAFFLED-NIGHT ON THE
ROAD-EFFORTS TO GET MARRIED-THE "OLD OFFENDER" MARRIED AT LAST-A
CONSTABLE AFTER SARAH-HE GIVES IT UP-AN ALE ORGIE-RETURN TO "BOSTON
YANKEE'S"-A HOME IN GOSHEN.





It was Saturday morning, and after an early breakfast I was on the
road with Boston Yankee's fast horse; towards Easton. On my arrival
there I had no difficulty in finding Mary Smith, who recognized me
at once, and was very glad to see me. She knew I had come there to
learn something about Sarah; she had seen her only a week ago; she
was well again, and the girls had talked together about me. This was
pleasant to hear, and I at once proposed to Mary to go to Scheimer's
and tell Sarah that I was there; I would give her ten dollars if she
would go. "O! she would gladly serve us both for nothing."

So she made herself ready, got into the buggy, and we started for
Scheimer's. When we were well on the road I said to her:

"Now, Mary, attend carefully to what I say: you will need to be very
cautious in breaking the news to Sarah that I am here; she has
already suffered a great deal on my account, and may be very timid
about my being in the neighborhood; but if she still loves me as you
say she does, she will run any risk to see me, and, if I know her,
she will be glad to go away with me. Now, this is what you must do;
you must see her alone and tell her my plan; here, take this diamond
ring; she knows it well; manage to let her see it on your finger;
then tell her that if she is willing to leave home and marry me, I
will be in the woods half a mile above her house to-morrow afternoon
at 5 o'clock, with a horse and buggy ready to carry her to
Belvidere. If she will not, or dare not come, give her the ring, and
tell her we part, good friends, forever."

It was a beautiful afternoon as we drove along the road. We talked
about Sarah and old times, and I made her repeat my instructions
over and over again and she promised to convey every word to Sarah.
We neared Scheimer's house about six o'clock, and when we were a
little way from there I told Mary to get out, so as to excite no
suspicions as to who I was; she did so, and I waited till I saw her
go into the house, and then drove rapidly by towards the Belvidere
bridge, and was safely at Oxford by nightfall. I told my friend, the
landlord, what I had done, and he said that everything was well
planned. He also promised to go with me next day to assist me if
necessary, and, said he:

"If everything is all right, do you carry off the girl and I'll walk
up to Belvidere; but don't bring Sarah this way-head toward Water
Gap. When you're married fast and sure, you can come back here as
leisurely as you're a mind to, and nobody can lay a hand upon you or
her."

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

The next afternoon at four o'clock I was at the appointed place, and
Boston Yankee was with me. I did not look for Sarah before five
o'clock, so we tied our horse and kept a good watch upon the road.
An hour went by and no Sarah appeared. I told Boston Yankee I did
not believe she would come.

"Don't be impatient; wait a little longer," said my friend.

In twenty minutes we saw emerge, not from Scheimer's house, but from
his eldest son's house, which was still nearer to the place where we
were waiting, three women, two of whom I recognized as Sarah and
Mary, and the third I did not know, nor could I imagine why she was
with the other two; but as I saw them, leaving Boston Yankee in the
woods, I drove the horse down into the road. As Sarah drew near she
kissed her hand to me and came up to the wagon. "Are you ready to go
with me?" I asked. "I am, indeed," was her reply, and I put out my
hand to help her into the buggy. But the third woman caught hold of
her dress, tried to prevent her from getting in, and began to scream
so as to attract attention at Sarah's brother's house. I told the
woman to let her go, and threatened her with my whip. "Get away,"
shouted Boston Yankee, who had come upon the scene. "Drive as fast
as you can; never mind if you kill the horse."

We started; the woman still shouting for help, and I drove on as
rapidly as the horse would go. When we had gone on a mile or two, I
asked Sarah what all this meant? She told me that the woman was her
brother's servant; that Mary and herself left her father's house a
little after four o'clock to go over and call at her brother's; that
just before five, when she was to meet me, she and Mary proposed to
go out for a walk; that the whole family watched her constantly, and
so her brother's wife told the servant woman to get on her things
and go with them. "You, may be sure," she, added, "that the woman
will arouse the whole neighborhood, and that they will all be after
us." I needed no further hint to push on. We were going toward Water
Gap, as Boston Yankee had advised, and when we were about eight
miles on the way, I deemed it prudent to drive into the woods and to
wait till night before going on. We drove in just off the road, and
tied our horse. We were effectually concealed; our pursuers, if
there were any, would be sure to go by us, and meantime we could
talk over our plans for the future. Sarah told me that when Mary
came to the house the night before, she was not at all surprised to
see her, as she occasionally came up from Easton to make them a
little visit, and to stay all night; that she went to the
summer-house with Mary to sit down and talk, and almost immediately
saw the ring on Mary's finger; that when she saw it she at once
recognized it, and asked her: "O! Mary, where did you get that
ring?" "Keep quiet," said Mary: "don't talk loud, or some one may
hear you; don't be agitated; your lover is near, and has sent me to
tell you." It was joyful news to Sarah, and how readily she had
acquiesced in my plan for an elopement was manifest in the fact that
she was then by my side.

We bad not been in the woods an hour when, as I anticipated, we
heard our pursuers, we did not know how many there were, drive
rapidly by. "Now we can go on, I suppose," said Sarah. "Oh no, my
dear," I replied, "now is just the time to wait quietly here;" and
wait we did till eight o'clock, when our pursuers, having gone on a
few miles, and having seen or learned nothing of the fugitives, came
by again "on the back track." They must have thought we had turned
off into some other road. I waited a while longer to let our
friend's get a little nearer home and further away from us, and then
took the road again toward Water Gap.

We reached Water Gap at midnight, had some supper and fed the horse.
We rested awhile, and then drove leisurely on nine miles further,
where we waited till daylight and crossed the river. We were in no
great hurry now; we were comparatively safe from pursuit. We soon
came to a public house, where we stopped and put out the horse,
intending to take breakfast. While I was inquiring of the landlord
if there was a justice of the peace in the neighborhood, the
landlord's wife had elicited from Sarah the fact of our elopement,
who she was, who her folks were, and so on. The well-meaning
landlady advised Sarah to go back home and get her parents consent
before she married. Sarah suggested that the very impossibility of
getting such consent was the reason for her running away; nor did it
appear how she was to go back home alone even if she desired to. We
saw that we could get no help there, so I countermanded my order for
breakfast, offering at the same time to pay for it as if we had
eaten it, ordered out my horse and drove on. After riding some ten
miles we arrived at another public house on the road, and as the
landlord come out to the door I immediately asked him where I could
find a justice of the peace? He laughed, for he at once comprehended
the whole situation, and said:

"Well, well! I am an old offender myself; I ran away with my wife;
there is a justice of the peace two miles from here, and if you'll
come in I'll have him here within an hour."

We had reached the right place at last, for while the landlady was
getting breakfast for us, and doing her best to make us comfortable
and happy, the Old Offender himself took his horse and carriage and
went for the justice. By the time we had finished our breakfast he
was back with him, and Sarah and I were married in "less than no
time," the Old Offender and his wife singing the certificate as
witnesses. I never paid a fee more gladly. We were married now, and
all the Scheimers in Pennsylvania were welcome to come and see us if
they pleased.

No Scheimers came that day; but the day following came a deputation
from that family, some half dozen delegates, and with them a
constable from Easton, with a warrant to arrest Sarah for
something-I never knew what-but at any rate he was to take her home
if necessary by force. The Old Offender declined to let these people
into his house; Sarah told me to keep out of the way and she would
see what was wanted. Whereupon she boldly went to the door and
greeted those of her acquaintances who were in the party. The
constable knew her, and told her he had come to take her home. "But
what if I refuse to go?" "Well then, I have a warrant to take you;
but if you are married, I have no power over you." Well married I
am, said Sarah, and she produced the certificate, and the Old
Offender and his wife came out and declared that they witnessed the
ceremony.

What was to be done? evidently nothing; only the constable ordered a
whole barrel of ale to treat his posse and any one about tire town
who chose to drink, and the barrel was rolled out on the grass,
tapped, and for a half hour there was a great jollification, which
was not exactly in honor of our wedding, but which afforded the
greatest gratification to the constable, his retainers, and those
who happened to gather to see what was going on. This ended, and the
bill paid, the Easton delegation got into their wagons and turned
their horses heads towards home.

We passed three delightful days under the Old Offender's roof, and
then thanking our host for his kindness to us, and paying our bill,
we started on our return journey for Oxford. We arrived safely, and
staid with Boston Yankee a fortnight. We were close by the Scheimer
homestead, which was but a few miles away across the river; but we
feared neither father nor brothers, nor even the woman who was so
unwilling to let Sarah go with me. The constable, and the rest had
carried home the news of our marriage, and the old folks made the
best of it. Indeed, after they heard we had returned to Oxford,
Sarah's mother sent a man over to tell her that if she would come
home any day she could pack her clothes and other things, and take
them away with her. The day after we received this invitation,
Boston Yankee offered to take Sarah over home, and promised to bring
her safely back. So she went, was treated tolerably well, at any
rate, she secured her clothes and brought them home with her.

It was now time to bid farewell to our staunch friend, Boston
Yankee. I had inducements to go to Goshen, Orange County, N. Y.,
where I had many acquaintances, and to Goshen we went. We found a
good boarding place, and I began to practice medicine, After we had
been there a while, Sarah wrote home to let her family know where
she was, and that she was well and happy. Her father wrote in reply
that we both might come there at any time, and that if she would
come home he would do as well by her as he would by any of his
children. This letter made Sarah uneasy. In spite of all the ill
usage she had received from her parents and family, she was
nevertheless homesick, and longed to get back again. I could see
that this feeling grew upon her daily. We were pleasantly situated
where we were; I had a good and growing practice, and we had made
many friends; but this did not satisfy her; she had some property in
her own right, but her father was trustee of it, and he had hitherto
kept it away from her from spite at her love affair with me. But now
she was to be taken into favor again, and she represented to me that
we could go back and get her money, and that I could establish
myself there as well as anywhere; we could live well and happily
among her friends and old associations. These things were dinged in
my ears day after day, till I was sick of the very sound. I could
see that she was bound, or, as the Dutch doctor would have said,
"bewitched" to go back, and at last, after five happy months in
Goshen, in an evil hour I consented to go home with her.






CHAPTER V.

HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER.

RETURN TO SCHEIMER-PEACE AND THEN PANDEMONIUM-FRIGHTFUL FAMILY
ROW-RUNNING FOR REFUGE-THE GANG AGAIN-ARREST AT MIDNIGHT-STRUGGLE
WITH MY CAPTORS-IN JAIL ONCE MORE-PUT IN IRONS-A HORRIBLE PRISON
BREAKING OUT-THE DUNGEON-SARAH'S BABY-CURIOUS COMPROMISES-OLD
SCHEIMER MY JAILER-SIGNING A BOND-FREE AGAIN-LAST WORDS FROM SARAH.





We went back to the Scheimer homestead and were favorably received.
There was no special enthusiasm over our return, no marked
demonstrations of delight; but they seemed glad to see us, and all
the unpleasant things of the past, if not forgotten, were tacitly
ignored on all sides. We passed a pleasant evening together in what
seemed a re-united family circle-one of the brothers only was
absent-and next morning we met cordially around the breakfast table.
I really began to think it was possible that all the old
difficulties might be healed, and that the pleasant picture Sarah
painted, at Goshen, about settling down happily in Pennsylvania,
could be fully realized.

After breakfast I took a conveyance to go three or four miles to see
a man who owed me some money for medical services in his family, and
was away from Scheimer's three or four hours. During this brief
absence I could not help thinking with genuine satisfaction of the
happiness Sarah was experiencing in the gratification of her longing
to return home again. Surely, I thought, she must be happy now. No
more homesickness, and a full and complete reconciliation with her
family; all the anger, abuse, and blows forgotten or forgiven; she
restored to her place in the family; and even her objectionable
husband received with open arms.

But what an enormous difference there is between fancy and fact.
During this brief absence of mine, had come home the brother who had
always seemed to concentrate the hatred of the whole family towards
me for the wrong they assumed I had done to the youngest daughter
who loved me. On my return I found the peaceful home I left in the
morning a perfect pandemonium. Sarah was fairly frantic. The whole
family were abusing her. The returned brother especially, was
calling her all the vile names he could lay his tongue to. I learned
afterwards that he had been doing it ever since he came into the
house that day and found her at home and heard that I was with her.
They had picked, wrenched rather, out of her the secret I had
confided to her that I had another wife from whom I was "separated,"
but not divorced. My sudden presence on this scene was not exactly
oil on troubled waters; it was gunpowder to fire. As soon as Sarah
saw me at the door she cried out:

"O! husband, let us go away from here."

Her mother turned and shouted at me that I had better fly at once or
they would kill me. Meanwhile, that mob, which the Scheimer boys
seemed always to have at hand, was gathering in the dooryard. I
managed to get near enough to Sarah to tell her that I would send a
man for her next day, and then if she was willing to come with me
she must get away from her family if possible. I then made a rush
through the crowd, and reached the road. I think the gang had an
indistinct knowledge of the situation, or they would have mobbed me,
and perhaps killed me. They knew something was "to pay" at
Scheimer's, but did not know exactly what. Once on the road it was
my intention to have gone over to Belvidere, and then on to Oxford,
where I should have found a sure refuge with my friend Boston
Yankee.

Would that I had done so; but I was a fool; I thought I could be of
service to Sarah by remaining near her; might see her next day; I
might even be able to get her out of the house, and then we could
once more elope together and go back again to Goshen where we had
been so happy. So I went to a public house three miles above
Scheimer's, and remained there quietly during the rest of the day,
revolving plans for the deliverance of Sarah. I thought only of her.
It is strange that I did not once realize what a perilous position I
was in myself--that, firmly as I believed myself to be wedded to
Sarah, I was in fact amenable to the law, and liable to arrest and
punishment. All this never occurred to me. I saw one or two of the
gang who were at Scheimer's about the hotel, but they did not offer
to molest me, and I paid no particular attention to them. I did not
know then that they were spies and were watching my movements. At
nine o'clock I went to bed. At midnight, or thereabouts, I was
roughly awakened and told to get up. Without waiting for me, to
comply, five men who had entered my room pulled me out of bed, and
almost before I could huddle on my clothes I was handcuffed. Then
one of them, who said he was a constable from Easton, showed a
warrant for my arrest. What the arrest was for I was not informed. I
was taken down stairs, put into a wagon, the men followed, and the
horses started in the direction of Easton. By Scheimer's on the way,
and I could see a light in Sarah's window. I remembered how in, all
the Bedlam in the house that morning she still cried out: "I will go
with him." I remembered how, only a few months before, she had been
brutally flogged in that very chamber, to "get the devil out of
her." I remembered, too, the many happy, happy hours we had passed
together. And here was I, handcuffed and dragged in a wagon, I knew
not whither.

This for thoughts-in the way of action, was all the while trying to
get my handcuffs off, and at last I succeeded in getting one hand
free. Waiting my opportunity till we came to a piece of woods, I
suddenly jumped up and sprang from the wagon. It was a very dark
night, and in running into the woods I struck against a tree with
such force as to knock me down and nearly stun me. Two of the men
were on me in an instant. After a brief struggle I managed to get
away and ran again. I should have escaped, only a high rail fence
brought me to a sudden stop, and I was too exhausted to climb over
it. My pursuers who were hard at my heels the whole while now laid
hold of me. In the subsequent struggle I got out my pocket knife,
and stabbed one of them, cutting his arm badly. Then they
overpowered me. They dragged me to the roadside, brought a rope out
of the wagon, bound my arms and legs, and so at last carried me to
Easton.

It was nearly daylight when I was thrust into jail. There were no
cells, only large rooms for a dozen or more men, and I was put, into
one of these with several prisoners who were awaiting trial, or who
had been tried and were there till they could be sent to prison. It
was a day or two before I found out what I was there for. Then a
Dutch Deputy Sheriff, who was also keeper of the jail, came and told
me that I was held for bigamy, adding the consoling intelligence
that it would be a very hard job for me, and that I would get five
or six years in State prison sure. I was well acquainted in Easton,
and I sent for lawyer Litgreave for assistance and advice. I sent
also to my half-sister in Delaware County, N. Y., and in a day or
two she came and saw me, and gave Mr. Litgreave one hundred dollars
retaining fee. My lawyer went to see the Scheimers and when he
returned he told me that he hoped to save me from State prison-at
all events he would exercise the influence he had over the family to
that end; but I must expect to remain in jail a long time. Precisely
what this meant I did not know then; but I found out afterwards.

Soon after this visit from the lawyer, the Deputy Sheriff came in
and said that he was ordered "by the Judge" to iron me, and it was
done. They were heavy leg-irons weighing full twelve pounds, and I
may say here that I wore them during the whole term of my
imprisonment in this jail, or rather they wore me--wearing their way
in time almost into the bone. I had been here a week now, and was
well acquainted with the character of the place. It was
indescribably filthy; no pretence was made of cleansing it. The
prisoners were half fed, and, at that, the food was oftentimes so
vile that starving men rejected it. The deputy who kept the jail was
cruel and malignant, and took delight in torturing his prisoners. He
would come in sometimes under pretence of looking at my irons to see
if they were safe, and would twist and turn them about so that I
suffered intolerable pain, and blood flowed from my wounds made by
these cruel irons. Such abuse as he could give with his tongue he
dispensed freely. Of course he was a coward, and he never dared to
come into one of the prisoner's rooms unless he was armed. This is a
faithful photograph of the interior of the jail at Easton, Penn., as
it was a few years ago; there may have been some improvement since
that time; for the sake of humanity, I hope there has been.

After I had been in this jail about six weeks, and had become well
acquainted with my room-mates, I communicated to them one day, the
result of my observation:

"There," said I, showing them a certain place in the wall, "is a
loose stone that with a little labor can be lifted out, and it will
leave a hole large enough for us to get out of and go where we
like."

Examination elicited a unanimous verdict in favor of making the
attempt. With no tools but a case knife we dug out the mortar on all
sides of the stone doing the work by turns and covering the stone by
hanging up an old blanket-which excited no suspicion, as it was at
the head of one of the iron bedsteads--whenever the Deputy or any of
his men were likely to visit us. In twelve days we completed the
work, and could lift out the stone. The hole was large enough to let
a man through, and there was nothing for us to do but to crawl out
one after the other and drop down a few feet into the yard. This
yard was surrounded by a board fence that could be easily
surmounted. I intended to take the lead, after taking off my irons
(which I had learned to do, and indeed, did every day, putting them
on only when I was liable to be "inspected") and after leaving these
irons at the Deputy's door, I intended to put myself on the Jersey
side of the river as speedily as possible.

Liberty was within reach of every man in that room, and the night
was set for the escape. But one of the crowd turned traitor, and,
under pretence, of speaking to the Deputy about some matter, managed
to be called out of the room and disclosed the whole. The man was
waiting transportation to prison to serve out a sentence of ten
years, and, with the chance of escape before him, it seemed singular
that he should reveal a plan which promised to give him liberty; but
probably he feared a failure; or that he might be recaptured and his
prison sentence increased; while on the other hand by disclosing the
plot he could curry favor enough to get his term reduced, and
perhaps he might gain a pardon. Any how, he betrayed us. The Deputy
came in and found the stone in the condition described, and
forthwith we were all removed to the dungeon, or dark room, and kept
there on bread and water for twelve days. We heard afterwards that
our betrayer did get five years less than his original sentence for
subjecting his comrades in misery to twelve days of almost
indescribable suffering. We were not only in a totally dark and
frightfully filthy hole, but we were half starved, and the Deputy
daily took delight in taunting us with our sufferings.

At the end of the twelve days we were taken back to the old room
where we found the stone securely fastened in with irons. Moreover,
we were now under stricter observation, and at stated hours every
day, an inspector came in and examined the walls. This soon wore
off, however, and when the inspection was finally abandoned, about
two months from the time of our first attempt, we managed to find
another place in the old wall where we could dig out and we went to
work. We were a fortnight at it, and had nearly completed our labor
when we were discovered.

This time we spent fourteen days in the dungeon for our pains.

And now comes an extraordinary disclosure with regard to my
imprisonment. A few days after my removal from the dungeon to the
old quarters again, the Deputy, in one of his rare periods of what,
with him, passed for good humor, informed me that Sarah had been
confined, and had given birth to a fine boy; that she was crying for
my release; that Lawyer Sitgreave was interceding for me; but that
the old man Scheimer was still obstinate and would not let me out.
Passing over my feelings with regard to the birth of my son, here
was a revelation indeed! It will be remembered that I had only been
told that I was under indictment for bigamy. I had never been
brought before a justice for a preliminary examination; never bound
over for trial; and now it transpired that old Scheimer, a
Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, had the power to put me in jail, put me
in irons, and subject me to long months, perhaps years of
imprisonment. I had something to occupy my thoughts now, and for
the remaining period of my jail life.

Next came a new dodge of the Scheimers, the object of which was to
show that Sarah's marriage to me was no marriage at all, thus
leaving her free to marry any other man her family might force upon
her. When I had been in jail seven months, one day the Deputy came
in and said that he was going to take off my irons. I told him I
wouldn't trouble him to do that, for though I had worn them when he
and his subordinates were around till the irons had nearly killed
me, yet at other times I had been in a habit of taking them off at
pleasure; and to prove it, I sat down and in a few minutes handed
him the irons. The man was amazed; but saying nothing about the
irons, he approached me on another subject. He said he thought if I
would sign an acknowledgment that I was a married man when I married
Sarah Scheimer, and would leave the State forever, I could get out
of jail; would I do it? I told him I would give no answer till I had
seen my counsel.

Well, the next day Lawyer Sitgreave came to me and told me I had
better do it, and I consented. Shortly afterwards, I was taken to
court, for the first time in this whole affair, and was informed by
the judge that if I would sign a bond not to go near the Scheimer
house or family he would discharge me. I signed such a bond, and the
judge then told me I was discharged; but that I ought to have gone
to State prison for ten years for destroying the peace and happiness
of the Scheimer family. Truly the Scheimer family were a power,
indeed, in that part of the country!

My lawyer gave me five dollars and I went to Harmony and staid that
night. The next day I went to an old friend of mine, a Methodist
minister, and persuaded him to go over and see what Sarah Scheimer's
feelings were towards me, and if she was willing to come to me with
our child. He went over there, but the old Scheimers suspected his
errand, and watched him closely to see that he held no communication
with Sarah. He did, however, have an opportunity to speak to her,
and she sent me word that if she could ever get her money and get
away from her parents, she would certainly join me in any part of
the world. I was warned, at the same time, not to come near the
house, for fear that her father or some of her brothers would kill
me.






CHAPTER VI.

FREE LIFE AND FISHING.

TAKING CARE OF CRAZY MEN-CARRYING OFF A BOY-ARRESTED FOR STEALING
MY OWN HORSE AND BUGGY-FISHING IN LAKE WINNIPISEOGEE-AN ODD
LANDLORD-A WOMAN AS BIG AS A HOGSHEAD-REDUCING THE HOGSHEAD TO A
BARREL-WONDERFUL VERIFICATION OF A DREAM-SUCCESSFUL MEDICAL
PRACTICE-A BUSY WINTER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE-BLANDISHMENTS OF CAPTAIN
BROWN-I GO TO NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.





The next day I left Harmony and walked to Port Jarvis, on the Erie
Railroad, N. Y., arriving late at night, and entirely footsore,
sick, and disheartened. I went to the hotel, and the next morning I
found myself seriously sick. Asking advice, I was directed to the
house of a widow, who promised to nurse and take care of me. I was
ill for two weeks, and meantime, my half-sister in Delaware County,
to whom I made known my condition, sent me money for my expenses,
and when I had sufficiently recovered to travel, I went to this
sister's house in Sidney, and there I remained several days, till I
was quite well and strong again.

Casting about for something to do, a friend told me that he knew of
an opportunity for a good man at Newbury to take care of a young
man, eighteen years of age, who was insane. I went there and saw his
father, and he put him under my charge. I had the care of him four
months, and during the last two months of the time I traveled about
with him, and returned him, finally, to his friends in a materially
improved condition. The friends of another insane man in Montgomery,
near Newbury, hearing of my success with this young man, sent for me
to come and see them. I went there and found a man who had been
insane seven years, but who was quiet and well-behaved, only he was
"out of his head." I engaged to do what I could for him. The father
of my Newbury patient had paid me well, and with my medical practice
and the sale of medicines in traveling about, I had accumulated
several hundred dollars, and when I went to Montgomery I had a good
horse and buggy which cost me five hundred dollars. So, when my new
patient had been under my care and control two months, I proposed
that he should travel about with me in my buggy, and visit various
parts of the State in the immediate vicinity. His friends thought
well of the suggestion, and we traveled in this way about four
months, stopping a few days here and there, when I practiced where I
could, and sold medicines, making some money. At the end of this
time I went back to Montgomery with my patient, as I think, fully
restored, and his father, besides, paying the actual expenses of our
journey, gave me six hundred dollars.

Returning to Sidney I learned that my first and worst wife was then
living with the children at Unadilla, a few miles across the river
in Otsego County. I had no desire to see her, but I heard at the
same time that my youngest boy, a lad ten years old, had been sent
to work on a farm three miles beyond, and that he was not well taken
care of. I drove over to see about it, and after some inquiry I was
told that the boy was then in school. Going to the schoolhouse and
asking for him, the school-mistress, who knew me, denied that he was
there, but I pushed in, and found him, and a ragged, miserable
looking little wretch he was. I brought him out, put him into the
carriage and took him with me on the journey which I was then
contemplating to Amsterdam, N. Y., stopping at the first town to get
him decently clothed. The boy went with me willingly, indeed he was
glad to go, and in due time we arrived at Amsterdam, and from there
we went to Troy.

I had not been in Troy two hours before I was arrested for stealing
my own horse and buggy! My turnout was taken from me, and I found
myself in durance vile. I was not long in procuring bail, and I then
set myself, to work to find out what this meant. I was shown a
handbill describing my person, giving my name, giving a description
of my horse, and offering a reward of fifty dollars for my arrest.
This was signed by a certain Benson, of Kingston, Sullivan County,
N.Y. I then remembered that while I was traveling with my insane
patient from Montgomery through Sullivan County, I fell in with a
Benson who was a very plausible fellow, and who scraped acquaintance
with me, and while I was at Kingston he rode about with me on one or
two occasions. One day he told me that he knew a girl just out of
the place who was subject to fits, and wanted to know if I could do
anything for her; that her father was rich and would pay a good
price to have her cured. I went to see the girl and did at least
enough to earn a fee of one hundred dollars, which her father gladly
paid me. Benson also introduced me to some other people whom I found
profitable patients. I thought he was a very good friend to me, but
he was a cool, calculating rascal. He meant to rob me of my horse
and buggy, and went deliberately to work about it. First, he issued
the handbill which caused my arrest in Troy, where he knew I was
going. Next, as appeared when he came up to Troy to prosecute the
suit against me, he forged a bill of sale. The case was tried and
decided in my favor. Benson appealed, and again it was decided that
the horse belonged to me. I then had him indicted for perjury and
forgery, and he was put under bonds of fourteen hundred dollars in
each case to appear for trial. Some how or other he never appeared,
and whether he forfeited his bonds, or otherwise slipped through the
"meshes of the law," I never learned, nor have I ever seen him since
he attempted to swindle me. But these proceedings kept me in Troy
more than a month, and to pay my lawyer and other expenses, I
actually sold the horse and buggy the scoundrel tried to steal from
me.

Taking my boy to Sidney and putting him under the care of my half
sister, I went to Boston, where I met two friends of mine who were
about going to Meredith Bridge, N.H., to fish through the ice on
Lake Winnipiseogee. It was early in January, 1853, and good, clear,
cold weather. They represented the sport to be capital, and said
that plenty of superb lake trout and pickerel could be taken every
day, and urged me to go with them. As I had nothing special to do
for a few days, I went. When we reached Meredith we stopped at a
tavern near the lake, kept by one of the oddest landlords I have
ever met. After a good supper, as we were sitting in the barroom,
the landlord came up to me and at once opened conversation in the
following manner:

"Waal, where do you come from, anyhow?"

"From Boston," I replied.

"Waal, what be you, anyhow?"

"Well, I practice medicine, and take care of the sick."

"Dew ye? Waal, do ye ever cure anybody?"

"O, sometimes; quite frequently, in fact."

"Dew ye! waal, there's a woman up here to Lake Village, 'Squire
Blaisdell's wife, who has had the dropsy more'n twelve years; been
filling' all the time till they tell me she's bigger'n a hogshead
now, and she's had a hundred doctors, and the more doctors she has
the bigger she gets; what d' ye think of that now?"

I answered that I thought it was quite likely, and then turned away
from the landlord to talk to my friends about our proposed sport for
to-morrow, mentally making note of 'Squire Blaisdell's wife in Lake
Village.

After breakfast next morning we went out on the lake, cut holes in
the ice, set our lines, and before dinner we had taken several fine
trout and pickerel, the largest and finest of which we put into a
box with ice, and sent as a present to President Pierce, in
Washington. We had agreed, the night before, to fish for him the
first day, and to send him the best specimens we could from his
native state. After dinner my friends started to go out on the ice
again, and I told them "I guess'd I wouldn't go with them, I had
fished enough for that day." They insisted I should go, but I told
them I preferred to take a walk and explore the country. So they
went to the lake and I walked up to Lake Village.

I soon found Mr. Blaisdell's house, and as the servant who came to
the door informed me that Mr. Blaisdell was not at home, I asked to
see Mrs. Blaisdell, And was shown in to that lady. She was not quite
the "hogshead" the landlord declared her to be, but she was one of
the worst cases of dropsy I had ever seen. I introduced myself to
her, told her my profession, and that I had called upon her in the
hope of being able to afford her some relief; that I wanted nothing
for my services unless I could really benefit her.

"O, Doctor," said she, "you can do nothing for me; in the past
twelve years I have had at least forty different doctors, and none
of them have helped me."

"But there can be no harm in trying the forty-first;" and as I said
it I took from my vest pocket and held out in the palm of my hand
some pills:

"Here, madame, are some pills made from a simple blossom, which
cannot possibly harm you, and which, I am sure, will do you a great
deal of good."

"O, Mary!" she exclaimed to her niece, who was in attendance upon
her, "this is my dream! I dreamed last night that my father appeared
to me and told me that a stranger would come with a blossom in his
hand; that he would offer it to me, and that if I would take it I
should recover. Go and get a glass of water and I will take these
pills at once."

"Surely," said Mary, "you are not going to take this stranger's
medicine without knowing anything about it, or him?"

"I am indeed; go and get the water."

She took the medicine and then told me that her father, who had died
two years ago, was a physician, and had carefully attended to her
case as long as he lived; but that she had a will of her own, and
had sent far and near for other doctors, though with no good result.

"You have come to me," she continued, "and although I am not
superstitious, your coming with a blossom in your hand, figuratively
speaking, is so exactly in accordance with my dream, that I am going
to put myself under your care."

She then asked me if I lived in the neighborhood, and I told her no;
that I had merely come up from Boston with two friends to try a few
days' fishing through the ice on the lake.

"You can fish to better purpose here, I think," she said; "you can
get plenty of practice in the villages and farm houses about here:
at any rate, stay for the present and undertake my case, and I will
pay you liberally."

I went back to Meredith Bridge-I believe it is now called
Laconia-and had another day's fishing with my friends. When they
were ready to pack up and return to Boston, I astonished them by
informing them that I should stay where I was for the present,
perhaps for months, and that I believed I could find a good practice
in Meredith and adjoining places. So they left me and I went to Lake
Village, and made that pleasant place my headquarters.

The weeks wore on, and if Mrs. Blaisdell was a hogshead, as the
Meredith landlord said, when I first saw her, she soon became a
barrel under my treatment, and in four months she was entirely
cured, and was as sound as any woman in the State. I had as much
other business too as I could attend to, and was very busy and happy
all the time.

In May I went to Exeter, alternating between there and Portsmouth,
and finding enough to do till the end of July. While I was in
Portsmouth on one of my last visits to that place, I received a call
from a sea-captain by the name of Brown, who told me that he had
heard of my success in dropsical cases, and that I must go to
Newark, N. J., and see his daughter. "Pay," he said, "was no object;
I must go." I told him that I had early finished my business in that
vicinity, and that when I went to New York, as I proposed to do
shortly, I would go over to Newark and see his daughter. A few days
afterward, when I had settled my business and collected my bills in
Portsmouth and Exeter, I went to New York, and from there to Newark.






CHAPTER VII.

WEDDING A WIDOW, AND THE CONSEQUENCES.

I MARRY A WIDOW-SIX WEEKS OF HAPPINESS-CONFIDING A SECRET AND THE
CONSEQUENCES-THE WIDOW'S BROTHER-SUDDEN FLIGHT FROM NEWARK-IN
HARTFORD, CONN.-MY WIFE'S SISTER BETRAYS ME-TRIAL FOR BIGAMY-
SENTENCED TO TEN YEARS IMPRISONMENT-I BECOME A "BOBBIN BOY"-A GOOD
FRIEND-GOVERNOR PRICE VISITS ME IN PRISON-HE PARDONS ME-TEN YEARS'
SENTENCE FULFILLED IN SEVEN MONTHS.





Why in the world did Captain Brown ever tempt me with the prospect
of a profitable patient in Newark? I had no thought of going to that
city, and no business there except to see if I could cure Captain
Brown's daughter. With my matrimonial monomania it was like putting
my hand into the fire to go to a fresh place, where I should see
fresh faces, and where fresh temptations would beset me. And when I
went to Newark, I went only as I supposed, to see a single patient;
but Captain Brown prevailed upon me to stay to take care of his
daughter, and assured me that he and his friends would secure me a
good practice. They did. In two months I was doing as well in my
profession as I had ever done in any place where I had located. I
might have attended strictly to my business, and in a few years have
acquired a handsome competence. But, as ill luck, which, strangely
enough, I then considered good luck, would have it, when I had been
in Newark some two months, I became acquainted with a buxom,
good-looking widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Roberts. I protest to-day that
she courted me-not I her. She was fair, fascinating, and had a
goodly share of property. I fell into the snare. She said she was
lonely; she sighed; she smiled, and I was lost.

Would that I had observed the elder Weller's injunction: "Bevare of
vidders;" would that I had never seen the Widow Roberts, or rather
that she had never seen me. Eight weeks after we first met we were
married. We had a great wedding in her own house, and all her
friends were present. I was in good practice with as many patients
as I could attend to; she had a good home and we settled down to be
very happy.

For six weeks, only six weeks, I think we were so. We might have
been so for six weeks, six months, six years longer; but alas! I was
a fool I confided to her the secret of my first marriage, and
separation, and she confided the same secret to her brother, a
well-to-do wagon-maker in Newark. So far as Elizabeth was concerned,
she said she didn't care; so long as the separation was mutual and
final, since so many years had elapsed, and especially since I
hadn't seen the woman for full six years, and was not supposed to
know whether she was alive or dead, why, it was as good as a
divorce; so reasoned Elizabeth, and it was precisely my own
reasoning, and the reasoning which had got me into numberless
difficulties, to say nothing of jails and prisons. But the brother
had his doubts about it, and came and talked to me on the subject
several times. We quarrelled about it. He threatened to have me
arrested for bigamy. I told him that if he took a step in that
direction I would flog him. Then he had me brought before a justice
for threatening him, with a view to having me put under bonds to
keep the peace. I employed a lawyer who managed my case so well that
the justice concluded there was no cause of action against me.

But this lawyer informed me that the brother was putting, even then,
another rod in pickle for me, and that I had better clear out. I
took his advice, I went to the widow's house, packed my trunk,
gathered together what money I could readily lay hands upon, and
with about $300 in my pocket, I started for New York, staying that
night at a hotel in Courtland street.

The following morning I went over to Jersey City, hired a
saddle-horse, and rode to Newark. The precise object of my journey I
do not think I knew myself; but I must have had some vague idea of
persuading Elizabeth to leave Newark and join me in New York or
elsewhere. I confess, too, that I was more or less under the
influence of liquor, and considerably more than less. However, no
one would have noticed this in my appearance or demeanor. I rode
directly to Elizabeth's door, hitched my horse, and went into the
house. The moment my wife saw me she cried out:

"For God's sake get out of this house and out of town as soon as you
can; they have been watching for you ever since yesterday; they've
got a warrant for your arrest; don't stay here one moment."

I asked her if she was willing to follow me, and she said she would
do so if she only dared but her brother had made an awful row, and
had sworn he would put me in prison anyhow; I had better go back to
New York and await events. I started for the door, and was
unhitching my horse, when the brother and a half dozen more were
upon me. I sprang to the saddle. They tried to stop me; the
over-eager brother even caught me by the foot; but I dashed through
the crowd and rode like mad to Jersey City, returned the horse to
the livery stable, crossed the ferry to New York, went to my hotel,
got my trunk, and started for Hartford, Conn., where I arrived in
the evening.

This was in the month of June, 1854. I went to the old Exchange
Hotel in State street, and very soon acquired a good practice.
Indeed, it seems as if I was always successful enough in my medical
business-my mishaps have been in the matrimonial line. When I had
been in Hartford about three months, and was well settled, I thought
I would go down to New York and see a married sister of Elizabeth's,
who was living there, and try to find out how matters were going on
over in Newark. That I found out fully, if not exactly to my
satisfaction, will appear anon.

When I called at the sister's house, the servant told me she was
out, but would be back in an hour; so I left my name, promising to
call again. I returned again at one o'clock in the afternoon, and
the sister was in, but declined to see me. As I was coming down the
steps, a policeman who seemed to be lounging on the opposite side of
the street, beckoned to me, and suspecting nothing, I crossed over
to see what he wanted. He simply wanted to know my name, and when I
gave it to him he informed me that I was his prisoner. I asked for
what? and he said "as a fugitive from justice in New Jersey."

This was for taking the pains to come down from Hartford to inquire
after the welfare of my wife! whose sister, the moment the servant
told her I had been there, and would call again, had gone to the
nearest police station and given information, or made statements,
which led to the setting of this latest trap for me. The policeman
took me before a justice who sent me to the Tombs. On my arrival
there I managed to pick up a lawyer, or rather one of the sharks of
the place picked me up, and said that for twenty-five dollars he
would get me clear in three or four hours. I gave him the money, and
from that day till now, I have never set eyes upon him. I lay in a
cell all night, and next morning Elizabeth's brother, to whom the
sister in New York had sent word that I was caged, came over from
Newark to see me. He said he felt sorry for me, but that he was
"bound to put me through." He then asked me if I would go over to
Newark without a requisition from the Governor of New Jersey, and I
told him I would not; whereupon he went away without saying another
word, and I waited all day to hear from the lawyer to whom I had
given twenty-five dollars, but he did not come.

So next day when the brother came over and asked me the same
question, I said I would go; wherein I was a fool; for I ought to
have reflected that he had had twenty-four hours in which to get a
requisition, and that he might in fact have made application for one
already, without getting it, and every delay favored my chances of
getting out. But I had no one to advise me, and so I went quietly
with him and an officer to the ferry, where we crossed and went by
cars to Newark. I was at once taken before a justice, who, after a
hearing of the case, bound me over, under bonds of only one thousand
dollars, to take my trial for bigamy.

If I could have gone into the street I could have procured this
comparatively trifling bail in half an hour; as it was, after I was
in jail I sent for a man whom I knew, and gave him my gold watch and
one hundred dollars, all the money I had, to procure me bail, which
he promised to do; but he never did a thing for me, except to rob
me.

A lawyer came to me and offered to take my case in hand for one
hundred dollars, but I had not the money to give him. I then sent to
New York for a lawyer whom I knew, and when he came to see me he
took the same view of the case that Elizabeth and I did; that is,
that the long separation between my first wife and myself, and my
presumed ignorance as to whether she was alive or dead, gave me full
liberty to marry again. At least, he thought any court would
consider it an extenuating circumstance, and he promised to be
present at my trial and aid me all he could.

I lay in Newark jail nine months, awaiting my trial. During that
time I had almost daily quarrels with the jailor, who abused me
shamefully, and told me I ought to go to State prison and stay there
for life. Once he took hold of me and I struck him, for which I was
put in the dark cell forty-eight hours. At last came my trial. The
court appointed counsel for me, for I had no money to fee a lawyer,
and my New York friend was on hand to advise and assist. I lad
witnesses to show the length of time that had elapsed since my
separation from my first wife, and we also raised the point as to
whether the justice who married me, was really a legal justice of
the peace or not. The trial occupied two days. I suppose all
prisoners think so, but the Judge charged against me in every point;
the jury was out two hours, and then came in for advice on a
doubtful question; the judge gave them another blast against me, and
an hour after they came in with a verdict of "guilty." I went back
to jail and two days afterwards was brought up for sentence which
was--"ten years at hard labor in the State prison at Trenton."

Good heavens! All this for being courted and won by a widow!

The day following, I was taken in irons to Trenton. The Warden of
the prison, who wanted to console me, said that, for the offence, my
sentence was an awful one, and that he didn't believe I would be
obliged to serve out half of it. As I felt then, I did not believe I
should live out one-third of it. After I had gone through the
routine of questions, and had been put in the prison uniform, a cap
was drawn down over my face, as if I was about to be hung, and I was
led, thus blind-folded, around and around, evidently to confuse me,
with regard to the interior of the prison-in case I might ever have
any idea of breaking out. At last I was brought to a cell door and
the cap was taken off. There were, properly no "cells" in this
prison-at least I never saw any; but good sized rooms for two
prisoners, not only to live in but to work in. I found myself in a
room with a man who was weaving carpets, and I was at once
instructed in the art of winding yarn on bobbins for him-in fact, I
was to be his "bobbin-boy."

I pursued this monotonous occupation for two months, when I told the
keeper I did not like that business, and wanted to try something
that had a little more variety in it. Whereupon he put me at the
cane chair bottoming business, which gave me another room and
another chum, and I remained at this work while I was in the prison.
In three weeks I could bottom one chair, while my mate was bottoming
nine or ten as his day's work; but I told the keeper I did not mean
to work hard, or work at all, if I could help it. He was a very nice
fellow and he only laughed and let me do as I pleased. Indeed, I
could not complain of my treatment in any respect; I had a good
clean room, good bed, and the fare was wholesome and abundant. But
then, there was that terrible, terrible sentence of ten long years
of this kind of life, if I should live through it.

After I had been in prison nearly seven months, one day a merchant
tailor whom I well knew in Newark, and who made my clothes,
including my wedding suit when I married the Widow Roberts, came to
see me. The legislature was in session and he was a member of the
Senate. He knew all the circumstances of my case, and was present at
my trial. After the first salutation, he laughingly said:

"Well, Doctor, those are not quite as nice clothes as I used to
furnish you with."

"No," I replied, "but perhaps they are more durable."

After some other chaff and chat, he made me tell him all about my
first marriage and subsequent separation, and after talking awhile
he went away, promising to see me soon. I looked upon this only as a
friendly visit, for which I was grateful; and attached no great
importance to it. But he came again in a few days, and after some
general conversation, he told me that there was a movement on foot
in my favor, which might bring the best of news to me; that he had
not only talked with his friends in the legislature, and enlisted
their sympathy and assistance, but he had laid the whole
circumstances, from beginning to end, before Governor Price; that
the Governor would visit the prison shortly, and then I must do my
best in pleading my own cause.

In a day or two the Governor came, and I had an opportunity to
relate my story. I told him all about my first unfortunate marriage,
and the separation. He said that he knew the facts, and also that he
had lately received a letter from my oldest son on the subject, and
had read it with great interest. I then appealed to the Governor for
his clemency; my sentence was an outrageously severe one, and seemed
almost prompted by private malice; I implored him to pardon me; I
went down on my knees before him, and asked his mercy. He told me to
be encouraged; that he would be in the prison again in a few days,
and he would see me. He then went away.

I at once drew up a petition which my friend in the Senate
circulated in the legislature for signatures, and afterwards sent it
to Newark, securing some of the best names in that city. It was then
returned to me, and two weeks afterwards when the Governor came
again to the prison I presented it to him, and he put it in his
pocket.

In two days' time, Governor Price sent my pardon into the prison.
The Warden came and told me of it, and said he would let me out in
an hour. Then came a keeper who once more put the cap over my face
and led me around the interior-I was willingly led now-till he
brought me to a room where he gave me my own clothes which I put on,
and with a kind parting word, and five dollars from the Warden, I
was soon in the street, once more a free man. My sentence of ten
years had been fulfilled by an imprisonment of exactly seven months.

I went and called on Governor Price to thank him for his great
goodness towards me. He received me kindly, talked to me for some
time, and gave me some good advice and a little money. With this and
the five dollars I received from the Warden of the prison I started
for New York.






CHAPTER VII.

ON THE KEEN SCENT.

GOOD RESOLUTIONS-ENJOYING FREEDOM-GOING AFTER A CRAZY MAN-THE OLD
TEMPTER IN A NEW FORM-MARY GORDON-MY NEW "COUSIN"-ENGAGED
AGAIN-VISIT TO THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME-ANOTHER MARRIAGE-STARTING FOR
OHIO-CHANGE OF PLANS-DOMESTIC QUARRELS-UNPLEASANT STORIES ABOUT
MARY-BOUND OVER TO KEEP THE PEACE-ANOTHER ARREST FOR BIGAMY-A SUDDEN
FLIGHT-SECRETED THREE WEEKS IN A FARM HOUSE-RECAPTURED AT CONCORD
-ESCAPED ONCE MORE-TRAVELING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD-IN CANADA.





It would seem as if, by this time, I had had enough of miscellaneous
marrying and the imprisonment that almost invariably followed. I had
told Governor Price, when I first implored him for pardon, that if
he would release me I would begin a new life, and endeavor to be in
all respects a better man. I honestly meant to make every effort to
be so, and on my stay to New York I made numberless vows for my own
future good behavior. I bound myself over, as it were, to keep the
pace-my own peace and quiet especially-and became my own surety.
That I could not have had a poorer bondsman, subsequent events
proved to my sorrow. But I started fairly, and meant to let liquor
alone; to attend strictly to my medical business, which I always
managed to make profitable, and above all, to have nothing to do
with women in the love-making or matrimonial way.

With those good resolutions I arrived in New York and went to my old
hotel in Courtland Street, where I was well known and was well
received. My trunk, which I had left there sixteen months before,
was safe, and I had a good suit of clothes on my back--the clothes I
took off when I went to prison in Trenton--and which were returned
to me when I came away. I went to a friend who loaned me some money,
and I remained two or three days in town to try my new-found
freedom, going about the city, visiting places of amusement,
enjoying myself very much, and keeping, so far, the good resolutions
I had formed.

From New York I went to Troy, and at the hotel where I stopped I
became acquainted with a woman who told me that her husband was in
the Insane Asylum at Brattleboro, Vt. She was going to see him, and
if he was fit to be removed, she proposed to take him home, with
her. I told her of the success I had had in taking care of two men
at Newbury and Montgomery; and how I had traveled about the country
with them, and with the most beneficial results to my patients. She
was much interested, inquired into the particulars, and finally
thought the plan would be a favorable one for her husband. She asked
me to go with her to see him, and said that if he was in condition
to travel he should go about with me if he would; at any rate, if he
came out of the Asylum she would put him under my care. We went
together to Brattleboro, and the very day we arrived her husband was
taken in an apoplectic fit from which he did not recover. She
carried home his corpse, and I lost my expected patient.

But I must have something to do for my daily support, and so I went
to work and very soon sold some medicines and recipes, and secured a
few patients. I also visited the adjoining villages, and in a few
weeks I had a very good practice. I might have lived here quietly
and made money. Nobody knew anything of my former history, my
marriages or my misfortunes, and I was doing well, with a daily
increasing business. And so I went on for nearly three months,
gaining new acquaintances, and extending my practice every day.

Then came the old tempter in a new form, and my matrimonial
monomania, which I hoped was cured forever, broke out afresh. One
day, at the public house where I lived, I saw a fine girl from New
Hampshire, with whom I became acquainted--so easily, so far as she
was concerned--that I ought to have been warned to have nothing to
do with her; but, as usual, in such cases, my common sense left me,
and I was infatuated enough to fancy that I was in love.

Mary Gordon was the daughter of a farmer living near Keene, N. H.,
and was a handsome girl about twenty years of age. She was going,
she told me, to visit some friends in Bennington, and would be there
about a month, during which time, if I was in that vicinity, she
hoped I would come and see her. We parted very lovingly, and when
she had been in Bennington a few days she wrote to me, setting a
time for me to visit her; but in business in Brattleboro was too
good to leave, and I so wrote to her. Whereupon, in another week,
she came back to Brattleboro and proposed to finish the remainder of
her visit there, thus blinding her friends at home who would think
she was all the while at Bennington.

Our brief acquaintance when she was at the house before, attracted
no particular attention, and when she came now I told the landlord
that she was my cousin, and he gave her a room and I paid her bills.
The cousin business was a full cover to our intimacy; she sat next
to me at the table, rode about with me to see my patients, and when
I went to places near by to sell medicine, and we were almost
constantly together. Of course, we were engaged to be married, and
that very soon.

In a fortnight after her arrival I went home with her to her
father's farm near Keene, and she told her mother that we were
"engaged." The old folks thought they would like to know me a little
better, but she said we were old friends, she knew me thoroughly,
and meant to marry me. There was no further objection on the part of
her parents, and in the few days following she and her mother were
busily engaged in preparing her clothes and outfit.

I then announced my intention of returning to Brattleboro to settle
up my business in that place, and she declared she would go with me;
I was sure to be lonesome; she might help me about my bills, and so
on. Strange as it may seem, her parents made no objection to her
going, though I was to be absent a fortnight, and was not to be
married till I came back. So we went together, and I and my "cousin"
put up at the hotel we had lately left. For two weeks I was busy in
making my final visits to my patients acquaintances, she generally
going with me every day.

At the end of that time we went back to Keene, and in three weeks we
were married in her father's house, the old folks making a great
wedding for us, which was attended by all the neighbors and friends
of the family. We stayed at home two weeks, and meanwhile arranged
our plans for the future. We proposed to go out to Ohio, where she
had some relatives, and settle down. She had seven hundred dollars
in bank in Keene which she drew, and we started on our journey. We
went to Troy, where we stayed a few days, and during that time we
both concluded that we would not go West, but return to Keene and
live in the town instead of on the farm, so that I could open an
office and practice there.

So we went back to her home again, but before I completed my plans
for settling down in Keene, Mary and I had several quarrels which
were worse than mere ordinary matrimonial squabbles. Two or three
young men in Keene, with whom I had become acquainted, twitted me
with marrying Mary, and told me enough about her to convince me that
her former life had not been altogether what it should have been. I
had been too blinded by her beauty when I first saw her in
Brattleboro, to notice how extremely easily she was won. Her
parents, too, were wonderfully willing, if not eager, to marry her
to me. All these things came to me now, and we had some very lively
conversations on the subject, in which the old folks joined, siding
with their daughter of course. By and by the girl went to Keene and
made a complaint that she was afraid of her life, and I was brought
before a magistrate and put under bonds of four hundred dollars to
keep the peace. I gave a man fifty dollars to go bail for me, and
then, instead of going out to the farm with Mary, I went to the
hotel in Keene.

The well-known character of the girl, my marriage to her, the brief
honeymoon, the quarrels and the cause of the same, were all too
tempting material not to be served up in a paragraph, and as I
expected and feared, out came the whole story in the Keene paper.

This was copied in other journals, and presently came letters to the
family and to other persons in the place, giving some account of my
former adventures and marriages. Of this however I knew nothing,
till one day, while I was at the hotel, I was suddenly arrested for
bigamy. But I was used to this kind of arrest by this time, and I
went before the magistrate with my mind made up that I must suffer
again for my matrimonial monomania.

It was just after dinner when I was arrested, and the examination,
which was a long one, continued till evening. Every one in the
magistrate's office was tired out with it, I especially, and so I
took a favorable opportunity to leave the premises. I bolted for the
door, ran down stairs into the street, and was well out of town
before the astonished magistrate, stunned constable, and amazed
spectators realized that I had gone.

Whether they than set out in pursuit of me I never knew, I only know
they did not catch me. I ran till I came to the house of a farmer
whom I had been attending for some ailment, and hurriedly narrating
the situation, I offered him one hundred dollars if he would secrete
me till the hue and cry was over and I could safely get away. I
think he would have done it from good will, but the hundred dollar
bill I offered him made the matter sure. He put my money into his
pocket, and he put me into a dark closet, not more than five feet
square, and locked me in.

I stayed in that man's house, never going out of doors, for more
than three weeks, and did my best to board out my hundred dollars.
The day after my flight the whole neighborhood was searched, that
is, the woods, roads, and adjacent villages. They never thought of
looking in a house, particularly in a house so near the town; and,
as I heard from my protector, they telegraphed and advertised far
and near for me.

I anticipated all this, and for this very reason I remained quietly
where I was, in an unsuspected house, and with my dark closet to
retire to whenever any one came in; and gossiping neighbors coming
in almost every hour, kept me in that hole nearly half the time. I
heard my own story told in that house at least fifty times, and in
fifty different ways.

At last, when I thought it was safe, one night my host harnessed up
his horses and carried me some miles on my way to Concord. He drove
as far as he dared, for he wanted to get back home by daylight, so
that his expedition might excite no suspicion. Twenty miles away
from Keene he set me down in the road, and, bidding him "good-bye,"
I began my march toward Concord. When I arrived there, almost the
first man I saw in the street was a doctor from Keene. I did not
think he saw me, but he did, as I soon found out, for while I was
waiting at the depot to take the cars to the north, I was arrested.

The Keene doctor owed me a grudge for interfering, as he deemed it;
with his regular practice, and the moment he saw me he put an
officer on my trail. I thought it was safe here to take the cars,
for I was footsore and weary, nor did I get away from Keene as fast
and as far as I wanted to. I should have succeeded but for that
doctor.

When the officer brought me before a justice, the doctor was a
willing witness to declare that I was a fugitive from justice, and
he stated the circumstances of my escape. So I was sent back to
Keene under charge of the very officer who arrested me at the depot.

I would not give this officer's name if I could remember it, but he
was a fine fellow, and was exceedingly impressible. For instance, on
our arrival at Keene, he allowed me to go to the hotel and pack my
trunk to be forwarded to Meredith Bridge by express. He then handed
me over to the authorities, and I was immediately taken before the
magistrate from whom I had previously escaped, the Concord officer
accompanying the Keene officer who had charge of me.

The examination was short; I was bound over in the sum of one
thousand dollars to take my trial for bigamy. On my way to jail I
persuaded the Concord officer-with a hundred dollar bill which I
slipped into his hand-to induce the other officer to go with me to
the hotel under pretense of looking after my things, and getting
what would be necessary for my comfort in jail. My Concord friend
kept the other officer down stairs--in the bar-room, I presume--while
I went to my room. I put a single shirt in my pocket; the distance
from my window to the ground was not more than twelve or fifteen
feet, and I let myself down from the window sill and then dropped.

I was out of the yard, into the street, and out of town in less than
no time. It was already evening, and everything favored my escape. I
had no idea of spending months in jail at Keene, and months more,
perhaps years, in the New Hampshire State Prison. All my past bitter
experiences of wretched prison life urged me to flight.

And fly I did. No stopping at the friendly farmer's, my former
refuge, this time; that would be too great a risk. No showing of
myself in any town or villege where the telegraph might have
conveyed a description of my person. I traveled night and day on
foot, and more at night than during the day, taking by-roads, lying
by in the woods, sleeping in barns, and getting my meals in
out-of-the-way farm houses.

I had plenty of money; but this kind of travelling is inexpensive,
and, paying twenty-five cents for one or two meals a day, as I dared
to get them, and sleeping in barns or under haystacks for nothing,
my purse did not materially diminish. I was a good walker, and in
the course of a week from the night when I left Keene, I found
myself in Biddeford, Maine.

There was some sense of security in being in another State, and here
I ventured to take the cars for Portland, where I staid two days,
sending in the meantime for my trunk from Meredith Bridge, and
getting it by express. Of course it went to a fictitious address at
Meredith, and it came to me under the same name which I had
registered in my hotel at Portland.

I did not mean to stay there long. My departure was hastened by the
advice of a man who knew me, and told he also knew my New Hampshire
scrape, and that I had better leave Portland as soon as possible.
Half an hour after this good advice I was on my way by cars to
Canada. In Canada I stayed in different small towns near the border,
and "kept moving," till I thought the New Hampshire matter had blown
over a little, or at least till they had given me up as a "gone
case," and I then reappeared in Troy.






CHAPTER IX.

MARRYING TWO MILLINERS.

BACK IN VERMONT-FRESH TEMPTATIONS-MARGARET BRADLEY-WINE AND WOMEN-A
MOCK MARRIAGE IN TROY-THE FALSE CERTIFICATE-MEDICINE AND
MILLINERY-ELIZA GURNSEY-A SPREE AT SARATOGA-MARRYING ANOTHER
MILLINER-AGAIN ARRESTED OR BIGAMY-IN JAIL ELEVEN MONTHS-A TEDIOUS
TRIAL-FOUND GUILTY-APPEAL TO SUPREME COURT-TRYING TO BREAK OUT OF
JAIL-A GOVERNOR'S PROMISE-SECOND TRIAL-SENTENCE TO THREE YEARS'
IMPRISONMENT.





From Troy I went, first to Newburyport, Mass., where I had some
business, and where I remained a week, and then returned to Troy
again. Next I went to Bennington, Vt., to sell medicines and
practice, and I found enough to occupy me there for full two months.
From Bennington to Rutland, selling medicines on the way, and at
Rutland I intended to stay for some time. My oldest son was there
well established in the medical business, and I thought that both of
us together might extend a wide practice and make a great deal of
money.

No doubt we might have done so, if I had minded my medical business
only, and had let matrimonial matters alone. I had just got rid of a
worthless woman in New Hampshire with a very narrow escape from
State prison. But, as my readers know by this time, all experience,
even the bitterest, was utterly thrown away upon me; I seemed to get
out of one scrape only to walk, with my eyes open, straight into
another.

At the hotel where I went to board, there was temporarily staying a
woman, about thirty-two years old, Margaret Bradly, by name, who
kept a large millinery establishment in town. I became acquainted
with her, and she told me that she owned a house in the place, in
which she and her mother lived; but her mother had gone away on a
visit, and as she did not like to live alone she had come to the
hotel to stay for a few days till her mother returned. Margaret was
a fascinating woman; she knew it, and it was my miserable fate to
become intimate, altogether too intimate with this designing
milliner.

I went to her store every day, sometimes two or three times a day,
and she always had in her backroom, wine or something stronger to
treat me with, and in the evening I saw her at the hotel. When her
mother came back, and Margaret opened her house again, I was a
constant visitor. I was once more caught; I was in love.

Matters went on in this way for several weeks, when one evening I
told her that I was going next day to Troy on business, and she said
she wanted to go there to buy some goods, and that she would gladly
take the opportunity to go with me, if I would let her. Of course, I
was only too happy; and the next day I and my son, and she and one
of the young women in her employ, who was to assist her in selecting
goods, started for Troy. When I called for her, just as we were
leaving the house, the old lady, her mother, called out:

"Margaret, don't you get married before you come back."

"I guess I will," was Margaret's answer, and we went, a very jovial
party of four, to Troy and put up at the Girard House, where we had
dinner together, and drank a good deal of wine. After dinner my son
and myself went to attend to our business, she and her young woman
going to make their purchases, and arranging to meet us at a
restaurant at half past four o'clock, when we would lunch
preparatory to returning to Rutland.

We met at the appointed place and hour, and had a very lively lunch
indeed, an orgie in fact, with not only enough to eat, but
altogether too much to drink. I honestly think the two women could
have laid me and my son under the table, and would have done it, if
we had not looked out for ourselves; as it was, we all drank a great
deal and were very merry. We were in a room by ourselves, and when
we had been there nearly an hour, it occurred to Margaret that it
would be a good idea to humor the old lady's dry joke about the
danger of our getting married during this visit to Troy.

"Henry," said she to my son; "Go out and ask the woman who keeps the
saloon where you can get a blank marriage certificate, and then get
one and bring it here, and we'll have some fun."

We were all just drunk enough to see that there was a joke in it,
and we urged the boy to go. He went to the woman, who directed him
to a stationer's opposite, and presently he came in with a blank
marriage certificate. We called for pen and ink and he sat down and
filled out the blank form putting in my name and Margaret Bradley's,
signing it with some odd name I have forgotten as that of the
clergyman performing the ceremony. He then signed his own name as a
witness to the marriage, and the young woman who was with us also
witnessed it with her signature. We had a great deal of fun over it,
then more wine, and then it was time for us to hurry to the depot to
take the six o'clock train for Rutland.

Reaching home at about eleven o'clock at night, we found the old
lady up, and waiting for Margaret. We went in and Margaret's first
words were:

"Well, mother! I'm married; I told you, you know, I thought I should
be; and here's my certificate."

The mother expressed no surprise-she knew her daughter better than I
did, then-but quietly congratulated her, while I said not a single
word. My son went to see his companion home, and, as I had not
achieved this latest greatness, but had it thrust upon me, I and my
new found "wife" went to our room. The next day I removed from the
hotel to Margaret's house and remained there during my residence in
Rutland, she introducing me to her friends as her husband, and
seeming to consider it an established fact.

Three weeks after this mock marriage, however, I told Margaret that
I was going to travel about the State a while to sell my medicines,
and that I might be absent for some time. She made no objections,
and as I was going with my own team she asked me to take some
mantillas and a few other goods which were a little out of fashion,
and see if I could not sell them for her. To be sure I would, and we
parted on the best of terms.

Behold rue now, not only a medical man and a marrying man, but also
a man milliner. When I could not dispose of my medicines, I tried
mantillas, and in the course of my tour I sold the whole of
Margaret's wares, faithfully remitting to her the money for the
same. I think she would have put her whole stock of goods on me to
work off in the same way; but I never gave her the opportunity to do
so.

My journeying brought me at last to Montpelier where I proposed to
stay awhile and see if I could establish a practice. I had disposed
of my millinery goods and had nothing to attend to but my medicines
-alas that my professional acquirements as a marrying man should
again have been called in requisition. But it was to be. It was my
fate to fall into the hands of another milliner.

"Insatiate monster! would not one suffice?"

It seems not. There was a milliner at Rutland whose family and,
friends all believed to be my wife, though she knew she was not; and
here in Montpelier, was ready waiting, like a spider for a fly,
another milliner who was about to enmesh me in the matrimonial net.
I had not been in the place a week before I became acquainted with
Eliza Gurnsey. I could hardly help it, for she lived in the hotel
where I stopped, and although she was full thirty-five years old,
she was altogether the most attractive woman in the house. She was
agreeable, good-looking, intelligent, and what the vernacular calls
"smart." At all events, she was much too smart for me, as I soon
found out.

She had a considerable millinery establishment which she and her
younger sister carried on, employing several women, and she was
reputed to be well off. Strange as it may seem in the light of after
events, she actually belonged to the church and was a regular
attendant at the services. But no woman i