■
 
 MY FIRST AND WORST WIFE
 
 frVt*& v t. PS . 
 
 ^ 
 
 SEVEIST WIVES 
 
 SEVEN PRISONS: 
 
 OR 
 
 EXPERIENCES Df THE LIFE 
 
 MATRIMONIAL MONOMANIAC. 
 
 A TRUE STORY, 
 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1870. 
 
 V&
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 L. A. ABBOTT, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for 
 the District of Connecticut. 
 
 WILLIAM n. LOCKWOOD, 
 Electrotyper, 
 
 BARTrOBD, CONH.
 
 COI^TE^TS. 
 
 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 
 Sepaiation, I « . . 11 
 
 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 Treat- 
 ment. Successful Horse-Shoeing. The Warden my 
 Friend. Efforts for my Release, A Full Pardon. 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SCHKIMER SENSATION. 
 
 The Scheimer Family. In Love with Sarah. Attempt to 
 Elope. How it was Prevented. Second Attempt. A 
 Midnight Expedition. The Alarm. A Frightful Beat- 
 ing Escape. Floggirg the Devil out of Sarah. Return 
 to New Jersey. " Boston Yankee." Plans to Secure 
 Sarah, 33
 
 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, 48 
 
 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 Hor- 
 rible Prison. Breaking Out. The Dungeon. Sarah's 
 Baby. Curious Compromises. Old Scheimer my Jailer. 
 Signing a Bond. Free Again. Last Words from 
 Sarah, . . . 59 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FREE LIFE AND FISHING. 
 
 Taking Care of Crazy Men. Carrying off a Boy. Ar- 
 rested 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. Success- 
 ful Medical Practice. A Busy Winter in New Hamp- 
 shire. Blandishments of Captain Brown. I go to 
 Newark, New Jersey, 72
 
 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. Sen- 
 tenced 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, ... 83 
 
 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 u Cousin." Engaged Again. Visit 
 to the Old Folks at Home. Another Marriage. Start- 
 ing for Ohio. Change oi Plan3. 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. Re- 
 captured at Concord. Escaped Once More. Traveling 
 on the Underground Railroad. In Canada, . 96 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MARRYING TWO MILLINERS. 
 
 Back in Vermont. Fresh Temptations. Margaret Brad- 
 ley. Wine and Women. A Mock Marriage in Troy. 
 The False Certificate. Medicine and Millinery. Eliza
 
 Gurnsey. A Spree at Saratoga. Marrying Another 
 JNIilliner. Again Arrested for Bigamy. In Jail Eleven 
 Months. A Tedious Trial. Found Guilty. Appeal to 
 Supreme Court. Trying to Break Out of Jail. A Gov- 
 ernor's Promise. Second Trial. Sentenced to Three 
 Years' Imprisonment, ..... 100 
 
 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, . . . 121 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ON TIIE 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. Com- 
 fort at Concord. At Meredith Bridge. The Blaisdells. 
 Last of the " Blossom" Business. Making Money at 
 Portsmouth. Revisiting Windsor. An Astonished War- 
 den. Making Friends of Enemies. Inspecting the 
 Prison. Going to Port Jervis, . . . 137
 
 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, . . . . 148 
 
 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 Birth- 
 place Revisited, . . . . • . 163 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MY SON TRIES TO MURDER ME. 
 
 Settling Down in Maine. Henry's Health. Tour Through 
 the South. Secession Times. December in New Or- 
 leans. Up the Mississippi. Leaving Henry in Massa-
 
 cbusetts. 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, 174 
 
 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 my First W T ife. A Genuine Marriage. 
 My Farm. Home at Last, . . 189
 
 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 JOUR- 
 NEY — 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 lias said that if any man would faithfully 
 write his autobiography, giving truly his own history 
 and experiences, the ills and joys, the haps and mis- 
 haps that had fallen to his lot, he could not fail to 
 make an interesting story ; and Disraeli makes Si- 
 donia 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
 
 12 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 boasted if she 
 had been rich, one of the old Knickerbockers of New 
 York. My parents were simply honest, hard-work- 
 ing, worthy people, who earned a good livelihood, 
 brought up their children to work, behaved them- 
 selves, 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 
 daring 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 1 was 
 sixteen years old I could shoe horses well, and con- 
 sidered myself master of the trade. At the age of
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 13 
 
 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 I 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
 
 14 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 to Bainbridge, Chenango County, N. Y., and I went 
 with him, leaving my wife and the children at Sid- 
 ney, 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 I 
 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 vil- 
 lage. 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 us 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 15 
 
 replied that the clerk down stairs told her that the 
 stage did not go beyond the house, and that she ex- 
 pected 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, ineffect- 
 ually, 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 : 
 " ! see what I have found in the road " — 
 And she showed me a ten dollar bill. 1 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, how- 
 ever, that she had something on her mind which 
 troubled her, and one morning, about a month after
 
 16 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 her arrival, I found her in tears. I asked her what 
 was the matter ? She said that she had been de- 
 ceiving 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, how- 
 ever, 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 speak- 
 ing 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 proceed- 
 ings, 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 1 was so much 
 infatuated with her, that I forgave her, and even 
 consented to continue to live with her. But I re- 
 moved 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 17 
 
 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 sep- 
 aration — she insisting upon keeping the children, 
 and going to Rochester where she subsequently de- 
 veloped 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 tempo- 
 rarily 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 from 
 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
 
 18 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 Pittsiicld, and 
 from there to Worthington, Mass., where I had an- 
 other 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 de- 
 voted 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," particu- 
 larly* those schools that make use of mineral medi- 
 cines in their practice. I favored purely vegetable 
 remedies, and had been very successful in admin- 
 istering them. So I began life anew, in Worthing- 
 ton, 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 be- 
 tween my wife and myself, was as effectual as all 
 tho courts in the country could make it, and I looked 
 upon myself as a free man. Accordingly, after I
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. . 19 
 
 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 ad- 
 dresses favorably, and we were finally privately mar- 
 ried. This was the beginning of my life-long trou- 
 bles. 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 wait- 
 ing 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 
 the horse and buggy." 
 
 The offer was too tempting to be refused. The 
 father had the warrant in his pocket, and he accept- 
 ed 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 mat-
 
 20 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 ters 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 rap- 
 idly 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 Han- 
 cock, 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 21 
 
 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 SUCCESS- 
 FUL HORSE SHOEING — THE WARDEN MY FRIEND — EFFORTS FOR 
 MY RELEASE A FULL PARDON. 
 
 At Templeton I speedily made known my profes- 
 sion, 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 daugh- 
 ter 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 Worccs-
 
 22 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 ter where I had some patients. We went to a pub- 
 lic 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 pa- 
 tients, 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 Worces- 
 ter, 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 disclos- 
 ure 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 re- 
 peated 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 ar- 
 rested and brought before a justice on charge of se-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 23 
 
 duction. The trial was brief ; the daughter herself 
 swore positively, that though she had been impru- 
 dent and indiscreet in going to Worcester with me, 
 no improper communication had ever, there or else- 
 where, 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 felicita. 
 ting myself upon my escape from the latest difficul- 
 ty, 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
 
 24 SEVEN "WIVES AND 
 
 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 sen- 
 tenced 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 con- 
 veyed to Charlestown with heavy irons on my ankles 
 and handcuffed. No murderer would have been 
 more heavily ironed. We started early in the morn 
 ing, and by noon I was duly delivered to the warden 
 at Charlestown prison. I was taken into the office,
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 25 
 
 measured, asked my name, age, and other particulars, 
 and then if I had a trade. To this I at once an- 
 swered, " no." I wanted my twenty-four hours' sol- 
 itary 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 1 
 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 compas- 
 sionate 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 uni- 
 form. This was a grotesque uniform indeed. The 
 suit was red and blue, half and half, like a harle- 
 quin'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." 
 2
 
 26 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 Then began my twenty-four hours' solitary con- 
 finement, 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. ]t 
 was probably the worst dinner I had ever eaten, but
 
 SEVEN PRISON'S. 27 
 
 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 
 tilings were also served for breakfast, and the din- 
 ners were varied on different days in the week. 
 The fare w r as 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 
 Avith their lot and would be subordinate. Every 
 now and then he would ask prisoners if they wero 
 well treated by the officers ; how they were getting
 
 28 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 on ; if they had enough to eat, and so on. The of- 
 ficers 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 in- 
 terest 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 hospital 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 29 
 
 So I went into the blacksmith shop, and remained 
 there 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 some- 
 thing 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 thing as contentment in 
 prison, I was comparatively happy. I nursed the 
 sick and administered medicines under direction of 
 the doctor. I had too, with an easy position, more 
 liberty than any other prisoner. I could go any- 
 where about the halls and yard, and in a few weeks 
 I was frequently sent on an errand into the town. 
 Every one 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 be-
 
 30 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 cause 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 sur- 
 prise ; " 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 be- 
 fore." 
 
 " 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." 
 
 " 0, 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
 
 SLVKN PRISONS. 31 
 
 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 think- 
 ing 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.
 
 32 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 Mr. Bemis, after hearing all the circumstances, ex- 
 pressed 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SCHEMER SENSATION. 
 
 THE SCHEIMER FAMILY — IN LOVE WITH SARAH — ATTEMPT TO 
 
 ELOPE — HOW IT WAS PREVENTED THE 8ECOND 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 Pitts- 
 field where I wished to go and meet my son. Prom 
 Pittsfield I went to Albany, then to 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 in- 
 termediate 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.
 
 34 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 ef- 
 fected 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 res- 
 idence 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 prac- 
 tice 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 young- 
 est. The youngest daughter, Sarah, eighteen years 
 old, was an accomplished and beautiful girl. Now 
 it would seem as if with my sad experiencel 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. §5 
 
 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 any- 
 thing to her parents about it ; they would never con- 
 sent 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 in- 
 timacy 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 
 wc 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 Belvidcre and get married. I 
 then took leave of her and the family, and went 
 away.
 
 36 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 of- 
 fered him any reasonable sum, if he would only let 
 us cross ; but no, he knew the Scheimers better than 
 he knew me, and • their good will 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 37 
 
 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 man who laid hands 
 on me, or who attempted to take her home violently, 
 would get a dose from my pistol which I then ex- 
 hibited : 
 
 " 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 pub- 
 lic house half a mile below the ferry. That night 
 the gang came down to this house with the inten- 
 tion of driving me away from the place, or, possibly, 
 of doing something worse ; but while they were
 
 38 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 Schei- 
 mer'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
 
 i»^-~ WA 
 
 /// — — — = : '/ 'liiSmWmmV ■ 
 
 J
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 41 
 
 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 unmo- 
 lested. 
 
 It is quite certain the ferryman made no objec- 
 tion 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 
 Lhe 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 event- 
 ful 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,
 
 42 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 in- 
 stantly 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 Belvi- 
 dere. 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 43 
 
 think of having the prize in my very grasp, and then 
 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 ter- 
 rible 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
 
 44 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 imag- 
 ined. 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 ad- 
 vice. The old man and two sons carried a sore 
 bruise or two apiece they got from me the night be- 
 fore, 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 45 
 
 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 hy some money. During the 
 whole time I never heard a word from Sarah. I 
 wrote at least fifty letters to her, hut as I learned 
 afterward, and, indeed, surmised at the time, every 
 one of them was intercepted hy her father or broth- 
 ers, 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 Jer- 
 sey and was doing a thriving business at hotel keep- 
 ing 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 tho
 
 46 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 47 
 
 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.
 
 48 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SUCCESS WITH SARAH. 
 
 mary saiith as a confederate — the plot — waiting in the 
 woods the spy outwitted — sarah secured the pursu- 
 ers baffled night on j'he road efforts to get mar- 
 ried — the "old offender" — married at last a consta- 
 ble 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 break- 
 fast 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. " ! 
 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 :
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 49 
 
 " 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 ftffain 
 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
 
 50 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 ex- 
 pedition 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 Schei- 
 mer'fl house, but from his eldest son's house, which 
 was still nearer to the place where we were waiting,
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 51 
 
 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 £S 
 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 tha 
 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 wo- 
 man 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 } r ou 
 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 '
 
 52 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 pursu- 
 ers, 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 : " ! 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 53 
 
 readily she had acquiesced in my plan for an elope, 
 ment was manifest in the fact that she was then by 
 my side. 
 
 We had 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 quiet- 
 ly here ;" and wait we did till eight o'clock, when 
 our pursuers, having gone on a few miles, and hav- 
 ing 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 friends 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 sup- 
 per 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 neighbor
 
 54 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 hood, 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 ad- 
 vised 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 de- 
 sired 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 compre- 
 hended 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 55 
 
 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 Of- 
 fender and his wife signing the certificate as wit- 
 nesses. 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 follow- 
 ing came a deputation from that family, some half doz- 
 en 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 de- 
 clined 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 wit- 
 nessed the ceremony.
 
 56 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 What was to be done ? evidently nothing ; only 
 the constable ordered a whole barrel of ale to treat 
 his posse and any one about the town who chose 
 to drink, and the barrel was rolled out on the grass, 
 tapped, and for a half hour there was a great jollifi- 
 cation, which was not exactly in honor of our wed- 
 ding, 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 nei- 
 ther father nor brothers, nor even the woman who 
 was so unwilling to let Sarah go with me. The con- 
 stable 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 57 
 
 she would come home any day she could pack her 
 clothes and othe,r things, and take them away with 
 her. The day after we received this invitation, Bos- 
 ton Yankee offered to take Sarah over home, and 
 promised to bring her safely back. So she went, 
 was treated tolerably well, and, at any rate, she 
 secured her clothes and brought them home with 
 her. 
 
 It was now time to bid forewell 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 medi- 
 cine. 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
 
 58 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 repre- 
 sented to me that we could go back and get her mon- 
 ey, 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, " bewitch- 
 ed" to go back, and at last, after five happy months 
 in Goshen, in an evil hour I consented to go home 
 with her.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 59 
 
 CHAPTER V." 
 
 HOW THE SCHEIMERS MADE ME SUFFER. 
 
 RETURN TO 8CHEIMER'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 COM- 
 PROMISES — 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 en- 
 thusiasm 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-unit- 
 ed 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
 
 60 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 Goshen, about settling down happily in Pennsylva- 
 nia, 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 ex- 
 periencing in the gratification of her longing to re- 
 turn home again. Surely, I thought, she must be 
 happy now. No more homesickness, and a full and 
 complete reconciliation with her family ; all the an- 
 ger, abuse, and blows forgotten or forgiven ; she re- 
 stored to her place in the family ; and even her ob- 
 jectionable 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 tow- 
 ards me for the wrong they assumed I had done to 
 the youngest daughter who loved me. On my re- 
 turn I found the peaceful home I left in the morn- 
 ing a perfect pandemonium. Sarah was fairly fran- 
 tic. The whole family were abusing her. The re- 
 turned brother especially, was calling her all the
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 61 
 
 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 con- 
 fided 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 troub- 
 led waters ; it was gunpowder to fire. As soon as 
 Sarah saw me at the door she cried out : 
 " ! 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. Mean- 
 while, that mob, which the Scheimer boys seemed 
 always to have at hand, was gathering in the door- 
 yard. 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 ex- 
 actly what. Once on the road it was my intention
 
 02 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 to have gone over to Belvidere, and then on to Ox- 
 ford, 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 ; I 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 my- 
 self — 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 oc- 
 curred 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. ' 63 
 
 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 Eas- 
 ton, showed a warrant for my arrest. What the ar- 
 rest 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, I 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
 
 64 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 men were on me in an instant. After a brief strug- 
 gle 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 sub- 
 sequent 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 sev- 
 eral 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 intelli- 
 gence 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 65 
 
 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 exer- 
 cise 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 starv- 
 ing men rejected it. The deputy who kept the jail 
 was cruel and malignant, and took delight in tor- 
 turing his prisoners. He would come in sometimes
 
 66 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 un- 
 less 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 im- 
 i 
 
 provement since that time ; for the sake of humani- 
 ty, 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 ob- 
 servation : 
 
 " 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 sus-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 67 
 
 picion, as it was at the head of one of the iron bed- 
 steads — whenever the Deputy or any of his men 
 were likely to visit us. In twelve days we complet- 
 ed 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 oif 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, man- 
 aged to be called out of the room and disclosed the 
 whole. The man was waiting transportation to pris- 
 on 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
 
 68 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 re- 
 duced, 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 un- 
 der stricter observation, and at stated hours every 
 day, an inspector came in and examined the walls. 
 This soon wore off, however, and when the inspec- 
 tion 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,
 
 I 
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 69 
 
 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 Sit- 
 greave 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 examina- 
 tion ; never bound over for trial ; and now it trans- 
 pired 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.
 
 70 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 Next came a new dodge of the Scheimers, the ob- 
 ject 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 
 ihe 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 71 
 
 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.
 
 72 SEVEN -WIVES AND 
 
 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 
 
 WINNIPI8EOGEE — AN ODD LANDLORD — A WOMAN AS BIG AS A 
 HOGSHEAD REDUCING THE HOGSHEAD TO A BARREL — WON- 
 DERFUL VERIFICATION OF A DREAM SUCCESSFUL MEDICAL 
 
 PRACTICE A BUSY WINTER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE — BLANDISH- 
 MENTS OF CAPTAIN BKOWN 1 GO TO NEWARK, NEW JERSEY. 
 
 The next day I left Harmony and walked to Port 
 Jarvis, on the Erie Railroad, X. 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 mean- 
 time, my half-sister in Delaware County, to whom I 
 made known my condition, sent me money for my ex- 
 penses, 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 78 
 
 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 an- 
 other 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 hun- 
 dred 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
 
 74 SEVEN WIVES A*ND 
 
 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 Una- 
 dilla, 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 school- 
 house 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 lit- 
 tle 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 10 
 
 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 ar- 
 rested 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 per- 
 son, giving my name, giving a description of nly 
 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 remem- 
 bered that while I was traveling with my insane pa- 
 tient from Montgomery through Sullivan County, I 
 fell in with a Benson who was a very plausible fel- 
 low, 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 dol- 
 lars, which her father gladly paid me. Benson also 
 introduced me to some other people whom I found
 
 76 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 profitable patients. I thought he was a very good 
 friend to me, but he was a cool, calculating ras- 
 cal. 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 
 ctecided 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 lever 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,
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 77 
 
 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 spe- 
 cial 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 bar- 
 room, 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 ?" 
 
 " 0, 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 fillin' all the 
 time till they tell me she's bigger'n a hogshead now, 
 and she's had a hundred doctors, and the more doc- 
 tors she has the bigger she gets ; what d' ye think 
 of that now ?" 
 
 I answered that I thought it was quite likely, and
 
 78 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 then turned away from the landlord to talk to my 
 friends about our proposed sport for to-morrow, men- 
 tally making note of 'Squire BlaisdelPs 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 would n'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 ser- 
 vant who came to the door informed me that Mr. 
 Blaisdell was not at home, I asked to see Mrs. Blais- 
 dell, 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 79 
 
 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 
 benefrfc her. 
 
 " 0, 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." 
 
 " 0, 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 blos- 
 som 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 ?"
 
 80 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 " I am indeed ; go and get the water." 
 
 She took the medicine and then told me that her 
 father, who had died \wo 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 vil- 
 lages 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 81 
 
 and return to Boston, I astonished them by inform- 
 ing them that I should stay where I was for the pres- 
 ent, 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 up 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 treat- 
 ment, 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 nearly finished my 
 business in that vicinity, and that when I went to 
 New York, as I proposed to do shortly, I would go
 
 82 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 \ 
 
 over to Newark and see his daughter. A few days 
 afterward, when I had settled my business and col- 
 lected my bills in Portsmouth and Exeter, I went 
 to New York, and from there to Newark.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WEDDING A WIDOW, AND THE CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 I MARRY A WIDOW — SIX WEEKS OF HAPPINESS — CONFIDING A SE- 
 CRET AND THE CONSEQUENCES THE WIDOW'S BROTHER SUD- 
 DEN FLIGHT FROM NEWARK IN HARTFORD, CONN. MY WIFE'S 
 
 SI8TER BETRAYS ME TRIAL FOR BIGAMY SENTENCED TO TEN 
 
 YEARS' IMPRISONMENT 1 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 New- 
 ark ? I had no thought of going to that city, and 
 no business there except to see if I could cure Cap- 
 tain 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 sup- 
 posed, to see a single patient ; but Captain Brown 
 prevailed upon me to stay to take care of his daugh- 
 ter, and assured me that he and his friends would
 
 84 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 
 
 i 
 a few years have acquired a handsome competence. 
 
 But, as ill luck, which, strangely enough, I then con- 
 sidered 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 in- 
 junction : " 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 at- 
 tend 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, sis
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 85 
 
 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 es- 
 pecially 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,
 
 86 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 and that I had better clear out. I took his advice* 
 I went to the widow's house, packed my trunk, gath- 
 ered 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 Court- 
 land 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 de- 
 meanor. 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 87 
 
 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 Eliz- 
 abeth'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 ;
 
 88 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 so I left my name, promising to call again. I re- 
 turned 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, beck- 
 oned 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 Nev 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
 
 SEVEN PfclSONS. 89 
 
 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 requisi- 
 tion 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 ap- 
 plication 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 thou- 
 sand 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
 
 90 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 ignor- 
 ance 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 circum- 
 stance, 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 coun- 
 sel for me, for I had no money to fee a lawyer, and 
 my NeW York friend was on hand to advise and as-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 91 
 
 sist. I had 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 doubt- 
 ful question ; the judge gave them another blast 
 against me, and an hour after they came in with a ver 
 diet 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 Tren- 
 ton. 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. Af- 
 ter 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,
 
 92 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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, prop- 
 erly 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 bot- 
 toming 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 re-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 93 
 
 spect ; 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 sep- 
 aration, 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 at- 
 tached no great importance to it. But he came 
 again in a few days, and after some general conver- 
 sation, he told me that there was a movement on
 
 94 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 foot in my favor, which might bring the best of news 
 to me ; that he had not only talked wifh 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 sen- 
 tence 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 signa- 
 tures, 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
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 95 
 
 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 par- 
 don 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 ful- 
 filled 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.
 
 96 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON THE KEEN SCENT. 
 
 GOOD RESOLUTIONS — ENJOYING FREEDOM — GOING AFTER A CRA- 
 ZY 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 STO- 
 RIES ABOUT MARY — BOUND OVER TO KEEP THE PEACE AN. 
 
 OTHER 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 hon- 
 estly meant to make every effort to be so, and on 
 my way to New York I made numberless vows for 
 my own future good behavior. I bound myself over, 
 as it were, to keep the peace — my own peace and 
 quiet especially — and became my own surety. That 
 1 could not have had a poorer bondsman, subsequent
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. ' 97 
 
 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 these good resolutions I arrived in New York 
 and went to my old hotel in Courtlandt 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 Tren- 
 ton — and which were returned to me when I, came 
 away. I went to a friend who loaned me some mon- 
 ey, 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 sue-
 
 98 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 cess I had had in taking care of two men at New- 
 bury 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 w T ith 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 sup- 
 port, 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 in- 
 creasing business. And so I went on for nearly three 
 months, gaining new acquaintances, and extending 
 my practice every day.
 
 • SEVEN PRISONS. 99 
 
 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 ac- 
 quainted — 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 my business in Brat- 
 tleboro was too good to leave, and I so wrote to her. 
 Whereupon, in another week, she came back to Brat- 
 tleboro 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
 
 100 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 mar- 
 ried, 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 thor- 
 oughly, 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 busi- 
 ly 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 pa- 
 rents made no objection to her going, though I 
 was to be absent a fortnight, and was not to be
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 101 
 
 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 mak- 
 ing my final visits to my patients and acquaint 
 ances, 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 rel- 
 atives, 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 con- 
 cluded 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, Ma- 
 ry and I had several quarrels which were worse than 
 mere ordinary matrimonial squabbles. Two or three 
 young men in Keene, with whom 1 had become ac- 
 quainted, twitted me with marrying Mary, and told
 
 102 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 wonder- 
 'fully 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 com- 
 plaint 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 adven-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 103 
 
 tures 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. l 
 
 Whether they then 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
 
 104 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 day- 
 light, so that his expedition might excite no sus- 
 picion. Twenty miles away from Keene he set me 
 down in the road, and, bidding him "good-bye," I
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 105 
 
 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 interfer- 
 ing, 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 re- 
 member it, but he was a fine fellow, and was exceed- 
 ingly 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 ex- 
 press. He then handed me over to the authorities,
 
 106 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 pre- 
 sume — 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 107 
 
 And fly I did. No stopping at the friendly far- 
 mer's, my former refuge, this time ; that would be 
 too great a risk. No showing of myself in any town 
 or viilege 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 traveling- 
 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 an- 
 other State, and here I ventured to take the ears 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 ficti- 
 tious address at Meredith, and it came to me under 
 the same name which I had registered in my hotel 
 at Portland.
 
 108 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 I did not mean to stay there long. My departure 
 was hastened by the advice of a man who knew me, 
 and told me he also knew my New Hampshire scrape, 
 and that I had better leave Portland as soon as pos- 
 sible. 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.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 109 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MARRYING TWO MILLINERS. 
 
 BACK IN VERMONT FRESH TEMPTATIONS MARGARET BRADLEY 
 
 WINE AND WOMEN A MOCK 31ARRIAGE IN TROY — ;THE FALSE 
 
 CERTIFICATE — MEDICINE AND MILLINERY — ELIZA GURNSEY — A 
 SPREE AT SARATOGA — MARRYING ANOTHER MILLINER AGAIN AR- 
 RESTED 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 
 
 — SENTENCE TO THREE YEARS' IMPRISONMENT. 
 
 From Troy I went, first to Ncwburyport, Mass., 
 whore 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 prac- 
 tice, 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 tfce medical business, and I thought 
 that both of us together might extend a wide practice 
 and make a great deal of money.
 
 110 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 No doubt we might have done so, if I had minded 
 my medical business only, and had let matrimonial 
 matters alone. 1 had just got rid of a worthless 
 woman in New Hampshire with a very narrow es- 
 cape 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 acquaint- 
 ed 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 back- 
 room, wine or something stronger to treat me with, 
 and in the evening I saw her at the hotel. When her
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. Ill 
 
 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 to- 
 gether, and drank a good deal of wine. After din- 
 ner my son and myself went to attend to our busi- 
 ness, 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 pre- 
 paratory to returning to Rutland.
 
 112 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 mar- 
 riage 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 cler- 
 gyman performing the ceremony. He then signed
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 113 
 
 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 cer- 
 tificate." 
 
 The mother expressed no surprise — she knew her 
 daughter better than I did, then — but quietly con- 
 gratulated 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
 
 114 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 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 me now, not only a medical man and a 
 marrying man, hut also a man milliner. When I 
 could not dispose of my medicines, 1 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 1 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. 1 had disposed of my millen- 
 ery goods and had nothing to attend to but my med- 
 icines — alas that my professional acquirements as a 
 marrying man should again have been called in re- 
 quisition. But it was to be. It was my fate to fall 
 into the hands of another milliner. 
 
 " Insatiate monster ! would not one suffice ?"
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 115 
 
 It seems not. There was a milliner at Rutland 
 whose family and friends all helieved to be my wife, 
 though she knew she was not ; and here in Mont- 
 pelier was ready waiting, like a spider for a fly, an- 
 other 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 Gurn- 
 sey. 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 at- 
 tractive 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, em- 
 ploying 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 in town was more talked about, and pre- 
 cisely what sort of a woman she was may be esti- 
 mated from the fact that I had known her but little 
 more than a week, when she proposed that she, her
 
 116 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 sister and I should go to Saratoga together, and 
 have a good time for a day or two. 
 
 I was fairly fascinated with the woman and I con- 
 sented. The younger sister was taken with us, I 
 thought at first as a cover, I knew afterwards as a 
 confederate, and Eliza paid all the bills, which 
 were by no means small ones, of the entire trip. 
 We stopped in Saratoga at a hotel, which is now in 
 very different hands, but which was then kept by 
 proprietors who, in addition to a most excellent table 
 and accommodations, afforded their guests the op- 
 portunity, if they desired it, of attending prayers 
 every night and morning in one of the parlors. 
 This may have been the inducement which made 
 Eliza insist upon going to this house, but I doubt it. 
 
 For our stay at Saratoga, three or four days, was 
 one wild revel. We rode about, got drunk, went to 
 the Lake, came back to the hotel, and the second 
 day we were there, Eliza sent her sister for a Pres- 
 byterian minister, whose address she had somehow 
 secured, and this minister came to the hotel and 
 married us. I presume I consented, I don't know, 
 for I was too much under the effect of liquor to 
 know much of anything. I have an indistinct rec- 
 ollection of some sort of a ceremony, and after-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 117 
 
 wards Eliza showed me a certificate — no Troy af- 
 fair, but a genuine document signed by a minister 
 residing in Saratoga, and witnessed by her sister 
 and some one in the hotel who had been called in. 
 But the whole was like a dream to me ; it was the 
 plot of an infamous woman to endeavor to make her- 
 self respectable by means of a marriage, no matter 
 to whom or how that marriage was effected. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Montpelier papers had the whole 
 story, one of them publishing a glowing account of 
 my elopement with Miss Gurnsey, and the facts of 
 our marriage at Saratoga was duly chronicled. This 
 paper fell into the hands of Miss Bradley, at Rut- 
 land, and as she claimed to be my wife, and had 
 parted with me only a little while before, when I 
 went out to peddle medicines and millinery, her feel- 
 ings can be imagined. She read the story and then 
 aroused all Rutland. I had not been back from Sar- 
 atoga half an hour before I was arrested in the pub- 
 lic house in Montpelier and taken before a magis- 
 trate, on complaint of Miss Bradley, of Rutland, 
 that I was guilty of bigamy. 
 
 The examination was a long one, and as the facts 
 which were then shown appeared afterwards in my 
 trial they need not be noted now. I had two first-
 
 118 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 rate lawyers, but for all that, and with the plainest 
 showing that Margaret Bradley had no claim what- 
 ever to be considered my wife, I was bound over in 
 the sum of three thousand dollars to appear for 
 trial, and was sent to jail. There was a tremendous 
 excitement about the matter, and the whole town 
 seemed interested. 
 
 To jail I went, Eliza going with me, and insisting 
 upon staying ; but the jailer would not let her, nor 
 was she permitted to visit me during my entire stay 
 there, at least she got in to see me but once. I 
 made every effort to get bail, but was unsuccessful. 
 Eight long weary months elapsed before my trial 
 came on, and all this while I was in jail. My trial 
 lasted a week. The Bradley woman knew she was 
 no more married to me than she was to the man in 
 the moon ; but she swore stoutly that we were actu- 
 ally wedded according to the certificate. On the 
 other hand, my son swore to all the facts about the 
 Troy spree, and his buying and filling out the cer- 
 tificate, which showed for itself that, excepting the 
 signature of the young woman who also witnessed 
 it, it was entirely in Henry's handwriting. I should 
 have got along well enough so far as the Bradley 
 woman was concerned ; but the prosecution had
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 119 
 
 been put in possession of all the facts relative to my 
 first and worst marriage, and the whole matter came 
 up in this case. The District Attorney had sent 
 everywhere, as far even as Illinois, for witness with 
 regard to that marriage. It seemed as if all Ver- 
 mont was against me. I have heard that with the 
 cost of witnesses and other expenses, my trial cost 
 the state more than five thousand dollars. My three 
 lawyers could not save me. After a week's trial the 
 case went to the jury, and in four hours they returned 
 a verdict of " guilty." 
 
 My counsel instantly appealed the case to the 
 Supreme Court, and, meanwhile I went back to jail 
 where I remained three months more. A few days 
 after I returned to jail a friend of mine managed to 
 famish me with files and saws, and I went indus- 
 triously to work at the gratings of my window to 
 saw my way out. I could work only at night, when 
 the keepers were away, and I covered the traces of 
 my cuttings by filling in with tallow. In two 
 months I had everything in readiness for my escape. 
 An hour's more sawing at the bars would set me free. 
 
 But just at that time the Governor of the State, 
 Fletcher, made a visit to the jail. I told him all 
 about my case. He assured me, after hearing all
 
 120 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 the circumstances, that if I should be convicted and 
 sentenced, he would surely pardon me in the course 
 of six or eight weeks. Trusting in this promise, I 
 made no further effort to escape though I could have 
 done so easily any night ; but rather than run the 
 risk of recapture, and a heavier sentence if I should 
 be convicted, I awaited the chances of the court, 
 and looked beyond for the clemency of the Governor. 
 Well, finally my case came up in the Supreme 
 Court. It only occupied a day, and the result was 
 that I was sentenced for three years in the State 
 prison. I was remanded to jail, and five days from 
 that time I was taken from Montpelier to Windsor.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 121 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PRISON-LIFE IN VERMONT. 
 
 ENTERING PRISON — THE SCYTHE SNATH BUSINESS — BLISTERED 
 HANDS — I LEAKN NOTHING THREAT TO KILL THE SHOP-KEEP- 
 ER — LOCKSMITH ING — OPEN REBELLION — SIX WEEKS IN THE 
 DUNGEON — ESCAPE OP 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'8 IEONS A GHASTLY SPECTACLE A PRISON 
 
 FUNERAL — I AM LET ALONE — BETTER TREATMENT — THE FULL 
 TERM OF MY IMPRISONMENT. 
 
 We arrived at Windsor and I was safely inside of 
 the prison at three o'clock in the afternoon. War- 
 den Harlow met me with a joke, to the effect that, 
 had it not been for my handcuffs he should have taken 
 the officer who brought me, to be the prisoner, I was 
 so much the better dressed of the two. He then 
 talked very seriously to me for a long time. He 
 was sorry, and surprised, he said, to see a man of 
 my appearance brought to such a place for such a 
 crime ; he could not understand how a person of my 
 evident intelligence should get into such a scrape.
 
 122 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 I told him that he understood it as well as I did, 
 at all events ; that I could not conceive why I should 
 get into these difficulties, one after the other ; but 
 that I believed I was a crazy man on this one sub- 
 ject — matrimonial monomania ; that when I had 
 gone through with one of these scrapes, and had 
 suffered the severe punishment that was almost cer- 
 tain to follow, the whole was like a dream to me — a 
 nightmare and nothing more. With regard to what 
 was before me in this prison I should try and behave 
 myself, and make the best of the situation • but I 
 notified the Warden that I did not mean to do one bit 
 of work if I could help it. 
 
 He took me inside, where my fine clothes were 
 taken away, and I was dressed in the usual parti- 
 colored prison uniform. I was told the rules, and 
 was warned that if I did not observe them it would 
 go hard with me. Then followed twenty-four hours' 
 solitary confinement, and the next afternoon I was 
 taken from my cell to a shop in which scythe snaths 
 were made. 
 
 It had transpired during my trial at Montpclier, 
 that when I was a young man, I was a blacksmith 
 by trade. This information had been transmitted to 
 prison and I was at once put to work making heel
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 123 
 
 rings. It was some years since I had worked at a 
 forge and handled a hammer. Consequently, in 
 three or four days, my hands were terribly blistered, 
 and as the Warden happened to come into the shop, 
 I showed them to him, and quietly told him that I 
 would do that work no longer. He told me that I 
 must do it ; he would make me do it. I answered 
 that he might kill me, or punish me in any way he 
 pleased, but he could not make me do that kind of 
 labor, *and I threw down my hammer and refused to 
 work a moment longer. 
 
 The Warden left me and sent Deputy Warden Mo- 
 rey to try me. He approached me in a kindly way, 
 and I showed my blistered hands to him. He 
 thought that was the way to " toughen " me. I 
 thought not, and said so, and, moreover, told him I 
 would never make another heel ring in that prison, 
 and I never did. 
 
 He sent me to my cell and I stayed there a week, 
 till my hands were well. Then the Deputy came to 
 me and asked me if I was willing to learn to hew 
 out scythe snaths in the rough for the shavers, who 
 finished them ? I said I would try. I went into the 
 shop and was shown how the work was to be done. 
 Every man was expected to hew out fifty snaths in a 
 6
 
 124 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 day. In three or four days the shop-keeper came 
 and overlooked me while I was working in my bung- 
 ling way, and said if I could n't do better than that 
 I must clear out of his shop and do something else. 
 My reply was that I did not understand the business, 
 and had no desire or intention to learn it. He sent 
 for the Deputy Warden, who came and expressed 
 the opinion that I could not do anything. I said I 
 was willing to do anything I could understand. 
 
 " Do you understand anything?" asked the Deputy. 
 
 " Well, some things, marrying for instance," was 
 my answer. 
 
 " I want ijo joking or blackguardism about this 
 matter," said the Deputy ; " the simple fact is, 
 you've got to work ; if you don't we'll make you." 
 
 So I kept on at hewing, making no improvement, 
 and in a day or two more the shop-keeper undertook 
 to show me. how the work should be done. I pro 
 tested I never could learn it. 
 
 " You don't try ; and I have a good mind to pun- 
 ish you." 
 
 The moment the shop-keeper said it I dropped 
 the snath, • raised my axe, and told him that if he 
 came one step nearer to me I would make mince- 
 meat of him. He thought it was advisable to stay
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 125 
 
 where he was ; but one of the prison-keepers was in 
 the shop, and as he came toward me I warned him 
 that he had better keep away. 
 
 All the men in the shop were ready to break out 
 in insubordination ; when I- threatened the shop, 
 keeper and the guard, they cheered ; the Deputy- 
 Warden was soon on the ground ; he stood in the 
 doorway a moment, and then, in a kind tone called 
 me to him. I had no immediate quarrel with him, 
 and so I dropped my axe and went to him. He told 
 me that there was no use of " making a muss" there, 
 it incited the other prisoners to insubordination, and 
 was sure to bring severe punishment upon myself. 
 " Go and get your cap and coat," said he, " and 
 come with me." 
 
 " But if you are going to put me into that black 
 hole of yours," I exclaimed, "I won't- go; you'll 
 have to drag me there, or kill me on the way." 
 
 He promised he would not put me in the dungeon, 
 he was only going to put me in my cell, he said, and 
 to my cell I went, willingly enough, and stayed there 
 a week, during which time I suppose everyone of my 
 shopmates thought I was in the dungeon, undergoing 
 severe punishment for my rebellious conduct. 
 
 1 had learned now the worst lesson which a pris-
 
 126 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 oner can learn — that is, that my keepers were afraid 
 of me. To a limited extent, it is true, I was now 
 my own master and keeper. In a few days Deputy 
 Morey came to me and asked me if I was " willing" 
 to come out and work. I was sick of solitary con- 
 finement, and longed to see the faces of men, even 
 prisoners : so I told him if I could get any work I 
 could, do I was willing to try it, and would do as 
 well as I knew how. He asked me if I knew any- 
 thing of locksmithing ? I told him I had some taste 
 for it, and if he would show me his job I would let 
 him see what I could do. 
 
 The fact is, I was a very fair amateur locksmith, 
 « 
 and had quite a fondness for fixing, picking, and 
 
 fussing generally over locks. Accordingly, when he 
 
 gave me a lock to work upon to make it " play easier," 
 
 as he described it, I did the job so satisfactorily that 
 
 I had nearly every lock in the prison to take off and 
 
 operate upon, if it was nothing more than to clean 
 
 and oil one. This business occupied my entire time 
 
 and attention for nearly three months. Then I re_ 
 
 paired iron bedsteads, did other iron work, and I was 
 
 the general tinker of the prison. 
 
 It came into my head, however, one day, that I 
 
 might as well do nothing. The prison fare was
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 127 
 
 indescribably bad, almost as bad as the jail fare at 
 Easton. We lived upon the poorest possible salt 
 beef for dinner, varied now and then with plucks and 
 such stuff from the slaughter houses, with nothing but 
 bread and rye coffee for breakfast and supper, and 
 mush and molasses perhaps twice a week. 
 
 I was daily abused, too, by- the Warden, his Depu- 
 ty, and his keepers.- They looked upon me as an 
 ugly, insubordinate, refractory, rebellious rascal, who 
 was ready to kill any of them, and, worst of all, who 
 would not work. I determined to confirm their 
 minds in the latter supposition, and so one day I 
 threw down my tools and refused to do another 
 thing. 
 
 They dragged me to the dungeon and thrust me 
 in. It was a wretched dark hole, with a little dirty 
 straw in one corner to lie upon. My entire food and 
 drink was bread and water. The man who brought 
 it never spoke to me. His face was the only one I 
 saw during the livelong day. Day and night were 
 alike to me ; I lost the run of time ; but at long in- 
 tervals, once in eight or ten days, I suppose, the 
 Deputy came to this hole and asked me if I would 
 come out and work. 
 
 " No, no !" 1 always answered, "never!" Then
 
 128 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 I paced the stone floor in the dark, or lay on my 
 straw. I lay there till my hips were worn raw. 
 No human being can conceive the agony, the suffer- 
 ing I endured in this dungeon. At last I was near- 
 ly blind, and was scarcely able to stand up. I pre- 
 sume that the attendant who brought my daily dole 
 of bread and my cup of water, reported my condi- 
 tion. One day the door opened and I was ordered 
 out. They were obliged to bring me out ; I was so 
 reduced that I was but the shadow of myself. They 
 meant to cure my obstinacy or to kill me, and had 
 not quite succeeded in doing either. 
 
 There was no use in asking me if I would go to work 
 then ; I was just alive. A few days in my own cell, 
 in the daylight, and with something beside bread 
 and water to eat, partially restored me. I was then 
 taken into the shop where the snaths were finished 
 by scraping and varnishing, the lightest part of the 
 work, but I would not learn, would not do, would not 
 try to do anything at all. They gave me up. The 
 whole struggle nearly killed me, but I beat them. 
 I was turned into the halls and told to do what I 
 could, which, I knew well enough, meant what I 
 would. 
 
 After that I worked about the halls and vard,
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 129 
 
 sometimes sweeping, and again carrying something, 
 or doing errands for the keepers from one part of 
 the prison to another. I was what theatrical mana- 
 gers call a general utility man, and, not at all 
 strangely, for it is human nature, now that I could 
 do what I pleased, I pleased to do a great deal, and 
 was tolerably useful, and far more agreeable than 
 1 had been in the past. 
 
 There was a young fellow, twenty-two years of age, 
 in one of the cells, serving out a sentence of six 
 years. When I was sweeping around I used to stop 
 and talk to him every day. One day he was miss- 
 ing. He had been supposed to be sick or asleep 
 for several hours, for apparently he lay in bed, and 
 was lying very still. But that was only an inge- 
 niously constructed dummy. The young man him- 
 self had made a hole under his bed into an ad- 
 joining vacant cell, the door of which stood open. 
 He had crawled through his hole, come out of the 
 vacant cell door, and gone up to the prison gar- 
 ret, where he found some old pieces of rope. These 
 he tied together, and getting out at the cupola 
 upon the roof, he managed to let himself down 
 on the outside of the building and got away. He 
 was never recaptured. The Warden said that some
 
 130 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 one must have told him about the adjoining vacant 
 cell, with its always open door, else how would the 
 young man have known it ? 
 
 I was accused of imparting this valuable informa- 
 tion, and I suffered four weeks' confinement in that 
 horrible dungeon on the mere suspicion. This 
 made ten weeks in all of my prison-life in a hole in 
 which I suffered so that 1 hoped I should die there. 
 
 One of the prisoners was a desperate man, named 
 Hall. He was a convicted murderer, and was sen- 
 tenced for life. He, too, worked about in the prison 
 and the yards, dragging or carrying a heavy ball 
 and chain. When bundles of snaths were to be car- 
 ried from one shop to the other in the various pro- 
 cesses of finishing, Hall had to do it, and to carry 
 his ball and chain as well, so that he was loaded like 
 a pack-horse. No pack-horse was ever so abused. 
 
 Of course he was ugly ; the wardens and the keep- 
 ers knew it, and generally kept away from him. 
 
 I talked with him more than once, and he told me 
 that with better treatment he should be a better man. 
 " Look at the loads which are put on me every 
 day," he would say ; " as if this ball and chain 
 were not as much as I can carry ; and this for life, 
 for life !"
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 133 
 
 One day when Hall and I were working together in 
 the prison, Deputy Warden Morey came in and said 
 something to him, and in a moment the man sprung 
 upon him. He had secured somehow, perhaps he 
 had picked it up in the yard, a pocket knife, and 
 with this he stabbed the Warden, striking him in the 
 shoulder, arm, and where he could. 
 
 Morey was a man sixty-five years of age, and he 
 made such resistance as he could, crying out loudly 
 for help. I turned, ran to Hall, and with one blow 
 of my fist knocked him nearly senseless ; then help 
 came and we secured the mad man. Morey was pro- 
 fuse in protestations of gratitude to me for saving 
 his life. 
 
 There was a great excitement over this attempt to 
 murder the Deputy, and for a few hours, with war- 
 dens and keepers, I was a hero. I had been in the 
 prison more than a year, and was generally regarded 
 as one of the worst prisoners, one of the "hardest 
 cases ;" a mere chance had suddenly made me one of 
 the most commendable men within those dreary walls. 
 
 As for Hall, he was taken to the dungeon and se- 
 curely chained by the feet to a ring in the center of 
 the stone floor. There is no doubt whatever that the 
 man was a raving maniac. He howled night and
 
 184 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 day so that he could be heard everywhere in the 
 prison — " Murder, murder ! they are murdering me 
 in this black hole ; why don't they take me out and 
 kill me ?" 
 
 The Warden said it could not be helped ; that the 
 man must be kept there ; he was dangerous to himself 
 and others ; the dark cell was the only place for him. 
 So Hall stayed there and howled, his cries growing 
 weaker from day to day ; by-and-by we heard him 
 only at intervals, and after that not at all. 
 
 One morning there was a little knot of men around 
 the open dungeon door, the Deputy Warden and two 
 or three keepers. Mr Morey called to me to go and 
 get the tools and come there and take off Hall's 
 irons. 1 went into the cell and in a few minutes I 
 unfastened his feet from the ring ; then I took the 
 shackles off his limbs. 1 thought he held his legs 
 very stiff, but knew he was obstinate, and only won- 
 dered he was so quiet. 
 
 Somebody brought in a candle and I looked at 
 Hall's face. I never saw a more ghastly sight. The 
 blood from his mouth and nostrils had clotted on the 
 lower part of his face, and his wild eyes, fixed and 
 glassy, were staring at the top wall of the dungeon. 
 He must have been dead several hours. The Depu-
 
 SKVEN PKISONS. 135 
 
 ty and the rest knew lie was dead — the man who car-; 
 ricd in the bread and water told them — but to me 
 it came with a shock from which I did not soon 
 recover. 
 
 They buried Hall in the little graveyard which 
 was is the yard of the prison. An Episcopal cler- 
 gyman, who was chaplain of the prison, read the 
 burial service over him. The prisoners were brought 
 out to attend the homely funeral. The ball and 
 chain, all the personal property left by Hall, were 
 put aside for the next murderer sentenced for life, 
 or for the next "ugly" prisoner. "If I were only 
 treated better, and not abused so, I should be a bet- 
 ter man." This is what Hall used to say to me 
 whenever he had an opportunity. The last and 
 worst and best in that prison had been done for him 
 now. 
 
 From the day when I rescued Morcy from the 
 hands of Hall, his whole manner changed towards 
 me, and he treated me with great kindness, frequent- 
 ly bringing me a cup of tea or coffee, and something 
 good to eat. He also promised to present the cir- 
 cumstances of the Hall affair to the Governor, and 
 to urge my pardon, but I do not think he ever did so, 
 at least I heard nothing of it. When I pressed the
 
 136 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 matter upon Moroy's attention he said it would do 
 no good till I had served out half my sentence, and 
 then he would see what could be done. 
 
 I served half my sentence, and then the other 
 hal f, every day of it. But during the last two years 
 1 had very little to complain of except the loss of 
 my liberty. 1 was put into the cook shop where 
 I could get better food, and I did pretty much 
 what I pleased. By general consent I was let 
 alone. They had found out that ill usage only 
 made mc " ugly," while kindness made me at least 
 behave myself. And so the three weary years of 
 my confinement were on to an end.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 137 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ON THE TRAMP. 
 
 THE DAT 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 "BLOS- 
 SOM " BUSINESS MAKING MONEY AT PORTSMOUTH — REVISITING 
 
 WINDSOR AN ASTONISHED WARDEN MAKING FRIENDS OF OLD 
 
 ENEMIES INSPECTING THE PRISON GOING TO PORT JERVIS. 
 
 At last the happy day of my deliverance came. 
 The penalty for pretending to marry one milliner 
 and for being married by another milliner was paid. 
 My sentence was fulfilled. I had looked forward to 
 this day for months. Of all my jail and prison life 
 in different States, this in Vermont was the hardest, 
 the most severe. My obstinacy, no doubt, did much 
 at first to enhance my sufferings, and it was the ac- 
 cident only of my saving Morey's life that made the 
 last part of my imprisonment a little more tolerable. 
 
 When I was preparing to go, it was discovered 
 that the fine suit of clothes 1 wore into the prison
 
 138 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 had been given by mistake or design to some one 
 else, and my silk hat and calf-skin boots had gone 
 with the clothes. But never mind ! I would have 
 gone out into the world in rags — my liberty was all 
 I wanted then. The Warden gave me one of his 
 own old coats, a ragged pair of pantaloons, and a 
 new pair of brogan shoes. He also gave me three 
 dollars, which was precisely a dollar a year for my 
 services,, and this was more than I ever meant to 
 earn there. Thus equipped and supplied I was sent 
 out into the streets of Windsor. 
 
 I had not gone half a mile before I met a poor old 
 woman whom I had known very well in Rutland. 
 She recognized me at once, though I know I was 
 sadly changed for the worse. She was on her way 
 to Fall River, where she had relatives, and where 
 she hoped for help, but had no. money to pay her fare, 
 so I divided my small stock with her, and that left 
 me just one dollar and a half with which to begin 
 the world again. I went down to the bridge and the 
 toll-gatherer gave me as much as I could eat, twen- 
 ty-five cents in money, and a pocket-full of food to 
 carry with me. I was heading, footing rather, for 
 Meredith Bridge in New Hampshire. It was in the 
 month of December, and I was poorly clad and with-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 139 
 
 out an overcoat. I must have walked fifteen miles 
 that afternoon, and just at nightfall I came to a way- 
 side public house and ventured to go in. As I stood 
 by the fire, the landlord stepped up and slapping me 
 on the shoulder, said : 
 
 " Friend, you look as if you were in trouble ; step 
 up and have something to drink." 
 
 I gladly accepted the invitation to partake of the 
 first glass of liquor I had tasted in three years. It 
 was something, too, everything to be addressed thus 
 kindly. I told this worthy landlord my whole story ; 
 how I had been trapped by the two milliners, and 
 how I had subsequently suffered. He had read 
 something about it in the papers ; he felt as if he 
 knew me ; he certainly was sorry for me ; and he 
 proved his sympathy by giving me what then seemed 
 to me the best supper I had ever eaten, a good bed, 
 a good breakfast, a package of .provisions to carry 
 with me, and then sent me on my way with a com- 
 paratively light heart. 
 
 It rained, snowed, and drizzled all day long. I 
 tramped through the wet snow ankle deep, but made 
 nearly forty miles before night, and then came to a 
 public bouse which I knew well. When 1 was in 
 the bar-room drying myself and warming my wet
 
 140 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 and half-frozen feet, I could not but think how, only 
 a few years before, I had put up at that very house, 
 with a fine horse and buggy of my own in the stable, 
 and plenty of money in my pocket. The landlord's 
 face was familiar enough, but he did not know me, 
 nor, under my changed circumstances, did I desire 
 that he should. Supper, lodging, and breakfast 
 nearly exhausted my small money capital ; I was 
 worn and weary, too, and the next day was able to 
 walk but twenty miles, all told. On the way, at 
 noon I went into a farm house to warm myself. 
 The woman had just baked a short-cake which 
 stood on the hearth, toward which I must have cast 
 longing eyes, for the farmer said : 
 " Have you had your dinner, man ?" 
 " No, and I have no money to buy any." 
 " Well, you don't need money here. Wife, put 
 that short-cake and^ some butter on the table ; now, 
 my man, fall to and eat as much as you like." 
 
 I was very hungry, and I declare I ate the whole 
 of that short-cake. I told these people that I had 
 been in better circumstances, and that I was not 
 always the poor, ragged, hungry wretch I appeared 
 then. They made me welcome to what I had eaten, 
 and when I went away filled my pockets with food.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 141 
 
 At night I was about thirty miles above Concord. I 
 had no money, but trusting to luck, I got on the cars 
 — the conductor came, and when he found I had no 
 ticket, he said he must put me off. It was a bitter 
 night and I told him I should be sure to freeze to 
 death. A gentleman who heard the conversation at 
 once paid my fare, for t which I expressed my grateful 
 thanks, and I went to Concord. 
 
 On my arrival I went to a hotel and told the land- 
 lord I wanted to stay there till the next day, when 
 a conductor whom I knew would be going to Mere- 
 dith Bridge ; that I was going with him, and that 
 he would probably pay my bill at the hotel. " All 
 right," said the landlord, and he gave me my supper 
 and a room. The next noon my friend, the conduc- 
 tor, came and when I first spoke to him he did not 
 recognize me ; I told him who I was, but to ask me 
 no questions as to how I came to appear in those 
 old clothes, and to be so poor ; I wanted to borrow 
 five dollars, and to go with him to Meredith Bridge. 
 He greeted me very cordially, handed me a ten-dol- 
 lar bill — twice as much as I asked for — said he was 
 not going to the Bridge till next day, and told me 
 meanwhile, to go to the hotel and make myself com- 
 fortable.
 
 142 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 I went back to the hotel, paid my bill, stayed 
 there that day and night, and the next morning I 
 " deadheaded " with my friend the conductor to 
 Meredith Bridge. Everybody knew me there. The 
 hotel-keeper made me welcome to his house, and 
 said I could stay as long as I liked. 
 
 " Say, dew ye ever cure anybody, Doctor ?" asked 
 my old friend, the landlord, and he laughed and 
 nudged me in the ribs, and asked me to take some 
 of his medicine from the bar, which I immediately 
 did. 
 
 I was at home now. But the object of my visit 
 was to see if I could not collect some of my old bills 
 in that neighborhood, amounting in the aggregate to 
 several hundred dollars. They were indeed old bills 
 of five or six years' standing, and I had very little 
 hope of collecting much money. I went first to 
 Lake Village, and called on Mr. John Blaisdell, the 
 husband of the woman whom I had cured of the 
 dropsy, in accordance, as she believed at the time, 
 with her prophetic dream. Blaisdell didn't know me 
 at first ; then he wanted to know what my bill was ; 
 I told him one hundred dollars, to say nothing of 
 six years' interest ; lie said he had no money, though 
 lie was regarded as a rich man, and in fact was.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 143 
 
 " But sir," said I, " you see me, and how poor I 
 am. Give me something on account. I am so poor 
 that I even borrowed this overcoat from the tailor 
 in the village, that I might present a little more re- 
 spectable appearance when I called on my old pa- 
 tients to try to collect some of my old bills. Please 
 to give me something." 
 
 But he had no money. He would pay for the 
 overcoat ; I might tell the tailor so ; and afterwards 
 he gave me a pair of boots and an old shirt. This 
 was the fruit which my " blossom " of years before 
 brought at last. I saw Mrs. Blaisdell, but she said 
 she could do nothing for me. She had forgotten 
 what I had done for her. 
 
 Of all my bills in that vicinity, with a week's dun- 
 ning, I collected only three dollars ; but a good 
 friend of mine, Sheriff Hill, went around and suc- 
 ceeded in making up a purse of twenty dollars 
 which he put into my hands just as I was going 
 away. My old landlord wanted nothing for my 
 week's board ; all he wanted was to know "if I ever 
 cured anybody ;" and when I told him I did, "some- 
 times," he insisted upon my taking more of his 
 medicine, and he put up a good bottle of it for me 
 to carry with me on my journey.
 
 144 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 With my twenty dollars I went to Portsmouth, 
 where I speedily felt that I was among old and true 
 friends. I had not been there a day before I was 
 called upon to take care of a young man who was 
 sick, and after a few weeks charge of him I received 
 in addition to my board and expenses, three hun- 
 dred dollars. I was now enabled to clothe myself 
 handsomely, and I did so and went to Newburyport, 
 where I remained several weeks and made a great 
 deal of money. 
 
 In the spring I went to White River Junction, 
 and while I was in the hotel taking a drink with 
 some friends, who should come into the bar-room 
 but the Lake Village tailor from whom I had bor- 
 rowed the overcoat which I had even then on my 
 back. I was about to thank him for his kindness to 
 me when he took me aside and said reproachfully : 
 
 " Doctor, you wore away my overcoat and this is 
 it, I think." 
 
 " Good heavens ! didn't John Blaisdell pay you 
 for the coat ? He told me he would ; its little 
 enough out of what he owes me." 
 
 " He never said a word to me about it," was the 
 reply. I told the tailor the circumstances ; I did 
 not like to let him know that I had then about seven
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 145 
 
 hundred dollars in my pocket ; I wished to appear 
 poor as long as there was a chance to collect any 
 of my Meredith and Lake Village bills ; so I offered 
 him three dollars to take back the coat. He wil- 
 lingly consented and that was the last of the "Blos- 
 som " business with the Blaisdells. 
 
 I was bound not to leave this part of the country 
 without revisiting Windsor, and I went there, stop- 
 ping at the best house in the town, and, I fear, " put- 
 ting on airs " a little. I had suffered so much in 
 this place that I wanted to see if there was any en- 
 joyment to be had there. Satisfaction there was, 
 certainly — the satisfaction one feels in going back 
 under the most favorable circumstances, to a spot 
 where he lias endured the very depths of misery. 
 After a good dinner I set out to visit the prison. 
 Here was the very spot in the street where, only a 
 few months before, I, a ragged beggar, had divided 
 my mere morsel of money with the poor woman 
 from Rutland. What change in my circumstances 
 those few months had wrought. I had recovered my 
 health which bad food, ill usage, and imprisonment 
 had broken down, and was in the best physical con- 
 dition. The warden's old coat and pantaloons had 
 been exchanged for the finest clothes that money
 
 lit) SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 would buy. I had a good gold watch aud several 
 hundred dollars in my pocket. I had seen many of 
 my old friends, and knew that they were still my 
 friends, and I was fully restored to my old position. 
 My three years' imprisonment was only a blank in 
 my existence ; I had begun life again and afresh, 
 precisely where I left off before I fell into the hands 
 of the two Vermont milliners. 
 
 All this was very pleasant to reflect upon ; but I 
 do not believe I thought even then, that the reason 
 for this change in my circumstances, and change for 
 the better, was simply because I had minded my 
 business and had let women alone. 
 
 When I called on Warden Harlow, and courteous- 
 ly asked to be shown about the prison, he got up and 
 was ready to comply with my request, when he 
 looked me full in the face and started back in 
 amazement : 
 
 " Well, I declare ! Is this you ?" 
 
 u Yes, Warden Harlow ; but I want you to under- 
 stand that while I am here I do not intend to do a 
 bit of work, and you can't make me. You may as 
 well give it up first as last ; I won't work anyhow." 
 
 The Warden laughed heartily, and sent for Depu- 
 ty Morey who came in to " see a gentleman," and
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 147 
 
 was much astonished to find the prisoner, who, two 
 years before, had saved his life from the hands and 
 knife of the madman Hall. I spent a very pleasant 
 hour with my old enemies, and I took occasion to 
 give them a hint or two with regard to the proper 
 treatment of prisoners. I then made the rounds of 
 the prison, and went into the dungeon where I had 
 passed so many wretched hours for weeks at a time. 
 The warden and his deputy congratulated me upon 
 my improved appearance and prospects, and hoped 
 that my whole future career would be equally pros- 
 perous. 
 
 Nor did I forget to call upon my friend in need 
 and friend indeed in the toll-house at the bridge. I 
 stayed three or four days in Windsor, finding it 
 really a charming place, and I was almost sorry to 
 leave it. But my only purpose in going there, that 
 is to revisit the prison, was accomplished, and 1 
 started for New York, and went from there to Port 
 Jervis, where I met my eldest son.
 
 148 SEVEN WIVE* AND 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP SARAH SCHEIMER'S BOY. 
 
 STARTING TO SEE SAKAH — 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 REMONSTRANCES 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. 
 
 After I had been in Port Jervis three or four days 
 I matured a. plan that had long been forming in my 
 mind, and that was, to try and see Sarah Scheimer 
 once more, or at least to find out something about 
 her and about our son. The boy, if he was living, 
 must be about ten years of age. I had never seen 
 him ; nor, since the night when I was taken out of 
 bed and carried to the Easton jail had I ever seen 
 Sarah, or even heard from her, except by the mes- 
 sage the Methodist minister brought to me from her 
 the day after I was released from jail. In the long
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 149 
 
 interval I liar! married the Newark widow, and had 
 served a brief term in the New Jersey State prison 
 for doing it ; I had married Mary Gordon, in New 
 Hampshire, and had run away, not only from her, 
 but from constables and the prison in that state ; the 
 mock marriage with the Rutland woman at Troy, 
 and the altogether too real marriage with the Mont- 
 pelier milliner had followed ; 1 had spent three 
 wretched years in the Vermont prison at Windsor ; 
 and numerous other exciting adventures had check- 
 ered my career. What had happened to Sarah and 
 her son during all this while ? There was not a 
 week in the whole time since our sudden separation 
 when I had not thought of Sarah; and now I whs 
 near her old home, with means at my command, leis- 
 ure on my hands, and I was determined to know 
 something about her and the child. 
 
 So long a time had elapsed and I was so changed 
 in my personal appearance that I had little fear of 
 being recognized by any one in Pennsylvania or the 
 adjoining part of New Jersey, who would molest me. 
 The old matters must have been pretty much tor- 
 gotten by all but the very few who were immediately 
 interested in them. It was safe to make the ven- 
 ture at all events, and I resolved to make the vcn- 
 
 tue to see and learn what 1 could. 
 • 7
 
 150 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 I had the idea in my mind that if Sarah was alive 
 and well, and free, I should be able to induce her to 
 fulfil her promise to come to me, and that we might 
 go somewhere and settle down and live happily to- 
 gether. At any rate, I would try to see her and our 
 child. 
 
 I did not communicate a word of all this to my 
 son Henry. I told him I was going to New Jersey 
 to visit some friends, to look for business, and I 
 would like to have him accompany me. He con- 
 sented ; I hired a horse and carriage, and one bright 
 morning we started. I had no friends to visit, no 
 business to do, except to see Sarah — the dearest and 
 best-loved of all my wives. 
 
 When we reached Water Gap I found an old ac- 
 quaintance in the landlord of the hotel, and I told 
 him where I was going, and what I hoped to do. 
 He knew the Scheimers, knew all that had happened 
 eleven years before, and he told me that Sarah had 
 married again, seven years ago, and was the mother 
 of two more children. She lived on a farm, half a 
 mile from Oxford, and her husband who had married 
 her for her money, and had been urged upon her by 
 her parents, was a shiftless, worthless, drunken fel-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 151 
 
 low. The boy — my boy — was alive and well, and 
 was with his mother. 
 
 This intelligence changed, or rather made definite 
 my plan. Sarah was nothing to me now. The boy 
 was everything. I must see him, and if he was what 
 he was represented to be, a bright little fellow, I deter- 
 mined that he should no longer remain in the hands 
 and under the control of his drunken step-father, but I 
 would carry him away with me if 1 could. It was 
 nearly noon when we arrived at Oxford, and going 
 to my old quarters, I found that " Boston Yankee," 
 had long since left the place. There was a new 
 landlord, and I saw no familiar faces about the house ; 
 all was new and strange to me. I made inquiries, 
 and soon found out that Sarah's boy went to a school 
 in town not far from the hotel, and I went there to 
 " prospect," leaving Henry at the public house. 
 
 It was noon now, and fifty or more boys wore 
 trooping out of school. I carefully scanned the 
 throng. The old proverb has it that it is a wise 
 •child who knows its own father ; but it is not so dif- 
 ficult for a father to know his own children. The 
 moment I put my eyes on Sarah's son, I knew him ; 
 lie was the very image of me ; I could have picked 
 him out of a thousand. I beckoned to the boy and
 
 152 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 he came to me. He was barefoot and his very toes 
 betrayed him, for they " overrode " just as mine did ; 
 but his face was enough and would have been evi- 
 dence of his identity as my son in any court in 
 Christendom. 
 
 " Do you know me, my little man ?" said I. 
 
 " No, Sir, I do not." 
 
 " Do you know what was your mother's name be- 
 fore she was married ?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir, it was Sarah Scheimer." 
 
 " Do you know that the man with whom you live 
 is not your father ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, Sir, I know that ; mother always told 
 me so ; but she never told me who my father was." 
 
 " My son," said I taking him in my arms, " I am 
 your father ; wait about here a few minutes till I can 
 go and get my horse and carriage, and I will take 
 you to ride." 
 
 I ran over to the hotel, ordered my horse to be 
 brought to the door at once, got into the wagon with 
 Henry and told him that Sarah Scheimer's boy was 
 just across the way, and that I was going to carry 
 him off with us. Henry implored me not to do it, 
 and said it was dangerous. I never stopped to think 
 of danger when my will impelled me. I did not
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 155 j 
 
 know that at that moment, men who had noticed my 
 excited manner, and who knew I was " up to some- 
 thing," were watching me from the hotel piazza. I 
 drove over where the boy was waiting, called him to 
 me, and Henry held the reins while I put out my 
 hands to pull the boy into the carriage. Two of the 
 men who were watching me came at once, one of 
 them taking the horse by the head, and the other 
 coining to me and demanding : 
 
 " What are you going to do with that boy ?" 
 
 " Take him with me ; he is my son." 
 
 " No you don't," said the man, and he laid hold 
 of the boy and attempted to pull him out of the 
 wagon. I also seized the lad who began to scream. 
 In the struggle for possession, I caught up the whip 
 and struck the man with the handle, felling him to 
 the ground. All the while the other man was 
 shouting for assistance. The crowd gathered. The 
 boy was roughly torn from me, in spite of my efforts 
 to retain him. Henry was thoroughly alarmed ; and 
 while the mob were trying to pull us also out of the 
 carriage he whipped the horse till he sprang through 
 the crowd and was well off in a moment. 
 
 " Get out of town as fast as you can drive," said 
 I to Henry.
 
 156 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 We were not half an hour in reaching Belvidere. 
 There I stopped to breathe the horse a few minutes, 
 and Henry insisted that he was starving, and must 
 have something to eat ; he would go into the hotel 
 he said, and get some dinner. I told him it was 
 madness to do it ; but he would not move an inch 
 further on the road till he had some dinner. He 
 went into the dining room, and I paced up and down 
 the piazza, nervous, anxious, fearing pursuit, dread- 
 ing capture, well knowing what would happen when 
 those Jerseymen should get hold of me and find out 
 who I was. At that moment I saw the pursuers 
 coining rapidly up the road. I called to my son : 
 
 " Henry, Henry ! for God's sake come out her£, 
 quick !." 
 
 But he thought I was only trying to frighten him 
 so as to hurry him away from his dinner, and get 
 him on the road, and he paid no attention to my 
 summons. I knew that I was the man who was 
 wanted, and, without waiting for Henry, I jumped 
 into my wagon and drove off. I just escaped, that's 
 all. The moment I left, my pursuers were at the 
 door. I looked back and saw them drag my son out 
 of the house, and take him away with them. I 
 turned my horse's head towards the Belvidere Bridge.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 157 
 
 All the country about there was as familiar to me as 
 the county I was born in. I knew every road, and I 
 had no fear of being caught. Once across the bridge 
 and in Pennsylvania, and I was comparatively safe, 
 unless I myself should be kidnapped as I was at 
 midnight, only a little way from this very spot, eleven 
 years before. Here was an opportunity now to rest 
 and reflect. Confound those Scheimers and all their 
 blood ! Was I never to see the end of the scrapes 
 that family would get me into, or which I was to get 
 myself into, on account of the Scheimers ? 
 
 Surely they could not harm Henry. They might 
 have taken him merely in the hope of drawing me 
 back to try to clear him, or rescue him, and then 
 they would get hold of the man they wanted. My 
 son had done nothing. He did not even know of 
 the contemplated abduction till five minutes before 
 it was attempted, and then he protested against it. 
 He only held the horse when I pulled the lad into 
 the wagon. 
 
 Nothing showed so completely the consciousness of 
 his own entire innocence in the matter, as the coolness 
 with which he sat down to his dinner in Belvidere, 
 and insisted upon remaining when I warned him of 
 our danger. These facts shown, any magistrate be-
 
 lOO SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 fore whom he might be taken, must let him go at 
 once. I thought, perhaps, if I waited a few hours 
 where I was, he would be sure to rejoin me, and we 
 could then return to Port Jervis without Sarah's son 
 to be sure ; but, otherwise, no worse off than we 
 were when we set out on this ill-starred expedition 
 in the morning. 
 
 All this seemed so plain to me that I sent over to 
 Belvidere for a lawyer, who soon came across the 
 bridge to see me, and to him I narrated the whole 
 circumstances of the case from beginning to end. 
 I asked him if 1 had not a right to carry off the boy 
 whom I knew to be my own ? His reply was that 
 he would not stop to discuss that question ; all he 
 knew was that there was a great hue and cry after 
 me for kidnapping the boy ; that my son was seized 
 and held for aiding and abetting in the attempted 
 abduction ; and he advised me, as a friend, to leave 
 that part of the country as soon as possible. I gave 
 him fifty dollars to look after Henry's case. He 
 thought, considering how little, and that little invol- 
 untarily, my son had to do with the matter, he might 
 be got off ; he would do all he could for him any- 
 how. He then returned to Belvidere, and I took the 
 road north.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 159 
 
 "When I arrived at Port Jervis I detailed to my 
 landlord the whole occurences of the day — what 
 I had tried to do, and how miserably I had failed, 
 and asked him what was to be done next. He said 
 " nothing ;" we could only wait and see what hap- 
 pened. 
 
 The day following I received a letter from the Bel- 
 videre lawyer informing me that Henry had been 
 examined, had been bound over in the sum of three 
 hundred dollars to take his trial on a charge of kid- 
 napping, and he was then in the county jail. I at 
 once showed this letter to the landlord, and he offer- 
 ed to go down with another man to Belvidere and 
 see about the bail. I gave him three hundred dol- 
 lars which he took with him and put into the hands 
 of a resident there who became bail, and in a day or 
 two Henry came back with them to Port Jervis. 
 
 My son was frantic ; he had been roughly treated ; 
 and to think, he said, that he should be thrust into 
 the common jail and kept there two days with all 
 sorts of scoundrels, when he had done actually noth- 
 ing! He would go back there, stand his trial, and 
 prove his innocence, if he died for it. He reproach- 
 ed me for attempting to cany off Ihe boy againsl bis 
 advice and warning ; he knew we should get into
 
 160 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 trouble ; but be would sbow them that he had noth 
 ing to do with it ; that's what he would do. 
 
 Now this was precisely what I did not wish to have' him 
 do. A trial of this case, even if Henry should come 
 off scott free, would be certain to revive the whole of 
 the old Scheimer story, which had nearly died away, 
 and which I had no desire to have brought before 
 the public again in any way whatever. The bail 
 bond I was willing, eager even to forfeit, if that 
 would end the matter. But Henry was sure they 
 couldn't touch him, and he meant to have the three 
 hundred dollars returned to me. 
 
 Seeing how sensitive the boy was on the subject, 
 and how bent he was on proving his innocence, I 
 thought it best to draw him away from the immedi- 
 ate locality, and so, in the course of a week, I per- 
 suaded him to go to New York with me, and we af- 
 terward went to Maine for a few weeks to sell my 
 medicines. This Maine trip was a most lucrative 
 one, which was very fortunate, for the money I made 
 there, to the amount of several hundred dollars, was 
 shortly needed for purposes which I did not anticipate 
 when I put the money by. 
 
 We returned to New York, and I supposed that Hen- 
 ry had given up all idea of attempting to "prove his in-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 161 
 
 nocence ;" indeed we had no conversation about the 
 kidnapping affair for several weeks. But he slipped 
 away from me. One day I came back to the hotel, 
 and, inquiring for him, was told at the office he had 
 left word for me that he had gone to Belvidere. A 
 letter from him a day or two afterward confirmed 
 this, to me, unhappy intelligence. The time was 
 near at hand for his trial, and he had gone and given 
 himself up to the authorities. He wrote to me again 
 that he had sent word about his situation to his 
 mother — my first and worst wife — and she and his 
 sister were already with him. 
 
 Of course it was impossible for me to go there, if 
 there were no other reasons, 1 was too immediately 
 interested in this affair to be present, and 1 had no 
 idea of undergoing a trial and a certain conviction 
 for myself. But 1 sent down a New York lawyer 
 with one hundred dollars, directing him to employ 
 council there, and to advise and assist as much as he 
 could. Meanwhile, 1 remained in New York, anx- 
 ious, it is true, yet almost certain that it would be 
 impossible, under the circumstances, to convict Hen- 
 ry of the -kidnapping for which he was indicted. 
 He had not even assisted in the affair, and was sure
 
 162 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 his counsel would be able to so convince the court 
 and jury. 
 
 And reviewing the whole matter, now in my cooler 
 moments, this scheme of trying to carry away Sarah's 
 son, seemed to be as foolish, useless, and mad, as 
 any one of my marrying adventures. Till I picked 
 him out from among his schoolmates, I had never 
 seen the child at all. When I started from Port 
 Jervis to go down, as I supposed, into Pennsylvania, 
 I had no more idea of kidnapping the boy than I 
 had of robbing a sheep-fold. It was only when the 
 landlord at Water Gap told me that Sarah had re- 
 married, and was wedded to a worthless, drunken 
 husband, that I conceived the plan of removing the 
 boy from such associations. I was going to bring 
 him up in a respectable manner. Alas ! I did not 
 succeed even in bringing him away.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ANOTHER WIDOW. 
 
 WAITING FOR THE VERDICT MY SON SENT TO STATE PRI80N 
 
 WHAT SARAH WOULD HAVE DONE — INTERVIEW WITH MY FIRST 
 WIFE HELP FOR HENRY THE BIDDEFORD WIDOW — HER EF- 
 FORT TO MARRY ME — OCR VISIT TO BOSTON A WARNING A 
 
 GENEROUS GIFT HENRY PARDONED CLOSE OF THE 8CHEIMER 
 
 ACCOUNT VISIT TO ONTARIO COUNTY MY RICH COUSINS— WHAT 
 
 MIGHT HAVE BEEN MY BIRTH-PLACE REVISITED. 
 
 I waited with nervous impatience for the close of 
 the trial in New Jersey, when I hoped to welcome 
 my son Henry to New York. It was so plain a case, 
 as it seemed to me, and must appear, I thought, to 
 everybody, that I hardly doubted his instant acquit- 
 tal. But very shortly the New York lawyer whom I 
 had sent to Belvidere, came back and brought terri- 
 ble news. Henry had been tried, and notwithstand- 
 ing the fairest showing in his favor, he was convict- 
 ed and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment 
 at Trenton. 
 
 As it appeared, it was I really, and not Henry,
 
 164 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 who was on trial. The circumstances of the despe- 
 rate struggle, and iny knocking down one of the 
 men with the butt of my whip, were conspicuous in 
 the case. Even the little boy was put on the stand, 
 and was made to testify against his older half-broth- 
 er. Henry himself was astounded at the result of 
 the trial, and was firmly convinced that instead of 
 " proving his innocence" to Jersey jurymen, he had 
 better have let his innocence go by default. We 
 never even got back again the three hundred dollars 
 which had been put into the hands of the man who 
 went bail for Henry when he was bound over for trial. 
 For us, it was bad business from beginning to 
 end. 
 
 Henry wrote a letter to me, that just before his 
 trial, before he had delivered himself up, and while 
 he was still under bail, he had gone to see Sarah 
 Scheimer on the little farm wliich was bought with 
 her money, and was worked, so far as it was worked 
 at all, by her drunken husband. The family were 
 even poorer than the landlord at Water Gap had re- 
 ported. Sarah herself was miserable and unhappy. 
 She told Henry, when he informed her who he was, 
 that if I had wanted to see her or her son, I should 
 have been welcome. She would have been very glad
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 165 
 
 to have had me take the boy and clothe him decent- 
 ly ; but she could hot part with him, and would not 
 have let me take him away ; still, I could see him 
 at any time, and as often as I liked, and the boy 
 should grow up to know and to look upon me as his 
 father. 
 
 And this, really, was all I desired, all I wanted ; 
 and it was all easily within my grasp, ready in fact 
 to be put into my hands, and I had gone ahead in my 
 usual mad, blundering way, acting, not only without 
 advice, but against such advice as came from Henry 
 at the last moment, and had alienated the mother 
 from me, lost the boy, and had sent Henry, who 
 was wholly innocent, to state prison for eighteen 
 months. 
 
 The poor fellow was taken to Trenton and was put 
 into the prison where I had spent seven months. 
 He was almost crazy when he got there. His moth- 
 er and sister went with him, and took lodgings in 
 the place so as to be near him, to render him any 
 assistance that might be in their power. 
 
 I had been idle now for some weeks in New York, 
 and I went back to Maine, to Biddeford, where I had 
 a good practice. I picked up a good deal of money, 
 and in two months I returned to New York to make
 
 166 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 a brief visit, and to see if something could not be 
 done for the release of Henry from prison. At my 
 solicitation a friend of mine wrote to Trenton to 
 Henry's mother to come on to New York, and meet 
 me at the Metropolitan Hotel on a specified day, to 
 transact some business. She came, and we met for 
 the first time in several years. We met now simply 
 on business, and there was no expression of senti- 
 ment or feeling on either side. We cared nothing 
 for each other. I commended her for her devotion 
 to Henry, and then told her I believed, if the proper 
 efforts were made, he could be pardoned out of pris- 
 on. I told her what lawyer and other persons to 
 see, and how to proceed in the matter. I gave her 
 the most minute instructions, and then handed her 
 five hundred dollars with which to fee her lawyer, 
 and to pay her and her daughter's living expenses 
 in Trenton. She was grateful for the money, and 
 was only too glad to go to work for Henry ; she 
 would have done it long ago if she had only known 
 what to do. We then parted, and I have never seen 
 the woman since that day. 
 
 This business transacted, I at once returned to my 
 practice at Biddeford. Among my patients was a 
 wealthy widow, " fat, fair, and forty," and I had not
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 167 
 
 attended her long before a warm affection sprung up 
 between us, and in time, when the widow recovered, 
 we began to think we were in love with each other. 
 I confess that I agreed to many her ; but it was to 
 be at some distant day — a very distant day as I in- 
 tended — for, strange as it may seem, and as it did 
 seem to me, I had at last learned the lesson that I 
 had better let matrimony alone. I had married too 
 many wives, widows, milliners, and what not, al- 
 ready, and had suffered too severely for so doing. I 
 meant that my Vermont imprisonment, the worst of 
 all, should be the last. 
 
 So I only " courted" the widow, calling upon her 
 almost every day, and I was received and presented 
 to her acquaintances as her affianced husband. Her 
 family and immediate friends were violently opposed 
 to the match, thereby showing their good sense. I 
 was also informed that they knew something of my 
 previous history, and I was warned that I had better 
 not undertake to marry the widow. Bless their in- 
 nocent hearts ! I had no idea of doing it. I was 
 daily amazed at my own common sense. My memo- 
 ry was active now ; all my matrimonial mishaps of 
 the past, with all the consequences, were ever pres- 
 ent to my mind, and never more present than when
 
 168 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 I was in the company of the fascinating widow. As for 
 her, the more her relatives opposed the match, the 
 more she was bent upon marrying me. Her family, 
 she said, were afraid they were going to lose her 
 property, but she would never give them a cent of it, 
 anyhow, and she would marry when and whom she 
 pleased. 
 
 Not " when," exactly ; because, as she protested 
 she would marry me, I had something to say about 
 it ; I had been run away with by a milliner in Ver- 
 mont, and I had no idea of being forcibly wedded 
 by a widow in Maine. I pleaded that my business 
 was not sufficiently established ; I was liable to be 
 called away from time to time ; I had affairs to ar- 
 range in New York and elsewhere before I could 
 settle down ; and so the happy day was put off to an 
 indefinite future time. 
 
 By-and-by I had business in Boston, and the wid- 
 ow declared that she would go with me ; she wanted 
 to visit her friends there and do some shopping ; and 
 without making particular mention of her intention 
 to her relatives, she went with me, and we were in 
 Boston together more than two weeks. At the end 
 of that time she returned to Biddeford and notified 
 all her friends that she was married to the doctor.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 169 
 
 though she had no certificate, not even a Troy one, 
 to show for it. 
 
 I deemed it advisable not to go hack with her, but 
 went to Worcester for a while. In a few days I 
 went to Biddeford, keeping somewhat close, for I did 
 not care to meet any of the relatives, and at night I 
 called upon the widow. She told me that her family 
 had raised a tremendous fuss about me, and had 
 learned as much as they, and indeed she, wanted to 
 know about my adventures in Vermont and New 
 Hampshire. They had not gone back of that, but 
 that was enough. It was dangerous, she told me, 
 for me to stay there ; I was sure to be arrested ; I 
 had better get away from the place as soon as pos- 
 sible. We might meet again by-and-by, but unless 
 I wanted to be arrested I must leave the place that 
 very night. She gave me seven hundred dollars, 
 pressed the money upon me, and I parted from her, 
 returning to Worcester, and going from there to 
 Boston. Besides what the widow had given me, I 
 had made more than one thousand dollars in Maine, 
 and was comparatively well off. 
 
 Then came the joyful intelligence that Henry was 
 released. His mother had worked for him night and 
 day. She had drawn up a petition, secured a large
 
 170 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 number of sterling signatures, had gone with her 
 counsel to see the Governor, had presented the peti- 
 tion and all the facts in the case, and the Governor 
 had granted a pardon. Henry served only six 
 months of the eighteen for which he was sentenced, 
 and very soon after I received word that he was free, 
 he came to me in Boston, stayed a few days, and then 
 went home to his mother in Unadilla. 
 
 With the release of my son, I considered the 
 Scheimer account closed, and I have never made 
 any effort to see Sarah or our boy since that time. 
 
 From Boston I went to Pittsford, Ontario County, 
 N. Y., where 1 had many friends, who knew nothing 
 about any of my marriages or misfortunes, my arrests 
 or imprisonments. I went visiting merely, and en- 
 joyed myself so much that I stayed there nearly 
 three months, going about the country, and prac- 
 ticing a little among my friends. I was never hap- 
 pier than I was during this time. I was free from 
 prisons, free from my wives, and free from care. As 
 a matrimonial monomaniac I now looked upon my- 
 self as cured. 
 
 Among the friends whom I visited in Ontario 
 County, and with whom I passed several pleasant 
 weeks , were two cousins of mine whom I had not
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 171 
 
 seen for many years, since we were children in fact, 
 but who gave me a most cordial welcome, and made 
 much of me while I was there. They knew absolutely 
 nothing of my unhappy history — no unpleasant ru- 
 mor even respecting me, had ever penetrated that 
 quiet quarter of the State. I told them what I 
 pleased of my past career, from boyhood to the pres- 
 ent time, and to them I was only a tolerably suc- 
 cessful doctor, who made money enough to live de- 
 cently and dress well, and who was then suffering 
 from overwork and badly in need of recuperation. 
 This, indeed, was the ostensible reason for my visit 
 to Ontario. 1 was somewhat shattered ; my old pris- 
 on trials and troubles began to tell upon me-. I used 
 to think sometimes that I 'was a little " out of my 
 head ;" I certainly was so whenever I entered upon 
 one of my matrimonial schemes, and I must have 
 been as mad as a March hare when I attempted to 
 kidnap Sarah Scheimer's boy. After all the excite- 
 ment and suffering of the past few years, I needed 
 rest, and here I found it. 
 
 My cousins were more than well-to-do farmers; 
 they were enormously rich in lands and money. 
 Just after the war of 1812, their father, my uncle, 
 and my own father, had come to this, then wild and
 
 172 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 almost uninhabited, section of the State to settle. 
 Soon after they arrived there my father's wife died, 
 and this loss, with the general loneliness of the re- 
 gion, to say nothing of the fever and ague, soon 
 drove my father back to Delaware County to his 
 forge for a living, and to the day of his death he 
 was nothing more than a hard-working, hand-to" 
 mouth-living, common blacksmith. 
 
 But my uncle stayed there, and, as time went on, 
 he bought hundreds of acres of land for a mere song, 
 which were now immensely valuable, and had made 
 his children almost the richest people in that region. 
 My cousins were great farmers, extensive raisers of 
 stock, wool-growers, and everything else that could 
 make them prosperous. There seemed to be no end 
 to their wealth, and their fat farms spread out on 
 every side as far as the eye could see. 
 
 And if my father had only stayed there, I could 
 not help but think what a different life mine might 
 have been. Instead of being the adventurer I was, 
 and had been ever since I separated from my first 
 and worst wife — doing well, perhaps, for a few weeks 
 or a few months, and then blundering into a mad 
 marriage or other difficulty which got me into 
 prison ; well-to-do to-day and to-morrow a beggar —
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 173 
 
 I, too, might have been rich and respectable, and 
 should have saved myself a world of suffering. 
 This was but a passing thought which did not mar 
 my visit, or make it less pleasant to me. I went 
 there to be happy, not to be miserable, and for three 
 months I was happy indeed. 
 
 From there I went to my birth-place in Columbia 
 County, revisiting old scenes and the very few old 
 friends and acquaintances who survived, or who had 
 not moved away. I spent a month there and there- 
 abouts, and at the end of that time I felt full yre- 
 stored to my usual good health, and was ready to 
 go to work again, not in the matrimonial way, but 
 in my medical business, that was enough for me 
 now.
 
 174 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MY OWN SON TRIES TO MURDER ME. 
 
 SETTLING DOWN IN MAINE HENRY'S HEALTH TOUR THROUGH THE 
 
 SOUTH — SECESSION TIMES — DECEMBER IN NEW ORLEANS CP 
 
 THE MISSISSIPPI — LEAVING HENRY IN MASSACHUSETTS — BACK IN 
 MAINE AGAIN RETURN TO BOSTON PROFITABLE HORSE TRAD- 
 ING PLENTY OF MONEY — MY FIRST WIFE'S CHILDREN HOW 
 
 THEY HAD BEEN BROUGHT UP — A BAREFACED ROBBERY — AT- 
 TEMPT TO BLACKMAIL ME — MY SON TRIES TO ROB AND KILL ME 
 MY RESCUE LAST OF THE YOUNG MAN. 
 
 Where to go, not what to do, was the next ques- 
 tion. Wherever I might go and establish myself, if 
 only for a few days, or a few weeks, I was sure to 
 have almost immediately plenty of patients and 
 customers enough for my medicines — this had been 
 my experience always — and unfortunately for me, I 
 was almost equally sure to get into some difficulty 
 from which escape was not always easy. Looking 
 over the whole ground for a fresh start in business, 
 it seemed to me that Maine was the most favorable 
 place. Whenever I had been there I had done well ;
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 175 
 
 it was one of the very few States I had lived in 
 where I had not been in jail or in prison ; nor had I 
 been married there, though the Biddeford widow 
 did her best to wed me, and it is not her fault that 
 she did not succeed in doing it. 
 
 To Maine, then, I went, settling down in Augusta, 
 and remaining there four months, during which time 
 I had as much as I could possibly attend to, and 
 laid by a very considerable sum of money. While 
 I was there I heard the most unfavorable reports 
 with regard to the health of my eldest son Henry. 
 Prison life at Trenton had broken him down in body 
 as well as in spirit, and he had been ill, some of the 
 time seriously, nearly all the time since he went to 
 Unadilla. The fact that he was entirely innocent 
 of the offence for which he was imprisoned, preyed 
 upon his mind, and with the worst results. As these 
 stories reached me from week to week, I became 
 anxious and even alarmed about him, and at last 
 I left my lucrative business in Augusta and went to 
 New York. I could not well go to Unadilla to visit 
 Henry without seeing his mother, whom I had no 
 desire to see ; so I sent for him to come to me in the 
 city if was able to do so. I knew that if medicine 
 
 8
 
 176 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 or medical attendance would benefit him, I should 
 be able to help him. 
 
 In a few days he came to me in a most deplorable 
 physical condition. He was a mere wreck of his 
 former self. Almost immediately he began to talk 
 about the attempt to abduct the boy from Oxford ; 
 how innocent he was in the matter, and how terribly 
 he had suffered merely because he happened to be 
 with me when I rashly endeavored to kidnap" the lad. 
 All this went through me like a sharp sword. It 
 seemed as if I was the cause, not only of great un- 
 happiness to myself, but of pain and misery to all 
 who were associated or brought in contact with me. 
 -For this poor boy, who had endured and suffered so 
 much on my account, I could not do enough. My 
 means and time must now be devoted to his recov- 
 ery, if recovery was possible. 
 
 He was weak, but was still able to walk about, 
 and he enjoyed riding very much. I kept him with 
 me in the city a week or two, taking daily rides to 
 the Park and into the country, and when he felt like 
 going out in the evening I made him go to some 
 place of amusement with me. I had no other busi- 
 ness, and meant to have none, but to take care of 
 Henry, and I devoted myself wholly to his comfort
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 17 < 
 
 and happiness. In a few clays he had much im- 
 proved in health and spirits, so much so that I med- 
 itated making a long tour with him to the South, 
 hoping that the journey there and back again would 
 fully restore him. 
 
 Fortunately, my recent Maine business had put 
 me in possession of abundant funds, and when I had 
 matured my scheme, and saw that Henry was in 
 tolerable condition to travel, I proposed the trip to 
 him, and he joyfully assented to my plan. I wanted 
 to get him far away, for awhile, from a part of the 
 country which was associated in his mind, more than 
 in mine, with so much misery, and he seemed quite 
 as eager to go. Change of air and scene I knew 
 would do wonders for him bodily, and would build 
 him up again. 
 
 We made our preparations and started for the 
 South, going first to Baltimore and then on through 
 the Southern States by railroad to New Orleans. It 
 was late in the fall of 1860, just before the rebellion, 
 when the south was seceding or talking secession, 
 and was already preparing for war. Henry's physi- 
 cal condition compelled us to rest frequently on the 
 way, and we stopped sometimes for two or three d;i\ s 
 at a time, at nearly every large town or city on the
 
 178 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 entire route. Everywhere there was a great deal of 
 excitement ; meetings were held nearly every night ; 
 secession was at fever heat, and there was an un- 
 bounded expression and manifestation of ill-feeling 
 against the north and against northern men. Nev- 
 ertheless, I was never in any part of the Union 
 where I was treated with so much courtesy, consid- 
 eration, and genuine kindness as I was there and 
 then. I was going south simply to benefit the 
 invalid who accompanied me ; everybody seemed 
 to know it ; and everybody expressed the tender- 
 est sympathy for my son. Wherever we stopped, 
 it seemed as if the people at the hotels, from 
 the landlord to the lowest servant, could not do 
 enough for us. At Atlanta, Augusta, Mobile, and 
 other places, . where we made our stay long 
 enough to get a little acquainted, my son and my- 
 self were daily taken out to ride, and were shown 
 everything of interest that was to be seen. Henry 
 did not enjoy this journey more than I did — to me 
 as well as to him, the trip was one prolonged pleas- 
 ure, and by the time we reached New Orleans near- 
 ly a month after we left New York, my son had so 
 recuperated that I had every hope of his speedy and 
 full restoration.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 179 
 
 It was the beginning of winter when we reached 
 New Orleans ; but during the whole month of De- 
 cember while we remained in that city, winter, if 
 indeed it was winter, which we could hardly believe, 
 was only a prolongation of the last beautiful autumn 
 days we had left at the north. New Orleans was 
 then at the very height of prosperity ; business was 
 brisk, money was plenty, the ships of all nations 
 and countless steamboats from St. Louis* Cincinnati, 
 Louisville and all points up the Mississippi and Ohio 
 rivers lay at the levee. The levee itself, from end 
 to end, for miles along the river front, was one mass 
 of merchandise which had come to the city, or was 
 awaiting shipment. I had never seen a livelier city. 
 Indescribably gay, too, was New Orleans that winter. 
 The city was full of strangers ; the hotels were 
 thronged ; there were balls every, night ; the theatres 
 were crowded, and everybody seemed bent on hav- 
 ing a good time. With all the rest, there was an 
 extraordinary military furor, and militia companies 
 and regiments paraded the streets every day, while 
 secession meetings were held in various halls, or in 
 the public squares, nearly ever night. 
 
 From the St. Charles hotel where we stopped, St. 
 Charles street seemed ablaze and alive all night, and
 
 180 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 densely thronged all day. Sunday brought no rest, 
 for Sunday, so far as military parades, amusement 
 and general gaiety were concerned, was the liveliest 
 day in the week ; and Sunday night the theatres 
 were sure to present their best performances and to 
 draw their largest audiences. And so, from morn- 
 ing till night, and from night till morning again, all. 
 was whirl, stir, bustle, business, enjoyment, and ex- 
 citement. To me, unaccustomed as I was to such 
 scenes, New York even seemed tame and dull, and 
 slow in comparison with New Orleans. 
 
 This is a picture of the Crescent City as it pre- 
 sented itself to me and to my son in the early part 
 of the winter before the war. No one knew or even 
 dreamed of the terrible times that were to come. 
 No one believed that war was probable, or even pos- 
 sible; it was well enouglu, perhaps, to prepare for it; 
 but secession was to be an accomplished fact, and 
 the North and all the world would quietly acknowl- 
 edge it. This was the general sentiment in the city ; 
 though secession, and what would, or what might 
 come of it, was the general topic of talk in the hotels, 
 in the restaurants, at the theatres, in the streets, 
 everywhere. Now and then some southerner with 
 whom I had become acquainted would try to draw
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 181 
 
 me out to ascertain my sentiments on the subject, 
 but 1 always laughed, and said good naturedly : 
 
 " My dear sir, I didn't come down here to talk 
 about secession, but to see if the southern climate 
 would benefit my sick son." 
 
 The fact was that I minded my own business, and 
 minded it so well that while I was in New Orleans 
 I managed to find a few patients and sold recipes 
 and medicines enough to pay the entire expenses of 
 our journey thus far, from the North. 
 
 Almost every day my son and I drove somewhere 
 — up to Carrolton, down to the battle-ground, or on 
 the shell road to Lake Ponchartrain. It was a 
 month of genuine enjoyment to us both ; of profit 
 to me pecuniarily ; and of the best possible benefit 
 to Henry's health. 
 
 Early in January we took passage on one of the 
 finest of the Mississippi steamboats for St. Louis. 
 The boat was crowded, and among the passengers 
 were a good many merchants, Northern men long 
 resident in New Orleans, who thought they saw 
 trouble coming, and accordingly had closed up their 
 business in the Crescent City, and were now going 
 North to stay there. We had on board, too, the 
 usual complement of gamblers and amateur or pro-
 
 182 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 fcssional poker-players, who kept the forward saloon 
 near the bar, and known in the river vernacular as 
 the "Texas" of the boat, lively all day long and well 
 into the night, or rather the next morning. It was 
 ten or eleven days before we reached St. Louis. 
 Nothing notable occurred on the trip ; but day after 
 day, as we proceeded northward, and left the soft, 
 sunny south behind us, with the daily increasing 
 coldness and wintry weather, Henry seemed to de- 
 cline by degrees, and gradually to lose nearly all 
 that he had gained since we left New York. When 
 we reached St. Louis he was seriously sick. I was 
 very sorry we had come away so soon in the seaspn, 
 and proposed that we should return and stay in the 
 south till spring ; but Henry would not consent. 
 
 There was nothing to be done, then, but to hurry 
 on to the east, and when we arrived in New York 
 Henry would not go home to his mother in Unadilla, 
 but insisted upon accompanying me to Boston. I 
 was willing, enough that he should go with me, for 
 then I could have him under my exclusive care ; but 
 when we arrived in Boston he was so overcome by 
 the excitement of travel, and was so feeble^ from 
 fatigue as well as disease, that instead of having 
 him go with me to Augusta, as I intended, by the
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 183 
 
 advice of a friend I took him into the country where 
 he could be nursed, be quiet, and be well taken care 
 of till spring. I left him in good hands, promising 
 to come and see him as soon as I could, and then 
 went back to my old business in Augusta. 
 
 It required a little time to knot the new end of 
 that business to the end where I had broken off, three 
 months before ; but 1 was soon in full practice again 
 and was once more making and saving money. 1 
 had no matrimonial affair in hand, no temptation in 
 fact, and none but strictly professional engagements 
 to fulfil. In Augusta and in several other towns 
 which I visited, for the whole of the rest of the 
 winter, I was as busy as I could be. Early in the 
 spring I made up my mind to run away for a week 
 or two, and arranged my business so that I could go 
 down into Massachusetts and visit Henry, hoping, if 
 he was better, to bring him back with me to Maine. 
 
 Two of my patients in Paris, Maine, had each 
 given me a good horse in payment for my attendance 
 upon them and their families, and for what medi- 
 cines I had furnished, and I took these horses with 
 me to sell in Boston. I drove them down, putting 
 a good supply of medicines in my wagon to sell in 
 towns on the way, and when 1 arrived in Boston I
 
 184 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 sold out the establishment, getting one hundred and 
 twenty-five dollars for the wagon, three hundred dol- 
 lars for one horse, and four hundred dollars for the 
 other — a pretty good profit on my time and medi- 
 cine for the two patients — and I brought with me 
 besides about eighteen hundred dollars, the net re- 
 sult, above my living expenses, of about three 
 months' business in Maine, and what I had dene on 
 the way down through Massachusetts. I am thus 
 mmute about this money because it now devolves 
 upon me to show what sort of a family of children 
 my first and worst wife had brought up. 
 
 Of these children by my first marriage, my eldest 
 son Henry, since he had grown up, had been with 
 me nearly as much as he had been with his mother, 
 and I loved him as I did my life. Since he became 
 of age, at such times when I was not in prison, or 
 otherwise unavoidably separated from him, we had 
 been associated in business, and had traveled and 
 lived together. I knew all about him ; but of the 
 rest of the children I knew next to nothing. Short- 
 ly after I sold my horses, one day I was in my room 
 at the hotel, when word was brought to me that 
 some one in the parlor wanted to see me. 
 
 I went down and found a young man, about twen-
 
 seven prisons: 185 
 
 ty-one years of age, who immediately came to me 
 addressing me as " father," and he then presented 
 a young woman, about two years older than he was, 
 as his sister and my daughter. I had not seen this 
 young gentleman since the time when I had carried 
 him off' from school and from the farmer to whom 
 lie was bound, and had clothed him and taken him 
 with me to Amsterdam and Troy, subsequently send- 
 ing him to my half-sister at Sidney. The ragged 
 little lad, as 1 found him, had grown up into a stout, 
 good-looking young man ; but I had no difficulty in 
 recognizing him, though I was much at loss to know 
 the precise object of this visit ; so after shaking 
 hands with them, and asking them how they were, 
 I next inquired what they wanted ? 
 
 Well, they had been to sec Henry, and he was a 
 great deal better.- 
 
 I told them I was very glad to hear it, and that 
 I was then on my way to visit him, and hoped to 
 see him in a few days, as soon as I could finish my 
 business in Boston ; if Henry was as well as they 
 reported I should bring him away with me. 
 
 "But if you are busy here," said my young man, 
 " we can save you both time and trouble. We will 
 go to Henry again and settle his bills for board and
 
 186 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 other expenses, and will bring him with us to you at 
 this hotel." 
 
 This, at the time, really seemed to me a kindly 
 offer ; it would enable me to stay in Boston and at- 
 tend to business I had to do, and Henry would come 
 there with his brother and sister in a day or two. 
 I at once assented to the plan, and taking my Avell- 
 filled pocket-book from the inside breast pocket of 
 my coat, I counted out two hundred and fifty dollars 
 and gave them to the young man to pay Henry's 
 board, doctor's and other bills, and the necessary 
 car fares for the party. They then left me and 
 started, as I supposed, to go after Henry. 
 
 But a few days went on and I saw and heard noth- 
 ing of Henry. At last word came to me one day 
 that some one down stairs wanted to see me and I 
 told the servant to send him to my room, hoping 
 that it might be Henry. But no ; it was my young 
 man, of whom I instantly demanded : 
 
 " Where is your brother, whom you were to bring 
 to me a week ago ? What have you done with the 
 money I gave you for his bills ?" 
 
 " I havn't been near Henry ; sister has gone 
 home ; and I've spent the money on a spree, every 
 cent of it, here in Boston, and I want more."
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 187 
 
 " Want more !" I exclaimed in blank amaze- 
 ment : 
 
 " Yes, more ; and if you don't give it to me, I'll 
 follow you wherever you go, and. tell people all I 
 know about you." 
 
 " You scoundrel," said I, " you come here and 
 rob, not me, but your poor, sick brother, and then 
 return and attempt to black-mail me. Get out of 
 my sight this instant." 
 
 He sprung on me, and made a desperate effort to 
 get my money out of my pocket. We had a terri- 
 ble struggle. He was younger and stronger than I 
 was, and as I felt that I was growing weaker I 
 called out loudly for help and shouted " Murder !" 
 
 The landlord himself came running into the room ; 
 I succeeded in tearing myself away from the grasp 
 of my assailant, and the landlord felled him to the 
 floor with a chair. He then ran to the door and 
 called to a servant to bring a policeman. 
 
 " No, don't !" I exclaimed ; " Don't arrest the 
 villain, for I can mal^e no complaint against him — 
 he is my son !" 
 
 But the landlord was bound to have some satisfac- 
 tion out of the affair ; so he dragged the young man 
 into the hall and kicked him from the top of the
 
 188 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 stairs to the bottom, where, as soon as he had picked 
 himself up, a convenient servant kicked him out into 
 the street. I have never set eyes on my young man 
 since his somewhat sudden departure from that 
 hotel. 
 
 And when I went to visit my poor Henry a day 
 or two afterwards, I can hardly say that I was sur- 
 prised, though I was indignant to learn that his 
 brother and sister had never been near him at all 
 since he had been in Massachusetts. They knew 
 where and how he was from his letters to his mother ; 
 they knew, too, from the same letters — for I had 
 notified Henry — at what time I would be in Boston, 
 and with this information they had come on to swin- 
 dle me. I have no doubt, when the young man came 
 the second time to rob me, he would have murdered 
 me, if the landlord had not come to my assistance. 
 And this was the youngest son of my first and worst 
 
 wife ! 
 
 I found Henry in better condition than I expected, 
 
 and I took him back with me to Augusta. I did 
 not tell him of his brother's attempt to rob and kill 
 me — it would have been too great a shock for him. 
 lie stayed with me only a few days and then, com- 
 plaining of being homesick, he went to visit his 
 mother again.
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 189 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A TRUE WIFE AND HOME, AT LAST. 
 
 WHERE WERE ALL MY WIVE8 1 — SENSE OF SECURITY — AN IMPRU- 
 DENT ACQUAINTANCE — MOVING FROM MAINE MY PROPERTY IN 
 
 RENSSELAER COUNTY HOW I LIVED — SELLING A RECIPE 
 
 AHOIT BUYING A CARPET NINETEEN LAW-SUITS SUDDEN DE- 
 PARTURE FOR THE WEST — A VAGABOND FOR TWO YEARS LIFE 
 
 IN CALIFORNIA — RETURN TO THE EAST DIVORCE FROM MY FIRST 
 
 WIFE A GENUINE MARRIAGE — MY FARM HOME AT LAST. 
 
 I remained in Maine nearly two years, hardly ever 
 going out of the State, except occasionally to Bos- 
 ton on business. Making Augusta my residence and 
 headquarters, I practiced in Portland and in nearly 
 all the towns and cities in the eastern part of the 
 State. During all this time, I behaved myself, in 
 all respects better than I had ever before done in 
 any period of my life. I began to look upon myself 
 as a reformed man ; I had learned to let liquor alone, 
 and was consequently in far less, indeed next to no 
 danger of stepping into the traps in which my feet 
 had been so often caught. I may as well confess it
 
 190 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 — it was intoxicating liquor, and that mainly, which 
 had led me into my various mad marrying schemes, 
 and made me the matrimonial monomaniac and lu- 
 natic lover that I was for years. What my folly, 
 my insanity caused me to suffer, these pages have 
 attempted to portray. I had grown older, wiser, and 
 certainly better. I now only devoted myself strictly 
 to my business, and I found profit as well as pleas- 
 ure in doing it. 
 
 What had become of all my wives in the mean 
 time, I scarcely knew and hardly cared. Of course 
 from time to time I had heard more or less about 
 them — at least, a rumor of some sort now and then 
 reached me. About my first and worst wife, at in- 
 tervals I heard something from Henry, who was still 
 with her, and who frequently wrote to me when he 
 was well enough to do so. Margaret Bradley and 
 Eliza Gurnsey were still carrying on the millinery 
 business in Rutland, and in Montpelier, and were 
 no doubt weaving other and new webs in hopes of 
 catching fresh flies. Mary Gordon, as I learned soon 
 afterwards, was» married almost before I had fairly 
 escaped from New Hampshire in my flight to Can- 
 ada, and she had gone to California with her new 
 husband. Of the Newark widow I knew nothing ;
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 191 
 
 but two years of peace, quiet, and freedom from 
 molestation in Maine had made me feel quite secure 
 against any present or future trouble from my past 
 matrimonial misadventures. 
 
 I was living in Maine, prudently I think under an 
 assumed name, and as the respectable, and, to my 
 patients and customers, well-known Doctor Blank, 
 I was scarcely liable to be recognized at any time or 
 by any one as the man who had married so many 
 wives, been in so many jails and prisons, and whose 
 exploits had been detailed from time to time in the 
 papers. 
 
 Nor, all this while, did I have the slightest fear of 
 detection. I looked upon myself as a victim rather 
 than as a criminal, and for what I had done, and 
 much that 1 had not done, I had more than paid the 
 penalty. So far as all my business transactions 
 were concerned, my course had always b.een honora- 
 ble, and in my profession, for my cures and for my 
 medicines, I enjoyed* a good reputation which all my 
 efforts were directed to deserve. 
 
 Of course, now and then, I met people in Port- 
 land, and especially in Boston, who had known me 
 in former years, and who knew something of my 
 past life ; but these were generally my friends who
 
 192 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 sympathized with my sufferings, or who, at least, 
 were willing to blot out the past in my better behav- 
 iour of the present. One daj in Boston a young 
 man came up to me and said : 
 
 " How do you do, Doctor ?" 
 
 " Quite well," I replied ; " but you have the ad- 
 vantage of me ; I am sure I do not remember you, 
 if I ever knew you." 
 
 " You don't remember me ! Why, I am the son 
 of the jailer in Montpelier with whom you spent so 
 many months before you went to Windsor ; I knew 
 you in a minute, and Doctor, I've been in Boston a 
 week and have got ' strapped ;' how to get back to 
 Montpelier I don't know, unless you will lend me 
 five or six dollars which I will send back to you the 
 moment I get home." 
 
 " I remember you well, now," said I ; "you are the 
 little rascal who wouldn't even go and buy me a 
 cigar unless I gave you a dime for doing it ; and 
 then, sometimes, you cheated me out of my money ; 
 I wouldn't lend you a dollar now if it would save 
 you from six month's imprisonment in your father's 
 filthy jail. Good morning." 
 
 And that was the last I saw of him. 
 
 I was getting tired of Maine. I had been there
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 193 
 
 longer than I had stayed in any place, except in the 
 Vermont State prison, for the past fifteen years, and 
 I began to long for fresh scenes and a fresh field for 
 practice. I had accumulated some means, and 
 thought I might take life a little easier — make a 
 home for myself somewhere, practicing my profes- 
 sion when I wanted to, and at other times enjoying 
 the leisure I loved and really needed. So I closed 
 up my business in Augusta and Portland, put my 
 money in my pocket, and once more went out into 
 the world on a prospecting tour. My first idea was 
 to go to the far West, and I went to Troy with the 
 intention of staying there a few days, and then bid- 
 ding farewell to the East forever. The New Eng- 
 land States presented no attractions to me ; I had 
 exhausted Maine, or rather it had exhausted me ; 
 New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts had 
 too many unpleasant associations, if indeed they 
 were safe states for me, with my record to live in, 
 and Connecticut I knew very little about. Certainly 
 I had no intention of trying to settle in New Jersey 
 or Pennsylvania. The west was the place ; any- 
 where in the west. 
 
 Here was I in Troy, revolving plans in my own 
 mind for migrating to the west, just as Mary Gordon
 
 194 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 and I had done in the very same hotel, only a few 
 years before ; and in the course of a week I came to 
 exactly the same conclusion that Mary and I did — 
 not to go. I heard of a small farm — it was a very 
 small one of only twelve acres — which could be 
 bought in Rensselaer County, not more than sixteen 
 miles from Albany and Troy. I went to see the 
 place, liked it, and bought it for sixteen hundred 
 dollars. There was a small but good house and a 
 barn on the place, and altogether it was a cheap and 
 desirable property. I got a good housekeeper, hired 
 a man, and began to carry on this little farm, raising 
 garden vegetables and fruit mainly, and sending 
 them to market in Albany and Troy. Generally I 
 took my own stuff to market, and sold medicines and 
 recipes as well, and in Albany I had a first rate prac- 
 tice which I went to that city to attend to once or 
 twice a week. While my man was selling vegeta- 
 bles and fruit — I remember I sold a hundred dollars 
 worth of cherries from my farm the first summer — 
 in the market, I was Doctor Blank receiving my 
 patients at Stanwix Hall, or calling upon them at 
 their residences ; and when the day's work was over, 
 my man and I rode home in the wagon which had 
 brought us and the garden truck early in the morn-
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 195 
 
 ing. On the whole, this kind of life was exceeding- 
 ly satisfactory, and I liked it. 
 
 I made frequent expeditions to Saratoga and to 
 other places not far from home to attend to cases to 
 which I was called, and to sell medicines ; and con- 
 sidering that the main object I had in settling in 
 Rensselaer County was rest and more leisure than I 
 had enjoyed for some years, I had a great deal more 
 to do than I desired. Nevertheless, I might have 
 continued to live on my little farm, raising vegeta- 
 bles, picking cherries, and practicing medicine in 
 the neighborhood, had not the fate, which seemed to 
 insist that I should every little while come before a 
 court of justice for something or other, followed me 
 even here. A certain hardware dealer in Albany, 
 with whom I had become acquainted, proposed to 
 buy one of my recipes, and to go into an extensive 
 manufacture of the medicine. He had read and 
 heard of the fortunes that had been made in patent 
 medicines, by those who understand the business, 
 and he thought he would see if he could not get rich 
 in a year or less in the same way. 
 
 After some solicitation I sold him the recipe for 
 one thousand dollars, receiving six hundred dollars 
 down, and a promise of the balance when the first
 
 196 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 returns from sales of the medicine came in. I also 
 entered into a contract to show the man how to 
 make the medicine, and to give him such advice and 
 assistance in his new business as I could. My hard- 
 ware friend understood his legitimate business better 
 than he did that which he had undertaken, and 
 although he learned how to manufacture the medi- 
 cine, he did not know how to sell it ; and after try- 
 ing it a few weeks and doing next to nothing he 
 turned upon me as the author of his misfortunes and 
 sued me for damages. 
 
 Incidental to this, and only incidental, is the fol- 
 lowing: Shortly after I purchased my property, as 
 I was very fond of calling my little farm, in Rens- 
 selaer County, I was in Albany one day when it oc- 
 curred to me that I wanted a carpet for my parlor. 
 I went to the store of a well-known carpet-dealer, 
 and asked to be shown some of his goods. While I 
 was going through the establishment I came across 
 a man who was industriously sewing together the 
 lengths of a cut carpet, and I recognized in him one 
 of my fellow convicts at Windsor. He, however, did 
 not know me, and I doubt if he could have been con- 
 vinced of my identity as the wretch who plied the 
 broom in the halls of the prison. To him, as he
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 197 
 
 glanced at me, I was only a well-dressed gentleman 
 whom the proprietor was courteously showing 
 through the establishment in the hope of securing 
 a good customer. It was this little circumstance, I 
 think — my chance meeting with my old fellow-pris- 
 oner, and my changed circumstances and appear- 
 ance which put me beyond recognition by him — that 
 prompted me to the somewhat brazen business that 
 followed : 
 
 " I only came in to look to-day," I said to the car- 
 pet-dealer ; " for the precise sum of money in my 
 pocket at present is eighteen pence, and no more ; 
 but if you will cut me off forty yards of that piece 
 of carpeting, and trust me for it, I will pay your bill 
 in a few days, as sure as I live." 
 
 My frank statement with regard to my finances 
 seemed to attract the attention of the merchant who 
 laughed and said : 
 
 "Well, who are you, anyhow ? Where do you live ?" 
 
 I told him that I was Doctor Blank ; that I lived 
 in Rensselaer county on a small place of my own ; I 
 raised fruit and vegetables for market ; I cured 
 cancers, dropsy, and other diseases when I could ; 
 sold medicines readily almost where I would ; and 
 was in Albany once or twice a week.
 
 108 SEV.SK WIVES AND 
 
 " Measure and cut off the carpet," said he to the 
 clerk who was following us, " and put it in the Doc- 
 tor's wagon." 
 
 The bill was about a hundred dollars, and I drove 
 home with the carpet. It was nearly six weeks af- 
 terwards when I went into the store again, and 
 greeted the proprietor. He had seen me but once 
 before and had totally forgotten me. I told him 'I 
 was Doctor Blank, small farmer and large medical 
 practitioner of Rensselaer County. 
 
 " The devil you are ! Why, you're the man that 
 bought a carpet of me a few weeks ago ; I was won- 
 dering what had become of you." 
 
 " I'm the man, and I must tell you that the car- 
 pet doesn't look well ; but never mind — here's a 
 hundred dollars, and I want you to receipt the bill." 
 
 " Now," said I, when he returned the bill to me 
 receipted, " the carpet looks firstrate ; I never saw a 
 handsomer one in my life." 
 
 " Well, you are an odd chap, any how," said the 
 carpet- dealer, laughing, and shaking me by the hand. 
 Almost from that moment we were more than mere 
 acquaintances, we were fast friends. In the course 
 of the long conversation that followed, I told him of 
 my trouble with the hardware man — how I had sold
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 199 
 
 him the recipe ; that he had failed, from ignorance 
 to conduct the business properly, and had sued me 
 for damages. 
 
 " I know the man," said my new friend ; "let him 
 go ahead and sue and be — benefited, if he can ; 
 meanwhile, do you keep easy ; I'll stand by you." 
 
 And stand by me he did through thick and thin. 
 The hardware man sued me no less than nineteen 
 times, and for pretty much everything — damages, 
 debt, breach of contract, and what not. With the 
 assistance of a lawyer whom my friend recommend- 
 ed to me, I beat my opponent in eighteen succes- 
 sive suits ; but as fast as one suit was decided he 
 brought another, almost before I could get out of 
 the court room. At last he carried the case to the 
 Supreme Court, and from there it went to a referee. 
 The matter from beginning to end, must have cost 
 him a mint of money ; but he went on regardless of 
 the costs which he hoped and expected to get out of 
 me at last. 
 
 My long and painful experience, covering many 
 years, had given me a pretty thorough knowledge 
 of the law's uncertainty, as well as the law's delay, 
 and very early in the course of the present suit, 1 
 had quietly disposed of my property m Rensselaer 
 9
 
 200 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 County. I sold the little farm, which cost me six- 
 teen hundred dollars, for twenty-one hundred dollars, 
 and I had had, besides, the profits of nearly two 
 years' farming and a good living from and on the 
 place. I also arranged all my money matters in a 
 manner that I felt assured would be satisfactory to 
 me, if not to my opponent, and then, following the 
 advice of my friend, the carpet-dealer, I let the hard- 
 ware man sue and be — " benefited if he could." 
 When, however, the case went finally to a referee 
 who was certain, I felt sure, to decide against me, I 
 took no further personal interest in the matter, nor 
 have I ever troubled myself to learn the final decis- 
 ion. I made up my mind in a moment and decided 
 that the time had come, at last, when it was advisa- 
 ble for me to go to the West. 
 
 Westward I went, towards sunset almost, and for 
 the two following years I led, I fear, what would be 
 considered a very vagabond life. I went to Utah, 
 thinking while I was in Salt Lake City, if they only 
 knew my history there I was sure to be elected an 
 apostle, or should be, at any rate, a shining light in 
 Mormondom — only I had taken my wives in regular 
 succession, and had not assembled the throng to- 
 gether. I pushed across the plains, and went to
 
 ■ SEVEN PRISONS. 201 
 
 California, remaining a long time in San Francisco. 
 This may have been vagabondism, but it was profit- 
 able vagabondism to me. During this long wander- 
 ing I held no communication with my friends in the 
 East ; friends and foes alike had an opportunity to 
 forget me, or if they thought of me they did not 
 know whether 1 was dead or alive ; they certainly 
 never knew, all the time, where I was ; and while 
 I was journeying I never once met a man or 
 woman who had been acquainted with me in the 
 past. All the time, too, I had plenty of money ; 
 indeed, when I returned at last I was richer far 
 than I was when I left Albany, and left as the 
 common saying graphically expresses it, " between 
 two days." I had my old resources of recipes, med- 
 icines and my profession, and these I used, and had 
 plenty of opportunity to use, to the best advantage. 
 I could have settled in San Francisco for life with 
 the certainty of securing a handsome annual income. 
 I never feared coining to want. If I had lost my 
 money and all other resources had failed, I was not 
 afraid to make a horse-nail or turn a horse-shoe with 
 the best blacksmith in California, and I could have 
 got my living, as I did for many a year, at the forge 
 and anvil.
 
 202 SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 But I made more money in other and easier ways, 
 and I made friends. In every conceivable way my 
 two years' wandering was of far more benefit to me 
 than I dreamed of when I wildly set out for the West 
 without knowing exactly where, or for what, I was 
 going. The new country, too, had given me, not 
 only a fresh fund of ideas, but a new stock of health 
 — morally and physically I was in better condition 
 than I ever was before in my life. I had a clear 
 head ; a keen sense of my past follies ; a vivid con- 
 sciousness of the consequences which such follies, 
 crimes they may be called, are almost certain to 
 bring. I flattered myself that I was not only a re- 
 formed prisoner, but a reformed drunkard, and a 
 thoroughly restored matrimonial monomaniac. 
 
 And when I returned, at last, to the East, and 
 went once more to visit my near and dear friends in 
 Ontario County, I was received as one who had come 
 back from the dead. When I had been here a few 
 weeks, and had communicated to my cousins so 
 much of the story of my life as I then thought ad- 
 visable, 1 took good counsel and finally did what I 
 ought to have done long years before. I commenced 
 proper legal proceedings for a divorce from my first 
 and worst wife. I do not need to dAvcll upon the
 
 SEVEN PRISONS. 203 
 
 particulars ; it is enough to say, that the woman, 
 who was then living, so far from opposing me, aided 
 me all she could, even making affidavit to her adul- 
 tery with the hotel clerk at Bainbridge, long ago, 
 and I easily secured my full and complete divorce. 
 Now I was, indeed, a free man — all the other wives 
 whom I had married, or who had married me, 
 whether I would or no, were as nothing ; some were 
 dead and others were again married. It may be 
 that this new, and to me strange sense of freedom, 
 legitimate freedom, set me to thinking that I might 
 now secure a genuine and true wife, who would make 
 a new home happy to me as long as we both should 
 live. 
 
 Fortune, not fate now, followed me, led me rather 
 and guided my footsteps. It was not many months 
 before I met a woman who seemed to me in every- 
 way calculated to fill the first place in that home 
 which I had pictured as a final rest after all my woes 
 and wanderings. From mutual esteem our acquaint- 
 ance soon ripened into mutual love. She was all 
 that my heart could desire. I was tolerably well 
 off ; my position was reputable ; my connections 
 were respectable. To us, and to our friends, the 
 match seemed a most desirable one. It was no
 
 204 , SEVEN WIVES AND 
 
 hasty courtship; we knew each other for months 
 and learned to know each other well ; and with true 
 love for each other, we had for each other a genuine 
 respect. I frankly told her the whole story of my 
 life as I have now written it. She only pitied my 
 misfortunes, pardoned my errors, and, one bright, 
 golden, happy autumn day, we were married. 
 
 In the northeastern part of the State of New 
 York, on the banks of a broad and beautiful river, 
 spread out far and near the fertile acres of one of 
 the finest farms in the country. It is well stocked 
 and well tilled. The surrounding country is charm- 
 ing — game in the woods, and fish in the streams af- 
 ford abundant sport, and the region is far away from 
 large cities, and remote even from railroads. I do 
 not know of a more delightful place in the whole 
 world to live in. On the farm I speak of, a cottage 
 roof covers a peaceful, happy family, where content 
 and comfort always seem to reign supreme. A noble 
 woman, a most worthy wife is mistress of that house ; 
 joyous children move and play among the trees that 
 shade the lawns ; and the head of the household, 
 the father of the family, is the happiest of the 
 group. 
 
 That farm, that family, that cottage, that wife,
 
 BEVEN PBISONS.' 205 
 
 that happy home are mine — all mine. I have found 
 a true wife and a real home at last. 
 
 My story is told ; and if it should suggest to the 
 reader the moral which is too obvious to need re- 
 hearsal, one object I had in telling the story will 
 have been accomplished. 
 
 THE END.
 
 an 5 
 
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