A Trial till Half Past One in the Morning

On 3 Mar 1785, the state of Massachusetts brought Thomas Archibald and William Scott to trial for burglarizing the home of James Lovell, a former Continental Congress delegate. Although the burglars took cash, it looks like Lovell was most upset about losing some Continental loan certificates.

The trial took place in the state’s top court. Chief Justice William Cushing, later a U.S. Supreme Court justice, presided. The prosecutor was attorney general Robert Treat Paine, another former Continental Congress delegate.

The court appointed lawyers for the defendants, who had few connections in town and little money. (Another early example of the tenet that people accused of serious crimes deserve strong legal representation, even if the job might be distasteful.)

It’s possible that each man had his own defense attorney. One was William Tudor, a former clerk of John Adams and the first judge advocate general of the Continental Army.

The other was John Silvester Gardiner (1737-1793), who had quite an interesting career. He was born in Boston, son of the prominent surgeon and apothecary Silvester Gardiner. He went to Scotland for schooling and then built a legal career in London, Wales, St. Kitts, and Paris before returning to Boston in 1783. His father was still exiled from Massachusetts as a Loyalist, but John S. Gardiner was fine with that since they didn’t get along.

Gardiner quickly became one of Boston’s leading attorneys, but he practiced for only a couple of years before souring on the local bar. In 1786 he moved again, to land he inherited in Maine. Soon he won a seat in the Massachusetts General Court and used that as his platform for advocating favorite causes: reforming state law, legalizing theater, making Maine a separate state. He was also influential in turning King’s Chapel Unitarian. In The Gardiners of Massachusetts, T. A. Milford summed up the man’s career (on page 1, yet) by writing, “Gardiner was a pest.”

At the trial, the prosecution’s witnesses told the story I summarized over the last two days. The crucial testimony came from Nero Faneuil, saying he was Archibald and Scott’s accomplice turned state’s evidence.

Then came witnesses for the prisoners—or rather for Scott. Archibald doesn’t seem to have put up much of a defense. Scott and his attorney tried to make the case that he was sleeping somewhere else during the crime. Hannah Nelson testified, “I have seen Scot the Tuesday night before thanksgiving he came to our house lodged all Night.” She recalled giving birth around that time, but couldn’t specify the day. Sarah Bond corroborated Scott’s visit, but then another witness, Abigail Willet, testified that “Sally Bond [had] bad Character.”

The result was a flimsy alibi. Imaginatively, one of the defense attorneys argued, “Mrs. Nelson might have Cook’d up a Story for both as well as one”—i.e., if she was just making up a thin story to save Scott from conviction, why didn’t she claim that both men had been at her house?

Another defense argument was “no part of the Property found on any but Nero,” and “Was it not strange that Nero should be trusted with the money”? In other words, Faneuil might be lying to cast blame on Archibald and Scott. Gardiner might have tried to make that personal; Paine’s notes on the case include the line, “I have known these blks., no credit to be given to them.”

In the end, both Tudor and Gardiner fell back on the position that any doubt in the prosecution’s case should lead the jury to acquit the two defendants, or at least lead the judges to spare them from the death penalty.

According to Paine’s diary, the “Trial ended 1/2 past 1 next morning.” The jury returned a verdict of guilty on capital counts for both Archibald and Scott.

On 9 March, the justices sentenced the two men to hang. The execution finally took place on 5 May. The Massachusetts Spy reported: “They had heretofore behaved in a manner unbecoming their unhappy condition, but on that morning appeared penitent, and suitably affected with their situation.”

What about Nero Faneuil, whose got me into this story? As described back here, he pled guilty to a different robbery and been bound to work for the victim for seven years, or until 1792. He may not have outlived that sentence. Town records show that on 29 July 1792, the Rev. Thomas Baldwin of the Second Baptist Meeting married Flora Fanniel to Magguam Eben.

Questioning the Suspects

Yesterday we watched three men—William Scott, Thomas Archibald, and Nero Faneuil—burgle the home of James Lovell in the early morning of 23 Nov 1784. Then they split up, Scott and Archibald taking the coins while Faneuil took care of the paper currency.

Scott and Archibald had talked about laying low outside of Boston. A man named John Vicker testified that they showed up at his house—I can’t tell where—about daybreak on 24 November. The men “wanted liquor,” three pennies worth, and “asked me to let them lay down 3 hours.” Vicker thought they seemed “worried in mind.” They also “ask’d for a Sling,” presumably to carry something away.

Thursday, 25 November, was a Thanksgiving holiday in Massachusetts, so nothing much happened.

Archibald and Scott were back on Boston on Friday, 26 November. Somehow Archibald provoked the suspicion of a man named Goodbread. John Ingersol, perhaps a tavern keeper, took both Goodbread and Archibald to the Lovells’ house.

As James Lovell recalled, Goodbread accused Archibald of the burglary. The suspect insisted “he lay in a Haybarn with a N. Engld. man Tuesday night.” But he couldn’t provide details about ”when he breakfasted, where he worked.” He mentioned how a ”Negro had helped him to work.”

Lovell fetched others. His neighbor Archibald McNeal came, looked at Archibald, and “took him to be the man” he’d seen during the nighttime robbery. Bartholomew Broaders, an elected constable, searched Archibald and “found a bag of 1/2 Crowns” in his footwear. Archibald insisted “he brought ’em from Phila[delphia].” But he gave inconsistent answers about how long he’d been in Boston. Broaders reminded the suspect “he had said he had no money wn. he came to Town.” Archibald then changed his story to say ”a blk man lent him the money.” That was all suspicious enough for the authorities to commit Archibald to jail.

That evening, Broaders “catched [William] Scot tapping at Nero [Fanueil]’s window 11 oClock.” John Middleton Lovell, the Continental agent’s son (shown above in a later portrait by Ralph Earl), and a man named Benjamin Homans recalled spotting Scott behind Faneuil’s house that afternoon as well.

The authorities found coins on Scott and questioned him. At first he too insisted that he had brought the money from Philadelphia. He said he “had pd. for a W[eek’]s. board, brough 6 or 7 doll[ar]s into Town, & had been 2 or 3 Women parted the value of 4 or 5 dolls out of his Fob 5 1/2 Crowns.”

But Scott got too clever. As Broaders kept questioning him, Scott “said he would not tell unless he could be an Evidence [i.e., witness] and then he would bring out the whole.” John M. Lovell recalled “he would not tell any thing unless he cd. receive some advantage.” Instead, Scott went into the jail for the night, too.

The next morning, it appears, James Lovell went to the jail and demanded that the suspects tell him where his papers were. He heard Scott answer that “the negro was the only person who could give me informn. of my papers.”

The Lovells visited Nero Faneuil, who recalled that “Mr. Lovel told me if I wd. Confess I should be a Witness.” So Faneuil started to cooperate. According to the younger Lovell, “Nero carried me to the place where the money was & confessed he took it.” The case was solved.

John M. Lovell also reported, “Scot found fault that he was not called out instead of the Negro”—which sounds like he regretted not cooperating at the first opportunity. Both Archibald and Scott tried to point the authorities to Faneuil, a black man, but he had the advantage of being known in town.

The following Monday, according to the newspapers, officials found evidence from the robbery of John Fullerton’s shop and charged Nero Faneuil with that crime. It’s conceivable that Faneuil had confessed and told people where to find the stolen goods. Curiously, Fullerton was also a witness at the trial for the robbery of Lovell’s house, testifying about finding coins on one of the suspects.

The state brought Archibald and Scott to trial on 3 March 1785.

TOMORROW: A last-ditch defense.

“If I would go with them to commit this Robery”

As I said yesterday, the only reason we know more than perfunctory details about the trial of two men for stealing a chest from James Lovell in 1784 is because Massachusetts attorney general Robert Treat Paine took notes.

Those notes aren’t word-for-word transcriptions of the testimony, and they leave lots of mysteries. Which makes me all the more grateful for the scholars behind the Massachusetts Historical Society’s publication of Paine’s papers. I mean, just look at the handwriting in his notes from a 1780 trial.

Here’s my best recreation of how the burglary took place, based on the testimony at the February 1785 grand jury session and the 3 March trial.

Thomas Archibald and William Scott appear to have been strangers to Boston. A woman named Flora Fanueil testified that “abt. a Week before the Theft they were at our house.” This was probably Nero Faneuil’s wife, and her remark shows that the black couple had their own residence.

About seven o’clock on the evening of Monday, 22 November, James Lovell made an accounting of the Continental notes and loan certificates entrusted to him. He filed those papers in a large chest, a yard long and weighing 168 pounds. Then he “threw in money half Crowns French” and his pocket book. Mary Capen, likely a maid in the Lovell house, said, “I barr’d that window where the chest was & locked it, I went to bed abt. 11 oClock.”

Meanwhile, Archibald and Scott had returned to Nero and Flora Faneuil’s house, as confirmed by witnesses Prince Hitchborn and Jack Austin. Hitchborn had probably been enslaved by the Hichborn family. There was also a rich white family in Boston named Austin, and Jack Austin might have served them—or he might have been unrelated. About eight o’clock, Flora Fanueil said, Archibald and Scott went away.

Nero Faneuil testified:

they asked me if I would go with them to commit this Robery, they said they would come again at 11 oClock or 12. I went to bed abt. 11; got up & saw them about the house: at 12 oClock we were by Mr. Lovels & it struck 12.

Archebald opned the Window as high as he could lift, he pressed & found the bar, he pushed it in with his foot he pulled off his shoes & got in, Scot came to the Window and told Scot to come in, Scot pulld off his Shoes & got it, the Clock struck one…

A neighbor named Archibald McNeal, living about “170 yds. off,” reported that “abt. 2 oClock [he] heard a strange noise like stroks of a Maul.” Looking outside, he saw men “kept coming & going.” When “sparks of fire” threw light on the scene, he could make out one person who “had no hat on & short hair [and] chest thick.“

Archibald, Scott, and Faneuil carried the heavy chest away “to the new house,” the latter said. Then ”Archiebald got my ax [and] pryed open the chest.” Inside the men found some “hard money,” which Scott put “into his hat.” As for the papers, Archibald and Scott “said they would Separate the Bank bills & burn the rest.” According to Faneuil, his confederates

told me to take care of them [the bills] till the noise was over, they wd. go to Providence stay 2 or 3 mo. & then come back again

they tarried at my house till the Clock struck 6. they then went off.

On the morning of 23 November, Lovell stated, “abt. 7 oClock I found my Window open Shutters on the floor.” He was struck by the fact that “my plate was in the room, [but] they did not touch it.”

Outside, it appears, McNeal came across more evidence of the crime: ”next morning before sunrise I saw the Letters, Baggs marked wth. Mr. Lovells Name & the Chest marked.” But the money and, more important to Lovell, the official papers were missing.

TOMORROW: Returning to the scene of the crime.

The Trial of Nero Faneuil

Nero Faneuil was a black man who petitioned for an end to slavery in Massachusetts in 1777, as quoted here. It’s unclear whether he was enslaved at the time or advocating for the many other people who were.

Seven years later, Nero Faneuil (his surname pronounced and often spelled as “Funnel”) was locked up on suspicion of two robberies in Boston: of a chest containing important papers and cash from the house of Continental official James Lovell, and of dry goods from the shop of John Fullerton.

Of the two crimes, the first was far more serious. As the 2 Dec 1784 Massachusetts Spy said:

It is reported that two persons are taken up in Boston, and committed to gaol, on suspicion of breaking open the house of the Hon. James Lovell, Esq; Continental Treasurer, in this State, and robbing him of 25,000 dollars in Loan-Office certificates, &c. 

Faneuil was charged with that crime alongside two white men, Thomas Archibald and William Scott. For the other crime, of stealing from Fullerton’s shop, Faneuil was charged alone.

The attorney general of Massachusetts was Robert Treat Paine (shown above). His papers, as published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, are our fullest source on what happened next. At the grand jury proceedings in February 1785, all three men pled not guilty, and their trial was scheduled for 3 March.

Prospects looked bleak for Nero Faneuil. He was charged with two thefts instead of just one. Testimony established that “no part of the Property [from Lovell was] found on any but Nero.” And he was the only black man arrested.

But I think Faneuil also had an important asset: he was local. People in town knew him. According to Paine’s notes, Benjamin Hichborn testified, “Nero’s Character for Truth good.” [I think Hichborn was a slippery character himself, but he was a genteel, well-connected lawyer.] In contrast, Archibald and Scott had recently drifted into town from the south.

In addition, Faneuil seized an opening. Lovell was anxious to locate his stolen papers. He asked Scott on “the day after they were cmtted” where those were, and recalled that Scott answered “that the negro was the only person who could give me informn.” Lovell then went to Faneuil, who testified, “Mr. Lovel told me if I wd. Confess I should be a Witness.” Faneuil therefore turned state’s evidence against Archibald and Scott.

But first, Faneuil pled guilty to the Fullerton theft. The court sentenced him to be branded on the forehead with the letter “B” for “burglar.” It also ordered him to restore Fullerton’s goods and pay £84 as treble damages, which everyone must have known was beyond his means. Faneuil declared that he couldn’t pay, and the court sentenced him to serve Fullerton for seven years. He was thus thrown back into servitude.

TOMORROW: At the trial.

A Break-in at James Lovell’s House

On 29 Nov 1784, the American Herald newspaper of Boston carried this crime report from the previous week:

The House of the Hon. JAMES LOVELL, Esq; was, on Tuesday night last [23 November], broke open, and an iron Chest, containing some valuable papers, and a little cash stolen.

And, the next Friday, three villains, viz. William Scott, Thomas Archbald and Nero Funnel, Negro, were apprehended, and the money being found upon them, they were committed to goal.

Lovell was an important man in Boston. Before the war he was an usher, or assistant teacher, under his father at the South Latin School, but then after the Battle of Bunker Hill the military authorities locked him up and then took him to Canada. That suffering provided the credentials for Massachusetts to elect Lovell to the Continental Congress in 1778. He was a delegate until 1782, at some points basically running American foreign policy because no one else was so interested.

In 1784 Lovell became collector of Continental taxes in Massachusetts. Thus, the “valuable papers” he had in a trunk in his home could have been quite valuable indeed.

The 1 December Massachusetts Centinel provided additional information that “part of the papers were recovered, tho’ a large amount are supposed to have been burnt.”

That newspaper also had this report about a related crime:

On Monday a quantity of dry goods were found concealed in a barrel near Mr. Calf’s tan yard; upon examination it appears that they were stolen from Mr. [John] Fullerton’s shop, by a negro fellow called Nero Funnel, one of the villains that stole Mr. Lovell’s chest.

The three suspects were kept in jail until the court session began in February.

TOMORROW: In court.

William Scott’s Wives

In publishing ladies’ reactions to his poem about his beard, and to the beard itself, shoemaker William Scott seemed to argue that some found it attractive, outrageously unfashionable as it was. So I wondered if Scott ever married.

Fortunately, researcher Annie Haven Thwing found some real-estate transactions involving William Scott, cordwainer (an old term for a shoemaker). Those deeds also state his first wife’s name, which allowed Thwing to single him out from the other men named William Scott (or Scot) in Boston records.

Our William Scott married Nancy or Nanny Coit on 24 Nov 1748, in a ceremony conducted by the Rev. Samuel Cooper (shown here, since I don’t have a picture of anyone else). They deeded some land beside their property on Ann Street in 1750, and bought two houses on North Centre Street later that month.

The Scotts had two children: Nanny born in 1751 and William in 1753. Nanny (Coit) Scott must have died shortly after the birth of that son because William married Ann Thomas on 27 Nov 1755. That second marriage produced a son named Benjamin in 1758.

In 1756 and 1758, William Scott bought more North End land from a Gloucester man with the wonderful name of Nymphas Stacey, Jr.; Stacey’s first wife was a Coit, so those deals were probably within the extended family. Stacey was a also shoemaker. In 1757 William Scott and his new wife deeded land to a blacksmith named Edward Marion.

According to Hannah Mather Crocker, Scott started to wear his beard long in the early 1760s, so there’s no evidence that he attracted a wife after growing it. He may well have still been married to his second wife, Ann, of course. It was unusual for a woman in colonial America to have a long marriage and only one child, but maybe Thwing and I just haven’t found the rest.

On 28 Apr 1774, William Scott announced the death of a son in the Boston News-Letter. Later that same week, he deeded land to Jonathan Williams, one of the town selectmen. He died in that year or the next, according to Crocker, but I didn’t find a record of his death.

So over all I’m left with more questions than answers about the hirsute William Scott.

Women Respond to William Scott

Yesterday I quoted a rather bad poem that Boston shoemaker William Scott sent to the New-Hampshire Gazette in 1764 explaining why he liked to wear his beard unfashionably, outrageously long. And oiled. And “combed and tied together as the gentlemen of that day wore their cravats,” according to Hannah Mather Crocker.

It appears Scott also sent along some responses to his lines, probably from his relatives or customers (he specialized in women’s shoes).

So the newspaper item continued:

Upon which several young Ladies desire you’ll print their Attempts to rival the Bard.

Sophia’s Face is smooth and fair,
On Scott’s is awful Beard of Hair,
She screams and says it shant be there.

Clarissa Peep.

A Woman’s Face in smooth and fair,
On Man’s is plac’d a Beard of Hair,
But Women love to feel it there.

Arabelle Tickle.

The Women now are out of Shoes,
and sorely they complain,
They view Scott’s Face, and gratify
a curious Taste though vain.

Ann Sober.

The Women being out of Shoes,
to Scott they run for more;
They view his Beard, and then return
saying, he’s now Fourscore.

Betty Simper.

Of course, it’s possible that Scott made up those responses to amuse himself. I even wondered if someone else wrote out the whole thing as a joke on him, but the poetry seems too bad for that.

Shoemakers were usually among the poorest of craftsmen, and we hardly ever hear from them. (Ebenezer Mackintosh and George R. T. Hewes are two exceptions.) Scott was unusual in publishing in a newspaper, as well as for having his portrait made by Joseph Badger (who also started out as a craftsman). Of course, Crocker wrote about Scott as one of Boston’s biggest “excentrics,” so he wasn’t bound by social norms.

“A Beard is sweet as any Rose, Because it’s put so near the Nose.”

Yesterday I quoted Hannah Mather Crocker about a shoemaker named Scott who wore an immensely unfashionable long beard in Boston starting in the 1760s. Crocker didn’t record his first name, but I found the given name William in a contemporaneous source.

In fact, that source is a poem attributed to William Scott himself.  The 3 Feb 1764 New Hampshire Gazette, published in Portsmouth by Daniel Fowle, included this unusual item:

Mr. Fowle,
Please to print the following Lines, as they shew the Poetical Genius of Mr. William Scott, a Shoemaker in Boston, wrote with his own Hand.

MEN love Women with Lips quite bare,
Who on their Chins have got no Hair:
Why Beard on Man, should they dispise,
Pray why not comely in their Eyes?
If God sees fit to plant it there,
It must be equal to the Fair.
The Ladies they may well suppose
A Beard is sweet as any Rose,
Because it’s put so near the Nose.
One Reason more why Beard is sweet,
Is it grows close by where we eat.
It must be so as it is plac’d,
All round the Mouth the Seat of Taste;
For who alive presumes to tell
That God offends both Taste and Smell.
Psalms one Hundred and thirty-third,
There you may find that precious Word,
Inspir’d King David has compar’d,
Unim to Ointment on a Beard.
Once Kings and Princes us’d to wear
Not only Part but all their Hair;
At which some gaze and curse and swear.
But if they dispise Things that are made,
They Slight the Maker, may be said.
God’s Works no one will ridicule,
But a conceited wicked Fool.
Seventeen Hundred sixty-three
These Lines were then compos’d by me,
Boston December twenty-third,
I wrote them all down Word for Word,
Which may be soon quite all forgot,
So may the Author William Scott.
These Lines I hope you will excuse,
As I get Bread by making Shoes.

Mr. Scott has his Picture drawn by Mr. [Joseph] Badger, under which is the following Lines, composed by himself.

IF Women’s Chins are made both smooth and Fair,
And on Man’s is fix’t a Beard of Hair,
Pray why the same should they not wear?

The portrait by Badger has not survived.

TOMORROW: Women respond to Scott’s poetic question.

“He wore a long beard which he used to oile and comb…”

Last Thursday I went to Eileen Hunt Botting’s talk to the North End Historical Society about how Hannah Mather Crocker described Boston’s religious history through the 1820s. I’d ordered a copy of Crocker’s Reminiscences and Traditions of Boston, co-edited by Botting and Sarah L. Houser, but it hadn’t arrived by that morning. (I found it on my front stoop when I came home that night.)

At the talk I chatted with Eileen Botting, whom I’d met before only by email, about how our childhood memories are often our strongest, and how that might have affected Crocker’s storytelling.

I also chatted with Samantha Nelson of the Bostonian Society about a completely different matter: how eighteenth-century British-American fashion required men to be clean-shaven and what that means for eighteenth-century reenactments today.

Thumbing through Crocker’s Reminiscences, I came across a passage that amazingly speaks to both those points:

Till the [year] 1774 or 5 there was a very singular man in Boston by the name of Scott, a shoe maker by trade famous for making ladies’ shoes. He wore a long beard which he used to oile and comb and tye it together as the gentlemen of that day wore their [cravats]. He used to parade about town to show himself. He used to hold himself justified by the example as expressed in the 133 psalm, “How good and precious it is for brethern to dwell together in unity, (ver 2) tis like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard that went down to the skirts of his garments.” This was his wise plea for wearing a foolish troublesome long beard. He was quite an excentric man. Several now living remember him as he was, a terror to many little children. He died 1774 or 5 and many rejoiced to be “Scott free.”

I get the strong feeling that Crocker herself (born in 1752) was among those “many little children” who were scared by Scott the shoemaker.

And as for reenactors who want to wear beards, here’s a precedent for doing so—as long as you’re portraying an “excentric” who wore what people thought was a “foolish troublesome long beard” in a very peculiar way and scared children so much they delighted in his death. In other words, Scott wasn’t just atypical for his time; he was outlandish! But he did exist.

TOMORROW: William Scott the shoemaker in his own words.

New Voices from the Arnold Expedition Brought to Light

Yesterday’s quotations from diaries of the American attack on Québec in late 1775 came from Voices from a Wilderness Expedition: The Journals and Men of Benedict Arnold’s Expedition to Quebec in 1775, a new book on Col. Benedict Arnold’s advance from Massachusetts through the Maine wilderness to Canada by Stephen Darley.

This book is not a narrative history of Arnold’s expedition, like Thomas A. Desjardin’s Through a Howling Wilderness or Arthur S. Lefkowitz’s Benedict Arnold’s Army. Rather, it’s a study of the diaries that survive from that expedition, and as such a necessary supplement to the third edition of Kenneth Roberts’s March to Quebec.

Darley self-published through AuthorHouse to make his research available. Voices from a Wilderness Expedition contains the first published transcriptions of several first-person accounts of the campaign, as well as research on the full careers of several notable officers, including Col. Roger Enos, Capt. William Goodrich, and Capt. Scott, first name usually left blank.

Darley found three of those first-person accounts in the University of Glasgow Library, catalogued as “Durben Journal.” He argues that the main document is a copy of Capt. Henry Dearborn’s original diary before it was expanded and edited into the version we know (now housed at the Boston Public Library), and hypothesizes about how that collection got to Glasgow.

The volume contains a transcription of the version of Dr. Isaac Senter’s journal at the Rhode Island Historical Society, which differs significantly from the published version, and first full appearances of journals by Pvt. Samuel Barney and Pvt. Moses Kimball.

As Darley notes, the Arnold expedition must have been one of the most minutely documented of the period, with thirty journals and detailed memoirs surviving and more known to have existed but lost. That might reflect how many of its participants came from New England, with its emphasis on literacy. But it also suggests that men understood they were trying something important that deserved to be recorded for their families and friends. Pvt. Barney, for example, bought his blank book (“for nine Coppers”) just a few days after agreeing to go on the expedition.

The prose in Voices from a Wilderness Expedition is somewhat old-fashioned, but that’s not inappropriate for discussions of document provenance and authenticity. This is not supposed to be an entertaining adventure tale. But it should be a necessary resource for anyone researching Arnold’s campaign.

I bought the book in ePub form through Barnes & Noble, partly for the convenience and partly to test that format. I’ve looked at the file now on three devices, including a Simple Touch Nook, an iPad, and my desktop computer. There are some oddities of typography and formatting, and I can’t tell whether those appear in the print edition or surfaced during the transition to ePub format; for self-publishing authors, multiple electronic formats are just one more thing to worry about.

Unfortunately, in all three formats I can’t read Appendix II, which consists of tables listing all the men on Arnold’s expedition. Evidently they were formatted for the printed page as images of a spreadsheet rather than as text, and the images don’t get any bigger on my screens. I don’t know if other electronic formats will work the same way, but if you’re interested in the complete record I recommend a print version.