Report of the case of John W. Webster, indicted for the murder of George Parkman, before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts : including the hearing on the petition for a writ of error, the prisoner's confessional statements and application for a commutation of sentence, and an appendix containing several interesting matters never before published / by George Bemis.
- Webster, John White, 1793-1850.
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the case of John W. Webster, indicted for the murder of George Parkman, before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts : including the hearing on the petition for a writ of error, the prisoner's confessional statements and application for a commutation of sentence, and an appendix containing several interesting matters never before published / by George Bemis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![him the result. As I was going into my shed, I met my wife, and she said, You have just saved your bacon, as Dr. Web- ster has just passed in. I stood talking with Mr. Trenholm, some time, until Dr. Webster came out, which was a little before four o'clock. He came out into the shed, and spok^ to both of us. He said, that an Irishman, had offered to change a $20 bill, on the Cambridge side of the bridge, to pay his toll of one cent. — They thought that it was an extraordinary thing, for an Irish- man to have a $20 bill, and so they kept it. He said, that the Marshal had been to him, to ascertain, if he knew to whom he had paid such a bill, and that he could not be positive as to the matter. Upon this, he went off. I left Mr. Trenholm; he was to come back in twenty minutes, or half au hour. I went under the building, again, requesting my wife to keep a close watch on the door. I took the crowbar, and knocked the bigness of the hole right through. I did not use the chisel and hammer. I had drill- ed a hole with a crowbar, before I went up, when Mr. Kings- ley called. There are five courses of brick in the wall. I had trouble with my light, as the air drew strongly through the hole. I managed to get the light, and my head, into the hole, and then I was not disturbed with the draft. I held my light forward, and the first thing which I saw, was the pelvis of a man, and two parts of a leg. The water was run- ning down on these remains from the sink. I knew that it was no place for these things. I went up, and told my wife, that I was going down to Dr. Bigelow's; and I told her what I had discovered. I locked the cellar-door, and took the key in my pocket, so that no one could get down until I returned. My wife spoke to me first, when I came up, after I discov- ered the remains, and asked me, what the matter was ? [The witness being here checked, by the counsel for the prisoner, the Attorney General insisted, that the statement of the wit- ness's condition was proper, and he desired the ruling of the Court upon the point. Mr. Merrick said, that his objection was not to that bare fact, but to the repetition of conversa- tion. The witness was directed, by the Court, to confine himself to his own recollection, and the description of his condition.] I was very much affected. I locked the door, and went, as soon as I could, to Dr. Ja- cob Bigelow's, in Summer street. He was not at home ; the girl came to the door, and I told her to ask Mrs. Bigelow, If she knew where the Doctor was ; as I wished to see him very much. Mrs. Bigelow, herself, came to the door, called](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21163194_0143.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
