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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![Mr. Tukey, resumes. — The suggestion contained in the first hand-bill, that Dr. Parkman had been seen in Washington street, came from a report, which was traced out, and found to be without foundation. This bears date, Sunday morning, and was published, at the instance of Messrs. Shaw and Blake. The second is dated the next day, Monday, and is Mr. Shaw's reward of $3,000. The third, dated the 27th, is for a watch, descriptive of such a watch as Dr. Parkman was known to have had about him. And the fourth, is Mr. Shaw's reward of $1,000 for the discovery of the body. Besides the circu- lation given to these, in the shape of hand-bills, they were published as advertisements in all the Boston newspapers. The search for the deceased was prosecuted till the remains were found. I heard of the discovery of the remains, on Friday, No- vember 30th. Mr. Kingsley, and Mr. Blake, and Mr. G. M. Thatcher were in my office, when Dr. H. J. Bigelow called, and informed me of Mr. Littlefield's discovery. I put a re- volver into my pocket, and immediately started to meet Mr. Littlefield at Mr. Robert G. Shaw, Jr.'s, in Summer street, and go from thence to the Medical College. I sent to have Mr. Clapp and Mr. Spurr meet me there, and went down in com- pany with Dr. Bigelow and Mr. Littlefield. When we ar- rived, we found the other officers, and Mr. Trenholm, another police officer, there. From Mr. Littlefield's apartments, we went into the cellar, and thence down through the trap-door, into the basement. [Here a model, in wood, capable of being taken apart, and intended to exhibit, in miniature, a fac simile of the interior of the College, as also drawings of the several apartments connected with the case, were exhibited, to aid the witness's explanations. They were carefully examined by the Bench, and some explanations asked.] Witness resumes. — After descending through the trap-door, we crawled along upon the ground underneath the floor, some sixty feet, to the back or north wall of the building, and there, where the cross wall meets the back wall at right angles, and within a foot or two of the back wall, was a hole pierced through the cross wall, about eighteen inches square, and large enough to admit a man's body. The bricks and mortar lay around, as if freshly broken out. We had a lamp with us, and I asked Col. Clapp to pass it through, and see what could be seen. He looked in, and said that there were parts of a human body ; and I also looked in, and saw, as I thought, 5](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21163194_0071.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
