The Parkman murder : trial of Prof. John W. Webster, for the murder of Dr. George Parkman, November 23, 1849 : before the Supreme Judicial Court, in the City of Boston with numerious accurate illustrations.
- John White Webster
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The Parkman murder : trial of Prof. John W. Webster, for the murder of Dr. George Parkman, November 23, 1849 : before the Supreme Judicial Court, in the City of Boston with numerious accurate illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![9inday niglil, irrtm persiiirntion. T liave in my pos- session a letter in the liamlwritiiig of Dr Webster. The rules of the jail are li'.at all iettors shall be ex~ Bmined before going out of the jail; if sealed they are •opened before besing sent out. This letter was sent Tip open. Mr Holmes, the tmnkey, called my at- tention to it. In consequence of this letter, search was made at his house for papers. After this I lok! Dr Wel>sler if tie wished to communicate any thing to Ms family he had better wait until he saw some of them. Tin? same thing was stated to Mr Prescott and Mr Ctinningham. [The followii^ is the letter addfessetJ to hfs dauirhter.] Bos ON M<5^nday ev'g. My Dearest Marianne:—I wrote mamjria, yester- ■day, and Mr O.^, Who was her<; this morning, toW me the had sent it oul. I had a good sleep, last night, and dreamt of yoG all. I got my clothes oft, for the first time, and awoke w The morning quite hungry, ■ft was a long time before my first breakfast from Parker's came, af.d it relished, I can assure you. At •one o'cktck I was notified that I must appear at the •Court room. AH was awanged with great regard to my comfort and avoidance of publicity, and this first ceremony went, ofir better than I aulkipated. On my return 1 hati a bit of ttirlvcy and rrce from Park- ■er's. They seivd much more than I can eat, and I have directed the steward to •distribute the surplus to any poor ones here. If you will send me a small cannister of tea, I can make my own. A iittle pepper I may want some day; you can pm it up Co come with some bundle. 1 would send the dirty clothes, but they were taken €0 dry and have not been returned. I send a kind «ote I received to-day from Mr Curtis. Professors Pierce and Horsford called, to-day. Half a dozea Rochelle powders I sh-ould like. TeM mamma not TO op. - the little bundle I gave her the other daj', iiut to keep it just as slie received it. Hope you will soon be cheered by receipt of letters from Fay- al. With many 'kisses to you all. Good night, from Your afft. father. My tongue troubles me yet very much, and I jnust have bitten i't in my distress the other night; it is painful and swollen, affecting my speech some- what. Ha^d mamma better send for Nancy? I tliink so, •or auut Amelia. Couple of colored neck hdkfs. One mattress. Cross-examined. It was in cc-nsequence of this sentence about th^e bundle which led me to keep buck the letter. ELI C. KINGSLEY, called and sworn. I am Postmaster at East Cambridge. The letter submit- tad to me vv-as dropiied into my office, and I took it «nd gave it to Mr Tukey, the Marshal. It was ad- dressed to Mr Tukey, Boston. It must have been dropped in the office between 10 o'clock and twenty minutes past 10. This was on the 2Ulh, and I brought it over on that day. Its peculiar appear- ance prompted me to bring it in rather than send it tiy mail. 1 first intend'ed to mail it, but changed my Intentions. FRANCIS TUKEY. Of the three anonymous letters addressed to me, and now in my hands, this [pointing out one of them] was the first one receiv- ed; the post-mark is the 2t)th of November, and the letter was received that day; another was received from the Postmaster of East Cambridge; the other 1 am not so certain when it was received. [The counsr for the government now stated that he proposed to put these letters into the case as having been written by Dr Webster. To prove th« identity of the hand writing, he should oger the tes- timony of an e.vpert who is acquainted with the hand writing of Dr Webster, mid then compare them -with those papers already in the case knoi,vii 4e be in the hand writing of Dr Webster.] EIGHTH DAY. Wemn'sd y, March 27. NATH'L D. GOULD, called and sworn. lam an old resident of this city; am not personally ac- quainted with the defendant; I have seen writing whicli I supposed was his; I have filled out diplo- mas to which were appended his signature; have filled out diplomas for a number of years. I have from my youth paid particular attention to penmaii- skip; have instructed in penmanship for something like filty years; have used the pen in a variety of ways, for curiosity and in the way of instruction. [The government now proposed to submit the three anonymous letters received by the City Mar- shal, to the witness. The defep.ce objected to the attempt to show by experts that the letters in ques- tion were probably written by Dr. Webster. The point was argued by both of the counsel for the defence, and by the Attorney General for the Gov- ernmei.t. The Attorney General further said he expected to show that one of the papers was not written with a pen, but with an instrument that was found in Dr. Webster's room, as testified al- ready by one of the witnesses. The Court allowed the e vamination to go on in the manner proposed. The first letter submitted to the witness was the one designated the Civis letter. The letter was -dated November 21st, and post marked Nov. 30.] Mr. GOULD. In expressing an opinion in rela- tioii to this letter, I must, in order to make the mat- ter clear, be allowed to explain the grounds of my op hi ion. [Objections were again raised in relation to the mode in which the witness proposed to proceed.] I have never been able to satisfy myself in all my wriling that I can make the letters exactly alike, yet 1 riever have had aschoiar, but what I couid de- tect in his writing souie peculiarity by which I could distinguish his writing from that of any other person. And in no attemjit to disguise his hand, can he get rid of all the peculiarities which belong to his; hand. In an attempt to disguise, a person must pay a particular attention to every stroke of the pen. In this letter I find three letters made dif- ferent from the letters of Dr Webster. These let- ters are a, r,'' and the character &. The ether letters are not dissimilar from the usu- al handwriting of Dr Webster. I could mention parlicidar letters which are similar. [A question was raised here wiiether the witness should confine himself to the handwriting generally or coi7;pare the handwriting with what he knew of the signature of Dr Webster. The checks on the Chailss River Bank, drawn by Dr Webster, were put in as standards of comparison, also the letter to his daughter and a memorandum found in Dr Webster's pocket.] Among the most striking ones is the form of the letter ''1, which can hardly be mistaken; other let- ters which I consider similar—which may not be so clear to others—are the letters P and D. My usual 'ourse in examining letters Is to look at simi- lar pecubarities, and then at dissimilar ones. In making capitals most persons make the first stroke nearly alike; but In the finishing of the letters the , variation consists in the dress put upon them. la every thing that I have examined In these letters, the figures 1, 3, 4 and 9 are made similar; the word Nov., for November, are alike in all the letters; the words was, it, his, Boston, are alike; but the 13 in Boston is not always so. The capital Y is alike in ail; it is not made as well as other letters usually, but is placed above the line. 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