REPETITION

 

I've heard a rumor that history repeats itself. And while pondering this reflection I started thinking about the sad ship James Franklin, which tied up in her home port of Bridgeport, Connecticut (above) on Saturday,  12  July, 1873.

The James Franklin was a Hudson River Sloop (above), and already a half century old when our story begins.  She was just 51 feet long and 18 feet wide and displaced only 30 tons, with a single mast. When she was young,  she could carry 100 tons of cargo. But by 1873 the Franklin bore the scars of hard use recorded in her chipped paint, rusted cleats, and patched gunwales, He condition tended to put the lie to the romance of the age of sail.

Her master (they dare not call him a captain) was the meager 23 year old Frank E. Bassett, a short young man whose alcohol tanned life was stretched taut over the forty miles between the docks of New York's treacherous East River (above)... 

...through the Hellsgate, the Narrows and into Long Island Sound... 

...to the mouth of the Pequonnock River (above, right), and back again - and up and down the coast of Connecticut. The Franklin and her master and her crew were of value only so long as they were less expensive than a steam ship, and the owners invested in them accordingly. 

Once the latest cargo had been unloaded and the crew paid their meager $40 for the month's work, Bassett invited a crewman to share a drink with him and his regular passenger and common law wife for the past 10 months, Mrs. Lorena Alexander - a "hard faced woman in her forties".  The crewman was “Stuttering Jack”, aka John Rufus,  but legally known as Jack Weinbecker,  “a well-meaning fellow' who was also described as a “simpleton”, who “belonged to a low, miserable, drunken class”.

After a drink in a dockside tavern the three comrades walked to Lorena's rooms at William and East Washington Avenues, in Bridgeport's East Side neighborhood. Jack was probably expecting little more than a a few ounces of whiskey, enough to dull his misery.  He got that, certainly. But after clambering through the broken fence surrounding the abandoned Brewster carriage factory (above) where Lorena and Frank squatted in empty rooms, he also received something far more mercenary.

Two months later,  while Lorena Alexander was away in New London, Connecticut, giving birth to a new daughter, our hero Frank Bassett was arrested for the theft of a wallet containing $65 dollars in cash (equal to about $1,400 today).  The judge gave him a choice, repay the money or go to jail. Frank had already, of course, spent all but $10 of it, and desperate to avoid jail, he now sold all the furniture and Lorena's personal belongings from their shared apartment. It did not come close to replacing the stolen funds, and Frank was jailed anyway.  

A week later, when Lorena returned with her new child to find all her belongings gone, she was infuriated. She took the unusual step of approaching the new Prosecuting Attorney for Bridgeport. Frank Leroy Holt. to ask what she could do to have her property returned. And to reinforce her case, she told Holt that Frank Basset was "...a very bad man and had done enough to be hung."  Naturally enough the young Holt asked if Mrs. Alexander could please elaborate.  And Lorena launched into a most curious tale.

Lorena began by explaining she needed funds to feed and cloth her new baby. She had even inquired of a Doctor Sanford at Yale Medical School to see if she could be paid for donating her body for dissection in advance of her death. The doctor had told her, said Lorena, that such a contract was not possible, but if she wanted to dispose of the dead bodies of any of her friends, he would purchase them.  

Naturally enough, Lorena had shared that conversation with her diminutive common law husband, Frank Bassett.  And Frank had responded, "They might get hold of a body sometime and make a stake that way."  He had then joked, "he guessed he would kill her to commence with". Lorena then announced, Frank had actually killed a poor simpleton named Stuttering Jack, for the cash to be made from selling his corpse. 

When pressed, Lorena said that on the night of the 12 July, she was in the bedroom “attending to some sewing” when Frank ordered her to join  the men in the front room.  Stuttering Jack was passed out on the sofa and Frank ordered Lorena to fetch a bottle of chloroform (above) from the mantle. She says she cried out, “Oh Frank, what are you going to do with that? What are you about?” Frank replied, "Shut up, you act cowardly and child-like.”

Frank held the chloroform soaked sponge tight against Stuttering Jack's face. The victim struggled, and began to cough and gag until, eventually, he died.  Lorena said she tried to flee the apartment, but the domineering Frank Bassett ordered her to stay and help cover up the crime. 

To validate her story Lorena lead the Bridgeport police along the roads north to Shelton, Connecticut, to a ravine near the new Ousatonic Water Company canal.  

According to Lorena, Bassett had stopped the wagon on a stretched of road from which, "There was no house nearer than half a mile, and no one was on sight." There Frank rolled the barrel down a slope sixty feet where it was stopped by a large stone.  And that was where they found the barrel, nailed shut. Inside was the naked decomposing body of Stuttering Jack.

Then, out of an abundance of caution, the Bridgeport police traveled 8 miles further,  to New Haven,  and spoke to Doctor Leonard Sanford, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Yale College (above) of Medicine. He confirmed that on Friday the 13^th Lorena had appeared at the school, but denied ever speaking with her before that. She had come that afternoon  offering the body of a friend "who had died on her front step". She was asking $25 for the corpse.  

Dr. Sanford explained to Lorena he required a valid death certificate.  In response, Lorena began pleading and then cursing and even wailing, begging for at least $5 to cover the cost of renting the horse and wagon used to transport the body - until Doctor Sanford finally had her escorted off the premises.  But he did not notify the police. 

In the meantime, Frank Bassett was arrested in New London, where, released from jail,  he had gone in search of Lorena.  Brought back to Bridgeport, Frank told his own, slightly different,  version of events. 

Frank said that on the night of 12 July, 1873, he was in a room, alone,  reading the newspaper, when Lorena entered and announced "she had got him fixed. And I says, "What?"  She says, "I have chloroformed him." Finding Stuttering Jack dead, continued Frank; "I told her she had done wrong. " 

Then, said Frank, she told him, “there is no use of your saying anything, for it would be as bad for me as for her.” Faced with this fait accompli making him an accomplice, Frank said he  "...stood in the middle  of the room dumbfounded”. Seeing his surrender, Lorena then told him, "Never mind, Frank. We can get $25 for the body." Then she got the barrel, and I helped put him in." 

Frank admitted, "I followed her directions...In the morning I hired a team and we both went to New Haven to see Dr. Sanford. After we got there the doctor would not receive the body and we started for home." Then, Frank added, "On the way we dumped the barrel in the woods where it was found." And to validate his version of events, Frank lead the police to the chicken coup on the north side of the abandoned Brewster factory, beneath which he had buried the dead man's coat and shoes. 

The  coroners' jury investigation garnered nationwide press coverage.  The New York World insisted “nothing like it ever happened here before or elsewhere...”, which was demonstrative untrue.  The Hartford Courant headlined, “A Horrible Murder Discovered”, and the Boston Globe called it “A Shocking Example of Human Depravity”. 

Those headlines caught the attention of the powerful State's Attorney James Harvey Olmstead. His family name was engraved three times on the obelisk (above) in the "Old Cemetery" by "The Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford" . 

In fact his cousin, George F. Olmstead, was one of the owners of the ship James Franklin. James Harvey Olmstead proved his skill as a prosecutor when he decided to charge both Bassett and Alexander with the murder of "Stuttering Jack", but to prosecute them separately. It meant any  “she said/he said ” defenses would work for the prosecution. 

As usual, as the trial approached,  the story got more complicated. The stuttering victim, Jack, alias John Rufus, alias Jack Weinbecker, had not only been a drunk but a thief with a police record.  And Frank Bassett's mother would testify under oath that little Frank – he weighed only 125 pounds – was also an alcoholic and “slow”.  Frank had also been been arrested several times, once for assault on Lorena.  But it was upon Lorena that the press focused most of their vitriol.

Lorena had been raised in Manhattan's Bowery (above), a lower east side neighborhood...

...filled with brothels, opium dens, and “German beer gardens, pawn shops and flophouses”.  The residents survived, if they did, by  their wits, by being merciless and often cruel Still, Lorena claimed she was a pious Christian, until “Men... turned her away from the Lord.”

As usual when covering women, the press were fascinated with her attire, describing her black silk dress accented with a flower pattern and a crown like hat of black velvet, editorializing “The woman’s personal appearance suggests natural shrewdness.”  Something always to be avoided in a woman.

According to the New York Times, “ In 1872  Lorena was living (in Manhattan) on East Houston-street...as Lena E. Coyne, and was employed at Harry Hill's as a barmaid...Among her effects is the outfit of a fortune-teller and astrologer.”  

Lorena admitted having been married three times, but the press uncovered at least three other co-habitations. He eldest daughter was only a few months younger than her co-defendant Frank Bassett, and during Frank's trial, one reporter noted, she was more engrossed in her two year old daughter playing on her lap, than in the testimony.

Frank's defense was described by the New York Times as, “he was so completely under the influence of Mrs. Alexander that she controlled him about as she pleased.”  Frank's jailer, the aptly named Wakeman W. Wells, told the jury, “I was particular to ask him who chloroformed the man, and he said that Mrs. Alexander did ". Then, the paper added, "The father of the prisoner, George Bassett, a man with straight hair, copper-colored complexion, and the features of an Indian, testified that his son...had never been very bright since an attack of scarlet fever when he was 4 years old”. 

This defense was not successful. Frank Bassett was convicted of second degree murder on 1 March, 1879.  He was sentenced to life in prison.  At her trial the previous October, Lorena claimed Frank had conceived the entire plot, and had robbed Jack's body of $5.75.  After her conviction,  Judge Charles Martin ordered Lorena to prison "...for the remainder of her natural life." 

Both prisoners were sent to separate wings of Wethersfield Prison (above), just south of Hartford. On entering the prison their heads were shaved before they were confined to individual 3 ½ by seven foot cells, which were unheated, and had no water or toilets. 

The inmates were required to work six days a week, marching in lockstep to and from the work yard.  But no prisoner was allowed to speak at any time, except if being questioned by a guard. Suicides were common, usually by hanging, but there are records during this time of numerous prisoners cutting their own throats, and at least one man who lay on his bed, emptied his kerosene lamp on himself, and set himself on fire. 

Lorena endured this hellhole for six years, before being transferred to the State Insane Asylum at Middletown (above), where she died early November of 1884. No cause of death was given, but it was common for the bodies of prisoners to be provided to the Yale School of Medicine, for dissection. Surely Lorena's demise was no less horrible than Stuttering Jack's.

Frank did not die in prison, physically. According to the Hartford Courant, “At first Bassett was employed in the prison shop. When his mind began to slip from him, he was given employment as a runner and as a sweeper.” But, according to the story published on the fiftieth anniversary of the murder, “Friendless and feeble, the old prisoner spent the day in idleness, an inmate of the insane ward of the institution....playing in far-off lands and imagining strange journeyings which he describes to whoever will listen.” 

After forty years,  in 1919,  the state board of prisons tried to pass Frank off to somebody else's responsibility, and pardon the old man. But the board of pardons refused to go along. Nine years later, in 1928, the Frank was finally deemed crazy enough to be transferred a mental hospital. And it was there, after 58 years behind bars for the murder of Stuttering Jack, Frank E. Bassett died in November of 1937.

The Courant recorded Frank's death  as follows:  "The longest prison confinement in the state's history ended Friday when Frank Bassett, 82, died at Norwich State Hospital.... He is believed not to have any relatives. Years ago a woman in Chicago made arrangements with an undertaker...to care for his body.”

And if you can't find a similar story in today's headlines, where tragedy is built upon depravity piled upon injustice until all the rules of society collapses into farce, and the broken lives of the poor are considered mere stage dressing for the dramas and comedies of the rich and powerful,  I don't think you are paying attention to how history repeats it's self.

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TILL THE COWS COME HOME

 

I admit that eventually we must all bow to the will of genetics, even if we aren’t cattle. And when you come up against a human family like the Smith’s of Glastonbury, Connecticut, any argument of nature verses nurture seems almost pointless. Zephaniah Hollister Smith graduated an ordained minister from Yale, but he gave it up because he did not believe in mixing prophets with profits. Allegedly he excommunicated his entire Methodist congregation, and they returned the favor. Swinging to the other extreme Zephaniah then became a financially successful lawyer. 

His wife, Hannah Hadassah Hickock Smith was a linguist, a mathematician and a poet -  all the more amazing an achievement since she lived in the second half of the 18th century when women were little more than chattel. The couple shared a fascination for astronomy, a passion for the abolition of slavery... and five girls.

 First there was Laurilla Aleroyia Smith, born in 1785, who painted portraits in her own studio just down Main Street from the family home at 1625 Main. . She also taught French in nearby Hartford, and taught both Art and French at Emma Willard's School in Troy, N.Y.

Then there was Hancy Zephina Smith, born in 1787. She was of a mechanical mind. She built her own boat, and invented a machine to shoe horses.  She was also a devout abolitionist. She died of whooping cough in 1871.  

Then there was Cyrinthia Scretuia Smith, born in 1788 with a green thumb. She raised fruit trees, grapes, strawberries, and grafted her own varieties of apple trees. In her free time she was also a scholar of Latin and Greek literature. But the real revolutionaries were the two youngest girls.

They told an amazing story about Julia Evelina Smith (born in 1792.) While trapped during a long stage trip with the Chancellor of Yale College and a professor, “Miss” Julia felt insulted when the two men began an animated conversation in French, ignoring her completely. After listening for several minutes, Julia spoke up, saying “Excusez-moi, mais je comprends le français.” Without an acknowledgement of her presence, the two men immediately shifted their discussion to Latin, whereupon Julia interrupted again; “Excuse mihi , EGO quoque narro Latin.” The intellectuals were appalled at the continued interruption and shifted to Greek, and Julia responded with “Και κατανοώ επίσης ελληνική". Finally the Chancellor spoke to the lady directly, demanding, “Who the devil are you!?”

She was a singular woman.  She taught Euclidian Geometry at Emma Willard's School for women during the 1820's. And Julia also spoke and wrote in Hebrew, and had been conducting her own study of both the Old and the New Testaments. 

You see, in December of 1843 many of Smith's neighbors had expected the world to end, and Julia taught herself ancient Hebrew and Greek so she could read the bible in it's original languages, so she could figure out for herself why doomsday had not decended.

The  youngest sister, Abby Adassah Smith (above. born in 1797) was the quietest of the five, and much to everyone’s surprise (including herself) was perhaps the best public speaker of all. It seems a pity to point out that none of men in the area seemed to have been bright enough to garner any of the ladies’ interests in marriage,  

It also seems a pity that of this entire family, all of them independently financially successful, intellectually powerful and culturally sophisticated, only the father, Zephaniah, was politically empowered. And when he died, on 1 February, 1836, the richest, best educated family in central Connecticut, was no longer allowed to cast a single vote in elections.  

This oddity lay simmering beneath the surface until November of 1873. By now most of the members of the Smith family had gone on to meet their maker - and probably correct him on few items. 

That left only Julia,  now aged 82, and Abby,  now aged 77, remaining to carry the Smith genetic code. 

It was then that the male officials of Glastonbury made the decision to raise the property tax assessment on the Smith farm (above)  by $100. The sisters would have no trouble meeting the obligation, but the increase bothered Abby, and she looked into it. 

What Abby Smith discovered was that in the entire town, only three properties had suffered the reassessment; the Smith farm, and the properties of two widows. Not a single male property owner had been reassessed. 

Abby was so incensed,  she wrote a speech, which she delivered at the next town meeting.  She said, “…here, where liberty is so highly extolled and glorified by every man... one half of the inhabitants…are ruled over by the other half...All we ask of the town, is not to rule over them as they rule over us, but to be on an equality with them.”

Well, the male citizens at the meeting responded to Abby's speech in the same way the Yale Chancellor and professor had responded to Julia. They ignored the little lady. So, the sisters decided more radical action was required. 

They publicly announced that until they received representation (the right to vote), they would no longer submit to any additional taxation. Oh, they paid their property taxes each year, and promptly, but they refused to pay the $100 reassessment.  

In response the tax collector, Mr. George C. Andrews, seized seven milk cows from the Smith farm. The bovines were almost pets of the Smith sisters -  named, Jessie, Daisy, Proxy, Minnie, Bessie, Whitey, and Lily. The cows were valued well beyond the $101.39 additional tax bill. So the determined sisters dispatched an agent to buy the beloved pets at auction, paying far in excess of the tax bill to save four of them. The remaining three were sold at auction, although I doubt they proved to be worth the price since none of the cows were willing to be milked unless Julia was present.

Meantime, the Springfield Massachusetts Republican newspaper reprinted Abby’s speech, and it was picked up and reprinted in newspapers nationwide. The story was even repeated in Europe. It was, wrote one newspaper, “A fit centennial celebration to the Boston Tea Party.”

In April Abby was denied time to speak again at the next town meeting. So she climbed on board a wagon (above) out side and delivered her remarks from there, this time heard about equally by men and women. When tax time came around again, the sisters still refused to pay the additional assessment. 

This time Mr. Andrews seized 15 acres of Smith pasture, worth about $2,000. And this time he moved the location of the auction at the last minute, so the sisters could not even buy back their own land. The valuable property was bought by a male neighbor for less than $80.  

In response the sisters sued Mr. Andrews in local court,  and they won. The court ordered the property (and the cows) returned to the sisters, and fined Mr. Andrews $10. The city appealed, and the case began the tortuous climb through the courts. In the midst of this trial, Julia married 86 year old Amos Parker of New Hampshire. She was the only one of the five sisters to ever marry.  I'm sure the city fathers of  Glastonbury were expecting the ladies would die before their case reached the state supreme Court, but the ladies had good genes, and they were still breathing in November of 1876, when the high court handed them a total victory. The city could either grant their right to vote or pay for the seized property.  The city finally accepted it had been beaten by two very smart lady spinsters and paid up, to avoid letting women suffrage.  

Julia wrote an account of their adventure, “Abby Smith and her Cows”, published in 1877. That made the sisters famous, and they spoke at suffragette meetings, until Julia’s (below, left) death in 1878.  

Abby (above, right)  followed her in 1886. But women still could not vote in Connecticut until the 19th Amendment to the National Constitution was officially passed, in August of 1920. The Smith family home was finally made a National Historical Landmark, but not until 1974. 

The story of  Julia and Abby Smith, and their cows, ought to be considered by members of the modern Republican Party. who would seek to deny citizens the right to directly influence their government. But along with that right comes the obligation to support the government, which wealthy conservatives currently also deny.  You can deny the connection between those two elements of democracy until the cows come home.  But, as these two brilliant women pointed out, both the right and the obligation are essential to any future of America.  You can advocate the destruction of the political system for only so long, because if you succeed in destroying it, you lose everything.

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