Snow-Storm in August

by Jefferson Morley

  30.2. The mechanics engulfed: Globe, August 14, 1835.

  30.3. they were challenged: Newton, Special Report, 201.

  30.4. Key had helped Hutton: RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 344, May Term 1825, Civil Appearances.

  30.5. ransacked his room: Globe, August 14, 1835.

  30.6. The mob came for Wormley and Lee: Newton, Special Report, 211.

  30.7. “It seems there was some danger”: Green, Secret City, 36.

  30.8. The only Negro school spared: Newton, Special Report, 204.

  30.9. “The populace of Washington”: Metropolitan, August 15, 1835.

  30.10. One gang gathered around: Boston Courier, cited in Telegraph, May 5, 1836.

  30.11. “The property of every colored person”: Metropolitan, August 15, 1835.

  30.12. The Intelligencer noted the mob: National Intelligencer, August 14, 1835.

  30.13. The Globe chastely reported: Globe, August 14, 1835.

  30.14. When the sentries: National Intelligencer and Globe, August 14, 1835.

  Chapter 31

  31.1. “The State of the City”: National Intelligencer, August 14 1835.

  31.2. Blair expressed “extreme regret”: Globe, August 14, 1835.

  31.3. “the excitement in our city”: Telegraph, August 14, 1835.

  31.4. “a scoundrel scarce removed”: Metropolitan, August 15, 1835.

  31.5. “We now hope there is an end”: Ibid.

  31.6. Over the next few nights: National Intelligencer, August 15 and 17, 1835.

  31.7. volunteers from Georgetown continued: Jones, “Walter Jones and His Times,” 146.

  31.8. “Noises in the street that alarmed me”: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 932.

  31.9. cities and towns across the Upper South: Wyatt-Brown, “The Abolitionists’ Postal Campaign,” 230.

  31.10. “The state of society is awful”: Niles’ Weekly Register, August 8, 1835, 393.

  31.11. “There is something extraordinary”: Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 255.

  Chapter 32

  32.1. “This spirit of mob-law”: Howe, What God Hath Wrought, 429.

  32.2. The day Jackson returned: Globe, August 18, 1835.

  32.3. warm with a light breeze: “Meteorological Register,” National Intelligencer, September 11, 1835.

  32.4. “one of the largest and most”: National Intelligencer, August 20, 1835.

  32.5. “We have viewed”: Globe, August 19, 1835. National Intelligencer, August 20, 1835.

  32.6. James Haliday rose to offer: Globe, August 19, 1835.

  32.7. “sent a message to those”: Shiner Diary, 63.

  32.8. The president’s response: In the words of Edgar Snowden, Jackson gave “a peremptory answer in the negative.” Alexandria Gazette, August 20, 1835.

  32.9. “What causes have produced”: Globe, August 20, 1835.

  32.10. “You need not come”: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 933.

  32.11. “The desperate fellow”: Mirror, August 22, 1835.

  Chapter 33

  33.1. Beverly reached Fredericksburg: Fredericksburg Arena, August 19, 1835; Virginia Herald, August 19, 1835.

  33.2. The Mechanics Association of Fredericksburg: Fredericksburg Arena, July 14, 1835.

  33.3. “Beverly Snow Taken!”: Daily Virginian, August 24, 1835.

  33.4. “Snow, the obnoxious free mulatto”: Alexandria Gazette story as reprinted in the National Intelligencer, August 19, 1835.

  33.5. “We think it probable”: Fredericksburg Arena, August 19, 1835.

  33.6. free Negroes “who have”: Ibid.

  33.7. That was probably an allusion: Jackson, “Early Strivings,” 25–34.

  33.8. “the dungeon,” a basement cell: Fredericksburg Jail Records, Rappahannock County Clerk’s office, microfilm 1836, 453–64.

  33.9. “The Wisest of Men”: Digby, Epicurus’s Morals, 42.

  33.10. With Snow now in custody: Fredericksburg Arena, August 20, 1835.

  33.11. “Gentlemen,” he began: National Intelligencer, August 26, 1835.

  33.12. resolved that Snow should: Daily Virginian, August 29, 1835.

  33.13. “The sufferings of the poor fellow”: Virginia Herald, August 22, 1835.

  33.14. “He had better stay”: Metropolitan, August 22, 1835.

  33.15. “The public has had enough”: National Intelligencer, August 28, 1835.

  PART V: THE TRIALS OF ARTHUR BOWEN

  Chapter 34

  34.1. His dear friend, Sarah Gayle: National Intelligencer, September 9, 1835.

  34.2. A mob of white men attacked: Ibid., September 16, 1835.

  34.3. “The white men’s shame”: Green, Secret City, 37.

  34.4. “We have already too many”: National Intelligencer, August 18, 1835.

  34.5. The common council passed: Green, Secret City, 37.

  34.6. William Wormley and William Thomas Lee: Newton, Special Report, 169.

  34.7. John Cook did not return: Ibid., 202.

  34.8. fifty-three riots in 1835: Leonard L. Richards, “Gentlemen of Property and Standing”: Anti-Abolition Mobs in Jacksonian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 12.

  34.9. The South’s violent reaction: Quarterly Antislavery Magazine 1, no. 1 (October 1835), 66.

  34.10. At the beginning of the year: Wyatt-Brown, “The Abolitionists’ Postal Campaign,” 236–37.

  34.11. results of the pamphlet campaign: Andrews, Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, 125.

  34.12. “but he has put me”: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 935.

  34.13. “I am in very bad spirits”: Ibid., 936.

  34.14. Anna wrote a letter: Ibid.

  34.15. Anna went to Judge Cranch’s home: Noel and Browning, Court-house, 43.

  34.16. Anna wrote a note to presidential secretary Andrew Donelson: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 938.

  34.17. “will surpass in interest and brilliancy”: National Intelligencer, October 7, 1835.

  34.18. Opening day attendance: Ibid., October 14, 1835.

  34.19. “I answered as favorably”: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 940.

  34.20. The hotels and the boardinghouses: Alexandria Gazette, November 30, 1835.

  34.21. “the unexampled growth and prosperity”: Presidential message to Congress, December 7, 1835. Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856: December 3, 1832–July 4, 1836, vol. 12 (New York: D. Appleton, 1859), 699. Jackson’s message is also reprinted in Niles’ Weekly Register, December 12, 1835, 256.

  34.22. “violation of civil liberty”: Howe, What God Hath Wrought, 430.

  34.23. Maria brought in a note: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 941.

  Chapter 35

  35.1. Anna asked her friend: AMT Diary, vol. 1, 941.

  35.2. Judge Cranch sat: Collectively, the three judges served close to a hundred years on the bench. “It may be presumed the citizens were gratified [by their service],” said one unimpressed local. “But if so, there was no public expression.” Bryan, History of the National Capital, 82.

  35.3. “partially insane but knows it”: Adams, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. 8, 31.

  35.4. He was “extremely well-dressed”: Metropolitan, December 19, 1835.

  35.5. Margaret Smith thought he: Letter, MBS to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, December 8, 1835, Margaret Bayard Smith Papers, reel 7, 68100. The letter is dated before the trial began but was written, at least in part, after it was over.

  35.6. The district attorney rose to address: The jurors’ names are found in the Minutes of the District Court, 1834–1836, M 1021, roll 3; the jurors’ occupations and addresses are from the 1830 and 1834 directories for Georgetown and Washington.

  35.7. “It will be proved that”: The account of the trial is drawn largely from the Metropolitan, December 12, 1835.

  35.8. “a small spare man”: Semmes, John H. B. Latrobe, 369.

  35.9. “He said that ‘if Philo Parker’ ”: Metropolitan, December 18, 1835.

  35.10. “I’m not certain”: Letter, Cranch to AJ, February 23, 1836. RG 59, General
Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  35.11. “He was present that evening”: Costin quoted in the Metropolitan, December 19, 1835.

  35.12. “It was a debating society”: Metropolitan, December 19, 1835.

  35.13. the instruction of the jury: Letter, Cranch to AJ, February 23, 1836. RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  35.14. “I hereby give notice”: Metropolitan, December 19, 1835.

  Chapter 36

  36.1. “A verdict of guilty”: Alexandria Gazette, December 14, 1835.

  36.2. Key turned his attention: Docket Book, vol. 74, November Term 1835.

  36.3. coaxing an endorsement from: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 266.

  36.4. Taney shared the president’s: Smith, Nation Comes of Age, 111.

  36.5. Key worked “day and night”: Weybright, Spangled Banner, 266.

  36.6. “He could only blame”: Metropolitan, February 24, 1836.

  36.7. if Arthur’s cell sat: The jail at Fourth and F streets was a rectangular two-story brick building with windows on each side. Elliot, Ten Miles Square, 202.

  36.8. “the first explicit and extended struggle”: William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress (New York: Random House, 1995), 24.

  36.9. a thirty-four-year-old lawyer: Charles S. Bradley, “The Bradley Family and the Times in Which They Lived,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, vol. 6 (1903), 134. Joseph Bradley’s father, Abraham Bradley, had a brother, Phineas Bradley, who was the father of Mayor William Bradley.

  36.10. “a malicious, seditious and evil”: U.S. v. Reuben Crandall, a True Bill, RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 544, November Term 1835, Criminal Appearances.

  36.11. Key asked for a bond: Crandall told the story of the bail in the letter to his father. Welch, Prudence Crandall, 117.

  36.12. On Christmas Day Anna opened: Letter, MBS to AMT, December 25, 1835, quoted in Clarke, “Dr. and Mrs. William Thornton,” 204.

  36.13. “a most disagreeable and painful year”: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 957.

  36.14. She also wrote a note: Ibid.

  36.15. Mrs. Brodeau, started to succumb: Ibid.

  36.16. Mrs. Brodeau had admitted: So the National Intelligencer reported after Anna Thornton’s death thirty years later. National Intelligencer, August 18, 1865.

  36.17. Dodd’s fondness for: Gerald Howson, The Macaroni Parson (London: Hutchinson, 1973).

  36.18. Aided by a recommendation: Franklin endorsed her boarding school in an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette, December 6, 1775.

  36.19. In one scholar’s account: Claude Anne Lopez, My Life with Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 82–83. Lopez notes that Franklin received a letter from Reverend Dodd in January 1777, just a few days before he forged the bond. In the letter, Dodd asked after an unnamed young woman who had recently come to America. Lopez writes, “My guess is that the reverend, ridden with debts and obsessed by the thought of his lost mistress and baby girl, forged the bond in a desperate attempt to escape to America and use the money to start a new life away from his creditors and his inadequate wife. Franklin might help him do this as he had helped Mrs. Brodeau.” That baby girl would grow up to become Anna Thornton.

  36.20. forged a letter: Percy Fitzgerald, A Famous Forgery: Being the Story of the Unfortunate Doctor Dodd (London: Chapman and Hall, 1865), 99.

  36.21. On June 27, 1777: Ibid., 182.

  36.22. Anna Thorton was startled to learn: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 957.

  36.23. General Jones, it seems: Letter, Cranch to AJ, February 23, 1836. RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  36.24. “Have you anything to say”: Cranch’s speech was published in the Mirror, January 30, 1836.

  36.25. heavy leg irons: Arthur mentions the leg irons in a letter to Anna Thornton, February 27, 1836, WTP, reel 3.

  Chapter 37

  37.1. the steel clasps tight: Letter, Arthur Bowen to AMT, February 27, 1836, WTP, reel 3.

  37.2. a white man who murdered: His name was Jonathan DeVaughn; he was hanged in June 1827. National Intelligencer, June 23, 1827.

  37.3. General Jones was in Annapolis: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 960.

  37.4. She drew up a petition: Petition is found in the General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  37.5. “induce a counter-petition”: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 960.

  37.6. “John O’Sullivan, editor of the Metropolitan”: Mirror, February 24, 1836.

  37.7. Anna had composed eighteen pages: Letter, AMT to AJ, February 17, 1836. RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  37.8. There was snow in the air: “Meteorological Table,” Metropolitan, February 22, 1836.

  37.9. “Get the recommendation”: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 960.

  37.10. “I write to ask and entreat”: Letter, AMT to Van Buren, undated. RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  37.11. “She is miserable”: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 960.

  Chapter 38

  38.1. “Farewell, farewell my young friends dear”: National Intelligencer, February 19, 1836.

  38.2. “very creditable”: Metropolitan, February 24, 1836.

  38.3. “Your Petitioner hopes”: Letter, AMT to AJ, February 17, 1836, RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  38.4. “to meet my fate with resignation”: Letter, Arthur Bowen to AMT, February 27, 1836, William Thornton Papers. Microfilm Roll 3.

  38.5. “with unruffled resignation”: National Intelligencer, March 29, 1828.

  Chapter 39

  39.1. “They have brought it”: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 961.

  39.2. delivered a four-page memo: Memo is found in RG 59, General Records of the Department of State, Petitions for Pardons 1789–1860, Jackson Administration 1829–1837, box 25, file 1327.

  39.3. “Let the execution of the sentence”: Ibid.

  39.4. “Almost as grateful”: Metropolitan, February 26, 1836.

  39.5. Around three o’clock: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 961.

  39.6. ten inches of snow: “Meteorological Table,” Metropolitan, March 1, 1836.

  39.7. Anna read about the respite: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 961.

  39.8. “Respected Mistress,” he began: Letter, Arthur Bowen to AMT, February 27, 1836, William Thornton Papers. Microfilm Roll 3.

  39.9. “Well written and worded”: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 961.

  39.10. “This tempering of justice with mercy”: Metropolitan, February 27, 1836.

  PART VI: A DARK AND MYSTERIOUS PROVIDENCE

  Chapter 40

  40.1. “Oysters from Deep Creek”: Advertisement for National Eating House, National Intelligencer, March 25, 1836.

  40.2. “No! Positively no!”: Delaplaine, Life and Times, 410.

  40.3. “the only one under the government”: Letter, RBT to AJ, AJP, roll 4CK, 19476.

  40.4. Two weeks later: According to the Office of the Curator, Taney presented his commission and the documentation that he had taken the oath of office to the clerk of the Supreme Court in August 1836. E-mail from the Public Information Office, Supreme Court, February 18, 2011.

  40.5. Key resumed his busy life: Docket Book, vol. 75, RG 21, entry 6, Case Papers, box 556, March Term 1936, Criminal Appearances, Case Papers 1802–1863, box 556, March Term 1836, Criminal Appearance.

  40.6. he won a guilty verdict: Minutes of the District Court, 1834–36, M 1021, roll 3.

 
; 40.7. the jury returned a split verdict: Cranch, Reports on Cases, 680.

  40.8. “No voluntary association”: Ibid., 680–81.

  Chapter 41

  41.1. U.S. v. Reuben Crandall began: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 964.

  41.2. he hoped to defeat: Neil S. Kramer, “The Trial of Reuben Crandall,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society 50 (1980), 123.

  41.3. “quite pale”: Metropolitan, April 18, 1836.

  41.4. He read the five counts: TRC-NY, 3; TRC-DC, 5–8.

  41.5. Coxe was forty-three: Coxe’s legal career is summarized in an obituary published in the Evening Star, April 28, 1865.

  41.6. “I differ from”: TRC-NY, 7.

  41.7. “he listens to the discussion”: Metropolitan, April 18, 1836.

  41.8. “a correct man in all his habits”: TRC-DC, 22.

  41.9. “a very steady man”: TRC-DC, 23.

  41.10. Judges Cranch and Thruston laughed: TRC-NY, 30.

  41.11. testimony from Ralsaman Austin: TRC-DC, 34; TRC-NY, 36.

  41.12. “to show their independence”: Charleston Courier, reprinted in the Telegraph, May 5, 1836.

  41.13. A New York correspondent: Article from Hudson News Rooms, reprinted in The New York Herald, April 19, 1836.

  41.14. “The evidence for the prosecution”: Crandall’s letter is quoted in Rena Keith Clisby, “Canterbury Pilgrims,” an unpublished thirty-seven-page manuscript dated 1947, Prudence Crandall Museum, 20.

  Chapter 42

  42.1. Never, he said: TRC-DC, 41; TRC-NY, 50. This chapter relies primarily on the New York transcript, incorporating some passages from the Washington transcript.

  42.2. “On the other hand”: TRC-NY, 50–53.

  42.3. “It is, gentlemen, preposterous”: TRC-NY, 59–60.

  42.4. It was half past five o’clock: Metropolitan, April 27, 1836

  42.5. thirteen Fahrenheit degrees: AMT Diary, vol. 2, 966.

  42.6. “I consider this one”: TRC-DC, 46; I have also incorporated some language from Key’s version of his summation as presented in the African Repository and Colonial Journal (1825–1849) (November 1836), 12, 11; American Periodicals Series Online, 339.