The Blackest Bird Read online

  A number of witnesses were called to attest to the character of Samuel Adams, including his clergyman, who most earnestly told a parable to the court about how one Sunday the murdered printer was moved to tears by his sermon.

  There was no talk of insanity.

  Instead, Selden, Morrill, and Emmet followed a course for self-defense. Samuel Adams was a hothead, they alleged. If John Colt had been bent on murder, he would certainly have carried with him that day one of his brother’s pistols, several of which he owned.

  The prosecution made curious response. “How do we know Samuel Adams was not in fact killed by a pistol ball to the skull?” they questioned. “The doctors who examined the corpse may have been wrong in regard to the murder weapon.”

  This unusual foray by the prosecution at first mystified the defense.

  Needing to parry the tactic, Selden called his cousin Samuel Colt to the stand. Colonel Colt approached, carrying two of his revolvers. The first was a large blue Paterson, the second a smaller pocket model.

  A thick book, it appeared to be a leather-bound and embossed copy of Barnaby Rudge, was set up at several paces and Colonel Colt asked to shoot at the volume so that it might be ascertained what kind of holes the pistol balls would make.

  He fired the larger gun. The noise of its discharge caused much shock in the gallery. But the bullet penetrated only nine pages, although dimpling twenty-four more. The second round, from the pocket pistol, made very little impression at all on the same book.

  In the gallery, James Gordon Bennett jumped to his feet and stormed from the courtroom.

  WHAT KIND OF DEMONSTRATION IS THIS?

  he cried in a hysterical extra edition that hit the streets within hours that very afternoon. “What did this little bit of theater prove, if anything?”

  The families of all three attorneys are heavy investors in Samuel Colt’s armament business, and this sham performance is nothing more than a weak attempt at publicity for Mr. Colt’s foundering business.

  Not so, denied the defense, although not refuting they were being paid for their efforts, at least in part, with stock certificates in the Colt company.

  Back and forth went the arguments in front of Judge Kent until a resolution was finally decided upon. Although the defense vigorously objected to this proposed solution as well, the judge ruled the body of Samuel Adams must be exhumed. The corpse should then be decapitated, and the head alone brought to court in order to fit the hatchet blade to the fatal wounds, once and for all making certain if the curious two-headed tool was indeed the murder weapon.

  “However painful it might be,” Judge Kent charged over the howled objections of Morrill and Emmet, “justice must be served, and the head produced.”

  The next day the coroner, Dr. Archer, sat calmly in court with the murder victim’s head in his lap until he was called to the witness stand. On request, amidst barely restrained pandemonium, he held the severed head high and exhibited to the jury that the hatchet blade fitted the wounds perfectly, proving it was indeed the offending weapon.

  John hid his eyes during this exhibition, but his fate was sealed. Throughout the course of the trial he had remained unrepentant and stoic. In his summation to the jury, the prosecutor, James Whiting, charged this was emblematic of his cold-bloodedness. In addition, Whiting made caustic reference to Colt’s immoral relation with Caroline Henshaw, the fact that they were unmarried and expecting a child in little more than a month’s time, a fact he knew would weigh heavily on the jurors’ minds.

  “God forbid I should say anything against her,” spoke Whiting in his summation. “She is about to become a mother, and if there is anyone who would pray for this man, it is she.”

  The prosecutor here fixed John Colt with an unveiled eye. “She approached his bed, he threw her from him. She knew she was not his wife, and she dared not press it. But do not blame her, do not blame this slight girl, blame the one whose heart is such that he could seduce her, and keep her in abjection. Had she been his wife, he could have poured his sorrows in her ear; she would have clung by him; she would have gone with him to his prison; she would have accompanied him even to the gallows. But he chose not to marry her. Let this be a warning to women: Let them learn not to put their earthly and eternal happiness in the keeping of such a man as this.”

  Afterwards, Judge Kent delivered his final instructions to the jury. He told the twelve that since John Colt had already confessed to killing Samuel Adams, the task they had at hand was only to decide if he was guilty of manslaughter or guilty of cold-blooded murder.

  “John Colt’s gay air,” he said, “his careless air, his coolness, the firm manner in which he walks the precipice, this must be judged exclusively to determine if it is sufficient to bring him in guilty of murder.”

  After ten hours of deliberation, the jury returned their verdict at four o’clock on a Sunday morning, the second week of February 1842.

  The decision: John C. Colt, guilty of murder.

  Even after the devastating conviction the Colt family did not lose heart. They appealed. Paraded in were hordes of prominent sycophants and accomplished citizens, called upon by the family to lend voice in support of the terrible circumstance. Publisher G. P. Putnam, two of the four Harper brothers, James Fenimore Cooper, who had only recently published to great acclaim The Last of the Mohicans, former actor and lyricist John Howard Payne (no relation to Mary Rogers’ once betrothed, Daniel Payne, the suicide), the eminent Washington Irving, city poet laureate Fitz-Greene Halleck, and Knickerbocker Magazine editor Lewis Gaylord Clark, to name but a few.

  Even the eminent Charles Dickens was enlisted from overseas to write a letter in support, which he did forthwith, anointing the murder “The Tragedy.”

  Eventually Governor William Seward himself traveled down from Albany to the Tombs to personally visit with the condemned and the Colt family, positioning himself within the green velvet shrouds of John’s death row cell, speaking in whispers with the three Colts, Samuel, James, and John.

  But in the end, after the state supreme court denied the final appeal, the governor could only apologize, wishing God’s speed to the youngest of “the formidable Colt brothers,” as he called them, because even by him, His Excellency Governor William Henry Seward of the great Empire State of New York, regrettably, nothing more could be done. The court’s sentence of death was to be enacted at 5 p.m. on November 18, 1842.

  22

  The Ponce

  While Tommy Coleman watched from his cell, the harelipped keeper keys the entry door, permitting a colored waiter, wheeling a silver cart, to pass into the corridor. The waiter stops in front of John Colt’s cell and calls through the curtain, “Suh, your luncheon is arrived,” waiting dutifully to be acknowledged and summoned inside, Colt having just returned from his period of exercise in the yard.

  The guard lifts a couple of the silver covers, gives the food underneath the once-over.

  He winks at Tommy. “Smells good enough to eat,” he grunts, and laughs, pleased with his wit.

  A man, hefty, cross-eyed, with bushy auburn muttonchops, materializes in front of Colt’s cell.

  “My time,” he announces to nobody in particular, then shouts, “Dillback, you going to let me in?”

  “Not now,” Colt’s manservant replies from within. “Find it in yourself, sir, to return after lunch.”

  “After lunch?”

  “After Mr. Colt eats.”

  For a brief moment, the hefty, cross-eyed man stands silent. But then he shrugs and backs off to Tommy Coleman’s cell.

  “Won’t you be having your meals sent in from Delmonico’s eating emporium, Master Coleman?” he quips, a hard gleam in his crossed eyes.

  “What makes you think I give a fig what a ponce does?”

  “Let me introduce myself, young man. I’m Bennett, editor of the Herald. Besides making specialty of the crime story, I pride myself on a keen nose for human interest. So said, do you, Tommy Coleman, have anything to say for you
rself, humanwise?”

  Tommy spits on the floor through the bars. The sputum splatters Bennett’s black leather shoes.

  “Just tell your fellow citizens how it feels, Tommy,” Bennett persists, unfazed by the expectorant. “Don’t hold back, laddie.”

  “Hold back what?”

  “Killed your wife, killed your daughter, didn’t we?”

  Tommy merely glowers, does not answer.

  Bennett has his notebook out. He steps forward. “Who represents you?”

  “Represents me?”

  “Your black box. Your lawyer.”

  “What do you care?”

  “Don’t be so downhearted,” Bennett scolds. “You can’t give up now. Seduce me; get me interested in your case, Tommy, the reading public. I may very well come to your defense, tell your story for you. If there’s something in it for me. My news rag, that is.”

  “What could be in it for you?”

  “Sales. Circulation. Think about it, man.”

  “Think about what?”

  “I’m telling you. Your story.”

  “My story?”

  “How you were taken up by society, taken advantage of, a poor Irish ‘yout ” from ‘the P’ernts.’ Ordinarily, no one gives a damn about a rapscallion like you. I don’t have to tell you that, young man. But I wield the power to change everything. That’s what they mean by power of the press. And that’s what’s meant by human interest. In human interest is the power to change the world.” He glances over at Colt. “It’s the great equalizer. More powerful than Sam Colt’s revolver. Everything can change.”

  Tommy looks across the corridor at Colt too. “How?”

  “I’m telling you. Don’t you listen? The power of the press. How many times do I have to say it? The written word. You can only imagine. Do you read?”

  Tommy is distracted. In Colt’s cell, Dillback is helping his master into a burnt umber lounging jacket and deerskin slippers.

  “Listen, man, you’ve got to excuse me, I have an appointment to interview Mr. Colt there. Ah, the condemned, what sadness he brings. Over there he sits to his meal. It’s his time now.”

  “They say I murdered my wife,” Tommy halfway ventures, somehow nervous at the prospect of being abandoned. “I ask you, why would I murder my wife?”

  Tommy sees Bennett is distracted himself now. “Yes, isn’t that the way of it?”

  “You want me to confess?”

  “Not right now, young man. Later.”

  Bennett recrosses to Colt’s cell, but as he does, Colt’s servant draws the curtain closed in Bennett’s face, announcing luncheon served, and Master John not to be disturbed.

  Throughout the day and every day, with the fateful date of execution so quickly approaching, long lines of journalists and gazetteers have waited their turn for audience with the condemned.

  Bennett turns back slowly from John Colt’s cell to stand once again in front of Tommy Coleman, shrugs, and says, “So, did you do the deed of which you are accused, Tommy-b’hoyo?”

  Meanwhile, cross corridor, behind the privacy of the curtain, Tommy can hear the Negro waiter proffering entrée to Colt.

  Tommy’s voice rises, indignant, in response to Bennett’s question. “No, I didn’t do what I am accused. I loved my wife, I tell ya.”

  In each cell, on each tier, heads turn, strain to hear, strain to see.

  “They say I murdered my poor little daughter.” Tommy’s voice, resounding down the cell block, assumes a higher timbre as he continues. “Why would I murder my poor little daughter? I loved her. I’ll tell you who I did murder, if you want to know. I murdered the native blackheart who did murder my wife and child. That butcher Ruby Pearl. When I came upon them he was standing over their poor dead bodies with a bloody cudgel. What was I suppose to do? I struck him down! By God, you’re right about that. I struck him down. I smote the bastard where he stood, and for that I’m not afraid to die. Let them take me out!”

  “Silence!” the voice of Old Hays cuts through the corridor. “Remember, we practice the silence system here.”

  Tommy looks from Bennett, to Hays, standing in his office door, constable’s staff in hand, to Colt’s cell.

  Bennett glances over to see if the condemned has finished with his luncheon. He apparently has not. The curtains remain drawn. Once more Bennett ambles over, stands outside the cell, calls Colt’s name.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a moment more, sir.” Dillback sticks his pale face through the curtain. “Master John is just having his aperitif.”

  “Aperitif, that’s good.” Bennett smiles cordially at the manservant, does not insist.

  Tommy watches as Bennett returns again to his cell.

  “Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!” Bennett sidles close to the bars, peers through where Tommy stands on his cot looking out the small raised barred window at the courtyard, at the scaffold reflecting in the thin, cool sunlight. Bennett speaks through the bars in a soft voice. “Don’t despair, Tommy. I’m here to help. Lend voice to your anguish. It’s my duty as a man of the press, a newspaperman of conscience. I’m an editor on public duty. All my reporting is dedicated to serving the legitimate interests of the people. My readers are entitled to know every last fact and conjecture connected with your case, and only I can provide them.”

  Without turning to look at him, Tommy makes a noise that isn’t particularly pleasant or even human.

  Across the way, the curtains are finally thrown open. Bennett turns. Master Colt and his servant’s eyes rise in unison, meeting Bennett’s before looking away.

  “Don’t worry, Tommy,” Bennett says, peering back cross-eyed into his cell. “I won’t let you escape God’s green earth without your due. There’s no justice in the world,” he adds, speaking loud enough for all on the row to hear without strain, “and that’s the truth.”

  Old Hays takes two or three steps down the corridor, cracks his staff on the stones, catches Bennett’s eye before turning back to his office.

  Bennett speaks more quietly now, more discreetly. “Men like you, Tommy,” he says, “you make your own justice.”

  “I expect nothing from nobody, and get it,” Tommy answers.

  “Remarkable how we just accept our lot in life, eh? I take my hat off to you, Tommy. I really do. You’re the real hero. And here’s the headline: Yours is the true saga of the underclass! Admirable! Admirable! The gangs of New York, the bleak morts. I am going to make a note of it right here in my notebook for future reference.”

  Tommy watches the pinch-faced fellow’s lead scratch paper.

  “Wish we had more time this go-round, Thomas,” Bennett speaks cheerfully. “I really truly do,” looking behind him at Colt. “But like I said, it’s Master John’s time which has come. You’ll get your chance, eh? We all do. Remind me, when’s your exact date?”

  “I don’t know. Not till next month, I think.”

  “Next month? Dear dark December. So soon. How time flies.” Bennett laughs unpleasantly. “Still, plenty of time left for us to do our work. No?” He squints his turned eyes.

  Excusing himself, Bennett steps once more to Colt’s cell.

  This time the curtains part fully, opening into the inner sanctum and remaining open for audience. The view Tommy has through this barred portal is, to his mind, as if attending Bowery theater, Colt’s cell the illuminated stage.

  Tommy imagines himself the audience, captive witness to all that transpires in front of him. He watches Bennett flash his broadest smile as the ponce rises to greet him. Bennett offers his hand, says something that passes for pleasantry.

  Sadly for Tommy, because the drama is just beginning, his interest kindling, nearly as soon as Bennett departs, another scribbler takes his place in front of his cell, making demand for Tommy’s attention, another in the long line of eager scribes awaiting their turn at Colt’s cell, to have a last word with him before he passes to that better place.

  This one is lean, very young, not much older than Tommy himself, w
ith cropped beard and clever, clear eyes. He situates himself—to Tommy’s annoyance—directly in his line of sight, says his name is “Whitman, Walter,” used to write for the Argus, but now employed by the Brooklyn Eagle.

  “Hoopla! Huzzah!” Tommy is not impressed.

  “You interest me,” this Whitman says, ignoring the mockery. “You’re Tommy Coleman, aren’t you, brother to Edward Coleman?”

  Tommy grunts. He does not particularly care for the looks of this Jack Sprat, and would have been perfectly content to be left alone so he could get back to his watching the bit of performance drama unfolding in front of him across the way.

  Colt and Bennett are busy spitting and cussing. Colt is having none of Bennett and won’t answer his questions, which he blasts as impertinent.

  “The newspapers!” Colt cries. “You are the true mischief-breeders. You are the unprincipled and remorseless murderers!”

  “The man’s a reptile,” Whitman says.

  Tommy looks at him. “Who?”

  “Citizen Bennett. He makes his path with slime wherever he goes. He is a midnight ghoul, preying on rottenness and everything repulsive.”

  “Is that so?”

  Tommy turns back, watches as Bennett, grabbing for his notebook, leaves in a fury. His final words to John C. Colt under his breath, unintelligible, decried in venom.

  23

  Armagnac

  Later that evening, after his master’s bath, Dillback draws the green velvet curtains back and helps his handsome charge into formal dinner wear.

  Shortly, Mr. Colt’s meal arrives on a silver cart, the same black man from Delmonico’s pushing it, a white napkin draped over his arm. Silver serving dishes cradle sliced steak, cream of tartar dressing, and asparagus hollandaise.

  While Colt eats, the door opens leading down from the Bridge of Sighs. Footsteps approach. Tombs warden Monmouth Hart hurries onto the cell block, head down, a packet of newspapers neatly folded under his arm.

  He drops one on Old Hays’ desk, continues on to stop in front of Colt’s cell.