The Blackest Bird Page 6

  “On the morning of Friday, September 17, 1841,” Colt began, “my publisher, Mr. Samuel Adams, called at my home on the north side of Washington Square, telling my manservant, Dillback, he had something most urgent to discuss with me. At the time, according to Dillback, he was told most politely I was still asleep.

  “Mr. Adams asked if I could not be awakened,” Colt continued. “Dillback, who is an Englishman and beyond scrutiny, replied that I could not.

  “Mr. Adams then requested paper and pen, sat down at the hall writing desk, and wrote a short note to me. He requested if I might not be given it as soon as I awakened. Then he bid good day and left.”

  AGED TWENTY-SIX, John Colt was scion to the Colt armament business, the youngest of three brothers; his eldest brother being Samuel, the patriarch of the family and inventor of the Colt Paterson repeating revolver.

  Young John, however, was not part of his brother’s firearm business. He aspired instead to the literary life and to literary fame.

  His course?

  Whatever means necessary, according to some detractors, including Olga Hays, who knew him vaguely as a hanger-on at Harper Brothers, and so informed her father.

  Artistic considerations were said to be of little concern to young John. His first published work was a treatise on decorative handwriting. His second, a discussion of accounts.

  But this new book was different. “A collection of poetry,” Colt happily explained to anyone who would listen.

  For the pleasure of seeing his latest typeset, Colt had made financial arrangement with Mr. Adams in order for him to print the thin volume. And, indeed, the purpose of Mr. Adams’ visit that morning of the crime pertained to that very agreement, and certain accounts still outstanding for Adams’ printing and publishing services rendered.

  Of only slightly less consideration to the money owed apparently was the quality and craft of Mr. Colt’s work. Evidently, in printer Adams’ estimation, the author’s poetical dabbling contained no meritable quality, and no craft. In no uncertain terms, Adams questioned the mettle of the poet, the honesty, integrity, and frankly, when a poem showed promise, the very authorship. Word had reached Adams that the best poems signed “Colt” were actually penned by the critic and poet Edgar Poe, commissioned for pennies from the rightful author owing to that man’s purported financial difficulties. Adams had apparently lent ear to rumors of scandal. He had heard Poe might even now be revoking his arrangement, decrying Colt for plagiarizing his work, and planning an exposé in the public prints.

  Colt rose daily at midday. His coffee and an Anderson aromatic segar in light green wrapper were brought to him in bed each noon along with that morning’s newspapers and a single red rose in a glass vase.

  Adams’ note, sealed in an envelope smudged with black, inky fingerprints, was tucked under the linen napkin. Looking at it, Colt first took a sip of coffee before slitting the envelope.

  He read the note and jumped up, spilling both coffee and vase.

  Crying for Dillback, the manservant, he demanded his horse and carriage be readied immediately. He dressed and ran from his home into the street even as his mistress, Caroline Henshaw, tried to calm him.

  His carriage pulled up, but apparently Colt now had second thoughts.

  “Mayhem may very well have been at play on my mind,” he admitted in writing, “because I now declined to enter the vehicle. Instead, I dismissed coach and driver and headed east on foot from my home, skirting Washington Square before cutting south on the Broadway, with every intention of confronting Mr. Adams at his printing house offices on Nassau Street. Halfway downtown, however, I thought better of it, and again altered my plans.”

  Colt maintained a second-floor office and studio at the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway. He now repaired there, and was sitting at his desk when, some hours later, Adams burst in, very much flushed with excitement and the exertion of running up the stairs. The irksome printer rushed across the room and waved his bill for services directly in Colt’s face.

  Colt said he pushed him away, demanding, “What is the meaning of this?”

  Adams shouted he wanted his money. He then plunged into what Colt called a spew of “gossipy gibberish,” slanders he had apparently heard from certain well-oiled lips, such as that Edgar Poe was the rightful author of more than a few of the poems included in Colt’s prospective book, and not he, Colt. A lawsuit had been threatened, and Adams shouted he wanted no part of it.

  Colt admitted in writing the charge made him somewhat nervous, knowing the temperament of Poe. Yet he claimed all the verses were his, that if anything, Poe was an admirer, and that all charges were ridiculous, the result of petty jealousies.

  “Pay me or I’ll expose you!” Adams threatened. He drew out an example of work considered suspect, slammed it hard on the desk, and shoved it across to Colt. Colt lowered his eyes in order to read. The bit of doggerel had appeared unsigned in an 1841 volume of the Police Gazette, but Colt claimed authorship.

  In this Christian age,

  ’Tis strange, you’ll engage

  When everyone’s doing high crimes to assuage,

  That the direst offenses continue to rage;

  That fibbing and fobbing

  And thieving and robbing,

  The foulest maltreating,

  And forging and lifting,

  And wickedly shifting

  The goods that belong to another away,

  Are the dark misdemeanors of every day.

  And then too, the scrapes of seductions and rapes,

  And the foulest of crimes in the foulest of shapes.

  Colt claimed he was nothing less than abashed.

  “Have you lost your mind, man?” he swore he cried at Adams. “This is mine by all that lives and breathes. I wrote it.”

  “I think not!” Adams countered, according to Colt. “And even if it is yours, I tell you I want my money! What you call your work is nothing more than the tragic waste of an innocent tree of the forest!”

  Colt said he chose to remain calm in the face of this humiliation. With no gentlemanly course save to stand up straight, take the high road, as it were, and protest no more, he said he deemed to defend oneself against such slur unseemly.

  Still Adams refused to back down or apologize in any shape, manner, or form, the printer finally stating without further equivocation, reiterating, that he would not, under any circumstances, print the work he had previously contracted, referring to it now with utter deprecation as “work of this genre and quality.”

  “What genre and quality is that, sir?” Colt, by his own admission, raged.

  “Nebulous genre. Lewd, melodramatic, exceedingly poor quality,” shot back Adams. “Does that encapsulate it for you, sir?”

  Colt said he reluctantly resigned himself to Adams’ disparaging and mocking onslaught. He claimed again to having attempted reason with Adams, assuring this man that some of the foremost literary talents of the day admired his work. He again mentioned Poe specifically, saying, even as they spoke, the poet and critic was petitioning the Reverend Rufus Griswold, literary editor of Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, for his inclusion in his forthcoming definitive tome, The Poets and Poetry of America.

  Adams, Colt said, laughed in his face.

  “From here one thing led to another in rapid succession,” he further admitted, as angry sentiments, including the phrase “You lie!” were exchanged.

  Before he knew it, Colt further submitted, words finally came to blows. With no further provocation or warning, Adams was suddenly on him, the printer in an irrational state.

  In his own defense, Colt said, once physically drawn into the melee, he did not believe he could properly protect himself. He quickly came to realize he was at serious disadvantage and without proper weapon. He emphasized that day he was not carrying one of his brother’s revolvers, nor did he keep one in his offices. Moreover, he wrote in his confession, his weaponless state lent credence to the fact that he had no
t sought, nor anticipated, trouble of any kind when he left his home earlier that afternoon.

  Nevertheless, Colt conceded that after several slight blows were exchanged, he was finally provoked, and forced to take initiative. He went directly onto the “offensive” after having been on the “defensive” for what he recalled as an unspecified length of time.

  With no other choice, he now struck Adams violently with his closed fist. The men grappled with each other, and Colt was eventually shoved against the wall, his side pressed painfully into the sharp table corner.

  There was a curious two-headed tool, half hammer, half ax, on the tabletop, what, he said, is called a broad hatchet. Why it was on his desk, or even in his office, Colt said he knew not and could not remember. Still, he admitted that he immediately seized hold of this instrument and instantly struck Adams several blows to the skull with its sharp edge.

  Even after these, Adams continued to struggle. The wounded man grabbed a flowing silk kerchief, a type of ascot or stock, Colt wore around his neck, and began to twist. As it became tighter, Colt admitted, he went into a veritable frenzy. Fearing for his own life, he now struck repeatedly a cascade in and about Adams’ cranium with the tool, following these with several additional solid blows.

  Adams finally stopped struggling but Colt could not stop himself, taken up now with an admitted hysteria. He continued the barrage until a knock on the door caused him to gain hold of himself.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, Mr. Colt? You are wanted down on the receiving platform.”

  When he heard the knock on the door and his name called, Colt confessed, he was instantly startled, then taken aback, suddenly coming to his true senses in regard to the magnitude of his deed. He stole to the door, fully conscious of turning the key so as to lock it.

  He sat for a few moments, sick from what he had done and hoping no one had heard the noise of the fearful beating, sitting quietly, waiting whatever his fate may be.

  “There was vast amounts of blood on the floor,” he recalled.

  Afraid it would begin seeping down into the apothecary store below, he said, he swabbed the floor thoroughly with a towel he found hanging on a doorknob and wrung out the blood into a bucket of water that stood in the room.

  “The pail was, I should think, at that time about one-third full of water, and the blood filled at least another third surely,” he wrote in his confession.

  About this time a second knock fell on the door, to which Colt chose to pay no attention.

  “Wondering what was best to do, I remained until dusk on a seat near the window in the office,” he remembered, “gazing on the body, forlorn, a silent space of time, I admit, with horrid reflection.”

  11

  Aftermath to Murder

  The idea for the Colt revolving handgun came to John Colt’s brother, Samuel Colt, while the latter sailed on board a transoceanic liner to England. Traveling in the company of middle-born brother James, second of the three Colt brothers, Sam, the eldest, had positioned himself on the bridge, where he became entranced with the spinning of the ship’s spoked wheel. He spent the rest of the voyage carving a wooden prototype of a gun barrel capable of a similar spinning action. Upon docking at Leeds, the brothers booked immediate return passage, steaming directly back across the Atlantic to New York and their fortune.

  According to John’s written confession, later published in its entirety in a supplement edition of Bennett’s Herald, on the night of the Samuel Adams murder, his brother was booked at the City Hotel on Chatham Street near the southern edge of City Hall Park, but when he stole out of his Chambers Street office and hurried south across the park to see him, Sam was engaged in negotiations in the hotel’s reading room with two gentlemen, one a Brit, the other a Russian, and only a few words passed between the brothers.

  “I sat patiently,” John wrote, “trying to wedge a word in edgewise in an attempt to communicate my dire peril to my sibling, but to no avail. Serious money was being discussed and the terms were complicated. My brother has never gotten along well with the British, and the Russians are a total enigma to him,” John explained.

  “Exasperated by my brother’s indifference, I finally stood, made a noise in my throat, and exited the hotel, scarcely noticed. I then retired to nearby City Hall Park, where I walked a bit. A turn I enjoyed wholehearted, serving to clear my head, heart, and lungs. My thoughts, I confess, kept coming back to the horrors of the excitement that had only recently transpired, the possible trial, the public censure, the false and foul reports that would inevitably be raised.

  “I knew full well there would be those who would wish to take advantage of the nature of my situation, making the deed appear worse than it really was for the sake of a paltry pittance.

  “I knew I must somehow disengage myself from all circumstance. After wandering in the park for more than an hour, I settled on a course of action and returned to my room.

  “A crate stood in the offices, and I succeeded in stuffing Adams inside, being careful to wrap the body in canvas in order to absorb the excessive amounts of blood which was still leaking. The head, knees, and feet were still a little out, but by reaching down to the bottom of the box and pulling the body a little towards me, I readily managed to push the head and feet inside. The knees still projected somewhat, and I had to stand on them to get them down.

  “With this task accomplished, I then fit the cover to the box and nailed it shut using the same hammer/hatchet tool with which I had dealt Adams the death blow. A poetic conceit, I concede, not lost on me.

  “I then removed all clothing from the corpse to prevent identification, because my plans now included shipping the body south to New Orleans in a steamer. I therefore took the bloodied clothes, shredded them, and took them to the backyard privy, where I threw them in, together with Mr. Adams’ keys, wallet, money, pencil case, and all other incidentals.

  “Thereupon I returned to my room, cleaned up the last of the blood, took the water pail, carried it downstairs, and threw its murky contents in the street, following with several pails of fresh water from the pump opposite the outer door of the building in order to wash away the reddish brown stains.

  “After rinsing the pail, I then carried it back upstairs, returning it clean and two-thirds full of water to the room, opened the shutters as usual, drew a chair to the door, and leaned the back against the inside of the door underneath the knob as I closed it. I then locked the door with the key and went at once to the Washington Bath House on Pearl Street near Broadway.

  “On my way, quite by coincidence, I met, of all people, Edgar Poe, in the city from Philadelphia on what he said was business.

  “The man is an acquaintance,” Colt wrote, “but somewhat more than that. He was peering into a tea shop window on Ann Street. I invited him to accompany me to the bathhouse as my guest.

  “As we walked, I did my utmost to maintain my calm and hide my trepidation in light of what had only recently transpired, but eventually I did mention to my friend the claim of Adams that rumor was on the wind that he, Poe, had written the poems signed with my name, and the work, not to mention both of us, would soon be under public scrutiny.

  “To his credit, Mr. Poe dismissed such notion as ridiculous. He instead offered me his best wishes for good luck for the book’s appearance. He mentioned to me a new poem of his own, at this point a mere sketch, but for which he seemed to have great hope.”

  COLT WENT ON in his Herald confessional to claim Poe purportedly admitted the idea for the verse came directly from a line in Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge, one extolling an owl, Colt thought, which Poe had conjectured to him he might very well transform into a black bird, perhaps a crow, or raven.

  Colt admitted he could not quite remember, and had not read Dickens’ book.

  Once at the baths, Colt wrote, the two men fell back and spent the rest of the evening discussing the murder of Mary Rogers. Colt alleged they both knew this young woman from Anderson’s and shared remorse for
her fate. According to Colt, Poe confessed to him that news of Mary’s death had distressed him greatly, more so than he might have thought.

  At this point, Poe turned to him, confiding in a craving for opium. He asked if Colt knew of any person from whom such potion might be procured. Colt, invested in being immensely well-regarded among his fellows for his late night gallivants through the city’s darkest corners, what was known as “elephant hunting,” readily mentioned a retreat he knew, a place known as the Green Turtle’s, beneath the arch on Prince Street, warning Poe that the proprietress, a woman of enormous girth, was exceedingly dangerous.

  Afterwards, the men bid good night and Colt went home. He reported he lived with his mistress, as he described her: his lady love, Miss Caroline Henshaw.

  Upon his entrance into the bedchamber, Miss Henshaw awoke to ask where had he been. He said he told her he had been with a writer friend from Philadelphia, although he did not mention Poe’s name specifically.

  Colt confessed he dared not tell Miss Henshaw what had transpired earlier in the day, and pretended instead to be inspired from his meeting with the unnamed poet. He retired to his desk to write, although he said he was not able to compose a word. Eventually she became quiet and slept, her breath regulating, and only then did he follow suit, slipping into bed and, after a long period staring sight-lessly into the dark, eventually falling asleep as well.

  The next morning, having thought better of his predicament, he hired a burly man to carry the crate containing the body of Adams downstairs from the printing office. Refusing Colt’s assistance, the rough, powerful man hefted the makeshift coffin onto his back, muscling it down the stairs and into the street. Colt said he then paid the brute some twelve cents for his efforts and went off to Broadway, where he located a cartman, who would in fact be his undoing. When reward was offered for any knowledge of the whereabouts of Adams, this was the lout who came forward to tell the authorities how he had taken a suspicious oblong box from Colt’s granite building to a packet bound for New Orleans lying in the East River at the foot of Maiden Lane.