The Memoirs of John Andrews, Part 2a - That Daguerreotype

Here is the previous entry in the series of The Memoirs of John Andrews: Part 2: Relatives and Travels


The 1853 Daguerrotype of John Andrews

I found among my things one of the daguerreotypes of John Andrews. This is not the one my aunt and I have been wanting, which we know was given by a cousin to a little museum in southern Indiana, which has since gone out of business and its holdings are who-knows-where now. This is a different one, and I think it might be the one he had done when in New York in 1853. I also found the one of his sister, Harriet!

Very excited to get these published here.

Here is the original of John, which has sadly begun to deteriorate. The color tinting is what makes me wonder whether this is really the 1853 version or a later version.

I took a picture with my DSLR camera and created a black and white image that I then worked on, pixil by pixil. I am not anything close to a professional so the enhanced version is not very good, really, but at least I think it makes him look better than with those ugly blotches on his face!

As always, you can click the pictures to see them in their original size.










Here are my two black and white versions.

Now here is Harriet Andrews. Since in this photograph she seems to be wearing a wedding ring (remember that daguerreotypes were actually mirror images of the person photographed), this makes me wonder more whether these two pictures were made later than 1853. I guess we will never know for sure!

Here is the next part of the Memoirs: Part 3, Farm Inventions, Politics, and Business

The Memoirs of John Andrews, Part 2

Here is Part 1 of the Memoirs of John Andrews.

Relatives and Travels

My father was born in Bethel town, Fairfield county, Connecticut, in the year 1786. He was the older of three brothers: himself, Anson Seeley; Seth; and John Lyman; and two sisters, Mary and Julia. On reaching maturity, he evidently in the division of the estate sold his interest in it to his brothers, taking the proceeds and after teaching school for a few terms, entered into some mercantile business in New York City.

General store of the 1820s, Shelburne Museum, Vermont

After some years in this, for reasons of his own he went west, and in the year 1818, the year that Indiana added its star to the galaxy on the grandest flag the world has ever known—he bought a small tract of land direct from the United States Government, the patent deed issued and signed by then-President of the United States [James Monroe] or his Secretary. I think he was fortunate enough to find that some squatter had cleared up a small piece as it was all timber, and certainly he had a hard job facing him; but as he was a resourceful man, he accomplished his purpose and in a few years must have been getting returns for his investment and labor. The property was situated three and one half miles from Mount Vernon on the beautiful Ohio river, at this place one mile wide.

Ohio River flatboat

Mount Vernon at that time could have been only a very small village, but by its situation commanded the market, small though it was, of a large section of the country. This county’s peculiar situation, bounded on the south by the Ohio and on the west by the Wabash, made its capitol, Mount Vernon, conspicuous as a shipping place and also as a market for the produce growing in the vicinity of these streams and their tributaries, the merchants buying from the farmers and forwarding it to seaboard by means of flatboats, before the advent of steamboats. It was then a common sight to see this mode of transportation floating down with the current, aided at times by the sweep of immense oars.

New Orleans was then, as now, the seaboard market to a vast extent of territory and it was by means of these boats that for many years the products of these lands found the way to market. But I am getting off the track, getting ahead of my story as some of this should have come in later.

Father’s farm was bounded on the east by the State road from Mount Vernon to New Harmony, quite a noted place at this time and for quite a while after, and was situated on the Wabash River some fifteen miles north of Mount Vernon. On the south it was bounded by an earth road intersecting the State road at the southeast corner of the farm. Near this corner in time a number of houses and shops were built, and of course it must have a name. As most of the people in the immediate vicinity were from the eastern states, it got to be known far and near as “Yankee Town” with a great many. This name was spoken in a sneering way, as the majority of the population throughout the county were from the southern states, except in the immediate vicinity of this settlement. Father must have soon got his farm in working order and [was] realizing fair returns from it, for in a few years he built a very nice roomy house, quite a way back from both the east and south roads.

My mother was born in Massachusetts, one of the younger of a large family of both sexes. Her name was Elizabeth Butler. She left there with an older sister and her sister’s husband, Samuel Phillips, going to New York state and teaching school there for some time, and then journeying with them—her sister and husband—to Indiana, where they settled and commenced farming on some land adjoining Father’s and were his nearest neighbors, the state road on the east of Father’s merely dividing the two properties. Thus Father and Mother could not help becoming acquainted and eventually they were married, and at once went to live in the house prepared for them. In this house I was born, and lived in it until I was united to the blessed partner of my life.

In this union of my parents my father secured a model helpmate and my mother a provident husband. In the meantime Father was improving his farm, clearing more land, and gradually investing his means in livestock: cattle, hogs, and sheep, paying particular attention to milk cows. From the latter he soon derived a profit in the making and sale of cheese. In that for a long time he had no competition. He set his price at ten cents per pound, and that price was maintained for many years and was the largest source of his income. Here is where Mother came in as his most efficient helper. She saw to the milking, until more help was needed for that, and made and cared for the cheese. As time passed and work expanded, more help had to be employed. At the age of eight I became an assistant in milking, having two cows to milk night and morning, and seeing the cows to and from the pasture in summer. In winter [we had] only milk enough for butter and home use.

Another source of income which will seem incredible in these times of high cost of living was by taking boarders at one dollar per week and that included washing also, and at that price for many years a few boarders were cared for. A few students, sometimes from a distance, paid in work nights, mornings, and Saturdays.

In 1839 he built a combined house for a dwelling and store on the southeast corner of the farm at the crossroads, and he and Mother in the spring of 1840 went to New York and Bethel, Connecticut, to visit relatives and buy goods for the store, leaving an old lady we had learned to call “Granny” in charge of the house, and a cousin, Fred Phillips, to care for the farm and stock and keep up the cheese making, etc.

They [Father and Mother] were gone three months. On their return the store was stocked up and a clerk installed. I imagine this venture did not pan out very well, as probably too much credit was given. Anyway, after perhaps two years it was given up, with a large number of notes of hand [i.e., I.O.U.s from the neighbors] as the assets. As there was but little money to pay with, Father had to put his wits to work in order to get his due. Here is where his resourcefulness came in. Employing some in clearing up land and cutting wood, others in the different processes of making bricks, in building and burning the brick kiln, and after in building a brick basement barn, a brick annex to the house, and other jobs as they occurred, in this way in the course of two or three years he “cleared up the docket” and added much to the convenience and value of the farm.

House built later on the foundation of the 1839 house built by Anson Seeley Andrews. Photograph by Ernest John Andrews, October 1927.

Rear view of the red brick barn built on Anson Seeley Andrews’ farm in 1844 using bricks made in his own kiln. The barn was located about 200 feet west of the old home. Photograph by Ernest John Andrews, October 1927.


Up to 1850, although a triweekly mail by stage coach passed from Mount Vernon to Princeton 40 miles north, we received our mail at Mount Vernon. There was a common query—Why not try for a post office here?—and there was a decided movement in that direction. First a name and after various suggestions it was generally conceded that Farmersville was the most appropriate, and with that name we applied to the P.O. Department for an office, and after some correspondence and delay the demand was granted and Joseph Phillips was appointed Post Master. For a time he received and distributed the mail from his house. On account of his moving away, another was appointed and office removed to the store.

The store at this time was successfully operating on a cooperate plan which had been discussed and thoroughly worked out by Father and Eben Ellis, and soon quite a number in the vicinity took an interest and stock in the concern. Both the store and P.O. proved successful for a number of years.

In 1851 my sister Harriet and I went to New York and Connecticut. I had once been to Louisville by boat for a few days, but with that exception, we had never been away from home any distance. Our journey was made by boat from Cincinnati, thence to Cleveland by R.R. on the first cars we had ever seen, then by boat to Erie, cars to Buffalo, stopping off then to visit Niagara Falls, then to Albany, and down the Hudson River R.R. to New York, and Brooklyn, where we met for the first time some of our cousins, Mrs. May Taylor and her sister Miss Harriet Osborn. They were sisters of A.S. Osborn who had come west some years before, and had a farm adjoining ours on the south.

After some days there we went to Bethel, Connecticut, cousin Harriet accompanying us. We found there a host of relatives, near and distant, two brothers of Father, Seth and John Lyman and their families, and here we spent several pleasant weeks, seeing Danbury, Bridgeport, and New Haven, in each of these places finding relatives. Around here were many small factories, mostly hat and comb, and some quite extensive ones in large industries. Here for the first time we saw pictures taken by the then-recent process of Daguerre, and of course we had to sit for ours. It was a long ways from the instantaneous process of the present. [See an article on daguerreotype here.]

Returning to New York and Brooklyn, we were helped in sightseeing by some of our business relatives, Mr. Taylor, Mary Osborne’s husband, who had a hat store on Broadway, another cousin Andrews who dealt in clothing, etc., also on Broadway, and Samuel And]rews who, although a graduate of Yale College, and the only one of my kindred that I heard of who did, drove a dray to support his family , and perhaps he was more successful than his brothers. Those, Samuel, Anson, and a younger brother, were sons of John Lyman Andrews. Years after I met Anson at a small town in Peoria County, Illinois, not far from Galesburg, interested in some railroad work and farming. There was two sisters; the elder, Harriet, married a Universalist preacher, S.C. Buckley. She died a few years later and then Hannah married the same man and lived in Galesburg. I spent one day with them in 1886 and have never heard from them since. [A dray was a low, flatbed wagon without sides, pulled by mules or draft horses, for the transport of all kinds of goods. A drayman was a very low-skilled laborer.]

While [we were] in New York, a World’s Fair was in progress, the second one of that kind I think that had ever been promoted. The year previous, London, England, had a fair. It was held in a very large building almost entirely covered with glass, and was called the Crystal Palace, and the New York building was a replica of that. In one building there was a great many things on exhibition that were new to me, interesting and useful. The typewriter was a novelty and a wonder to most everyone, sewing machines and other household appliances, agricultural machinery in variety, such as plows, cultivators, mowing machines, reapers, etc. [The London Exhibition was in 1851; the New York in 1853. He was probably mistaken in remembering the exact year he and Harriet went east.]

A very early typewriting machine

Having wandered somewhat will now bid good-bye to our eastern relatives and to New York sightseeing, and take the homeward trail. We go by boat to Philadelphia, and after [a] short stop on to Washington. After being satisfied with sightseeing there, we take the cars for Wheeling, nearly the limits of navigation on the Ohio River, and at this, our last change, we take a boat for Mount Vernon. After a pleasant ride down that grand river, in due time, after a three months’ absence, we gladly reach home and find all well.

A steamboat on the Ohio River at Cincinnati being loaded

Here is a little post of the daguerreotypes that I found!
And here is Part 3, Farm Inventions, Politics, and Business.

The Memoirs of John Andrews, Part 1

I inherited a typescript of the following memoirs written by my great-great grandfather at the request of one of his sons about 1920. John Andrews was born 1 April 1831 near what came to be known as Farmersville, Posey County, Indiana. He lived until 1922, dying at the age of 91 with a clear mind. His memory is remarkable and the details of his early life quite interesting to anyone who is interested in folk history. In transcribing the typescript, I changed punctuation and added words marked with square brackets. I also decided to put notes in square brackets where explanation might be helpful. Here is his story.
*****

School Days, 1835 to 1850

Procrastination is one of my sins. Had I commenced this memoir when my hand was steady, my eyes clear, and brain active, it is possible I could have made it interesting to those who desire to read it, and surely it would have been more pleasant to write it.

Folk portrait of sister and brother in 1840

I was born on the first day of April 1831. My sister Harriet was born some 19 months later. An older sister had passed away before or soon after my birth. My sister [Harriet] was afflicted with some trouble pertaining to female childhood, I know not what, and Father had a little wagon made, and a maid in Mother’s employ was accustomed to pull her about in it, and my first distinct memory was accompanying [them], trudging along beside. I was probably between three and four years old.

[John’s sister Ann was 20 months old when John was born and nearly 3 when she died 17 July 1832. Harriet was 18 months younger than John. Brother Seth was born when John was a month shy of 6 years old. The family lived in Posey County, at the southern tip of Indiana.]

I have no memory when I learned to read or when I first went to school, but it was surely long before a child would be enrolled as a scholar now. But I have a distinct memory of my first school and of some incidents that occurred there, and of my first teacher. I was perhaps between four or five years; the school house was heated by a large open stove. A lot of the little fellows like myself sitting around it dangling our feet from backless benches, when one day the teacher called me out and with a flat ruler in his hand took one of my hands and gave me three spats in my palm, the only time I was ever chastised in school. Why he did it, I never knew, some boyish squabble perhaps. I was too spunky to cry but turned with a smile to my grinning companions.

After two years this teacher, whose name was Felsch, left, [and] another took his place. This was many years before free schools came; the county was divided into districts with trustees to employ teachers and see to other necessary details. Often it would be only for three months. That was a term and sometimes that was the limit for school that year. If the teacher gave satisfaction he would be retained longer. Parents or guardians paid a stipulated price for each scholar enrolled. Thus my schooling went on until I was nine years old, except what Father and Mother taught me in the meantime. About this time my sister had fully regained her health, and having an active mind, our study in some branches was the same in after years. Father had taught me English grammar and I never studied it in school. In fact some of my early teachers could teach only reading, writing, and spelling.

In my sixth year Father became guardian to a cousin, Clark Butler, 4 years my senior, and after a few years we pursued the same studies together.

When I was nine years old we had a teacher for two or three terms who apparently found it necessary to instill knowledge into our youthful brains by the application of long hickory switches to wake up our dullard minds, and there were some who often felt its tingling over their shoulders. Whether it was that I was smarter than some of those who quite often had a taste of the gad, it never fell on me, but an occasional twist of the ears was the extent of my punishment.

One of the duties of the teachers in those days was to convert goose quills into pens and keep them in repair until worn out and exchanged. It is likely that the Declaration of Independence was written with the quill and perhaps also the Constitution was thus transcribed, and would it not be in harmony and justly so if the emancipation of four million slaves accomplished by the pen of Abe Lincoln, had been written by this agency? But this is perhaps a vain hope as metallic pens had then taken the place in the march of progress of the feathery quill. It is said that the cackling of geese once saved Rome. So the goose has played its part in human progress. This is wandering, yet sometimes it is pleasant to step aside from the main line and cull a flower from the fragrant bloom by the roadside.

An incident during this term of school that likely, subconsciously at least, had quite an influence on my life—in the study of arithmetic I had reached vulgar fractions and a problem soon appeared that at first appeared beyond my ability to solve. After some effort to do so I sought the aid of the teacher. Whether he would not or could not explain it I do not know. He had a key—a duplicate of the arithmetic with the examples explained—and probably this one was not included. Anyway after several attempts failed to get help, I determined myself to solve it. I worked at it for one week, and behold it was accomplished. Fractions had no more terrors for me.

This teacher was sued by the father of one of the boys he had severely thrashed and was fined one cent. Soon after that a school meeting was called and it proved a stormy one, and that night the school house burned down, whether by accident or design was not known.

After the burning of the school house, school was kept for a while in a vacant house on our farm and later in a church nearby. But conditions did not suit Father and soon after the fiasco, he took my cousin Clark and me to a school in Mount Vernon. It was several years before we attended the home school again. It was now 1841, I was ten years old. We found the school in Mount Vernon on our advent there kept in an old one room building packed full of scholars, but room was made for us. The first day was an epoch in my life—everyone but Clark perfect strangers, as was the teacher. Our studies were designated and no doubt we “Country Jakes” had the benefit of many sinister smiles and whispered jibes. The day passed. Just as the sun was preparing to don his night robes I was called up and given an example to demonstrate on the black board. It was my first appearance before that august body and my futile attempt to erase an example with my hand raised a snicker. That put the “ginger” in me. I found the sponge, cleared the board and my example soon took the place of the one obliterated. Soon school was dismissed. Darkness was stealing over the earth, and we had 3½ miles to foot it home.

Clark and I soon got in the stride and nervousness soon wore off in school, and on the playground we were accepted as good fellows.

Our teacher here was a well-educated man and as Father wished us to take Latin as one of our studies, soon we were conjugating amo and declining penna through its alternating changes from nominative to ablative. In addition we had geometry hitched on to our arithmetic. As we were put in classes we were behind in some of them and it was hard to catch up.

When we entered this school the town was building a brick two story house which they called “The Seminary,” and as soon as it was finished we moved from our crowded room to a commodious one on the second floor of this building. The Seminary was situated on rising ground on the northern end of the town which shortened our daily walk one-half mile each way. The school room was a fine one, fitted up with seats and desks for two, and heated in winter by a fireplace in one end and a stove in the middle. There was a small recitation room that was used also for storing our wraps, etc. The morning session commenced with reading by turns a chapter in the Bible and prayer by the teacher.

Original Mount Vernon Seminary, 204 F Street, NW

It was the winter term of 1841 that we entered there. It was the boys’ job to sweep, make fires, etc. in turn. In winter Clark and I had to be on the road by seven o’clock, and when our turn came to sweep and fire up, we had to start earlier, and after reaching the building one of us had to go one-half mile to get the key. In the short days of winter the stars would be showing, but if it were not raining a short hour would bring us home to a glorious feast of rich corn bread that Mother knew well how to make, baked in a skillet before the open fire, covered with a lid and red hot coals raked out from a generous fire on top, and underneath. When we reached home wet to the skin, as sometimes we did, that corn bread and a rich bowl of milk made a feast for the gods. This was before the advent of the cook stove. There was a large oven built at the side of the large fire place that Mother used for white bread, pastry, etc.

The teacher here was named Knap. A part of the routine of school work was declamation and composition on alternate Friday afternoons. The boys had to go up on the elevated stand, face the audience and deliver an oration. This at first was a fearful experience, but I soon got so that I enjoyed the situation. The girls as well as boys had to hand in compositions for correction.

Winter passed, spring and summer came and went once, twice, and a new teacher named Collins was installed with his wife as assistant. I turned 14 in 1845. This year sister Harriet was taken out of the home school and went with us to Mount Vernon during summer. We all rode back and forth in a buggy, and after that Harriet and a cousin named Sophronia Phillips (an aunt of Flora) who had lived with us for some time were boarded near the school.

Having now reached the age to help on the farm my studies through the summer were much broken up.

Schoolhouse in Farmersville, sketch by Anne Doane

In the meantime a new schoolhouse was built on the site of the burned one in Farmersville, and fitted with seats and desks, it was a great improvement over the old arrangement. Having secured the services of Mr. Welche for the new school, we never returned to Mount Vernon.

In 1846 the war with Mexico began and a number of my acquaintances volunteered and went, but all of them that I knew except one, who died there, returned. The organizing of a company and a regiment in Mt. Vernon made quite a stir. I do not know that this regiment ever was in battle, but the second in command, Alvin P. Hovey, was afterwards made Brigadier General under Grant at Vicksburg, and afterwards he was Governor of Indiana. He was a native of Posey County. [More information about Posey County military matters and Alvin P. Hovey can be found at this website.]

I was 16 now—I worked on the farm summers and went to school in winter.

This fall we had a new teacher by the name of P.K. Dibbler, and in one respect he was the best I ever had—and he had a crowded school. Quite a number of pupils from a distance took advantage of the opportunity as it was better than they could get at home, although they had to pay extra. He was also a preacher. His salary of 400 dollars was considerably increased by his preaching and outside students. He was an athlete and enjoyed the playground as much as the boys, and this added to his favor with most of the boys. But there was always carping then, and before his time expired there was trouble. He was accused of partiality by some and a hot fight—verbal—took place. As a result, at the end of his second term he quit teaching and went into other business.

Yet there was an episode in this last term perhaps worth recording. The schoolhouse was on a large corner lot and as the national holiday was near at hand, it was decided to have a celebration. The house had two front doors, one for the boys and one for the girls, and in front we built a stage, and with a bolt of domestic [a length of cotton cloth] we made a large awning, and in front we arranged tables and prepared eatables. After some songs by Clark, who was a good singer, I was called on to read the immortal Declaration, and then Mr. Dibbler gave a patriotic address. We enjoyed the feast. The platform in front was for staging a play at night. The house doors behind made a convenient dressing and retiring room. I do not remember what the play was, but we had to have a darky [a common term then that we do not endorse now] and we had a good substitute in one of the boys, and a few girls were included. A number of my old schoolmates from the Mt. Vernon school came out, and as the patriotic fever increased some were induced to declaim their former school orations.

On the whole it was a success and well done. This ended Mr. Dibbler’s term, but he was followed by another well-educated man, by name Murry, and I passed the next winter in school attending two terms of three months each.

About this time, 1848, the discovery of gold in California became for a time the absorbing topic, and in the following year the gold fever raged all over the land, as bad as the late epidemic of flu—a very poor comparison. [He was writing this just after the 1918 influenza pandemic.] A company was organized at Farmersville and some others in the county. Ox and mule teams were secured, large wagons prepared and in due time joined the long trail across the plains. Six months passed ere they reached the gold mines. Many of the animals died, and on the whole not a few of the men and women. A sad ending to many.

A few months later quite a large company went via Panama and were becalmed at Acapulco for several months, but they reached the end after five months. Many were financed, the option a divide of one half of the proceeds. Generally they secured enough to pay expenses and some over, but very few made any very rich strikes. Some returned after two or three years, others made California their home. In another place some of the gold digging will be specialized.

In 1850 a Mr. Howard, a highly educated man, found his way to Farmersville. He had a wife and 10 year old boy. He bought a large lot on which was a very nice cottage and a large shop. But all his life he had been a scholar and a teacher, with an intimate knowledge of Latin and Greek. He was as ignorant of the proper application of labor to get results from either land or machines. They brought all the way from England a lot of tools where better could have been had here. I helped him some in his planting, his little haying, etc. He had a horse that had not been used much and I think he had never graduated in horse handling as there is no doubt he had in Greek. In the fall of 1850 he was hired to teach the winter school, and that was a job he was surely able to do. He was a scholar, an expert in many branches, a wonderful penman, and in drawing, the picture of any article in view came out at the end of his pencil.

One bright winter morning soon after school opening, a girl came in with a bright smile and elastic step and seated herself by my sister Harriet. I was soon attracted by her handsome appearance, the bright eyes illuminating a very intelligent countenance. At the time I thought her to be some fifteen or sixteen years old, but long years after that I found out she had outstripped her age by several years in height. [The girl was just 10 years old at the time.] After a while I became interested in and inquired her name and obtained it from my seat mate. I also noticed that Mr. Howard was soon attracted to her, giving especial attention that looked very much like partiality. One of the studies she essayed as well as some of the rest of us was drawing. I do not think any of us would ever have produced or created any remarkable result in that direction, but from opportunity to see some of her work afterwards, I am very sure she would never have been able to astound the world with any artistic delineation, and would say here that none of the rest of us would have achieved immortality in that line and for that matter in any other.

What was the attraction that led Mr. Howard from London to Indiana I never knew. He seemed very satisfied with the change and cheerfully accepted the conditions he encountered. He and Father were congenial and often met in social intercourse. He taught but one term there but in the fall following he secured a situation in a military school in Kentucky and soon after left for that purpose. Some correspondence was kept up for a time but afterwards he was changed from the Kentucky Academy to Washington, and now we will bid him good-bye. We heard of him quite often for some time.

By this time I had learned [that] the name of the young miss specialized was Mirinda Piper and that her father was a Baptist minister who I had heard a number of times. He had a circle of churches in his charge, visiting each monthly with two day services Saturday and Sunday. Here I will note what will seem odd, especially in the cities—that the country churches then had two front doors and one back door, and as the congregation arrived, the men entered one door and women the other and took seats apart. In case one wished to leave, as was often the case in the prolonged service, they had the back door by which to escape without disturbing the audience. About the time referred to, Mr. Piper’s congregation, through his supervision, built quite a large building for that time and fashioned as above specified.

The interest Mirinda had aroused in my mind continued, and in later years continued in a union of interests via marriage, and for more than sixty years through sunshine and storm, we have happily passed. We have been blessed with three noble boys, two of whom now minister to our wants and comforts.

Here is Part 2 of the Memoirs of John Andrews.

The Clues to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha Christie’s tour de force The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has been acclaimed since its 1926 publication for its ingenious way of concealing the criminal while laying every single obvious clue out on the table for the reader to consider, and if as ingenious as the author, to interpret rightly to identify the killer. That most readers fail to do so is a testament to her skill.

If you have not read the book, you might not want to spoil it by reading this essay. The book really is a gauntlet thrown down to all readers who think they are clever, to ask them to behave with honesty and read without peeking, without looking anything up, without doing anything but considering the clues in the text of the novel as the author meant them to be seen, and to figure everything out before the end of the novel.

I did not figure it out until nearly the end, but in rereading the novel lately, I discovered to my chagrin that everything I needed to know was given me as early as chapter 4, when the murder actually occurs. Here’s what I thought were the telling clues.

In chapter 1, Dr. Sheppard and his sister Caroline discuss the death of Mrs. Ferrars. Caroline is introduced disparagingly as an unregenerate snoop, in terms that immediately seek to engage the sympathy of the reader against her as a reliable witness. The doctor is given the sympathetic treatment, narrating in the first person, but a curious pattern emerges from their interchange. Dr. Sheppard says, “I have got into the habit of continually withholding all information possible from my sister,” a statement we should immediately consider carefully as we should notice when they have finished their conversation that he has told us nothing but what Caroline has forced him to tell. He tries to convince us that Caroline is wrong about Mrs. Ferrars poisoning her husband before he reveals to us that Mrs. Ferrars died of an overdose of veronel, which she possibly took on purpose. He either counters or disparages all of Caroline’s statements of fact or deductions from the facts. The first four pages of the novel consist of one narrative being denied credibility by the second narrative, and astonishingly the narrator admits at the end of the chapter that the unreliable witness is likely telling the truth, but he has done his work so well that we don’t even notice his concession by that point. We feel that Caroline’s words are questionable at best. If we had read more carefully, we would know at the end of chapter 1 that the doctor is an unreliable narrator who seeks to withhold the truth from everyone, not just Caroline. But we are flattered into thinking we are in the doctor’s confidence.

During chapter 2 the doctor reveals something that will be very important shortly: “I had no cases of special interest to attend, which was, perhaps, as well . . . .” This means he was free to come and go as he chose, and that’s an important consideration when he uses the excuse of a tricky confinement coming up to explain why in chapter 4 he took his black bag to the dinner at the Ackroyd’s. From those two little statements we learn that the doctor is not above lying, perhaps telling the little white lies, but lying to cover up his true motives. We ought to be very much on our guard and suspicious of everything he says. In chapter 7 he again reiterates that he had no pressing cases—so we learn that the confinement was definitely a lie.

Also in chapter 2, there’s an important syntactical clue. In discussing Mrs. Ferrars, he says, “When had I last seen her? Not for over a week. Her manner then had been normal enough considering—well considering everything.” That dash. The repetition of “considering.” The vague and tantalizing word “everything.” This is a huge clue that the doctor is hiding very significant pieces of information from us as well as from Caroline. As the doctor of the woman who just died, he is the one person who could have been expected to know for certain what the woman died of, how she possibly took the drug, and should have been able to guess why if he didn’t actually know already.

Chapter 3 introduces Hercule Poirot to the cast of characters of this novel. It’s a comic presentation, with Poirot angrily throwing a vegetable marrow [a zucchini squash to those in the U.S.] over the fence and nearly hitting the doctor, and the subsequent scene highlighting Poirot’s comic idiosyncrasies. It has the effect of mitigating the mass of important information we should have been analyzing in the first two chapters. It’s a masterful distraction in the hands of a master at sleight-of-hand. And it includes a very important clue to the doctor’s motivation. He says he received a legacy about a year ago and that he lost it in financial speculation of a type that Poirot associates with his gullible friend Hastings. We don’t see any other evidence of the doctor’s character flaw except this—his confession that he is greedy. The reference to Captain Hastings is another distraction from the point. We think fondly of Hastings and fail to consider that this Dr. Sheppard could be badly greedy, not comically gullible.

Had we not been so easily distracted, when in chapter 4 Roger Ackroyd reveals to Dr. Sheppard that Mrs. Ferrars was being blackmailed by someone close by, we might have wondered about Dr. Sheppard’s “legacy” and greed. We might have wondered about his grudging admission that Caroline was right about most things, including that Mrs. Ferrars poisoned her husband and then committed suicide because of it. We might have realized that if he had been holding back vital information from us, why wouldn’t he hold it back from Roger Ackroyd? We might have realized that the most logical person to be in the position to blackmail Mrs. Ferrars was the doctor himself.

And then we might have wondered about the clever omission the doctor practices in chapter 4: “The letter had been brought in at twenty minutes to nine. It was just on ten minutes to nine when I left him, the letter still unread. I hesitated with my hand on the door handle, looking back and wondering if there was anything I had left undone. I could think of nothing. With a shake of the head I passed out and closed the door behind me.” Not only does he pass over how he left Roger Ackroyd, he provides a subtle clue by changing from active voice to passive and back to active again when the dangerous part has been described in vague terms. In addition, he should have been using the subjunctive mood for his wonder, but he uses the indicative instead. Is this another clue that what happened was something not in the realms of the subjunctive, but of deadly reality? I think we can take it as fact.

The next number of chapters expand all the red herrings to full size and obscure our views of what occurred.

In case we have been confused, in chapter 17 Agatha Christie clearly has Poirot answer Caroline Sheppard’s assertion that her brother James is fundamentally a weak person with a complete summary of the case for James being the murderer. Most readers have by this time been blinded by the Ralph Paton red herring and think that Poirot is talking about Ralph. But here is what Poirot proposes to the siblings:

“Let us take a man—a very ordinary man. A man with no idea of murder in his heart. There is in him somewhere a strain of weakness—deep down. It has so far never been called into play. Perhaps it never will be—and if so he will go to his grave honored and respected by every one. But let us suppose that something occurs. He is in difficulties—or perhaps not that even. He may stumble by accident on a secret—a secret involving life or death to some one. And his first impulse will be to speak out—to do his duty as an honest citizen. And then the strain of weakness tells. Here is a chance of money—a great amount of money. He wants money—he desires it—and it is so easy. He has to do nothing for it—just keep silence. That is the beginning. The desire for money grows. He must have more—and more! He is intoxicated by the gold mine which has opened at his feet. He becomes greedy. And in his greed he overreaches himself. One can press a man as far as one likes—but with a woman one must not press too far. . . . . And so there came your proverb, the death of the goose that laid the golden eggs. But that is not the end. Exposure faced the man of whom we are speaking. And he is not the same man he was—say, a year ago. His moral fiber is blunted. He is desperate. He is fighting a losing battle, and he is prepared to take any means that come to his hand, for exposure means ruin to him. And so—the dagger strikes!”

Finally, if we still have been blinded by all the subterfuge in the masterful organization and power of language of the great mystery author, she gives us a conclusive clue before Poirot convenes all the suspects. In chapter 23 when he tells Caroline and James that he knows who did the deed, he refuses to allow Caroline to come to his house to see him unmask the killer. He gives the clumsy excuse that the killer will be there, and he does not want her to see—but he allows many other innocent people to come too. The only possible reason for excluding Caroline is that Poirot mercifully does not want her to have to find out about her brother that way. Meanwhile, in James Sheppard’s cruel style, he compares his sister standing on the doorstep watching them go to a dog that has been denied a walk. If we ever felt sympathy for him, we should have stopped at last at that sentence.

These clues presented to us by the novelist create a much different line of logical deduction than that presented by Hercule Poirot in chapters 25 and 26 when he explains how he figured things out. He targets the time difference in James Sheppard’s narrative as being his first solid clue. Dr. Sheppard said that he left the Ackroyd house at exactly 9, hearing the church clock strike. But then he took a full ten minutes to walk a distance that could be covered in two or three minutes easily. From that discrepancy, Poirot notes that two facts contain the key to the identity of the murderer: the fact that there was a telephone call to the doctor to tell him of the death of Roger Ackroyd, and the fact that the high-backed grandfather chair had been pulled out from the wall to obscure the table by the window in the study where Roger Ackroyd died, and nobody confessed to moving it out or moving it back in place.

Putting those facts together with the knowledge that Dr. Sheppard visited Ralph Paton twice, that Ralph Paton turned out to be married to the parlor maid Ursula Bourne, that Flora Ackroyd never entered the study, and that a salesman offered a dictaphone to Roger Ackroyd recently, Poirot puts together the complete puzzle.

But did we readers get it before he presents it to us? We might have “got it” within the final three chapters. But I wonder how many readers honestly saw the light long before poor Caroline was left on that doorstep.

Mr Newel’s House, or Turn Off Your Spell Check—It’s 1745!

I found among my father’s papers a typed transcript my great-grandfather financed of a very old book of records of the proceedings of the town of New Cambridge, Connecticut, from the 1740s through the 1820s. Transcribing the typed transcript for the internet appealed to me, but it is proving to be more challenging than I thought since of course spelling was not standardized until almost a hundred years later, and the different town clerks were creative to say the least.

There are several entertaining vignettes here. One of the first things they did after breaking away from Farmington was to debate and vote again and again on hiring a minister for their “society” as they called the town. A Mr. Samuel Newell was chosen, but the protests of the minority of voting members stalled the conclusion of this matter for several years. Finally, after a number of the dissenters formally declared their allegiance to the Church of England, the matter seemed settled. Here is part of what they contracted with Mr. Newell after he had accepted the job.
***********************

We the subscribers ebnezer hamblin leu sam^ll gaylord ens edward gaylord being inhabitants of new Cambridge the fourth sosiaty of the Town of farmington and being chosen and impowrd by an act and vote of the inhabitants of new Cambridge at an ajornd meeting holden in new Cambridge above s^d on the 20 day of July Ad 1747 do? for and in the behalf of such inhabitants of s^d sosiaty as are lawful voters and have power and authority to make such contracts and agreements joynety and severelly Bind and oblige ourselves our executors administors and assigns to pay and satisfie to mr sam^ll Newel to his executors &c the ful and just sum of one thousand pound in Bills of Credit of this Coleny in old tener at or before the first day of october A d 1749 for and in consideration of his contracting with us to be and his becoming our gospel minister & the duty and respect due to him as such and for his setelment amongst us
N. B. The Condishon of this obligation is such that if the above s^d ebnezer hamblin leu sam^ll gaylord edward gaylord shall within the space of one year and two Monuth from the day above of these presnce in good workman like maner erect build and set up one new tenement and dwelling house for the s^d mr sam^ll newel upon his land in new Cambridge whare he shall direct of thirty eight feet long and 23 feet wide and sixteen feet and half between joynts with a lintow ajoyning the back side 20 feet long and six feet wide containing five rooms below and shall workmanlike finish the lower rooms in the maner following viz well ceil the dwelling room and make sutiabel cobard and shelves for such rooms and lath plaster and whitewash the paler and bed rooms side and over head makeing all sutiabl convenant good and work manlike doors and partions suler? and chamber stars and dig and stone and a proper celler at lest sevin feet deep from the lower floor and the bignes of one end of the house from the chimny and in good and workman like maner Build and paint a stack of chimnys consisting of 3 funels from the botom and 2 more begining at the chambers making at least 2 brick ovens of a sutiabel bigness and in workmanlike maner make the window frams and shashes and glass for the whole house viz nine windows? consisting of 24 squairs of glass 6 and 8 size and one of eighteen squairs and seven with 12 of the same size and this is to be done by the later end of September A d 1749 and that they the s^d Ebnezer hamblin sam^ll gaylord edward gaylord thir excrs adm’r and asigns shall find and provide at thir own cost and charge all and all maner of timber stone brick laths Nails Iron glass lime clay sand and all other Materials whatsoever shall be fit and nesesery to be usd in and about s^d Building and they so doing in maner and by the time above s^d shall be quit of the above s^d writen bond and oblygation otherwise it is to stand in ful force and Vertue & signed deliverd this 20 day of July A d 1747

                             hez Rew                    ebnezer hamblin

                             gershan tuttel          sam^ll gaylord

                                                                 edward gaylord

Probably leu means Samuel Gaylord was a lieutenant, and for his brother Edward, ens probably means Ensign. Remember that in those days the only lawful voters were men over age 21 who owned land.

Bills of credit of this colony remind us that every colony in America issued its own currency, although they all followed the basic English system of pounds, shillings, and pence (not the modern decimal system though). Some further research turns up the possibility that these bills of credit were not worth the same face value as actual money. They may be worth up to a third less.

The meaning of old tener referred to the fact that English money had recently (in 1717) been revalued and put on a gold standard after international trade imbalances and problems with the Royal Mint had resulted in low levels of sterling silver in the country. Apparently the colony of Connecticut was resisting the change to some degree. Were the colonies always somewhat in revolt? Probably!

Consider Mr. Newell and his compensation for the job of preaching. He gets a nice little five-room house with a lean-to on the back, a stone-lined cellar, staircases to the upper floor and to the cellar, and chimneys with fireplaces large enough for cooking in, let alone those nine glass windows, something of a luxury. Besides the house, he gets grain to sell or consume and firewood to heat his house (those details are in the meeting minutes, not in this letter of contract; I’m not sure why, or whether there was another contract they didn’t copy into the book). Additionally, Mr. Newell gets a thousand pounds for the next couple of years’ worth of other expenses. In today’s money, that’d be somewhere around $200,000, but these are bills of credit, which probably reduces the value by as much as two thirds, to between $65,000 and $70,000. Still, not a bad pay package!

But considering that he had to deliver those good old hellfire-and-damnation sermons that seemed to be the popular thing in 18th-century America every Sunday of the year, I don’t envy him the house and grain and firewood and money . . .

Not to mention that I get spell check.

House built in then-New Cambridge for my distant kinsman Thomas Barnes, 1748

How Did the Barnes and Bedell Families Cross Again?

A few years ago I ran across a letter written to my 3rd-great grandmother about a scandal in the Barnes family, the family my grandmother was going to marry into. What happened was that one of the younger Barnes sisters, Eliza, had a fling with an older sister’s husband, a man named Henry Bedell, and a daughter was born to Eliza in October 1848. The older sister, Harriet, died four years after the scandal, still childless, and valiantly endeavoring in her letters to sound full of forgiveness and love and perseverance. I hope she had some happiness in her life!

Eliza married when her daughter was 15 years old. The husband gave his surname to the young girl, but the girl put Barnes down for her own maiden name when she herself married seven years after that.

Henry Bedell, meanwhile, had paid off Eliza and had nothing to do with his daughter, ever. After his wife died, Henry married again the next year and had a son named Henry Luzerne Bedell in 1855, and a daughter named Mary Eloise Bedell in 1862.

Fine. But in researching the rest of the Barnes siblings and what happened to them, I found that one of the Barnes brothers had a daughter whose death certificate was signed by “Mrs. Seth Bedell” of the same little town in Ohio as the Bedells almost a hundred years before. Were they related? Did they remember the scandal between the Bedells and Barnes families? How did this come about?

Back to that original Barnes family. Besides Harriet and Eliza, there were five other sisters and three brothers. One brother, Nathaniel Alverson Barnes, married a woman named Rosina Howard in early January 1843. Their first child, Martha, was born in early December of the same year. Their second child, Byron Johnson Barnes, was born in the spring of 1846, and then they didn’t have another child for fifteen years. Their two younger daughters were born in January 1861 and July 1863—they were Elizabeth Jane, called Lizzie, and Harriet Mary, called Hattie.

The eldest, Martha, married Andrew J Hatch in early May 1862, which at that time was considered late since a daughter was born four months later.

The 1870 Census shows the Barnes family living in Orwell township, out in the country where Nathaniel was farming. A family of Bedells were their neighbors—Martin and Amanda and their young children. Ten years later the Bedells had a “caboose”—a five-year-old son named Seth. In 1880 Lizzie was 19 and Hattie was 16. They and their older brother Byron, a carpenter, were still living with their parents.

The Martha Barnes Hatch family grew and grew. They had Lottie in 1862, Clara in 1864, Allen in 1868, Howard Andrew (or vice versa, as he changed his name) in 1870, Roy in 1874, Cornelia in 1879, and Rosina Susan (who also switched her name around to Susan Rosina) in 1882.

The 20th century censuses of 1900 through 1940 show the two single Barnes sisters living together in a house on North Maple Street, but not one with a house number, so it’s probably still considered to be out in the country. They are employed as dressmakers at a shop in town until they are too old to work any longer. Hattie died in November 1939, and Lizzie three years later.

Martha’s daughter Cornelia married that young Bedell neighbor, Seth, on June 28, 1900. She must have been close to her maiden aunties, Lizzie and Hattie. She is the one who signed Lizzie’s death certificate, and it is interesting how carefully she supplied every piece of information about Lizzie’s life and family and heritage. That’s why I think she loved her auntie.

Too bad she had only sons and couldn’t name a daughter after Lizzie or Hattie.

It is worth noting that there were no Henrys in this Bedell family branch. The two Bedell families came from New York and were living in the same little town in Ohio from the 1830s onward, so probably they were related. Seth’s great-uncle is mentioned in several of the letters that I inherited from that 3rd-great grandmother who became Julia Barnes. Uncle Lepper Bedell was one of Julia’s suitors until Truman Barnes won out.

What goes around comes around—in family names too, it seems.

Here is a letter written by Caroline Jane Palmer Alderman to her sister Julia Esalina Palmer (later Barnes) on April 2, 1848. Lepper Bedell is mentioned on the last line of the first page continuing to the first couple lines on the second page. If you’re on a computer, click to make the letter big enough to read it.