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[Webster,
John W., def.] Trial of Professor John W. Webster, for the Murder of
Doctor George Parkman. Reported Exclusively for the N.Y. Daily Globe. [cover
title] New York: Stringer & Townshend, 1850. 76 pp. Sewn. McDade 1066.
Cohen 13180. Backstrip and leaf edges frayed; otherwise a nice copy. {2048}
$85
Dr. Parkman, a prominent Harvard benefactor and
nephew to historian Francis Parkman, was done in by Prof. John W. Webster,
a chemistry professor and textbook author. Parkman had lent money of Webster
and was dunning him for repayment. When Parkman disappeared, the college
premises were searched to no avail, until a suspicious janitor probed the
vault of the professor's privy and discerned a man's pelvis and two parts
of a leg. "I knew that it was no place for these things," the janitor remarked.
When 150 bone fragments and
a set of false teeth had been recovered from Webster's laboratory, a panel
of Harvard experts ("comprising some of the finest scientific minds in
America," according to one forensic historian), linked the remains to the
missing Dr. Parkman. |
[Hall, Abraham Oakey] A Review of the Webster Case, by a Member of the
New York Bar. New York: J.S. Redfield, 1850. 30 pp. McDade 1063. Cohen
13168. Disbound; foxed. {2043} $150
A thorough castigation of the manner in which
the prosecution, the defense, and the presiding judge conducted the case,
by an author who takes note of the way that "the Bostonians have congratulated
themselves, with their usual self-complacency, upon the decorum which marked
the progress of the trial." The 24-year-old anonymous author of this spirited
critique was later to become New York City's district attorney and mayor
under Boss Tweed.
The case
of the dismembered doctor
North Grove and Fruit streets
at Charles Circle
Pow! Webster does Parkman
in. Click on image for more detail (then scroll down a couple pages). |
Today, this is part of the vast Massachusetts General Hospital complex,
hard by Storrow Drive. In 1849, however, it was home to the Harvard Medical
School - and on the shores of the Charles River.
George Parkman, prominent physician and member of the Boston Brahmin
elite, had donated the land for the school a few years earlier. Unfortunately
for him, he had loaned some money to John White Webster, a professor of
chemistry at the school who had no way to pay it back. Even more unfortunately,
Parkman began to get cranky about the money. He went to Webster's lab on
Nov. 23, 1849 to demand the money. They got into a fight and Webster knocked
him out. Webster then dismembered him and shoved his body parts into a
vault under his office.
Boston police, deferential to Webster as another Boston Brahmin, at
first believed his story that he didn't know anything about the doctor's
disappearance (instead, one of the first people they picked up was an Irishman
who tried to use a $20 bill to pay a bridge toll; the theory being that
no Irishman could possibly have earned such a bill by honest labor).
But Ephraim Littlefield, a janitor at the school, suspected Webster
from the beginning - even more so after Webster gave him money to buy himself
and his wife a turkey for Thanksgiving (Littlefield had worked at the school
for seven years, and Webster had never given him anything). So while the
turkey cooked, Littlefield broke into the sealed-off vault, where he found
what was left of Parkman.
Webster's trial made the Louise Woodward trial look like a misdemeanor
hearing - more than 60,000 people from across the country attended (they
were rotated in and out of the courtroom in ten-minute shifts). The trial
marked the first time dental work was introduced as evidence (Parkman had
an unusual set of false teeth due to the way his lower jaw jutted out;
for many years after his death, the falsies were kept on exhibit on the
floor above Webster's lab). William Morton, better known for the discovery
of ether, testified for Webster. Webster was found
guilty and, shortly before he was hanged, confessed.
Note: Parkman's house still stands at 8 Walnut St. on Beacon Hill.
