Was Simon Schama Fair to the Facts of the John White Webster Case?

Taken from the Bemis edition of the trial transcripts, 1850, showing the remains found in Webster's privy. Image Source: ŠSimon Schama, Dead Certainties, 1991, pp. 211.

Jaw bone and dental work found in the furnace at the Harvard Medical School alledged to be from Dr. George Parkman's body. Click on image for the reconstruction of the skeleton as presented in court. Note the resemblance to the caricature of Dr. Parkman. Image Sources: ŠSimon Schama, Dead Certainties, pp. 217, 221, 90.

Outline:

• review Schama, pp. 273-end
• review and discuss contemporary clippings from the Buffalo, New York Buffalo Daily Republican concerning the Webster trial which were found pasted into the Baltimore Bar Library's copy of Dr. James W. Stone's "phonographic" transcript of the trial.

• Three other points of view: Robert Sullivan, Helen Thomson, and Arthur Machen.
• review the apparent reasons why the jury convicted John White Webster on all counts and address the problem of how much the historian is obligated (morally, professionally, not at all?) to evaluate or at least encompass in some fashion all the available evidence.
• discuss reviews of Dead Certainties by R. W. B. Lewis & Gordon Wood.
• Questions re: written assignment due next week?

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