Bemis Report of the Webster Trial, 1850 [1897], Image No: 324   Enlarge and print image (57K)           << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
clear space clear space clear space white space


 

Bemis Report of the Webster Trial, 1850 [1897], Image No: 324   Enlarge and print image (57K)           << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
324 TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. The Copy of Record of this Court, after setting out the Term of the Court and the Indictment as on page 1, ante, proceeds as follows:- "This indictment was found at the Municipal Court of the City of Boston, begun and holden at said Boston, within and for the County of Suffolk, on the first Monday of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty, and returned into said Court on the twenty-sixth day of said January, and thence transmitted and certified to this Court, and filed in the clerks' office on the thirtieth day of said January, and thereupon here entered of record on the same thirtieth day of January, during the last November Term of this Court. And on said indictment is indorsed a certificate in the words and figures following, to wit:-- `COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. Suffolk, ss. I, Thomas W. Phillips, clerk of the Municipal Court of the City of Boston, do hereby certify, that this indictment was returned into said Court by the grand jurors of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts attend- ing said Court, on the twenty-sixth day of January, A. D. eighteen hun- dred and fifty. I further certify that a true copy of this indictment, certified by the clerk of said Municipal Court, was served upon John W. Webster, now in custody in the common jail in the City of Boston, by the sheriff of the County of Suffolk, on the 26th day of January, 1850. I also certify that a certified copy of an order of said Municipal Court, notifying said Webster that this indictment would be entered at the Supreme Judicial Court now in session, in the City of Boston, hath been served upon said Webster by the sheriff of the County of Suffolk. This copy was served on said Webster upon the 26th day of January, 1850. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and affixed the seal of said Municipal Court, this twenty-ninth day of January, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty. i THOMAS W. PHILLIPS, [Seal.] Clerk of said Municipal Court. And at said November Term of this Court, said John W. Webster was set to the bar; and, being demanded how he would acquit himself concerning the premises in the indictment above specified and charged upon him, he said he was not guilty, and thereof put himself on the country. Pliny Merrick and Edward D. Sohier, Esquires, were assigned as counsel for the prisoner. Thence the indictment was continued unto the present term. And now, on the nineteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty, in this term, on which day the Court is halden by the Honorable Chief Justice, and Justices Wilde, Dewey, and Metcalf, by adjournments from day to day, from the fifth day of March aforesaid, the said John W. Webster is set to the bar to be, tried. A jury is empanelled, viz.: Robert J. Byram, Foreman; and Fellows, to wit,-Thomas Barrett, John Borrowscale, James Crosby, John E. Davenport, Albert Day, Joseph Eustis Daniel T. Fuller Benjamin H. Greene, Arnold Hayward, Fred- erick A. Henderson, and Stephen A. Stackpole; who, being sworn to speak the truth of and upon the premises, on their oaths do say, that the said John W. Webster is guilty. And now, afterwards, on the first day of April in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty, the Court being holden by adjournment, and the Chief Justice and Justices Wilds, Dewey, Metcalf, and Fletcher,