Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 25
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Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 25
   Enlarge and print image (58K)           << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
16 Saturday-at the College ; that he was there again on Sunday-an unusual thing; that the doors, which ordinarily and usually had been left unfastened when he was absent from the College, were fastened, and that the key of one door, which he kept deposited in a certain place, up to that period, and to which one witness, who bad occasion frequently to go to his rooms, had access, was removed by Dr. Web- ster himself, and carried away f om the building; that on Saturday, which is the cleaning day in the Medical College, the day for clean- ing the rooms, the janitor, who bad charge of these rooms, and whose duty it was to clean up for the next week, went into Dr. Webster's room. I hope that you will be able to understand the locality. There may be some difficulty in making my present opening state- ment clear to your correct appreciation of all the points which it may be necessary for me to suggest. We shall endeavor to obviate that difficulty. I was observing that on Saturday he went into Dr. Webster's back room, which is a room in the rear of his lecture•room - not into the laboratory, which is below, on the basement floor; that he went into this room, and that he tried to go down to the laboratory, and that Dr. Webster ordered him out through the lecture-room door. I have already, said that Dr. Parkman's friends, after making an anxious search for him on Saturday, had gone so far, on that day, as to publish his disappearance in the evening papers. It will appear that Dr. Webster took one of those evening papers, which contained the advertisement. It will also appear to you-a vast and important fact in this connection to be stated - that Dr. Webster's relations to certain members of the family of Dr. Parkman were somewhat pecu- liarly intimate; that to Dr. Francis Parkman he bad been a parish- ioner, with his family; that a very short time previous to this evening, Dr. Parkman had gone out to perform a pastoral office of friendship for Dr. Webster; and that their families were on terms of considera- ble intimacy-that their families were, whatever may have been the relation between the heads of those families. The first disclosure of the fact of an interview which took place between Dr. Webster and Dr. George Parkman, is made by Dr. Webster to Dr. Francis Park- man himself, on the afternoon of Sunday. During the Saturday previous, and Sunday morning, the family of Dr. Parkman were in a state of intense anxiety, and the first intimation that he had been with Dr. Webster was in the afternoon of Sunday, between three and four o'clock. It will appear to you, that Dr. Webster did know the fact of the disappearance, on Saturday evening ; that he stated that he saw it in the Evening Transcript; and that there was no communication to the family of Dr. Parkman till four o'clock on the afternoon of Sun- day; and then it was made in such a manner, and in such a spirit, as to have excited the surprise, to say the least, of Dr. Francis Park- man, to whom the communication was made. The manner of mak- ing that communication will be a fact in this case, which the Govern- ment will lay before you from the testimony of Dr. Francis Pafkman himself. It will appear that on that day, on Sunday, he made the statement to Mr. James H. Blake, to Mr. Littlefield, the janitor, in company with Mr. Calhoun, to the toll-gatherer, and on that evening to Mr. Thompson, a clerk in the Registry of Deeds, at Cambridge.