Duel with the Devil (32 page)

  
1
strolls up Greenwich Street
: Hardie,
Impartial Account of the Trial
, 28.

  
2
warden of the port
:
Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York
, 3:676.

  
3
Have you heard of a muff turning up anywhere?
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 75.

  
4
coming into port from New Orleans and … St. Thomas
:
NYDA
, 7 January 1800.

  
5
“It’s an
odd
question
”: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 75.

  
6
Ring’s high-pitched voice
: Ibid., 74.

  
7
“A young woman”
: Ibid., 75.

  
8
workers by Norton’s Wharf found a despairing man
:
NYCA
, 19 September 1799.

  
9
gentleman who had recently stood in Bowery Lane and applied a pair of pistols
: Ibid., 18 October 1799.

10
“The nearest dock”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 89.

11
down their cross street of Barclay
:
NYG
, 26 May 1801.

12
“Rhinelander’s Battery”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 89.

13
trained as a cooper
:
Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1885
, 222. He is listed as a cooper under “Freeman, 1769.”

14
appointed office of Culler of staves and hoops
: Law,
New York Directory
, 52.

15
ready to man the local fire pumps
: New York Common Council,
Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York
, 797.

16
many sailors scarcely knew a single stroke: “Fatal Accidents
: How Far Preventable,” 109.

17
Ice was forming in the river
: Laight, Diaries, 9 January 1800.

18
the decrepit old fortifications
:
Balance and Columbian Depository
, 5 February 1805, 47. The article notes that the state legislature authorized tearing down Rhinelander’s Battery for winter firewood for the city’s poor.

19
a “creeper,” a line dragging a claw
: Burney,
New Universal Dictionary of the Marine
, 111.

20
a long tube with a glass bulb … recovery men were hired by smugglers
: “Seal Stalking in the Orkneys,” 585.

21
“Levi … give me thy firm opinion”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 31–32.

22
sixteen rifles, marking the dawn of New Year’s Eve
: Washington,
Washington’s Political Legacies
, 169.

23
businesses were closing … and carriages had been barred
:
NYG
, 30 December 1799.

24
“Hope” … “Will you accompany me”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 37.

25
As ten o’clock approached
:
NYWM
, 4 January 1800. This is a particularly long and detailed account of the processions; except where indicated, the details in the remainder of this section are taken from this source.

26
woodcut diagrams of the positions of Washington’s pallbearers
:
NYCA
, 26 December 1799.

27
“this great national calamity”
: Washington,
Washington’s Political Legacies
, 168.

28
“our late brother mechanic”
:
Meyer Berger’s New York
, 154.

29
girls dressed in white robes … dropping laurel leaves
: “The Olden Time,” 433.

30
“Bring the laurels
”:
Sacred Music
.

31
“Its appearance was really splendid”
: Abraham Bancker to Abraham B. Bancker, 12 January 1800, Bancker Papers.

32
confectioner’s shop on Pine Street
: Stone,
History of New York City
, 207. Along with his account of Singeron, Stone has some fascinating vignettes of refugees from the French Revolution—most notably of a hairdresser dubbed Adonis. Like the rest of New York’s enclave of fine Parisian dressmakers and dancing masters, he’d fled the country along with his noble clientele during the Revolution. Adonis made house calls, but he had one curious trait: He never wore a hat. He’d resolved to never wear one again until France’s king was back on the throne, so he always carried his hat like a purse, with his shears and combs poking out of it (ibid., 221).

33
plum cake, rich with candied oranges
: Hudson and Donat,
New Practice of Cookery
, 226.

34
frosting unaccountably patterned into Cupids
: Stone,
History of New York City
, 209.

35
“Some think it is the first year”
: Bleecker, Diary, 1 January 1800.

36
Greenwood had advertised himself as “Dentist to the Late President”
:
NYMA
, 9 December 1799.

37
a portrait of Washington (guaranteed to “afford peculiar satisfaction”)
:
NYCA
, 28 December 1799.

38
Washington’s
urn
(“executed by the original designer”)
: Ibid., 2 January 1800.

39
debut of “the Washington Minuet”
:
NYWM
, 11 January 1800.

40
in Mayor Varick’s house … “they broke the first cookie”
: Thorburn,
Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of New-York
, 208.

41
laid out the riches of the city
: “Journal of Joshua Brookes,” 556.

42
oysters
: Fawcett, “New Year’s Day in Old New-York,” 137.

43
pickled in white wine
: Hudson and Donat,
New Practice of Cookery
, 39.

44
cold jellied lamb, plates of macaroons
: Fawcett, “New Year’s Day in Old New-York,” 137.

45
“Before the moon sunk behind the blue hills”
: Thorburn,
Fifty Years’ Reminiscences of New-York
, 208.

46
Mrs. Blanck heard the curiously offhanded piece of news … reached among her winter clothing
: Bleecker, Diary, 4 January 1800.

47
Ring and his neighbor Joseph Watkins marched up
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 56.

48
Blanck’s house on the Bowery
:
Longworth’s American Almanack
(1800), 138.

49
lunch with James Lent and a fellow named Page
: Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 56.

50
a horse … had been stolen nearby
:
NYS
, 18 September 1799.

51
an ownerless steer had just turned up
:
NYDA
, 6 January 1800.

52
The well
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 53.

53
about midway between Broadway and Bowery
: Morhouse, “Boy’s Reminiscences,” 339.

54
hadn’t been found suitable for the pipeline
:
GNDA
, 6 January 1800. Most subsequent accounts seem to have assumed that it was a working well for the Manhattan Company, but its disuse is also noted in Stone,
History of New York City
, 342f.

55
William had found the muff … and had brought it home
: Bleecker, Diary, 4 January 1800.

56
“I went to the well the next day”
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 53.

57
water … nearly six feet in depth
: Ibid., 91.

58
swept it gently through the water, then suddenly stopped
: Ibid., 56.

59
Lent tried it as well … there was a mass deep in the water
: Ibid.

60
ironmonger banged irons into the wooden poles
: Ibid.

61
too heavy … a flash of calico cloth
: Ibid.

62
hemp were hurriedly procured
: Ibid.

63
now joined in—Lawrence Myer
: Hardie,
Impartial Account of the Trial
, 19.

64
a fellow teamster
:
Longworth’s American Almanack
(1799), 305.

65
rigged into a makeshift net
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 56.

  
1
Levi Weeks is to blame
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 82.

  
2
Policing largely existed to guard property
: Oliver, “Modern History of Probable Cause,” 3.

  
3
Leatherheads
: Costello,
Our Police Protectors
, 72.

  
4
tipping the boxes over
: Ibid., 73.

  
5
generally had only two constables apiece
: Ibid.

  
6
Constables were not to investigate
: Oliver, “Modern History of Probable Cause,” 9.

  
7
“Is
this
the young man?
”: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 58.

  
8
“It is very hard to accuse—”
: Ibid., and
GNDA
, 6 January 1800.

  
9
front of the gathering crowd
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 59.

10
“like a person walking against the wind”
: Ibid., 57.

11
“I think I know the gown”
: Ibid., 59.

12
auctioneer Jimmy Smith
:
NYDA
, 31 December 1799. The advertisement includes details for the auctions scheduled for Thursday, January 2, 1800.

13
building of gray stone … by Theophilus Hardenbrook
:
Fifteenth Annual Report, 1910
, 394.

14
neglected to provide an open yard … they’d even been given a bell
: Stone,
History of New York City
, 191. After Bridewell was demolished, this bell was moved to a firehouse on Beaver Street, where—after ringing out a final warning—it was destroyed in the great city fire of 1845.

15
central tower
: Dwight,
Travels in New-England and New-York
, 455.

16
the jail keeper, Alexander Lamb
:
Longworth’s American Almanack
(1800), 252.

17
flanked on either side
: Dwight,
Travels in New-England and New-York
, 455.

18
Bib and Gilbert
:
NYDA
, 10 December 1799.

19
petty larceny … less than $12.50 in goods
: Dwight,
Travels in New-England and New-York
, 455.

20
newly captured runaway slaves and apprentices
:
NYMA
, 8 February 1800.

21
son of an upstanding Massachusetts family
: Diamond,
Episode in American Journalism
, 34.

22
a “disgrace to humanity”
: Tiedemann and Fingerhut,
Other New York
, 75.

23
issued … 
The Rights of Animals
: Pelletreau,
History of Long Island
, 2:512.

24
Burr shrewdly recruited him
: Diamond,
Episode in American Journalism
, 51.

25
and it paid a mere eight dollars a week
: Ibid., 52.

26
“An effort was recently made to suppress the
AURORA
”: Quoted in ibid., 53.

27
Federalists
had
tried to shut down the
Aurora
: Blumberg,
Repressive Jurisprudence in the Early American Republic
, 115.

28
“a vile sans-culotte”
: Diamond,
Episode in American Journalism
, 77.

29
“I have long been the object of the most malignant calumnies”
: Wharton,
State Trials
, 650.

30
Greenleaf, claimed to have no authority
: Diamond,
Episode in American Journalism
, 54.

31
“This is not a question that concerned the liberties”
:
NYG
, 5 December 1799.

32
confined for so long that nobody even knew why … “Paul from New Jersey”
: Eddy,
Report of a Committee of the Humane Society
, 12–13. This report, issued in 1810, notes that “Paul from New Jersey” had been in Bridewell for at least a decade at that point, as a jail keeper hired ten years earlier found that even back then nobody knew why “Paul” was there.

33
An inmate’s supper … about five or six cents
: Stoutenburgh,
Report of the Inspectors of the State-Prison
, 4.

34
“a mean, insipid, and musty drink”
: Moulton, Sampson, and Fernald,
Centennial History of Harrison, Maine
, 457.

35
Stagg was spotted near a polling station
:
NYCA
, 3 May 1799.

36
“French Bullies”
: Ibid.

37
he’d been heroically pulling it
out
of the prisoner’s hands
:
NYS
, 15 May 1799.

38
Michaels did not last
: He is not listed with Alexander Lamb in the 1800
Longworth’s American Almanack
.

39
Michaels crowed that the fellow was a deserter
:
NYS
, 15 May 1799.

40
Prince … saw his colleague
: Hardie,
Impartial Account of the Trial
, 29.

41
Charles Dickinson, the local coroner
:
NYDA
, 4 November 1799.

42
meant a “representative of the crown”
: Rapalje and Lawrence,
Dictionary of American and English Law
, 1:297.

43
such unhelpful causes of death as “horseshoe head”
: Paris and Fonblanque,
Medical Jurisprudence
, 1:145.

44
a leader among Aaron Burr’s faction
: Myers,
History of Tammany Hall
, 41.

45
Born to a pauper family in the Bridewell almshouse
: Nolosco,
Physician Heal Thyself
, 170.

46
they paid for his medical education
: Mohl,
Poverty in New York
, 97.

47
a tamed deer had sprung free from its pen
:
NYCA
, 23 November 1799.

48
a coroner’s jury sat waiting for them
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 77.

49
Is her neck broken?
: Ibid.

50
rumors had been circulating
:
GNDA
, 6 January 1800, 3.

51
Is she with child?
: William Coleman,
Report of the Trial of Levi Weeks
, 77.

52
first two books in English on the subject
: Davis, “George Edward Male M.D.,” 117.

53
“It is murder in fact”
: Bartley,
Treatise on Forensic Medicine
, 2.

54
tansy wafting over the room as the corpses were opened up
: For example, Wharton and Stillé,
Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence
, 526.

55
believing that a rape could not produce a child
: Farr,
Elements of Medical Jurisprudence
, 46.

56
pointedly disagreed with this notion
: Paris and Fonblanque,
Medical Jurisprudence
, 1:437.

57
signs of virginity that their texts relied upon: Ibid., 1
:417.

58
“A report prevailed injurious to her honor”
:
GNDA
, 16 January 1800.

59
“A verdict of
WILFUL MURDER
”:
NYCA
, 6 January 1800.