Mrs. Wakeman vs. the Antichrist (6 page)

Enoch Sperry was buried on January 11, 1856, in the Westville Cemetery at New Haven, and his epitaph reads, “God knew the time and place to call his servant home.”
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Mr. Umberfield's grave can be found at Bethany's Sperry Cemetery. On January 3, 1856, he was laid under an upright gray slab reading:

 

IN

memory of

ICHABOD UMBERFIELD

Who was murdered

By a maniac

Jn'y 1, 1856.

Æ. 71.

————

A mournful New Year's Day

To my surviving their friends.

How sudden I am called away

Soon as the year begins.

Thankful Hersey and Mrs. Wakeman shared a cell at the New Haven County Jail, and though God's Messenger was often sick in bed, she managed to compose a letter addressed to the “ministers of the world.” It catalogs Amos Hunt's misdeeds and her suffering, interspersed with threats, whining, and an exposition of humankind's collective guilt with regard to her situation:

I have plead [
sic
] with ministers and lawyers, and those in public office to take up my cause and bring to light this cruel murder [a reference to either the “spiritual murder” of the world or the attempt on her life; not the death of Justus Matthews]; but no one has stood for my defense, and in this way the whole world has become guilty of my death before God. A short time now remains in which this work may be done and the whole world saved. O! there is no one that will come up to the help of the Lord against this mighty Man of Sin, who has killed the whole world spiritually with his unseen power brought from the bottomless pit.
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In another letter enumerating Hunt's evils she calls him “a liar for he promised his Savior that he would never leave
or forsake him;
that he would have his head taken off before he would do it
” [my italics].
⁹⁶
This suggests that the full or near decapitations of Matthews, Sperry, and Umberfield were inspired by some aspect of the prophetess's teachings.
⁹⁷
(On a lighter note, Mrs. Wakeman “advised the readers of Greeley's ‘Tribune' to brew themselves an occasional cup of tea made from the bark of a witch-hazel tree in order to keep their bodies free from evil spirits. And as a result of this advice which was given some notice in the press several enterprising merchants in New York added this item to their stocks.”)
⁹⁸

Sammy was also talking to the press. He explained aspects of their faith, such as salvation through Rhoda Wakeman (“At the first there were on the face of the earth, Adam, Eve and the Devil. It was the lie told by the devil, believed by the woman, and obeyed by the man, that caused the fall from immortality to death; and so now this happy time of the redemption must be in likeway brought about through a woman”).
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Like Mrs. Wakeman, Sly could not stop talking about Amos Hunt and the financial settlement, which “took the resurrection of everlasting life and changed it into damnation . . . by the payment of the five hundred dollars in recompensing damages for his attempted poisoning.” Hunt's malice was exceptional even among Men of Sin, for “[b]y the payment of that money he bound the Saviour under it, and this has never been done before, wicked though former ‘men
of sin' had been.”
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Yet for all of Amos Hunt's evil, Sammy declared that the Wakemanites had no intention of harming him and wanted to expel the evil spirit through constant prayer.

Sly also mentioned groups similar, or sympathetic, to the Wakemanites “who entertain the faith, not yet perhaps perfected among them, but nearly sure.” He counted among them the Irvingites, or Catholic Apostolic Church, an English sect whose members spoke in tongues, and Margaret Bishop of the Christian Israelites in New York City, a sect active throughout the English-speaking world that followed the teachings of British visionary John Wroe. Sammy stated that the Christian Israelites “carry out fully our views and meet for prayer such as we had. MRS. BISHOP was much interested in my sister and called on her several times and they frequently conversed on these matters.”
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Margaret Bishop responded promptly in a letter to the editor.

Sir, you will certainly do me the justice as an individual, and the Christian Israelite members in general, by contradicting the assertion made in your print of Monday last. I never was in sympathy with these people—never had any “interest” in MRS. WAKEMAN. I accidentally saw her in New-Haven about thirteen years ago, and decidedly considered her insane.
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The trio was back in court on January 17, when the grand jury found a true bill of murder against Samuel Sly and indicted Thankful Hersey and Rhoda Wakeman as accessories before and after the fact (no attempt was made to link Justus Matthews's death with the Sperry-Umberfield murders). Josiah Jackson and Abigail Sables were discharged from prison and the prophetess wept upon learning that she had to remain; Thankful Hersey pointed a finger at the old lady, who was sobbing under heavy veils, and announced, “They little know what they are about shutting up that person.”
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Mrs. Wakeman declared that the world would end before they were tried; “she should” however, “permit us all to live on a little longer on probation, but she should bring judgment day when she got ready to do so.”
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Three months later, on Wednesday, April 16, Judges Hinman and Waldo were presiding over the Wakemanites' trial in the Superior Court at New Haven. District attorney E. K. Foster and John D. Candee represented the state of Connecticut, while Joseph Sheldon Jr. and the Hon. Henry Dutton defended the prisoners.

The courtroom was crowded; every seat and all the standing room was taken, and proceedings began with a plea of “not guilty.” Governor Dutton did not dispute that the defendant killed Matthews, or that the others were accessories to
the crime, but “the defence would give conclusive evidence that those persons, at the time the murder was committed, were laboring under an insane delusion.”
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As for the state, when someone is murdered for being the Antichrist, prosecutors often argue that a more conventional motive was involved, such as jealousy, revenge, or, greed. In this case, their contention might have been that Matthews borrowed $200 from a savings association, loaned the money to Mrs. Wakeman, and was killed so they would not have to repay it. The question then became “how much pecuniary interest these parties had in getting Matthews out of the way.”
¹⁰⁶
To make a plausible argument, the state had to demonstrate that Mrs. Wakeman would kill for money, but if that was the plan they did not press it.

According to the prophetess she got nothing from Matthews except “a few vegetables, a few apples, and a small piece or two of salt pork,” while Sammy claimed that the victim still owed him money for clothes; nevertheless, “I have never made a claim against him, for I loved him very much and wished him to be freed from sin.”
¹⁰⁷
No one seemed to know what Matthews did with the $200, and the Wakemanites accepted none of Hunt's $500 settlement money; they were so poor that Mrs. Wakeman said she “was obliged to sell my best feather bed to get money to pay my rent,” and even then, Ephraim Lane testified, “she would always give away everything she had.”
¹⁰⁸

The first day of the trial was dedicated to establishing the facts of the case. Jurors saw a floor plan of the Beaver Street
house, heard Matthews's injuries described, and heard the Wakemanites testify about events on the night of the murder. Sheriff Parmalee related the particulars of Sammy's confession and displayed the physical evidence, including the knife and bloody clothing. The state rested that afternoon, and the remainder of the first day was given over to testimony about the defendants' strange beliefs and behavior.

Witnesses included Phebe A. Beckwith, a former Wakemanite who was declared an unbeliever after Mrs. Wakeman “began to talk so much about this enchantment which I could not believe.” When Beckwith last visited the prophetess, “Uncle Sammy shut himself up in the closet, he was so afraid of me.”
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With that, court adjourned till the next day, when there was more testimony in the same vein, including a baker who told how the Wakemanites “had an idea that my bread . . . was enchanted and that anyone who ate it would die.”
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Friends and relatives took the stand, followed by experts who had evaluated the defendants' mental conditions.

Drs. Worthington Hooker, Jonathan Knight, Jerome C. Smith, Pliny A. Jewett, and Mrs. Wakeman's own physician, E. C. Chamberlain, had some differences of opinion, yet none considered the accused competent. Sly was a weak-minded imbecile, possibly a monomaniac, or suffering from dementia; Dr. Hooker thought that when Sammy killed Matthews “there was an intense excitement in the house, and I think if he had any consciousness that he was doing a wrong act, the consciousness was very slight.”
¹¹¹
Miss Hersey's
mind, though strong, was wholly given over to Mrs. Wakeman, and she had two relatives who went mad. Mrs. Wakeman was insane, or nearly so, and Dr. Smith believed “from the evidence adduced that her disease has considerably increased within two or three years.” Dr. Jewett doubted the sincerity of Mrs. Wakeman's beliefs, but this was a minority view; few questioned the depth of her convictions.

Ephraim Lane said, “You might as well try to move the West Rock [a mountain ridge and local landmark] as to reason her out of her delusions; I have heard ministers speak with her about them, and they said it was no use to talk to her . . .”
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He also had “no doubt but that the old lady got her mind so wrought up that it did really hurt her when a person came whom she thought had a bad spirit.”
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By the end of day two, with all the evidence pointing in the same direction, the Hon. Henry Dutton asked District Attorney Foster if he would seek a verdict
other than
not guilty on the grounds of insanity. The prosecutor replied that he did not feel authorized by the evidence to claim any other, for “[t]he case had assumed an aspect not contemplated by him at its commencement.”
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Moreover, he “did not consider it necessary to sum up the evidence, and was willing to let the case go to the jury without argument.”
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With both sides in accord, Judge Hinman rose and told the jurors “they might retire and bring in such a verdict as they thought was right, and such as justice required,” adding that the Court had the power to make an order for the further confinement of the
prisoners.
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The men rose and left the courtroom for ten minutes of deliberation before returning with a verdict.

Between Sly's mental limitations, Hersey's fanaticism, and their utter faith in an unbalanced woman, the defendants were found not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Mrs. Wakeman and Sammy wept as they heard the verdict, while Miss Hersey seemed troubled at being considered insane.

Judge Hinman left the bench and the public began leaving the courtroom when Judge Waldo rose and instructed the sheriff “‘to return these prisoners to jail, where they will be confined until further orders from this Court, or until they are discharged by due process of law.'”
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Their destination was the sprawling Hartford Retreat, then Connecticut's only institution for the destitute insane (it is now the Institute for Living); Thankful Hersey was more fortunate. During the trial, the Court received a number of depositions from Worcester and Auburn, Massachusetts, testifying to her excellent character, and a Mr. Samuel A. Foote “gave the requisite bonds for the protection of the community against her, and took her to his house . . .”
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There she did plain sewing and other light work until her death on May 12, 1857.
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Sammy was at the asylum for ten years and in that time came to believe that he was the prophet Elijah. Eventually he
stopped eating and drinking and died of starvation on July 14, 1865. By then the prophetess had been dead six years.

Rhoda Wakeman made her second and last trip to heaven in 1859 when “the prophetess passed on once again into the white clouds of the hereafter—free, one may hope, from evil spirits and sin.”
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With the exception of Amos Hunt, nothing more was heard from her followers, who returned to ordinary pursuits like peddling and shoemaking. The former Man of Sin, however, became a clairvoyant (it is given as his “Profession, Occupation or Trade” in the census of 1880). Hunt's purported psychic abilities led to him playing a minor role in “the most mysterious of all the cases which have baptized Connecticut in blood”: the death of Mary Stannard.
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Every era has its favorite kinds of murders, and for nineteenth-century Americans, it was the innocent woman seduced by a respectable man, preferably a clergyman, who kills her to avoid scandal. As the mother of an illegitimate child, twenty-two-year-old Mary Stannard was not the ideal virginal victim, but her good nature and naïveté attracted the Rev. Herbert H. Hayden, a married man with a family, and Mary found herself pregnant again.

On September 3, 1878, her body was found lying on a path
in Rockland, Connecticut. The postmortem revealed that Mary Stannard, who was
not
pregnant, had been poisoned, beaten, and stabbed (Dr. Pliny A. Jewett, who examined Charles Sanford's victims, assisted at Mary Stannard's autopsy), and since the Rev. Hayden was known to have recently purchased arsenic, he was arrested.