Part 41

"GRANT."

This letter was directed on the outside to the "Hon. Gideon Barstow, Salem," and put into the post-office on Sunday evening, May 16, 1830.

"_Lynn, May 12, 1830._

"Mr. White will send the $5,000, or a part of it, before to-morrow night, or suffer the painful consequences.

"N. CLAXTON, 4TH."

This letter was addressed to the "Hon. Stephen White, Salem, Mass.," and was also put into the post-office in Salem on Sunday evening.

When Knapp delivered these letters to his friend, he said his father had received an anonymous letter, and "What I want you for is to put these in the post-office in order to nip this silly affair in the bud."

The Hon. Stephen White, mentioned in these letters, was a nephew of Joseph White, and the legatee of the principal part of his large property.

When the Committee of Vigilance read and considered the letter, purporting to be signed by Charles Grant, Jr., which had been delivered to them by Captain Knapp, they were impressed with the belief that it contained a clew which might lead to important disclosures. As they had spared no pains or expense in their investigations, they immediately despatched a discreet messenger to Prospect, in Maine; he explained his business confidentially to the postmaster there, deposited a letter addressed to Charles Grant, Jr., and awaited the call of Grant to receive it. He soon called for it, when an officer, stationed in the house, stepped forward and arrested Grant. On examining him, it appeared that his true name was Palmer, a young man of genteel appearance, resident in the adjoining town of Belfast. He had been a convict in Maine, and had served a term in the State's prison in that State. Conscious that the circumstances justified the belief that he had had a hand in the murder, he readily made known, while he protested his own innocence, that he could unfold the whole mystery. He then disclosed that he had been an associate of R. Crowninshield, Jr. and George Crowninshield; had spent part of the winter at Danvers and Salem, under the name of Carr; part of the time he had been their inmate, concealed in their father's house in Danvers; that on the 2d of April he saw from the windows of the house Frank Knapp and a young man named Allen ride up to the house; that George walked away with Frank, and Richard with Allen; that on their return, George told Richard that Frank wished them to undertake to kill Mr. White, and that J.J. Knapp, Jr. would pay one thousand dollars for the job. They proposed various modes of executing it, and asked Palmer to be concerned, which he declined. George said the house-keeper would be away at the time; that the object of Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. was to destroy the will, because it gave most of the property to Stephen White; that Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. was first to destroy the will; that he could get from the house-keeper the keys of the iron chest in which it was kept; that Frank called again the same day, in a chaise, and rode away with Richard; and that on the night of the murder Palmer stayed at the Half-way House, in Lynn.

The messenger, on obtaining this disclosure from Palmer, without delay communicated it by mail to the Committee, and on the 26th of May, a warrant was issued against Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. and John Francis Knapp, and they were taken into custody at Wenham, where they were residing in the family of Mrs. Beckford, mother of the wife of Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. They were then imprisoned to await the arrival of Palmer, for their examination.

The two Knapps were young shipmasters, of a respectable family.

Joseph J. Knapp, Jr., on the third day of his imprisonment, made a full confession that he projected the murder. He knew that Mr. White had made his will, and given to Mrs. Beckford a legacy of fifteen thousand dollars; but if he died without leaving a will, he expected she would inherit nearly two hundred thousand dollars. In February he made known to his brother his desire to make way with Mr. White, intending first to abstract and destroy the will. Frank agreed to employ an assassin, and negotiated with R. Crowninshield, Jr., who agreed to do the deed for a reward of one thousand dollars; Joseph agreed to pay that sum, and, as he had access to the house at his pleasure, he was to unbar and unfasten the back window, so that Crowninshield might gain easy entrance. Four days before the murder, while they were deliberating on the mode of compassing it, he went into Mr. White's chamber, and, finding the key in the iron chest, unlocked it, took the will, put it in his chaise-box, covered it with hay, carried it to Wenham, kept it till after the murder, and then burned it. After securing the will, he gave notice to Crowninshield that all was ready. In the evening of that day he had a meeting with Crowninshield at the centre of the common, who showed him a bludgeon and dagger, with which the murder was to be committed. Knapp asked him if he meant to do it that night; Crowninshield said he thought not, he did not feel like it; Knapp then went to Wenham. Knapp ascertained on Sunday, the 4th of April, that Mr. White had gone to take tea with a relative in Chestnut Street. Crowninshield intended to dirk him on his way home in the evening, but Mr. White returned before dark. It was next arranged for the night of the 6th, and Knapp was on some pretext to prevail on Mrs. Beckford to visit her daughters at Wenham, and to spend the night there. He said that, all preparations being thus complete, Crowninshield and Frank met about ten o'clock in the evening of the 6th, in Brown Street, which passes the rear of the garden of Mr. White, and stood some time in a spot from which they could observe the movements in the house, and perceive when Mr. White and his two servants retired to bed. Crowninshield requested Frank to go home; he did so, but soon returned to the same spot. Crowninshield, in the mean time, had started and passed round through Newbury Street and Essex Street to the front of the house, entered the postern gate, passed to the rear of the house, placed a plank against the house, climbed to the window, opened it, entered the house alone, passed up the staircase, opened the door of the sleeping-chamber, approached the bedside, gave Mr. White a heavy and mortal blow on the head with a bludgeon, and then with a dirk gave him many stabs in his body. Crowninshield said, that, after he had "done for the old man," he put his fingers on his pulse to make certain he was dead. He then retired from the house, hurried back through Brown Street, where he met Frank, waiting to learn the event. Crowninshield ran down Howard Street, a solitary place, and hid the club under the steps of a meeting-house. He then went home to Danvers.

Joseph confessed further that the account of the Wenham robbery, on the 27th of April, was a sheer fabrication. After the murder Crowninshield went to Wenham in company with Frank to call for the one thousand dollars. He was not able to pay the whole, but gave him one hundred five-franc pieces. Crowninshield related to him the particulars of the murder, told him where the club was hid, and said he was sorry Joseph had not got the right will, for if he had known there was another, he would have got it. Joseph sent Frank afterwards to find and destroy the club, but he said he could not find it. When Joseph made the confession, he told the place where the club was concealed, and it was there found; it was heavy, made of hickory, twenty-two and a half inches long, of a smooth surface and large oval head, loaded with lead, and of a form adapted to give a mortal blow on the skull without breaking the skin; the handle was suited for a firm grasp. Crowninshield said he turned it in a lathe. Joseph admitted he wrote the two anonymous letters.

Crowninshield had hitherto maintained a stoical composure of feeling; but when he was informed of Knapp's arrest, his knees smote beneath him, the sweat started out on his stern and pallid face, and he subsided upon his bunk.

Palmer was brought to Salem in irons on the 3d of June, and committed to prison. Crowninshield saw him taken from the carriage. He was put in the cell directly under that in which Crowninshield was kept. Several members of the Committee entered Palmer's cell to talk with him; while they were talking, they heard a loud whistle, and, on looking up, saw that Crowninshield had picked away the mortar from the crevice between the blocks of the granite floor of his cell. After the loud whistle, he cried out, "Palmer! Palmer!" and soon let down a string, to which were tied a pencil and a slip of paper. Two lines of poetry were written on the paper, in order that, if Palmer was really there, he should make it known by capping the verses. Palmer shrunk away into a corner, and was soon transferred to another cell. He seemed to stand in awe of Crowninshield.

On the 12th of June a quantity of stolen goods was found concealed in the barn of Crowninshield, in consequence of information from Palmer.

Crowninshield, thus finding the proofs of his guilt and depravity thicken, on the 15th of June committed suicide by hanging himself to the bars of his cell with a handkerchief. He left letters to his father and brother, expressing in general terms the viciousness of his life, and his hopelessness of escape from punishment. When his associates in guilt heard his fate, they said it was not unexpected by them, for they had often heard him say he would never live to submit to an ignominious punishment.

A special term of the Supreme Court was held at Salem on the 20th of July, for the trial of the prisoners charged with the murder; it continued in session till the 20th of August, with a few days' intermission. An indictment for the murder was found against John Francis Knapp, as principal, and Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. and George Crowninshield, as accessories. Selman and Chase were discharged by the Attorney-General.

The principal, John Francis Knapp, was first put on trial. As the law then stood, an accessory in a murder could not be tried until a principal had been convicted. He was defended by Messrs. Franklin Dexter and William H. Gardiner, advocates of high reputation for ability and eloquence; the trial was long and arduous, and the witnesses numerous. His brother Joseph, who had made a full confession, on the government's promise of impunity if he would in good faith testify the truth, was brought into court, called to the stand as a witness, but declined to testify. To convict the prisoner, it was necessary for the government to prove that he was _present_, actually or constructively, as an aider or abettor in the murder. The evidence was strong that there was a conspiracy to commit the murder, that the prisoner was one of the conspirators, that at the time of the murder he was in Brown Street at the rear of Mr. White's garden, and the jury were satisfied that he was in that place to aid and abet in the murder, ready to afford assistance, if necessary. He was convicted.

Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. was afterwards tried as an accessory before the fact, and convicted.

George Crowninshield proved an _alibi_, and was discharged.

The execution of John Francis Knapp and Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. closed the tragedy.

If Joseph, after turning State's evidence, had not changed his mind, neither he nor his brother, nor any of the conspirators, could have been convicted; if he had testified, and disclosed the whole truth, it would have appeared that John Francis Knapp was in Brown Street, not to render assistance to the assassin; but that Crowninshield, when he started to commit the murder, requested Frank to go home and go to bed; that Frank did go home, retire to bed, soon after arose, secretly left his father's house, and hastened to Brown Street, to await the coming out of the assassin, in order to learn whether the deed was accomplished, and all the particulars. If Frank had not been convicted as principal, none of the accessories could by law have been convicted. Joseph would not have been even tried, for the government stipulated, that, if he would be a witness for the State, he should go clear.

The whole history of this occurrence is of romantic interest. The murder itself, the _corpus delicti_, was strange; planned with deliberation and sagacity, and executed with firmness and vigor. While conjecture was baffled in ascertaining either the motive or the perpetrator, it was certain that the assassin had acted upon design, and not at random. He must have had knowledge of the house, for the window had been unfastened from within. He had entered stealthily, threaded his way in silence through the apartments, corridors, and staircases, and coolly given the mortal blow. To make assurance doubly sure, he inflicted many fatal stabs, "the least a death to nature," and stayed not his hand till he had deliberately felt the pulse of his victim, to make certain that life was extinct.

It was strange that Crowninshield, the real assassin, should have been indicted and arrested on the testimony of Hatch, who was himself in prison, in a distant part of the State, at the time of the murder, and had no actual knowledge on the subject.

It was very strange that J.J. Knapp, Jr. should have been the instrument of bringing to light the mystery of the whole murderous conspiracy; for when he received from the hand of his father the threatening letter of Palmer, consciousness of guilt so confounded his faculties, that, instead of destroying it, he stupidly handed it back and requested his father to deliver it to the Committee of Vigilance.

It was strange that the murder should have been committed on a mistake in law. Joseph, some time previous to the murder, had made inquiry how Mr. White's estate would be distributed in case he died without a will, and had been erroneously told that Mrs. Beckford, his mother-in-law, the sole issue and representative of a deceased sister of Mr. White, would inherit half of the estate, and that the four children and representatives of a deceased brother of Mr. White, of whom the Hon. Stephen White was one, would inherit the other half. Joseph had privately read the will, and knew that Mr. White had bequeathed to Mrs. Beckford much less than half.

It was strange that the murder should have been committed on a mistake in fact also. Joseph furtively abstracted _a_ will, and expected Mr. White would die intestate; but, after the decease, _the_ will, the _last_ will, was found by his heirs in its proper place; and it could never have been known, or conjectured, without the aid of Joseph's confession, that he had made either of those blunders.

Finally, it was a strange fact that Knapp should, on the night following the murder, have watched with the mangled corpse, and at the funeral followed the hearse as one of the chief mourners, without betraying on either occasion the slightest emotion which could awaken a suspicion of his guilt.

* * * * *

The following note was prefixed to this argument in the former edition:--

Mr. White, a highly respectable and wealthy citizen of Salem, about eighty years of age, was found, on the morning of the 7th of April, 1830, in his bed, murdered, under such circumstances as to create a strong sensation in that town and throughout the community.

Richard Crowninshield, George Crowninshield, Joseph J. Knapp, and John F. Knapp were, a few weeks after, arrested on a charge of having perpetrated the murder, and committed for trial. Joseph J. Knapp, soon after, under the promise of favor from government, made a full confession of the crime and the circumstances attending it. In a few days after this disclosure was made, Richard Crowninshield, who was supposed to have been the principal assassin, committed suicide.

A special session of the Supreme Court was ordered by the legislature, for the trial of the prisoners, at Salem, in July. At that time, John F. Knapp was indicted as principal in the murder, and George Crowninshield and Joseph J. Knapp as accessories.

On account of the death of Chief Justice Parker, which occurred on the 26th of July, the court adjourned to Tuesday, the third day of August, when it proceeded in the trial of John F. Knapp. Joseph J. Knapp, being called upon, refused to testify, and the pledge of the government was withdrawn.

At the request of the prosecuting officers of the government, Mr. Webster appeared as counsel, and assisted in the trial.

Mr. Franklin Dexter addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner, and was succeeded by Mr. Webster in the following speech.]

I am little accustomed, Gentlemen, to the part which I am now attempting to perform. Hardly more than once or twice has it happened to me to be concerned on the side of the government in any criminal prosecution whatever; and never, until the present occasion, in any case affecting life.

But I very much regret that it should have been thought necessary to suggest to you that I am brought here to "hurry you against the law and beyond the evidence." I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own character, to attempt either; and were I to make such attempt, I am sure that in this court nothing can be carried against the law, and that gentlemen, intelligent and just as you are, are not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, when it is supposed that I may be in some degree useful in investigating and discovering the truth respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent on me, as on every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how great soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects, it has hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.

An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend, in the ordinary display and development of his character.

The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!

Ah! Gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which pierces through all disguises, and beholds every thing as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.