Authors: Matthew Goodman
45
The only known image:
Print Collection, New York Public Library, EM11499.
45
The engraving is undated:
Robin’s career at the prominent New York firm of John Chester Buttre did not begin until 1846, so the engraving must have been commissioned sometime after that.
46
“The forehead is truly beautiful”:
Harrison (1902), 15:137.
47
Did not own his own home:
National Archives and Records Administration, 1860 Census Records, Film Series M653, Roll 850, page 22.
C HAPTE R 3: B EAR E R O F TH E FALC O N C R E ST
49
Born on September 22, 1800:
East Brent Baptismal Register, Somerset Archive and Record Service, Taunton, U.K.
49
Several reference works:
See, for instance,
A Dictionary of North American
Authors,
272, and
A Dictionary of American Authors,
232; also Crowe, 213.
49
“Of English parentage and education”:
Griggs, 41.
49
“The Locke family in this neighborhood”:
Locke (1853), 342.
49
Its own coat of arms: The Gentleman’s Magazine,
September 1792, 800.
50
Related to John Locke:
Locke (1853), 359. It should be noted that Lockwood Rianhard, who is a great-great-grandson of Richard Adams Locke, has done extensive genealogical work on the family and asserts that he has found no common ancestor between John Locke and Richard Adams Locke. Letter to the author, January 25, 2005.
50
A direct descendant:
This story served to confuse, among others, Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote in his essay on Locke in
The Literati of New York City,
“He is a lineal descendant from the immortal author of the ‘Essay on the Human Understanding.’” Harrison (1902), 15:137. John Locke was in fact a child-less bachelor, and thus his line stopped with him.
50
“The Hundreds”:
Locke (1939), 20.
50
“I never published a pamphlet”:
Locke (1939), 20.
50
A twenty-acre farm:
Locke (1939), 11.
51
By . . . 1800 he owned 146 acres:
Ridler, 7.
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Notes to Chapter 3
51
“Burnham’s most distinguished native inhabitant”:
Wrigley, 23.
51
Left the bulk of his estate:
Somerset Archive and Record Service,
Will of
Richard Locke the elder of Burnham, gent, 6 October 1806,
DD/ALN 4.
51
Mill Batch Farm:
Mill Batch Farm had been left to Richard Locke’s third wife, Parnel Adams, by her mother, Ann Day. It remained in the family until 1920. Ridler, 7.
51
His choice of wife:
Somerset Marriage Index, Somerset Archive and Record Service.
52
In operation at Mill Batch Farm:
Coulthard, 47. The windmill is marked on a local road map from 1675. Apparently it was being worked as late as 1880.
Mill Batch Farm was demolished in the early 1960s; today there is a bungalow (still called Mill Batch Farm) on the site of the original farmhouse, and an industrial estate on the surrounding property.
52
“Served in Canada”:
Griggs, 41.
53
A search conducted by the National Archives:
The National Archives of the United Kingdom, search reference number F0002667. Among the indexes consulted were the Royal Hospital Chelsea: soldiers service documents 1760–1913; Records of Service, Officers–Royal Engineers, 1796–1880; the
Roll of Officers of the Corps of Engineers from 1660 to 1898 compiled from
the MS. rolls of the late Captain T. W. J. Connolly;
and the Army List of Officers for 1800–1815.
53
Inherited his grandfather’s genius:
Bailey (1955), 3.
53
The historical citations of Richard Adams Locke:
See, for instance,
Who Was
Who in America
(1963), 319;
Biographical Dictionary of American Journalism,
424;
Encyclopedia of the British Press,
378; O’Brien, 39; Seavey, xxxi; Collins, 262; Griggs, 41. Michael J. Crowe did note in a footnote to his discussion of Locke, “I have been unable to confirm that he studied in Cambridge.” Crowe, 592.
53
Richard Adams Locke is not among them: Alumni Cantabrigienses,
2:4, 195–196.
53
A student had only to matriculate:
This was confirmed by the current deputy keeper of the University Archives at Cambridge, who noted, “By the period of your interest, formal membership of the University of Cambridge, and hence appearance in the ‘Alumni Cantabrigienses,’ was predicated on ‘matriculation.’ In order to attend University lectures, sit for examinations and take a degree, students had to be matriculated.” Email from Jacqueline Cox to the author, February 9, 2005.
54
The
Republican: See Griggs, 42; O’Brien, 39.
54
“Unsuccessful effort to indoctrinate”:
Griggs, 42.
54
“Theories of American democracy”:
O’Brien, 39.
55
Much as the Soviet Union did
: Crook, 3.
55
“Courage and firmness”:
Gilmartin, 34.
55
“Libellous caricatures adorn’d the walls”:
Gilmartin, 69.
56
At least two literary journals:
Griggs, 42.
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Notes to Chapter 4
56
Returning to England’s southwest:
Bristol is not in Somerset proper but just across the border on the other side of the Avon River.
58
“Remarkable individual”:
Dare, 4.
59
“The most ultra doctrines”:
Griggs, 42.
59
“Unconscionably impudent and dogmatical”:
“Defender,” 25.
59
“May have been better entitled”:
“Defender,” 21.
60
Chosen not to provide for him:
This is surmise, as Richard Locke’s will, unlike his father’s, is not held by the Somerset Archive and Record Service.
However, there is no indication that Richard Adams Locke ever received any of the family estate, and much circumstantial evidence that he did not, including the cheap housing in which the family lived in New York City; an ex-tant letter from 1850 in which he bemoans his financial circumstances; his small savings and lack of home ownership later in life; and his son’s unsuccessful efforts to claim the eight tenement houses built by Richard Locke for the officers of the Burnham Society, that should have reverted to the family when the Burnham Society ceased to exist. Ridler, 10.
60
Died the next year:
Somerset Archive and Record Service, East Brent register of burials, d/p/brnt.e 2/1/18, 23.
60
“The apostle of the hill country”:
Ridler, 10.
61
“One seemed to look down upon Dante’s Inferno”:
Latimer, 167.
62
“Most disastrous outbreak of popular violence”:
Latimer, 146. Most of Latimer’s annals (in his
Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century
) consist of single-paragraph entries; the discussion of the 1831 Bristol riots runs thirty-five pages.
62
Into five bags:
National Archives and Records Administration,
Passenger
Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York,
Film Series M237, Roll 15.
62
Booked passage on the
James Cropper: Launched as a Black Ball packet ship in 1821, the
James Cropper
was retired from packet service in 1828 and sold to a Virginia ship owner, and by 1831 was serving as a tramp steamer. On December 15, 1832, less than a year after the Lockes’ cross-Atlantic voyage, the
James Cropper
“pounded her bottom out near Cape Henlopen at the mouth of the Delaware, while loaded with some of the first rails for the pioneer Camden & Amboy Railroad.” Albion, 102.
62
Nights were always worst:
See, for instance, Fox, 11–12; and Albion, 9–10.
64
Orion stalking the east:
My thanks to William Jacobs of the American Museum of Natural History Library for providing me a star chart for the North Atlantic for November 1831.
C HAPTE R 4: TH E ATR O C I O U S I M P O S ITI O N S O F MATTH IA S
65
Arrived in New York on January 13, 1832:
National Archives and Records Administration,
Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York,
Film Series M237, Roll 15.
67
“Without a pot to piss in”:
Burrows and Wallace, 476.
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Notes to Chapter 4
67
“Rookeries”:
Jackson (1995), 1161.
67
Sometime between May 1833 and May 1834:
Richard Adams Locke does not appear in
Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City
Directory
until the 1834 edition.
67
18 Duane Street: Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and
City Directory, for the Fifty-Ninth Year of American Independence
(1834), 436.
67
Tidy whitewashed farmhouse:
My thanks to John Coombes of Burnham, England, for providing me a photograph of Mill Batch Farm.
68
Set himself the task of learning shorthand:
It is not known precisely when Locke learned shorthand. But there is no indication of his having known shorthand in England, and he was a practicing stenographer no later than the year following his arrival in New York. Additionally, P. T. Barnum wrote that Locke “was the only shorthand reporter in the city, where he laid the basis for a competency he now enjoys.” Barnum (1866), 202.
68
“The only shorthand reporter in the city”:
Barnum (1866), 202.
68
A pamphlet for a Cortland Street bookseller:
The pamphlet is not dated, but it very likely came out in 1833, as the seller would have wanted to hurry the transcript into print to capitalize on the publicity surrounding the case.
68
“Shortly after the Judges”: Report of the Trial of the Rev. Ephraim K.
Avery . . . ,
3.
69
Published anonymously:
Reference to Locke’s authorship of the pamphlet can be found in Griggs, 43.
70
“The Apollo of the press”:
Crouthamel (1969), 81.
70
“What benefit can it be”:
Crouthamel (1969), 57.
70
Fought his own duel:
Crouthamel (1969), 75–76.
72
“He was a little too gorgeous and florid”:
Seavey, xv.
72
The first feature articles:
O’Brien, 37.
73
Sojourner Truth:
Johnson and Wilentz, 179.
74
The trial became something greater:
For a full discussion of the various meanings read into the Matthias trial, from which I have drawn here, see Johnson and Wilentz, pp. 150–153.
75
Sold more than six thousand:
An item in the May 16, 1835, edition of the
Sun
reads: “We yesterday printed an edition of 10,000 of this pamphlet, more than 6,000 of which were disposed of.”
76
Day paid him $150:
Griggs, 4.
76
“There must come a change”:
Hone, 156.
77
Not far from the ferry terminal:
See Theodore S. Fay’s description of the Elysian Fields in Dakin, 20–21.
77
Sybil’s Cave:
For some reason it was spelled
Sybil,
as opposed to the
Sibyl
of classical tradition.
77
Bludgeoned Attree:
Extensive accounts of the attack on Attree were provided in the
Sun
and the
Transcript
of June 8, 1835, with several follow-up reports in the ensuing days.
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Notes to Chapter 5
78
An assault charge made against Boyd:
Cohen, 85–86. The prostitute’s name was Helen Jewett. The following year Jewett was murdered, and one of her clients, Richard Robinson, was arrested for the crime. The trial—and Robinson’s eventual acquittal—made sensational fodder for New York’s penny papers.
79
Roach Guards, Shirt Tails, and Plug Uglies:
Sante, 199.
79
Had a wife and a young son:
Bradshaw (1983), 3.
79
His habit of chewing tobacco:
James Stanford Bradshaw has referred to his
“excessive tobacco chewing.” Bradshaw (1983), 8.
79
“The odious practice of chewing and expectorating”:
Larkin, 166.
79
“He was a pretty smart fellow”:
This is from the interview Day gave for the
Sun’
s fiftieth anniversary issue, “Benjamin Day’s Own Sun Story,” published on September 2, 1883.
79
By the last week of June:
The
Sun
of June 26, 1835, is the last issue to include Wisner’s name on the masthead.
79
Five thousand dollars:
O’Brien, 37.
80
Yet another account:
See Seavey, 15.
81
Windust’s restaurant on Park Row:
Turner, xv–xvi.
81
Locke had wanted to write editorials:
See James Gordon Bennett’s item “The Astronomical Hoax Explained” in the August 31, 1835, issue of the
Herald.
82
Twelve dollars a week:
O’Brien, 38.
C HAPTE R 5: “TH E EVI L S P I R IT O F TH E TI M E S”
84
“A reptile marking his path with slime”:
Reynolds, 174.
85
Slump-shouldered posture:
Thompson, 31.
85
“It would be worth my while”:
Fermer, 24.
86
First to put the news on the front page:
Stevens, 33.
86
A tenement building on Nassau Street:
Carlson, 124.
86
He was the
Herald’
s publisher:
Carlson, 124.
86 New-York Enquirer: By the late 1820s, the hyphenation of “New-York” was a matter of personal preference on the part of a newspaper owner; some papers had begun to drop the hyphen, while others retained it well into the 1850s. Fox (1928), 1–2.
86
Made it known:
Fox (1928), 95.