David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books has issued their Catalogue 199 of Rare Americana. It contains mostly pamphlets, broadsides, documents and ephemeral material from 18th and 19th century America. This is news and events as they happened, living history, rather than after-the-fact accounts prepared years later. Here are a few samples of America as seen through contemporary eyes.
This is an old story that even 150 years later is too tragic to comprehend. This item is titled Poor Little Edith Freeman. The Pocasset Fanatics! Chas Freeman. The “Second Adventist,” Imagining Himself Another Abraham, Slays His Little Daughter, Offering Up His Darling Child as a Human Sacrifice!” It was published in 1879, the year of the killing. The writer attributed the horror to “too much reading of the Bible.” Indeed, there is nothing to indicate that Freeman anything but adored his youngest child, but that he truly believed God had called on him to so act. Freeman became the leader of a sect that broke off from the local Methodist church a year earlier that called itself the “Second Adventists.” He became increasingly fanatic in his beliefs when he thought God told him he had to kill one of his family. Later, God revealed it was his favorite, little Edith. His wife was totally under his spell, and after some initial objections, went along with him. Freeman got a knife from the barn late at night and returned to stab the sleeping girl. According to Freeman, she cried out “O Papa!” He said he held her and cried while she died, but by the next morning, was very pleased by what he had done. He claimed that he believed God would relent from the command as He did with Abraham, but that did not happen. The next day, Freeman called all the townspeople to his house for an important revelation, but only some members of his congregation attended. He told them the story and showed them her body to assure it was the truth. Incredibly, they too believed him and decided to keep it all quiet, but one 16-year-old girl revealed the truth. Freeman was held in a sanitarium for three years before brought to trial. By then, he had come to believe that perhaps it was the Devil's voice he heard. Freeman was acquitted by reason of insanity and committed to the Danvers State Hospital. He was freed in 1887 as no longer being insane and the family moved from Pocasset, Massachusetts, to Chicago. He died in Michigan in 1928. Item 35. Priced at $750.
Next we have a letter from 1912 by Mary Anna Morrison Jackson. If that name isn't familiar, she was also known as Mrs. Stonewall Jackson. The wife of the famed Confederate General killed during the war, she outlived him by 52 years, but never remarried. After the death of Jefferson Davis' wife, she became known as the “First Lady of the Confederacy.” She was beloved by the old Confederate veterans and it seems doubtful that her views about the war changed very much. Certainly, the racist attitudes that made acceptance of slavery possible are still revealed in this letter. It was sent to Gaillard Tennant, who had designed a Morrison family Coat of Arms. Evidently, there was some Moor blood in the family, though ancestors apparently fought the Moors. The Coat of Arms displayed three Moors' heads, but Mrs. Jackson was upset that they were “representatives of the purest African type.” She continued, “...when I showed it to my family, the exclamation burst forth from them, “Well, I didn't know we were descended from 'Niggers!'” She adds, “surely my idea of the Moors is that they were not pure, black, thick lipped Africans!” She requests he change the image “to relieve the picture of the hideous African representation, and transform such monsters into the type of brown race with more regular and intelligent features; certainly not the thick, sensual lips but more the style of the Malay race. Don't you think I am correct in this?” Item 54. $2,000.
In 1861, South Carolina led the southern states to secede from the Union. It wasn't its first attempt. In 1832, South Carolina passed its nullification legislation, saying it had the right to nullify federal laws. If denied, it planned to secede from the union and asked the other southern states to join them. They didn't. President Andrew Jackson came down firmly against them and threatened retaliatory measures to force the state into line. Item 52 is Message of the President of the United States to Both Houses of Congress, Transmitting Copies of the Ordinance and Other Documents, and his Proclamation in Relation to South Carolina, published in 1833. Jackson lays out his response to “the extraordinary defiance to the just authority of the government” and the imminent danger “to the integrity of the union.” “Open and organized resistance to the laws should not be executed with impunity.” South Carolina backed down. Item 52. $1,500.
Zach Montgomery was not happy with the outcome of this trial and was not afraid to say so in this publication: The Schroder Trial. Bottom Facts and Leading Incidents Connected with the Killing of Dr. Alfred LeFevre, and the Trial and Disgraceful Acquittal of the Slayer. Undoubted Innocence of the Deceased... published in 1881. Montgomery was a retired lawyer who assisted in the unsuccessful prosecution of this case gratis, but without success, hence the pamphlet. Schroder killed Dr. LeFevre but used the defense, often successful in those days, that LeFevre had been messing around with his wife. LeFevre was Montgomery's dentist, his client, and a friend. Montgomery was incensed that his friend's reputation was being tarnished by what he believed to be a false claim. Writes Montgomery, “...I believe him to have been foully murdered by an assassin who, after killing him was seeking to destroy his reputation by falsely charging him with the seduction of his wife in order to palliate the murder.” Montgomery claimed Schroder committed an “unmerciful beating of his wife” to testify to “a criminal intercourse with Dr. LeFevre” that never occurred. Item 73. $1,250.
Here is a woman who had her reputation tarnished by powerful business interests and politicians. She didn't care. It just showed she was effective in carrying out her mission. The woman was Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones. She was a housewife with four children when tragedy struck. An outbreak of yellow fever killed them all. She moved to Chicago and became a dressmaker for wealthy clients, but the Great Chicago Fire wiped out her business. Her husband had been a union man and she took up the cause, organizing hardscrabble workers into unions. She joined the Knights of Labor and later the United Mine Workers. She led mine workers' strikes and pushed them to be strong, not to give in to the mining companies until their aims were achieved. She also agitated against child labor, in the mines and in the mills. Due to her age and relationship with the workers, she was given the moniker of “Mother Jones.” She was often looked on more as their grandmother, a fiery old woman who made hard men listen and cheer. She found herself imprisoned for her activities, this relating to one such incident. Item 75 is a broadside headed Appeal to Reason. Fred D. Warren. It was an offshoot of a Kansas labor weekly of the same name. It began, “Dear Comrade: Mother Jones, the heroine of many a hard-fought battle on the industrial field, languishes in a prison cell in West Virginia – the victim of a foul plot against innocent men and women ever conceived outside of the realms of Hell itself. Civil law has been overthrown by the coal barons, the rights of men and women ruthlessly trampled under foot; even little children have been mutilated and thrown in jail.” This came after the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike in West Virginia in 1912. Martial law was declared and Mother Jones was brought before a military court for a court-martial on February 13, 1913. She refused to recognize the court's legitimacy but was sentenced to 20 years in prison anyway. She spent 85 days in prison but then was released after a senate investigation was begun into the events of the strike. $500.
David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books may be reached at 203-389-8111 or dmlesser@lesserbooks.com. Their website is www.lesserbooks.com.
