Read Ebook: The Life and Death of Mrs. Maria Bickford A beautiful female who was inhumanly murdered in the moral and religious city of Boston on the night of the 27th of October 1845 by Albert J. Tirrell her paramour arrested on board the Ship Sultana off New Orleans by Clergyman Of Brunswick Me

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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. MARIA BICKFORD,

A Beautiful Female, who was INHUMANLY MURDERED,

In the Moral and Religious City of Boston, on the night of the 27th of October, 1845, by

ALBERT J. TIRRELL,

Her Paramour, arrested on board the Ship Sultana, off New Orleans, December 6th.

BY A CLERGYMAN, OF BRUNSWICK, ME.

BOSTON: PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY ALL THE PERIODICAL DEALERS.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by SILAS ESTABROOK, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE

For the principal facts embodied in the following narrative, the Author is indebted to the ill-fated female who is the subject of them. It was his lot to be the bearer of a letter to her, in the spring of 1845, from a companion of her childhood. Aware of her forlorn condition, and of many acts of atrocity which characterized the latter part of her erring life, he made it his purpose to learn the history of her career, which was frankly communicated by her own lips.

The Author tenders his acknowledgments to the person who generously placed in his hands the original letters which reveal the passion flame of her FIRST LOVE with a medical student of Brunswick, in Maine. The contents of these letters establish the fact that this student became her seducer, and that he afterwards heartlessly abandoned her to remorse, and the jeers of a scoffing world. She was but fifteen years of age at the time of writing the letters, and they evince not only much purity and depth of feeling, but likewise a mind endowed with rare gifts.

It is not a pleasing duty to record the vicissitudes of the unfortunate. To draw aside the veil which conceals the cherished treasures, the blighted hopes, and the undying remorse of an erring soul, traced through long seasons of unredeeming, rayless wo, is to perform a labor for the benefit of the living. In this the author has striven to be faithful, impartial, and truthful.

Life, as a spectacle, is but dimly seen and feebly comprehended; as a mystery, it is unfathomable indeed. Blown, as it were, a bubble--dark as the transgressions by which it is checkered, it bursts in an hour we know not, as the globe of glass is dashed into fragments. We look on the wreck, and wonder why it had a being, to gather in its train a multitudinous throng of evils, and make its exit in ignominy and shame. The author, it will be seen, is a fatalist--a believer in an unalterable destiny. It is unnecessary here to enter into a defence of that belief--he hopes that all people have an opinion of their own upon this, as on other subjects.

Ye rich and great! ye poor and destitute--children of sin and wanderers from virtue--ye world wronged! cast your eyes over the panorama spread out to your view in the following pages, and, from the sounding depths of crime, learn lessons of wisdom.

Mrs. Maria Bickford was a native of Oldtown, a small parish near the city of Bangor, in Maine--the daughter of poor but respectable parents. Her maiden name was Dunn. She was born in the year 1822, and was, consequently, twenty-three years old at the period of her awful and untimely end. It is said of her, that, from earliest childhood, she had been the sport of ill omens and startling reverses. At her birth, which occurred before sunrise on a beautiful morning in autumn, a light of strange radiance shone into the apartment, and a sparrow fluttered against the window panes, uttering a plaintive wail, as if seeking admittance.

Whether these occurrences were the results of unexplained natural causes, or were the foreshadowings of an invisible fate, the judgment is not for us to pronounce--perhaps a future life and another world will interpret them. But certain it is, that their recital made a most fruitful theme for conjecture with the wonder-loving neighborhood, at the time. Old maids tied their cap-strings with a double knot for many a night thereafter. Old women spun long yarns while smoking their old-fashioned iron pipes in the chimney corners--and the old men scoffed at what they declared to be ridiculous. However it might have been, a marked singularity of thought and action was developed in the succeeding years of Maria's youth. Her childish prattle was unlike that of other children--she saw not as others see--she heard not as others hear--she laughed not as others laugh--but in all and with all there seemed to be a new development--a strangeness.

At about the seventh year of her age, those visitings of mysterious thoughtfulness which, in after years, imparted to her a peculiar fame, first began to be observed. During the recurrence of these periods she would remain for hours unmoved, regardless of all that was passing around her--as if in communion with the ascended spirit of some loved playmate, or in happy contemplation of the joys to be realized far away in the dim future. It was then that she discovered charms in solitude, Alone, in the fields and in the woods, she laughed with the flowers, and talked with the shadows of the trees--and that oaken giant, near her father's house, which had sternly derided the blasts of many centuries, creaked as though it were glad when Maria came, as she often did, and leaned against its brawny trunk, and exchanged salutations with the sentinel of time.

"They say I have a soul," she would say, in a revery, "an immortal soul--that a good man, who was the son of God, died for me, that I might live. What have I done to need such an awful atonement? Is it very wrong to while the Sabbath hours away, out here, with these birds, and bees, and squirrels? Is it a sin to love these pretty violets?--And this cool shade, too, and the breeze which fans me so gently--how calmly I sleep, and how pleasant are my dreams, in their refreshing presence! But they tell me it is not right to cherish the endearments of this world. It is neglecting God. I will kneel down here and pray."

And this was Maria's theology. What a mistake it is to teach the young to restrain their love of nature in the desire of "serving God!" As though his works had not the impress of his greatness and beneficence! We cannot but regard this very prevalent practice as the vulgar offspring of ignorance: and we trust that the time is at hand when the religion of nature will assume, in the human mind, the place and importance so long usurped by the hypocritical and soul-deadening religion of formality. What honest heart can entertain a doubt that Maria returned from her Sunday rambles amid the luxuriance and enlivening beauties of nature, a purer and better child than when she had, all the tiresome day, been listening to the dry and repulsive jabbering of a hireling pulpit sycophant? Oh, had the wisdom of the child been the monitor of the woman, varied and sweet would have been the closing years of the life of Maria Dunn.

Maria was blessed with kind and doting parents, who, in the plenitude of their regards for her welfare, were inexorably solicitous that her whole youth might be devoted to the acquirement of knowledge. Themselves ignorant of the common rudiments of education, of course they were incapable of selecting the best methods of instruction. Knowledge, they imagined, came from the school-house. It was manufactured there by some peripatetic old bachelor. To school, then, Maria must go, armed with a spelling-book, at first, and afterwards, an arithmetic: and at school the golden, unreturning hours of her youth rolled into the lap of oblivion, until time had notched her fourteenth year upon his dial. And now there was to be a change in her tuition. Arrangements were completed for her attendance at the high school in Brunswick, an interesting little village, some seventy-five miles distant. The day of departure, for the first time, from beneath the paternal roof, was an important event in her life. It was at hand. She bore it with but little apparent emotion, and brushed from her cheek but a single tear.

"Adieu, ye pensive shades and early joys! I will not say farewell. They tell me there is a recompense for every sacrifice--but my swelling heart--"

The remainder of the sentence was not uttered. The clock struck nine, and the rattling of wheels announced the coach for Brunswick. On this occasion it was full of passengers of high and low degree, from far and near--all strangers. The driver was belated and impatient. In a few moments all was in readiness, and Maria opened the wicket gate, which seemed to swing reluctantly upon its hinges, and entered the coach.

Along they went, at full gallop, leaving grove, and meadow, and friend, and every cherished thing, behind. It was a July morning. The air was soft and fragrant, and merrily the birds rang out their joyful songs. Though ladened with heaviness of spirit, Maria could not but be pleased with the new sights that met her view, and the sounds that saluted her ears.

"And this is the world, the great and wicked world, of which I have heard so much--so long desired to see. How enchanting! And how favored are they who can travel it all over! Such fortunes and pleasures are not mine; they never can be, for I am poor and helpless. But it must be so. Well, I will be contented with a humbler lot: there are millions who are even less fortunate. It is my destiny: I am satisfied."

These were silent reflections. On and on they rode. Now they ascended a mountain, now launched into a valley, and jolted across a pole-bridge. At length the tall pines laid their shadows on the earth, and other thoughts came into her mind--other emotions into her heart. Day's parting smile played upon the green foliage, and soon the mellow light announced a golden sunset. Half an hour after this, the driver reined his wearied horses up to a dilapidated hotel, in front of which dangled an old sign, bearing the words, "Half-way House." They all alighted, to tarry for the night.

This place is known, to this day, by the appellation of the "Lucky Basin," a title which it then bore. Now there may be seen some eight or ten slab-sided houses, the largest and best of which is the hotel. Here might have been found, at that time, a very select community, whose reigning queen was a shrivelled old Quakeress who, during twenty years, and until death made a requisition upon her bony frame, enjoyed a world-wide reputation as a fortune-teller. And really a good old dame was she, in head and in heart; for it appeared that not only the name, but the good fortune of the place, was attributable to her fame; that, but for her, the poverty-stricken habitations thereabouts, with their inmates, would have gone to perdition long before. She was respected and venerated, of course, and loaded with caresses, praises, and blessings, by the whole circle of her dependent neighbors--and she was surely a true philosopher's stone to them, in her own person, even if there was no virtue in that green pebble which the old lady pretended to have received by spiritual bequest, and which was always wrapped in a shiny covering.

It would be out of our province here to enter into any lengthened commentary on fortune-telling. This much we will allow--that when we hear of any helpless woman turning her wits to account in that manner, thereby delighting the countless votaries of curiosity, and earning a lucrative livelihood for herself at the same time, we rejoice heartily, for her sake. Now no one of "the profession" ever made sharper guesses than Quakeress Jemima Soule, and deep was the frequent surprise thereat. And it was sometimes truly marvellous that her predictions were fulfilled with such exactness. She was honored with visits from many seemingly intelligent persons, some residing more than three hundred miles distant. And when we consider the excitement produced upon those who lived in her own vicinity, or not farther away than a day's ride, we need not wonder at the fact that Lucky Basin was thronged with anxious, and often bewitching faces, at a rate of not less than three thousand a year.

And let it not be supposed that her visiters were only from among the poorer classes of society. Her widely-spread fame frequently excited deep anxiety among many wealthy persons, who never failed, in their visits, to reward her with gold: and thus was she enabled to extend the sphere of her unostentatious benevolence, and to secure the fervent blessings of the unfortunate.

Maria regarded the present opportunity of being able to see the renowned Seeress, and of having her own fortune read from the book of fate, with inexpressible delight. As soon as the supper was over, away she hurried, with impatient step, to the humble dwelling of Jemima, gave a low tap at the door, and was admitted, without question or ceremony, and motioned to a chair. Several others were present, but none indulged in conversation. To some, the moment and the scene were of much sublimity; to others, inimitably farcical. A part of those present suppressed a rude giggle as it fell to their turn to be ushered, one by one, into the presence-chamber of the Oracle--while others brushed a trembling tear-drop from their cheeks, as they tottered fearfully to the door. It was Maria's turn at last. All the others had been served, and were gone. On entering the apartment, she encountered the venerable matron, who had risen to meet her. "Daughter of earth," said the Oracle, "thy hand." It was given tremblingly, and Maria followed the Seeress to a low stool, and sat down. Fifteen minutes in silence, the blood shot eyes of Jemima being riveted upon the fair girl. Then came a suppressed groan, at which Maria involuntarily shuddered. "Daughter," said the Seeress, "if the ways of the Lord thy God were as our ways, he were cruel to thee." "Why so, good Mother?" "Hush! I write." Jemima then took from a glass case a leaf of fine gilt-edged paper, turned her back towards Maria, and, after consulting the green stone in a yellow box that had strange hieroglyphics scratched all over it, she laid hold of a pen made from a raven's quill, and wrote the following words: "TO LOVE SO YOUNG--A LAMB AND A WOLF--SO YOUNG--A KILLING FROST--DESTITUTION--MARRIAGE--CRIME--THERE IS BLOOD--DEATH."

It was doubled, and strongly sealed with wax. Then turning her form and face towards the girl, she thus spake: "Daughter, I have written--but before I give it thee, there is a condition. Thee must promise not to open this until thou hast looked upon the sun of thy eighteenth year. Dost agree to the terms?" "I? No, indeed--I cannot," said Maria, bursting into a laugh, "delay would make me so anxious to know what it contained, that I should die of curiosity, long before the time." "Daughter, thou art a child of destiny--God wills it. It is hard--but there is a heaven hereafter. Agree to the condition, or the flames will devour the record. Promise, child, before thy God." A short pause. Maria faltered; her cheeks turned to an ashy paleness; she tried to speak; her heart leaped up to her throat. "I promise," was all that she could say. "It is thine," said the Seeress, taking a piece of silver from the hand in which she placed the paper. "Daughter, good night." And Maria rose immediately, left the dwelling, and hastened back to the hotel. But she came not as she went. There was a change in her whole nature from that moment. The plastic hand of the Divinity remoulded, as it were, her features. She gazed upon the letter, turned it over and over, with ill-concealed anxiety--and then, in the first involuntary burst of indignation at the conditions, cursed the Seeress and the hour of her own birth.

This was disappointment in most provoking shape. The same night a dream disturbed her slumbers. We will relate it, as nearly as memory serves us, in her own language.

THE DREAM.

"A spirit came to me during a fearful tempest, and tendered me wings. I accepted them with feelings, if not with words, of gratitude. She flew, and beckoned me to follow. I then flew with her to the brow of a rocky cliff, where we both alighted. Here we were joined by a troop of my companions and kindred, who immediately struck up a chorus which rang through the arch of heaven, and brought back echoes still more musical. Methought I heard the voice of Gabriel mingling those answering sounds. I clapped my hands with an ecstasy of joy, when lo! all was silent, save the growling tempest beneath. They were gone. I dropped my head and wept. Then a horrible voice accosted me from the cavern below:--'Thou wert my friend; thou art my enemy--begone!' I reeled in the dread gloom that enveloped me, and uttered a scream for mercy. At that instant the lightning opened to me a fiery path. My wings lifted me up, and again, though now alone, I flew.

"On and on--there was no rest. At length I espied a sunny island, a thousand leagues at sea. I alighted, and walked, and ran, and danced upon the velvet grass--or methought I was alone at last. Alone, alone! where temptation could not assail me, nor the flatterer's words beguile! Alone before God, and in prayer! But, as I knelt, that awful voice cried out to me again:--'Thou wert my friend; thou art mine enemy--begone!' Where was the source of this awful mandate? It came from the earth; it came on the winds. Then my soul drank from the waters of affliction, and despair gnawed at my brain. The voice came again, but with other words--'To love so young!--a lamb and a wolf--so young!--a killing frost--destitution--marriage crime--there is blood!--death!' How little I suspected these words were the very same which the Seeress had just interwoven with my eternal destiny! Alone, and yet alone! Oh now for a friend--ONE MORTAL FRIEND--to support and guide me! Truly, none can estimate the value of human sympathy but they who are destitute of its consolations!

"At this instant a youth saluted me, and clasped me in his arms. His smile was sweet, and in his demeanor there was such an appearance of deep affection for me that, in my ecstasy, I did not, could not, resist his embrace. 'I am thine!--thine forever!' he whispered, 'I have known thee from childhood!--I furnished thee with wings!' As he spoke, Love's sweet delirium took possession of my soul, and I was conscious only of intense, unearthly delight. After the vividness of this rapture had subsided, we sank into slumber, imparadised in each other's arms.

"When I awoke, the youth was gone. I thought he would return, and was satisfied. BUT HE CAME NOT. Then the air was filled with hisses. Ten thousand angry serpents could not have uttered a noise so dreadful. I thought my lover's name was Theodore, and called to him, when, awful presence! a legion of demons rose up at the sound of his name! They were a black, bony, frightful throng, and they greeted me with a terrible shout of exultation. They danced round and round me,

until, from dizziness, I could not see. Then I cursed most bitterly, but they only laughed and hissed. Then the spirit of Murder came into my heart, FOR I KNEW MY SHAME!"

The cold sweat stood on Maria's fair forehead--and this dream, so fraught with terror, lived in her heart. On awakening at the moment, though in a fright, she believed it to be a visitation of nightmare, and soon slept more quietly.

On the evening of the next day, the company reached Brunswick. Maria arrived at the apartments previously allotted to her, in cheerful spirits, and full of glowing hope. She did not know the feeling of homesickness. Her whole mind was wrapped up in the anticipation of great intellectual advancement. It was Saturday night. Every thing was new and interesting which greeted her eyes. Some of the students, to render her new abode more pleasing at the beginning, serenaded her with very sweet music, beneath her window, at midnight. When the music ceased, she noticed in it a resemblance to that which she had heard in her singular dream at the hotel in the Lucky Basin. As she heard the footsteps of the departing serenaders, she fell into a profound reverie, which was succeeded by a deep, dreamless sleep.

Six months after the time which brought our last chapter to a close, Maria attended the church of which I was pastor, in Brunswick. It was on a Sabbath morning in midwinter. The snow lay deep on the ground, and the merry bells and the happy faces of that morning of gay sunlight and sparkling frost bespoke the pleasures to be anticipated from many a sleigh-ride. On this occasion Maria was accompanied by a young man who had arrived in the village the week previous, and entered the medical college as a student. He was from Georgia, and his manly bearing, brunette face, jet-black eyes, and curling ringlets, indicated his temperament to be as ardent as a Southern sun could make it. His name was Theodore Maxwell. His father trafficked in human flesh, and bartered virtue for a price; and the loose improvidence of the son told plainly of there being great wealth in the family. His demeanor indicated that he was on the best terms with himself, and, moreover, that he had a taste for licentious gratifications. He was rich, and that was quite sufficient to place him in full favor with the women, and render him "a good fellow" with the men. Theodore and Maria entered the church, and seated themselves in a pew on the broad aisle.

I commenced the worship of God by reading the 44th Psalm, the singing of which was followed by an Address to the Throne of Grace. I then read a hymn, which, as well as the psalm, was very well executed by the choir. I then commenced my sermon, from the following text: "Remember Lot's wife." As I proceeded, the utmost of my ability was thrown into the subject. I enlarged upon the development of the affections, the gratitude we owe to the Almighty for a thousand gifts, and the blessed union of two hearts by divine sanction: the nature of the evil thoughts that should be cast away, and the principles which secure to virtue the fruits of a blessed reward: the penalty of disobedience, and the iniquity of the seducer. Few there are, among even the most earnest admirers of the Bible, who truly appreciate its sublimity and poetry. From the first line of Genesis to the last of Revelations, it is filled with evidences of its divine origin. As I reached that point in my discourse which depicted the bereavements of Lot, the cords of whose heart were all severed by a decree of God's wrath, I perceived that Maria and her companion were deeply affected. THEIR EYES MET: IT WAS LOVE!

There is no genuine love but love at first sight. This is the pure offspring of unpolluted sympathy. All other love is merely the result of observation, reflection, and compromise. The enduring passions flash like the lightning; they scorch the soul, but it is warmed forever! Miserable the creature whose love rises by degrees upon the frigid morning of the mind! Amid the gloom and sorrow of existence, suddenly to behold a form having a kindred soul, and to feel an overwhelming conviction that, with that form, our destiny must be forever entwined; that there is no more joy but in his joy, no sorrow but when he grieves; that in the warmth of his love, in his smile of fondness, is all future bliss--this is love. Magnificent, sublime, divine sentiment! An intense flame burns in the breast of an adoring girl: she is an ethereal being. She is out upon the sea of life, with a gaze fixed to a single star. If that do not shine, there is no further joy in existence!

Oh Indiscretion! Oh Love! In vain are the teachings of moralists, that thou art a delusion! Love, that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that can gladden the heart of the slave, and lighten his shackles! The sage may assert that the gratification of vanity is thine aim and end, but Love glances with contempt at the cold-blooded philosophy of calculation.

LETTERS.

MARIA TO THEODORE.

Dearest, Dearest Theodore: I have not yet lain down. Did you reach home in safety? That was a swift, ugly horse! I would give worlds to hear from you, Theodore, even one word! What joys hath God revealed to me this day! Can our love endure forever? May angels guard you, Theodore, and learn you to think of your betrothed Maria! It begins to rain dreadfully, and I know not what to do. I beat about my chamber like a silly bird in a cage. What a destiny broods over us! Write me one line, only one line, to tell me of your welfare. I shall be in despair until I hear from you. Do not delay the bearer an instant. He promises to return in a very, very short time. I will pray for you all this night, that seems as if it would never end. God bless you, my darling Theodore! Do not fail to write, and, till we meet again, believe me your own

MARIA.

Believe me to be your own THEODORE.

Wo to the fair daughter of the North, whose pure soul is at the mercy of the Southern hyena! Wo to that spirit of slavish reverence for wealth, which winks at any crime, if the criminal be only a man of wealth! In this penurious and licentious age, money is the arch destroyer of female chastity. Wo to the female votaries of Wealth and Fashion, whose feet are in the snares of the soul-destroying seducer! Better to pine in want till the coming of grey hairs, and die unbefriended, than yield thy honor, poor worldling, to the exacting blandishments of wealth!

But we cannot well refrain from presenting the reader with one more of Maria's letters, evidently written under the withering influence of disappointment and shame. Still the repulsive brutality of Maxwell could not stifle the flame of FIRST LOVE, that burned within her confiding, forgiving, repentant heart. To his iron scoffs she returned tears, tenderness, and supplications.

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