Parkmann was one of the richest men in Boston, a powerful and mean-spirited landlord. He disappeared one day trying to collect a debt from an second-rate chemistry professor
Parkmann was one of the richest men in Boston, a powerful and mean-spirited landlord. He disappeared one day trying to collect a debt from an second-rate chemistry professor at Harvard named Webster, cousin of Daniel Webster, the famous lawyer.
Parkmann had been an unusually large man and the bones were of an unusually large man. But that wasn’t proof. So the BPD went to Harvard to ask for a definitive test and they invented Forensic Dentistry, taking molds of the teeth and the police when to his dentist who positively identified them as those of Parkmann. Webster was arrested but loudly proclaimed his innocence. Even his cousin wouldn’t take the case because it was so solid. Everyone knew he was guilty as hell.
Meanwhile, Littlefield got a big reward and made a ton of money giving tours of Webster’s lab. It didn’t help Webster’s case that he was roundly disliked and known to be a profligate spender who was broke, borrowed money and never paid it back. He had a good motive for killing Parkmann, who it was determined had been boiled in acid before his bones were burned.
Webster was to be hanged at the Great Boston Elm Tree, the oldest and tallest tree in Boston, and the hanging tree from the time Boston was formed, right next to the Frog Pond but the tree had been retired in 1817 so they took him to the Leverett Street Jail and publicly hanged him there. (The Elm was finally struck by lightning and cut down in 1876. Boston actually had 2 hanging trees - one for the wealthy - the spreading elm, and dying tree near the Mill Pond for poor people.) Webster proclaimed his innocence to the very end and was hanged by the neck until dead, watched by people like Jack London and Mark Twain.
It had been the crime of the century and newspapers all over the world followed the case. It helped to cement the reputation of the Parker House, where Twain and London stayed, as the best hotel in America, which had one bedroom per guest, bathrooms on every floor and hot running water in the basement for baths. Parkmann’s son, who never married, donated a large sum of money for a bandstand to be erected near where Webster was hanged. He also paid for all the trees that are in the Common now. Derastus Clapp was hailed as a hero and went on to live an adventurous life as a Boston Police Detective. Littlefield went on to retire and buy a house and live a genteel life on his reward money and fame. The Hanging Tree ceased being used and a gallows was raised in its shadows. It had seen hundreds of hangings including many women, such as Mary Dyer, the Quaker minister and Rachel Wall, the female pirate and last woman hanged in Boston. A chair made from the elm is in the Boston Public Library. Harvard became even more famous for inventing Forensic Dentristry, something still used today. The case was largely forgotten.
And then, in 1955 a DA in Boston was clearing out old files and came across the case and reviewed it, the evidence and the characters. He determined that Webster probably was innocent. The killer was most likely Littlefield, who despised Webster and who was a known grave robber who provided corpses for Harvard Medical Students for 50 dollars each - which was a large sum. Short of bodies, he probably killed Parkmann when Parkmann came to collect the debt and discovered Littlefield preparing to sell dug-up corpses to medical students. Littlefield knew all about the lab and how to cut up and boil the body in acid and burn the remains. The new evidence wasn’t enough to convict either man but it was enough to cast doubt on the results and point the finger at Littlefield, who probably got away with murder.
I think about it every time I see the Parkmann Bandstand on the Boston Common. Continue reading
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