Chapter 22 Section 22

But a few days later, Edward Garveth retracted his confession.He retracted his testimony in a letter to the pardon court's executive committee, saying "that was not my opinion, but the impression given to me by others".After another conversation with Dr. Samuel Peckman, Jr., "I believe I've been mistaken."At the end of the letter, there is a line written by Samuel Peckman Jr.: "I agree with the above correction. S. Peckman" Many people think that this is the same as the "Jose Street Prison" that Dr. George Peckman was alive. Like the land deal, it was also "quite suspicious" and "scandalous".Just imagine, the Pikeman family can even hire a lawyer for the public prosecution with a lot of money. Isn't it easy to seal a doctor's mouth?

Years later, the case revealed two more incidents involving the Peckman family, or what Georgie Bemis called "The Peckman Project."One, State Assemblyman Samuel Wood, one of the five members of the Pardon Court Executive Committee, gave another attorney for the prosecution, State Attorney General Joe Ann Cliff wrote a note: top secret Councilor meeting July 17, 1850 friend cliff The committee will propose to Parliament that Professor West be executed on Friday, August 30. your loyal S. Wood In other words, before the hearing is over, the committee has decided to reject the defendant's application.This short note is considered by historians to be evidence of Jon Cliff's involvement in the "Peckman Plan" and "conspiracy".

Second, there was a so-called "Professor West's Confession written by Reverend Putnam" in the society, saying that Professor West admitted in the "Confession" that he met with Pikeman on November 23, 1849. When the doctor had a quarrel over debts in the chemistry laboratory, he accidentally injured the other party. The murder weapon was the wooden stick prepared for the experimental class "The Properties of Wood".Almost on the same day that the "Boston Traveler" published the "confession", other newspapers insisted that "this is a hoax" based on several obvious flaws in the article.It was later proved that the director of this "hoax" was none other than members of the prosecution and Dr. Peckman's son, attorney George F. Peckman Jr.

In the early morning of August 30, 1850, just as the night sky revealed a little light, crowds began to gather at the execution ground of Leveli Street Prison.By 9 a.m., the execution ground was so crowded that Boston police were completely out of control. At 9:25, a small procession walked slowly from the direction of the prison, across the execution ground, and onto the gallows.The jailer Andrew held the prisoner's arm, and the police officer Jon Everest stretched out his hand to adjust the black hood covering the prisoner's head before turning to the crowd—— "Now, in the name of the State of Massachusetts, and by the order of the State of Massachusetts, I execute the criminal John Wright West. God bless the State of Massachusetts!"

With a screeching sound of metal rubbing, the movable pedal under the prisoner's feet was suddenly pulled away, and his body suddenly fell 8 and a half feet (2.6 meters) like a plumb weight, and he was in the air again. It came to an abrupt end.A few seconds later, I let out a loud fart, and my legs twitched for a while, and then gradually straightened. The body was swinging in the wind for exactly half an hour, and at 10:05, Officer Everes cut the rope. According to the "Boston Tourist" report: "The corpse was put into a very crude coffin...the whole body was not out of shape at all, and it looked as if it was sleeping. Only the skin that had turned maroon purple showed that Professor West Died an untimely death."

Later, Jon Sibury, a librarian and historian at Harvard University, heard from Professor West's friend Professor Henry Longfellow that, that morning, before his execution, he and Harvard University President Gard Spark We went to Professor West's six-by-eight-foot cell with no walls.During the whole process, the professor kept silent about his own affairs, "only talking about his only son who died young". Professor Longfellow sighed: "This is the most painful experience in my life." The easiest and surest way to get to know a person, lawyers say, is to look at an itemized list of that person's personal belongings.

The following is all of Professor John West's personal property submitted by Mrs. West Helier to the Probate Court of the Savolk District: several chemical instruments, several ore collections, hundreds of books of various titles, and 660 scientific papers articles, hundreds of copies of music literature, a flute, 102 pages of piano scores (without a piano), a cellar full of jugs of wine, and a lease contract for a house at No. 22 Huayuan Street signed with Mr. $200) for one. Since the arrest of Professor West, although his two daughters Marion and Helier have found jobs teaching painting and music respectively, the family has been unable to make ends meet, relying on friends to help them.After the professor was executed, the people around him gave generously again.According to Mr. William Abdon, who presided over this work, it was not difficult to raise donations for the West family. He once raised more than 4,000 US dollars in half a day.By the end of September 1850, the mother and daughter of West had received a total of more than 20,000 US dollars in various donations, equivalent to the salary of the professor for more than 10 years before his death.It is said that $500 was donated by Dr. Peckman's widow, Eliza.

Three years later, in October 1853, the professor's wife, Heliet West, died of a long illness due to depression.At this time, the third daughter, also named Heliye West, was married, so Marianne West took her youngest sister, Catherine, across the ocean and went to Faial in the Azores to join their sister. Sarah.Professor John West was the only son in the family. Since then, this branch of the West family has been erased from the map of Boston. Evren Littlefield got his wish and received a $3,000 bounty from the Peckman family. Also in the early 1850s, when the British writer Charles Dickens visited Boston again, he made a special trip to Harvard Medical School to check the "scene" of the case.

Time has passed more than 100 years. In 1961, in Worcester, more than 40 miles west of Boston, a large number of "historical documents" collected in a huge house called "Hoya's House" by the locals were donated by its heirs to the "Massachusetts State Historical Association" .A century ago, the house once belonged to two brothers named Ebner and Georgie Hoya.Ebner was a well-known local lawyer and later became a judge.Jockey was "the outstanding senator from Massachusetts in the second half of the 19th century".The two brothers had a close relationship with Professor John West's defense lawyer, Edward Sawyer, and they were called close friends.