12, 1872—the day the trial ended—Jesse Pomeroy had been locked away for five months, long enough to be forgotten by everyone except those most directly involved in his case: his victims, their parents, and his own brother and mother. (As for Jesse’s father—estranged from the family and working as a meat porter in Quincey Market—there is no way of telling what he thought of his son’s notoriety, history having left no record of his reactions.)
Ruth Ann Pomeroy was a familiar type: the mother of a frighteningly dangerous criminal who maintains to her dying day that her darling boy is a victim of false charges—a good, dutiful son who, whatever his flaws, couldn’t possibly have done the terrible things he’s been accused of. Virtually from the moment of Jesse’s incarceration, she had begun petitioning for his release. In letter after letter to the board of trustees at Westborough, she insisted that her son was innocent. “He could not be the one who whipped the boys in Chelsea, for he was far too young at that time,” she declared in one letter. The police had picked on Jesse because he had drawn attention to himself byimpulsively taking a look inside the station house on his way home from school.
He made a suitable scapegoat, moreover, because the Pomeroys were strangers in the neighborhood, having moved to South Boston only a few months earlier. Sequestered in a cheerless cell—terrified and alone—her twelve-year-old child had been browbeaten into confessing. If he had been allowed to see a lawyer, he “would not have been sent to the reform school.” Her son, she insisted, was a “bright and happy” boy who had never given her cause for complaint.
“I have never believed him guilty of these crimes,” she proclaimed. “NEVER!”
As the months progressed and Jesse continued to be a model of upright behavior, the board began to heed his mother’s pleas. Finally, in January 1874, an investigator named Gardiner Tufts—an agent of the State Board of Charities—was dispatched to 312 Broadway to evaluate the condition of the Pomeroy household. He came away favorably impressed. Mrs. Pomeroy struck him as an honest, hardworking woman, who had opened a little dressmaking business at 327 Broadway, directly across the street from her residence. Jesse’s older brother, Charles, seemed equally commendable—a thrifty and diligent young man who ran a little newsstand in the front of the shop and had his own paper route.
True, there were some troubling aspects of the situation. Mrs. Pomeroy was bitterly separated from her husband, who had nothing to do with the family. As the product of a broken home, Jesse had clearly been without adequate parental control—“left to drift pretty much at his own will,” as Tufts reported. On the whole, however, the investigator was impressed by Mrs. Pomeroy’s obvious devotion and reassured by her promise to keep her son under close supervision.
As part of his final report, Tufts also interviewed Police Captain Dyer of Station Six in South Boston, who—expressing his belief that “it isn’t best to be down on a boy too hard or too long”—suggested that Jesse be set free on probation. “Give him a chance to redeem himself,” he urged.
On January 24, 1874, the trustees received Tufts’s report and forwarded their recommendation to the superintendent of the reform school. Two weeks later—on February 6—Jesse Harding Pomeroy was sent home.
His release went unnoted by the newspapers. As far as the people of Boston knew, their city’s most notorious juvenile offender was safely locked away for the rest of his adolescence. Eventually—and much to its outrage—the public would discover the truth: less than seventeen months after his arrest, “the boy torturer” had been turned loose on the streets.
12
A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
—William Wordsworth, “We Are
Ruth Ann Pomeroy was a familiar type: the mother of a frighteningly dangerous criminal who maintains to her dying day that her darling boy is a victim of false charges—a good, dutiful son who, whatever his flaws, couldn’t possibly have done the terrible things he’s been accused of. Virtually from the moment of Jesse’s incarceration, she had begun petitioning for his release. In letter after letter to the board of trustees at Westborough, she insisted that her son was innocent. “He could not be the one who whipped the boys in Chelsea, for he was far too young at that time,” she declared in one letter. The police had picked on Jesse because he had drawn attention to himself byimpulsively taking a look inside the station house on his way home from school.
He made a suitable scapegoat, moreover, because the Pomeroys were strangers in the neighborhood, having moved to South Boston only a few months earlier. Sequestered in a cheerless cell—terrified and alone—her twelve-year-old child had been browbeaten into confessing. If he had been allowed to see a lawyer, he “would not have been sent to the reform school.” Her son, she insisted, was a “bright and happy” boy who had never given her cause for complaint.
“I have never believed him guilty of these crimes,” she proclaimed. “NEVER!”
As the months progressed and Jesse continued to be a model of upright behavior, the board began to heed his mother’s pleas. Finally, in January 1874, an investigator named Gardiner Tufts—an agent of the State Board of Charities—was dispatched to 312 Broadway to evaluate the condition of the Pomeroy household. He came away favorably impressed. Mrs. Pomeroy struck him as an honest, hardworking woman, who had opened a little dressmaking business at 327 Broadway, directly across the street from her residence. Jesse’s older brother, Charles, seemed equally commendable—a thrifty and diligent young man who ran a little newsstand in the front of the shop and had his own paper route.
True, there were some troubling aspects of the situation. Mrs. Pomeroy was bitterly separated from her husband, who had nothing to do with the family. As the product of a broken home, Jesse had clearly been without adequate parental control—“left to drift pretty much at his own will,” as Tufts reported. On the whole, however, the investigator was impressed by Mrs. Pomeroy’s obvious devotion and reassured by her promise to keep her son under close supervision.
As part of his final report, Tufts also interviewed Police Captain Dyer of Station Six in South Boston, who—expressing his belief that “it isn’t best to be down on a boy too hard or too long”—suggested that Jesse be set free on probation. “Give him a chance to redeem himself,” he urged.
On January 24, 1874, the trustees received Tufts’s report and forwarded their recommendation to the superintendent of the reform school. Two weeks later—on February 6—Jesse Harding Pomeroy was sent home.
His release went unnoted by the newspapers. As far as the people of Boston knew, their city’s most notorious juvenile offender was safely locked away for the rest of his adolescence. Eventually—and much to its outrage—the public would discover the truth: less than seventeen months after his arrest, “the boy torturer” had been turned loose on the streets.
12
A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
—William Wordsworth, “We Are
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