occupied by his brother John and John’s pregnant mistress, Caroline Henshaw.
Part Three
THE SUBLIME OF HORROR
19
D espite his distinguished name, Samuel Adams was sufficiently obscure that virtually no records exist of his sadly abbreviated life. The few surviving documents show that he was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1811 and, as a boy, apprenticed in the printing establishment of Smith & Parmenter at no. 9 Market Street.
Along with such weighty tomes as the
History of the General or Six Principle Baptists, in Europe and America
, Smith & Parmenter published both the popular newspaper the
Literary Cadet and Rhode-Island Statesman
and the weekly quarto the
Toilet, or, Ladies’ Cabinet of Literature
. Like other publishers of the time, they also worked as job printers, offering “to execute any business in the printing line,” including “books, show-bills, cards, shop bills, lottery tickets, and blanks of every description, at the shortest notice, and in the first style.” 1
In 1826 the senior partner of the firm, Samuel Jenks Smith, wed a popular poet named Sarah Louisa Hickman, author of a frequently anthologized verse, “White Roses” (“They were gathered for a bridal! / And now, now they are dying, / And young Love at the altar / Of broken faith is sighing”). Three years later, Smith and his wife left Rhode Island for Cincinnati. Sometime around 1832—the exact date is unclear—they moved to New York City, where Smith founded a weekly periodical, the
Sunday Morning News. 2
Whether Smith was instrumental in bringing his former apprentice to New York City is also unclear, though it is certain that, by 1836, Samuel Adams was residing in Manhattan and running his ownprinting business at no. 38 Gold Street with an older partner, Frederic Scatcherd.
Though they began modestly enough by producing such works as M. Purvis’s catchily titled pamphlet
On the Use of Lime as Manure
, Scatcherd and Adams were soon turning out a range of handsomely made books, including editions of James Boswell’s
Life of Samuel Johnson
, Alexis de Tocqueville’s
Democracy in America
, Joseph Rodman Drake’s
The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems
, and
The Gospel Good News to Sinners
by Henry James, Sr. Within two years of its founding, the firm had gained such a high reputation among the literati of New York that, upon the announcement of the forthcoming publication of William L. Stone’s
Life of Joseph Brant
, the critic for
American Monthly Magazine
could confidently assert that “as it is to be issued from the elegant press of Messrs. Scatcherd and Adams, the public may expect a beautifully printed book.” 3
In 1839, however, the firm suffered a severe blow when Frederic Scatcherd died of consumption. By then Adams was wed to the former Miss Emeline Lane and was residing at no. 23 Catherine Street, a short walk from his printing shop. With the loss of his more experienced partner—and with the country in the throes of the worst financial crisis since the Panic of 1819—Adams fell on difficult times. By the summer of 1841, he was behind in his mortgage payments, owed money to his workers, and was being threatened with a lawsuit by a creditor. 4
Feeling increasingly besieged, he began to take a belligerent tone with customers behind on their payments. One of these was a young merchant named Lyman Ransom. During the preceding two years, Ransom had hired Adams to do roughly $1,500 worth of jobbing work—advertising circulars, handbills, and so on. Though Ransom had never failed to pay his debts, he had fallen a bit behind and owed the printer $110 on a note due August 31, 1841. A week before then, he showed up at the Gold Street office to ask for an extension.
Adams immediately flew into a rage. After enduring several minutes of verbal abuse—during which Adams alternated between bitter accusations that “everybody was trying to cheat him” and pitiable laments that he was desperate for money “and could not
Part Three
THE SUBLIME OF HORROR
19
D espite his distinguished name, Samuel Adams was sufficiently obscure that virtually no records exist of his sadly abbreviated life. The few surviving documents show that he was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1811 and, as a boy, apprenticed in the printing establishment of Smith & Parmenter at no. 9 Market Street.
Along with such weighty tomes as the
History of the General or Six Principle Baptists, in Europe and America
, Smith & Parmenter published both the popular newspaper the
Literary Cadet and Rhode-Island Statesman
and the weekly quarto the
Toilet, or, Ladies’ Cabinet of Literature
. Like other publishers of the time, they also worked as job printers, offering “to execute any business in the printing line,” including “books, show-bills, cards, shop bills, lottery tickets, and blanks of every description, at the shortest notice, and in the first style.” 1
In 1826 the senior partner of the firm, Samuel Jenks Smith, wed a popular poet named Sarah Louisa Hickman, author of a frequently anthologized verse, “White Roses” (“They were gathered for a bridal! / And now, now they are dying, / And young Love at the altar / Of broken faith is sighing”). Three years later, Smith and his wife left Rhode Island for Cincinnati. Sometime around 1832—the exact date is unclear—they moved to New York City, where Smith founded a weekly periodical, the
Sunday Morning News. 2
Whether Smith was instrumental in bringing his former apprentice to New York City is also unclear, though it is certain that, by 1836, Samuel Adams was residing in Manhattan and running his ownprinting business at no. 38 Gold Street with an older partner, Frederic Scatcherd.
Though they began modestly enough by producing such works as M. Purvis’s catchily titled pamphlet
On the Use of Lime as Manure
, Scatcherd and Adams were soon turning out a range of handsomely made books, including editions of James Boswell’s
Life of Samuel Johnson
, Alexis de Tocqueville’s
Democracy in America
, Joseph Rodman Drake’s
The Culprit Fay, and Other Poems
, and
The Gospel Good News to Sinners
by Henry James, Sr. Within two years of its founding, the firm had gained such a high reputation among the literati of New York that, upon the announcement of the forthcoming publication of William L. Stone’s
Life of Joseph Brant
, the critic for
American Monthly Magazine
could confidently assert that “as it is to be issued from the elegant press of Messrs. Scatcherd and Adams, the public may expect a beautifully printed book.” 3
In 1839, however, the firm suffered a severe blow when Frederic Scatcherd died of consumption. By then Adams was wed to the former Miss Emeline Lane and was residing at no. 23 Catherine Street, a short walk from his printing shop. With the loss of his more experienced partner—and with the country in the throes of the worst financial crisis since the Panic of 1819—Adams fell on difficult times. By the summer of 1841, he was behind in his mortgage payments, owed money to his workers, and was being threatened with a lawsuit by a creditor. 4
Feeling increasingly besieged, he began to take a belligerent tone with customers behind on their payments. One of these was a young merchant named Lyman Ransom. During the preceding two years, Ransom had hired Adams to do roughly $1,500 worth of jobbing work—advertising circulars, handbills, and so on. Though Ransom had never failed to pay his debts, he had fallen a bit behind and owed the printer $110 on a note due August 31, 1841. A week before then, he showed up at the Gold Street office to ask for an extension.
Adams immediately flew into a rage. After enduring several minutes of verbal abuse—during which Adams alternated between bitter accusations that “everybody was trying to cheat him” and pitiable laments that he was desperate for money “and could not
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