my favorite jerk: william stuart

So as we count down to the launch of Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History—why yes, it’s still available for preorder via Amazon, thanks for asking—I’ll be continuing to ramp up the jerk promo machine. In addition to “Jerk of the Week,” I’ll have a few other CT jerk goodies.

In that vein, I couldn’t include every bit of research and every jerk story in the book, so there’s some bonus material, so to speak. And no one who I wrote about provided more great material than William Stuart, who it turns out, is *by far* my favorite jerk. If you decide that you only want to read one chapter, then I implore you to make it Chapter 15, “William Stuart: The (Allegedly) Most Celebrated Jerk in Connecticut History.”

My primary source for Staurt’s story is his autobiography, modestly titled Sketches of the Life of William Stuart: The First and Most Celebrated Counterfeiter of Connecticut, As Given by Himself. I read the entire thing from cover to cover, and it’s just wonderful as he’s an amazing storyteller. I don’t know if everything he wrote is true—and I’m sure there’s more than a healthy amount of embellishment—but even if a tenth of his stories are true, that’s enough. A true “rogue,” as he constantly refers to himself.

I was able to find a photocopied version of the original book, which was published in 1854—apparently there was a project where someone took old texts, photocopied the pages and bound them together. It’s okay for reading, but I needed an image of Stuart, and there’s one on the cover page. In the photocopy version I have, it’s blurred beyond use, but I found out that the Connecticut State Library had an original version in its archives; I arranged to take some pictures of it—

Ol’ Bill was a handsome devil, no?

For the record: I’ve never had an urge to steal anything in my life … until I had this book in my hands. I truly wanted to run out of the library with it, I love this story so much.

Anyway, as it’s now in the public domain you could probably find some versions of it around, but I thought I’d share a little excerpt from it to give you an idea of what a rascal Stuart was. This passage comes right after he was jailed for being caught trying to swallow one of his counterfeit bills and sent off to the jail in Danbury.

I was kept here through the winter, and all of the succeeding summer, until September. Of a truth I was active in something, and proved to be a great annoyance to Mat. Curtiss, the jailer. I would hoot in the night season, rouse him from sleep by hideous noises, and disturb him in any way I could. I contrived to cheat him in diverse ways, and he often told me that he wished I was out of sight and hearing. The rats annoyed him beyond measure, and they would gnaw all night, making as much noise as a dozen buzz saws. Curtiss told me that for every rat that I would catch, he would give me a gill of rum.

Through the plank floor of the prison the rats had gnawed a hole, and every night they would come out and work about the room. I set an Indian trap by the rat-hole and tied the bait upon on long stick in the middle of the room, and the first evening the rat came out, went to the bait and sprung my trap so as to shut the rat hole. Next morning I called to Curtiss that a rat was caught, and he brought me the gill of rum, requested me to kill it, and throw it out of the grates’ window. I had a box stove in the room, in which I put the rat, fed him well, and next morning, let him in the room and cried out to the jailer that I had caught another rat. He told me to kill it and cast it out of the window, and then brought the gill of grog. I put him into the stove for the next morning, and then reported another rat, and received my gill of rum. So I managed with the rat for a whole month, had my grog regularly every morning until one night I left the hole open and the rat escaped.

I tried in vain to trap another, but this old fellow had given his rat brethren the hint, and not another entered my cell. I had become attached to the roguish creature, and he was good company and enabled me to cheat the jailer out of my grog, although I had money enough to buy with. Men in confinement are always pleased with any living animal; their presence seems to while away the tedious hours. Perhaps I valued my rat friend more because the whole race of them get their living by roguery and cunning. At any rate, he was a favorite, and I would not have lost him for money.

I contrived further to busy myself  by constructing an Indian bow, and made an arrow to fit it, with a hooked barb in the end. When Mrs. Curtiss washed the clothing of the family, she suspended them on the line in the rear of the jail. I fasted a cord to the arrow and shot it into the clothes, then drew them in through the grates. In two hours I brought everything from the line, and put them under my bunk.

In the morning there was a great outcry that the clothes were stolen, and Curtiss raved and spoke harshly. While he was in the yard swearing, I asked him, “What will you give me to tell you where they are?”

Said he, “I will treat you.”

“No, no,” I replied, “Give me a gallon of rum and I will tell you.”

“I will give you a pint,” said Curtiss.

“Give me the gallon and I will tell you, nothing less.”

With much reluctance he brought it in, and poured it in a tin pail, saying, “How do you know who stole them?”

“Ah,” said I, “I keep guard about your house while you sleep, for the rogues would have carried you off long ago, and given you your desserts, had it not been for me.”

“Now,” said the jailer, “tell me where the clothes are, or pay me for the rum.” I lifted up my bed, and there they lay. Curtiss said, “Oh, you devil you, who handed them in to you?” I showed him my bow and arrow, and the string attached to it, and gave him a specimen of my Indian skill. Said he, “You are the greatest curse that ever lived.”

But not, I replied, “the greatest fool in Danbury.”

Curtiss said, “Stuart, I will chain you!”

“That’s right,” said I, “I hate to be neglected!”

“Blast you,” you said, “I will not let you go on in your way.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” said I. “You are a good, kind man, and ought to be in Congress instead of staying here in this old rotten, stinking jail.”

He took up the bundle of clothes and went out with a loud laugh saying, “I never heard of such a provoking devil as you.”

Or such a wonderful jerk.