Seven Wives and Seven Prisons

ERY-ELIZA GURNSEY-A SPREE AT SARATOGA-MARRYING ANOTHER MILLINER-AGAIN ARRESTED OR BIGAMY-IN JAIL ELEVEN MONTHS-A TEDIOUS TRIAL-FOUN

edicines and practice, and I found enough to occupy me there for full two months. From Bennington to Rutland, selling medicines on the way, and at Rutland I intended to stay for

worthless woman in New Hampshire with a very narrow escape from State prison. But, as my readers know by this time, all experience, even

ith her, and she told me that she owned a house in the place, in which she and her mother lived; but her mother had gone away on a visit, and as she did not like to live alone she had come to the hote

e or something stronger to treat me with, and in the evening I saw her at the hotel. When her mother came

and that she would gladly take the opportunity to go with me, if I would let her. Of course, I was only too happy; and the next day I and my son, and she and one of the young

ou get married bef

together, and drank a good deal of wine. After dinner my son and myself went to attend to our business, she and her young woman going to make

have laid me and my son under the table, and would have done it, if we had not looked out for ourselves; as it was, we all drank a great deal and were very merry. We were in a room by ourselves,

eps the saloon where you can get a blank marriage certificate

n and ink and he sat down and filled out the blank form putting in my name and Margaret Bradley's, signing it with some odd name I have forgotten as that of the clergyman performing the ceremony. He then signed his own name as a witness

we found the old lady up, and waiting for Marg

d you, you know, I thought I shou

anion home, and, as I had not achieved this latest greatness, but had it thrust upon me, I and my new found "wife" went to our room. The next day I removed from the hote

t I might be absent for some time. She made no objections, and as I was going with my own team she asked me to take some mantillas and a few ot

d mantillas, and in the course of my tour I sold the whole of Margaret's wares, faithfully remitting to her the money for the same.

isposed of my millinery goods and had nothing to attend to but my medicines-alas that my professional acquirements as a marryin

ster! would no

out to enmesh me in the matrimonial net. I had not been in the place a week before I became acquainted with Eliza Gurnsey. I could hardly help it, for she lived in the hotel where I stopped, and although she was full thirty-

f after events, she actually belonged to the church and was a regular attendant at the services. But no woman in town was more talked about, and precisely what sort of a woman she was may be

mall ones, of the entire trip. We stopped in Saratoga at a hotel, which is now in very different hands, but which was then kept by proprietors who, in addition to a most excellent table and accommodations, afforded

l and married us. I presume I consented, I don't know, for I was too much under the effect of liquor to know much of anything. I have an indistinct recollection of some sort of a ceremony, and afterwards Eliza showed me a certificate-no Troy affair, but a genuine document signed by a ministe

of Miss Bradley, at Rutland, and as she claimed to be my wife, and had parted with me only a little while before, when I went out to peddle medicines and millinery, her feelings can be imagined. She read the story and then a

yers, but for all that, and with the plainest showing that Margaret Bradley had no claim whatever to be considered my wife, I was bound over in the sum of

utly that we were actually wedded according to the certificate. On the other hand, my son swore to all the facts about the Troy spree, and his buying and filling out the certificate, which showed for itself that, excepting the signature of the young woman who also witnessed it, it was entirely in Henry's handwriting. I should have got along well enough so far as the Bradley woman was concerned; but the prosecution had been put in possession of all the facts relative to my fi

I covered the traces of my cuttings by filling in with tallow. In two months I had everything in readiness for my escape. An hour's more sawing at the bars would set me free. But just at that time the Governor of the State, Fletcher, made a visit to the jail. I told him all about my case. He assured me, after hearing all the circumstances, that if I should be convi

he result was that I was sentenced for three years in the State prison. I was rem