Mrs. Wallace Triumphs!
- Alisa Kline
- Dec 27, 2024
- 8 min read
Part 2 of the tale of Isaac Dole, forger
You can find Part 1 of this tale at this link, but if you prefer to begin right here, for you, a brief summary:
Isaac Dole was a wealthy man from Lebanon who made loans to local businessmen. James Wallace, father of the author of our town history, was in the practice of borrowing money from Dole to finance his business as a storekeeper and maker of pearl ash. James Wallace died suddenly and his widow thought she had settled his affairs when Isaac Dole popped up and said there was yet another loan to be repaid.
She paid him, but realized quickly that the “note” Dole had presented her with was a forgery. Although it bore Wallace’s signature, it was not a signed note but rather a signed receipt that Dole had carefully (but not carefully enough) doctored to look like a loan.
Dole was caught. But he tried to wriggle free by bribing Mrs. Wallace and then, when that didn’t work, threatening her.
When we left our tale last week, the recently widowed Mrs. Wallace, our author’s mother, was alone in her home, cornered by Deputy Sheriff Isaac Dole, forger and his shady lawyer. They were there to force Mrs. Wallace to give them the incriminating evidence. The forged note was in the desk drawer in that very room!
Page 472
She had been looking very anxiously up the street for the appearance of her counsel, and was greatly relieved when Mr. Kimball at last appeared, accompanied by Mr. Foster, and both swinging hastily down the street.
Upon the appearance of Dole at her house, Mrs. Wallace had sent her son to fetch help. The Mr. Foster, who is making his first appearance in this blog, was Canaan’s first Congregational minister. The “They” in the next line are Dole and his lawyer.
They had not noticed the disappearance of the boy and they supposed they had that lone widow entirely in their power, and were only waiting for her to yield quietly to their threats. The possession of those papers was of the utmost importance to Mr. Dole. His future life hung upon them, and he came prepared to use all means, even force, if necessary, to get them into his hands.
They supposed Mrs. Wallace was upon the point of yielding; and when she called their attention to the approach of her two friends, they were struck into dismay and astonishment. The lawyer glanced out of the window, and turning to his client, said earnestly: “True enough. Dole! it’s Kimball and Foster! They’ll be here in five minutes! Whatever we do must be done quickly.”
But there remained nothing for them to do but retreat; their opportunity had passed and did not return.
The court system in 1832, when these affairs took place, did not run the way it does now. Today, when someone has stolen from you, you go to the police. They investigate and if they find enough evidence that a crime was committed and who did it, they hand the case over to another group of government employees who prosecute the accused in a court presided over by someone who was either elected or appointed depending on how it works wherever you are.
In 1832 in Canaan, none of that existed. If your neighbor swindled you, you got a lawyer and took him to court on your own dime. The case was often heard by a magistrate and the other side had their own lawyer. If a judgment was passed, any money involved was collected by a sheriff. The salary of everyone involved, including the magistrate was paid by the lawyers who passed those costs on to their clients.
Mrs. Wallace and Isaac Dole ended up before a court in Lebanon where Dole, a very wealthy man and a Mason, was Deputy Sheriff. So Dole did what influential wealthy men always do when caught in the wrong. He hired the most impressive legal council he could muster and packed the audience with his supporters.
Page 473
Mr. Dole was advised to make an aggressive defence in the preliminary examination, which must now inevitably take place, and with that idea to retain several eminent lawyers, whose high standing might serve to overawe the justice.
A swift messenger was sent to Haverhill to secure the services of Joseph Bell, who was eminent both as a lawyer and for his large presence. William T. Heydock, Esq., brother-in-law of Mr. Bell, and a lawyer, was also retained.
Indeed, he had secured a very imposing array of counsel, and his last hope was by the mere weight of numbers, with their well-known intelligence and matchless impudence, to crush the prosecution, which was supported by George Kimball, assisted by N. P. Rogers of Plymouth, both of whom entered into the case as if success was vital to their reputations.
George Kimball was to become one of the founders of Noyes Academy, the nation’s first co-ed interracial school. N. P. Rogers was a noted abolitionist and lawyer. He often assisted Kimball with his legal work because Kimball often required it.
Dole had no case and there was plenty of evidence against him, so his eminent legal team argued that it was absurd to even consider these charges. (Because to consider them would lead immediately to his conviction.) And for good measure, they wanted the court to know that Mrs. Wallace couldn't be trusted.
Page 474
The examination took place at Lebanon, before Justice J. Hinds of Hanover. It drew together a large audience, many of whom were friends of Sheriff Dole, and were very demonstrative in the arraignment of a man like Dole […] He called the attention of the court especially to the improbability of a man with wealth, respected and honored like the respondent, committing such a crime. Two hundred dollars was a paltry sum for such a man to risk his reputation and life upon!
Then he went into a bitter invective against the plaintiff. Among others, he said this was a scheme of hers to extort money; that she had offered to compromise the suit on refunding the face of the note and one hundred dollars, and that upon the refusal of his client to comply with her demands, she had threatened him with the vengeance of the law. This prosecution was the result of that threat. It was a great outrage upon the rights and liberty of a worthy citizen, and he closed a long speech with the very confident expectation of the discharge of the prisoner.
The impudence of that speech, uttered in Mr. Bell’s most sonorous tones and crushing style, gave the prosecution some anxiety, and they carefully watched its effect upon the justice; but they were greatly reassured when, after a moment’s pause, he very quietly asked Mr. Bell if he desired to put in testimony in proof of his assertions.
Of course he expected to be called upon to prove something; else, why did he so bravely enter court. But he pretended to be astonished and annoyed at the quiet remark of the judge, as if his word were not of sufficient weight to control the action of the court!
Well his word wasn’t enough and the judge made that clear. This is where the jaunty tale of justice takes a turn towards the tragic. Dole had no defense, so he dragged his children into the affair and had them lie to the court on his behalf, swearing that they themselves had seen James Wallace sign the loan. The cross-examination was conducted by Rogers so skillfully that their testimony was rendered worthless.
[…] he induced two of Dole’s children, a son and daughter, to appear and swear that they were witnesses of the transaction between James Wallace and Isaac Dole, their father; that the note was genuine, and the money paid upon it was honestly due their father.
They were sharply cross-examined by Mr. Rogers, who at the moment held in his hands the genuine and the forged notes, cancelled, both of even dates and amounts. His skilful queries produced confusion in their minds, so that they were uncertain whether the money was paid or borrowed by Dole, or received or paid by the executrix.
It was clear that Dole was going down. A grand jury still had to consider all the evidence put before the magistrate in this trial, but the outcome wasn’t much in dispute. Dole had to put up $1,000 bond. Between then and when the grand jury met, he tried to figure a way out of the mess he had gotten himself into.
In the telling of this story, Wallace includes a letter from N. P. Rogers to George Kimball written the day after the trial. He advises Kimball on important legal details not to be forgotten. Kimball was particularly not good with details, especially those that had bearing on his being paid.
Rogers is worried that Dole’s friends might try something shifty.
Page 475
Make out the costs of prosecution and send on to Justice Hinds, and direct him to make his record and how to make it, and to copy the whole and send it to you recognizances and all. Then you will have the record safe and I will have the proof safe and the county will have the $1,000 safe, and the community be safe and secure of being relieved of Dole by his absconding.
You must have copies as soon as you can, or the complaint, record, etc., will be plundered.
Among Dole’s subaltern counsel — some one among that throng, unknown to fame, who surrounded him and expected to swell the train of his triumphant discharge, but who in fact were only of his crew when he went down — some one of them will be shrewd enough to conjecture that if the record of the recognizance were stolen, Mr. Dole might retire (having paid his counsel) without forfeiture.
N.P. Rogers was proved to have had foresight. Dole did not face the full weight of justice. The grand jury that was to determine his fate met in some time later in Haverhill. Dole had a friend from the Masonic lodge on that grand jury and according to Wallace, who claims some first-hand knowledge, they had plotted together.
Page 477
At the appointed time Mr. Dole rode to Haverhill, and put up his horse at Towle’s Hotel. The same day he was seen in earnest consultation with some friends from Lebanon, and he had a long interview with his counsel in Mr. Bell’s office. The grand jury met in the upper room in the old court house.
On the afternoon that Dole’s case was considered he ordered his horse harnessed, saying he would take a turn about town. He drove about the village common several times, each time riding slowly past the court house, watching it with apparent carelessness. The last time he approached the house, about four o’clock in the afternoon, he paused a moment and looked up at a south window.
There was a movement in the jury room. A window was raised, and a red handkerchief waved for a moment outside and then disappeared. Dole carelessly turned his horse’s head, and rode slowly through the street until he reached the bank building, where he received a nod of recognition from his council, Mr. Bell.
Then urging his horse, he drove rapidly down the road that led across the river at Bradford, and beyond the jurisdiction of the court at Haverhill.
He was never seen again in public in New Hampshire. He fled westwardly and his family followed him. It was afterwards known that he kept a hotel in Lockport, N. Y., under another name.
Wallace includes this story in his History under the chapter Incidents, which is a kitchen drawer full of odds and ends. He never mentions that it is about his mother. He refers to her simply as Mrs. Wallace. But he does allow himself a moment in the story. He was a printer’s apprentice in Haverhill in 1832 and played a small role that day.
Page 478
And now in regard to the waving of the red handkerchief: I give the story as I saw and heard it at the time, for I, a boy, saw Dole as he rode about the common at Haverhill, and disappeared on the road towards Bradford. Dole was a Mason. One of the grand jurors from Lebanon was also a Mason and a friend of Dole, and was the person with whom he had had a long consultation on his arrival at Haverhill.
Wallace spent his career as a newspaperman. This was, perhaps his first scoop.
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