Ep. 39 - The Brutal Murder of Captain White That Inspired Poe

Salem, Massachusetts' Gardner-Pingree House was the scene of a horrific murder. In 1830, this had been one of the grandest houses in Salem and was owned by Captain Joseph White. On the night of April 6th, he was bludgeoned and stabbed to death. This event and the ensuing trial featured some prominent names. Daniel Webster was the prosecutor and writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and H.P. Lovecraft were all inspired by elements from this true crime. Such a horrific murder can lead to rumors of hauntings. And several ghosts seem to be at unrest in the aftermath. 

The Gardner-Pingree house sits at 128 Essex Street and was built in 1811. Salem native son Samuel McIntire designed the house in the Federal architectural style. McIntire was a self-taught woodworker and architect, and he built these beautiful and phenomenal mansions. His specialty was creating wonderful pieces of woodwork that included these ornate mantles for fireplaces. McIntire even entered a proposal in the competition for the design of the United States Capitol. The interior and exterior of the Gardner-Pingree House features rectangles with different ornament ascent within and it looks very elegant. McIntire liked his designs to be proportional, rhythmic and detailed. The house is three-stories and constructed from brick in a Flemish bond. The trim was done in white marble and the house looks really unique because the third story windows are about half the height of the other windows. Black shutters frame the windows with lintels with a keystone at the top of the windows. There are two chimneys and the front door is framed with four Corinthian columns holding an elliptical portico.

Samuel MacIntyre built the house for John and Sarah Gardner on a lot that John had bought from his father. So this house is finished, the Gardners move in and here comes the War of 1812. During the war, Salem suffered under an embargo and people in the city were losing their finances quickly. Salem was once an emergent city, but with embargoes and ships getting bigger, and Salem Harbor being too shallow, unfortunately, the trade just went away. If it had stayed, you would see a significantly larger city than you do today. John Gardner's fortunate was in shipping and his losses forced him to sell the house, which he did to Sarah's brother Nathaniel West. The house was later sold in 1814 to Captain Joseph White.

Captain White had made his fortune in maritime trade and it is believed that some of this trade was human, the slave trade. That trade was illegal at the time. Captain White was living in his grand home at the time of his murder, but before we talk about the murder, we need to lay down a little background. Captain White had not had any children, but he had a favorite niece named Mary White Beckford. She married Joseph Jenkins Knapp, Jr. on November 6th, 1827 against Captain White's consent. Captain White didn't trust Knapp and he believed he was a fortune hunter who only married his niece to get White's fortune. So Mary's uncle disinherited her. This caused some bad blood.

Inheritance had some unique elements at this time. Captain White had a brother named Henry and a sister named Mary. Henry had four children and Mary had one daughter, the one who was White's favorite. There were two ways to inherit the estate of a relative if there was no living will: per stirpes (stir peas) and per capita. Per capita divides an estate equally. So in White's case, his estate would be divided five ways. Per stirpes means an estate is divided equally to each branch of the family. So Mary's daughter Mary would get 50% of the inheritance. The niece's husband Joseph figured that his wife Mary would get 50% of Captain White's fortune, meaning he would get 50% of the money through her. But there was going to be an exception to the per stirpes rule in the White murder. The exception read, "“If all those entitled to share bore the same degree of kindred to the deceased, they were to take equally." And keep in mind that all of this takes place in the case of no will. But if Captain White had disinherited his niece, there had to be a will right? Hold that thought.

In the wee small hours of April 7th, 1830, Captain White's man servant was up and opening the shutters that were on the inside of the windows. He saw something that disturbed him. Out the kitchen window he saw that the back window of the parlor was open and that a plank had been placed diagonally up to the window from the ground. The man servant ran to the maid to tell her what he saw. The two also realized that Captain White wasn't stirring in his room yet and although he was 82-years-old, he usually woke up very early and went about his duties for the day. They decided to check Captain White's bedroom and when they opened the door, they were greeted by a horrifying sight. The bed clothing were turned down and the sheets and Captain White’s night clothes were saturated with blood and White was clearly dead. His body was cold and stiff and he had been beaten so badly that they could not even recognize his face.

So he had been murdered in his sleep the night of April 6th and clearly, although this was a brutal beating, nobody heard anything.  It's amazing nobody in the house heard that with such a beating. But there could be a reason. Captain White's room was in the front of the house, and the servant quarters were up in the back. When the police were summoned and they came in, a couple of the police officers said, I have seen battlefields, and I've never seen anything as bad as this. The authorities couldn't imagine why anyone would want to kill this old man. The mansion hadn't been ransacked and nothing was missing, so clearly this had not been a robbery. The Captain kept a chest of money in the house and it was untouched. Captain White had no enemies and this was a really violent and angry murder. The police inspected the body and they could see that the skull was fractured by something that didn't break the skin and a long dagger had left thirteen stab wounds on the body. Finding a suspect would be difficult because there were no forensics at this time. And there wasn't even fingerprinting yet. 

A meeting was held at the town hall the day after Captain White's funeral and 2,000 residents of Salem attended. They empowered a vigilance committee that had twenty-seven members to search every house and interrogate everybody connected to the victim. There was a $1,000 reward for anyone who knew of anything to do with the murders. Suspicion first fell on the servants. The fact that the open window had not been locked seemed to indicate an inside job. Who left the window unlocked. But the servants had been with White for years and were very trusted. Plus, again, nothing had been taken. If they were going to steal stuff, they probably would have grabbed some stuff and run. There were also footprints outside the window that didn't match the servants' feet. The coroner had decided that there were two murder weapons and these were the cudgel and a jerk or a sword-dagger. 

About a month after the committee was formed, they got a bite. A man named Joseph S. Hall was arrested for shoplifting and he claimed to know something about the murder. Hall had been arrested in New Bedford so he was brought over to Salem to talk to the vigilance committee. He told the committee that he had overheard a conversation in a gambling establishment that seemed to be some kind of plan to steal an iron chest from Captain White's bedroom. Hall believed that the chest was full of gold. The members of the committee listened with skepticism to Hall because they knew something that he didn't. It seems that Hall had shared a Salem cell with a man named Joseph Fisher three years earlier and had planned to rob White with this Fisher fellah. And the committee knew this because Fisher had told them. So Hall and Fisher are looking guilty, except both men were in jail at the time of Captain White's murder. So they hadn't done the deed. Hall pointed the finger at four men who had been at the gambling hall and a grand jury charged the four men.

These men were brothers Richard and George Crowninshield and two other men named Selman and Chase. Eventually, Selman and Chase were let go without a trial. The Crowninshield family was pretty prominent in Salem. An uncle had been Secretary of the Navy under Presidents Madison and Monroe. Richard and George operated a machine shop in Danvers, but these were not men of good character. George spent most of his time in a house of ill repute and Richard liked hanging out at the gambling hall. The two brothers were either friends or acquaintances of Jospeh Knapp, Jr. - yes, the husband of Captain White's disinherited niece. An interesting twist came in May when Joseph Knapp's father, who was a prominent shipmaster and merchant in Salem, received the following letter:

Charles Grant, Jr., to Joseph J. Knapp.
“Belfast, May 12, 1830.

“Dear Sir :—I have taken the pen at this time to address an utter stranger, and strange as it may seem to you, it is for the purpose of requesting the loan of three hundred and fifty dollars, for which I can give you no security but my word, and in this case consider this to be sufficient. My call for money at this time is pressing, or I would not trouble you ; but with that sum, I have the prospect of turning it to so much advantage, as to be able to refund it with interest in the course of six months.

At all events, I think it will be for your interest to comply with my request, and that immediately—that is, not to put off any longer than you receive this. Then set down and enclose me the money with as much dispatch as possible, for your own interest. This, Sir, is my advice ; and if you do not comply with it, the short period between now and November will convince you that you have denied a request, the granting of which will never injure you, the refusal of which will ruin you. Are you surprised at this assertion ?—rest assured that I make it reserving to myself the reasons and a series of facts which are founded on such a bottom as will bid defiance to property or quality. It is useless for me to enter into a discussion of facts which must inevitably harrow up your soul.

No, I will merely tell you that I am acquainted with your brother Frank, and also the business that he was transacting for you on the 2nd of April last; and that I think that you was very extravagant in giving one thousand dollars to the person that would execute the business for you. But you know best about that, you see that such things will leak out.

To conclude, Sir, I will inform you that there is a gentleman of my acquaintance in Salem that will observe that you do not leave town before the first of June, giving you sufficient time between now and then to comply with my request; and if I do not receive a line from you, together with the above sum, before the 22d of this month, I shall wait upon you with an assistant. I have said enough to convince you of my knowledge, and merely inform you that you can, when you answer, be as brief as possible.

“Direct yours to

“CHARLES GRANT, JR., “of Prospect, Maine.”

The letter starts out nice, almost as if asking for a loan, but goes south quickly, turning into a blackmail threat. This Charles Grant has something on Knapp. He knows that Knapp offered to pay someone $1,000 to do some kind of dark deed. Joseph Knapp Sr. is confused by this letter because he doesn't know any Charles Grant and had no acquaintance in Belfast, Maine. So Daddy Knapp goes to talk to his sons, Joseph Jr. and John. Now what is strange here is that it's becoming clear that Knapp Jr. offered to pay someone to kill Captain White, so one would think he would rip up the letter and tell his father it was a bunch of nonsense. Joseph Jr. does say that the letter is "a lot of trash, but then he tells his father to give the letter to the Vigilance Committee. So the father does that. Then Joseph Knapp, Jr. decides to muddy the waters and he goes to Salem the next day and mails two letters. And before I share those letters, let me throw a wrench into the works here. There was a man named Stephen White who was an adopted son to Captain White and he managed all the finances. Knapp was afraid that Stephen would inherit everything. 

One letter was addressed to Hon. Gideon Barstow, Chairman of the Vigilance Committee, and read as follows:

Dated:May 13, 1830.
Gentlemen of the Committee of Vigilance :—Hearing that you have taken up four young men on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Mr. White, I think it time to inform you that Steven White came to me one night and told me, if I would remove the old gentleman, he would give me five thousand dollars; he said he was afraid he would alter his will if he lived any longer. I told him I would do it, but I was afeared to go into the house, so he said he would go with me, that he would try to get into the house in the evening and open the window, would then go home and go to bed and meet me again about eleven. I found him, and we both went into his chamber. I struck him on the head with a heavy piece of lead, and then stabbed him with a dirk; he made the finishing strokes with another. He promised to send me the money next evening, and has not sent it yet, which is the reason that I mention this.
Yours, etc.,

GRANT.

The second letter was addressed to Hon. Stephen White, a nephew of the murdered man and the principal heir. It read as follows:
Lynn, May 12, 1830.
Mr. White will send the $5000, or a part of it, before to-morrow night, or suffer the painful consequences.
GRANT.

So Knapp Jr. has just set-up a scenario where Stephen White is the person who paid to have Captain White killed. The Vigilance Committee took Cahrles Grant into custody and found out that he was an ex-con named Palmer. When Palmer was asked about how he was involved in the murder of Captain White he said, "I have been an associate of George and Richard Crowninshield and on April 2, 1830, I was sitting by a window in their house and saw Frank Knapp and Charles Allen drive up. The Crowninshield brothers, Knapp and Allen, then went for a walk. Upon their return, George and Richard informed me that Frank Knapp had asked them to kill Mr. White and that Joseph Knapp, Jr., would pay $1000 for the job. Several different modes of executing it were discussed but it was finally decided to kill him at night when Mrs. Beckford was not home."

Now if you are going to try to fake out the Vigilance Committee, you probably shouldn't include a witness in the fake out. Because now, Palmer was going to be a witness for the prosecution. Warrants were issued for the arrest of John and Joseph Knapp. Handwriting samples from Joseph Knapp proved he wrote the two letters. Knapp Jr. then confessed, "I knew that Mr. White had made out a will in which he gave my mother-in-law, Mrs. Beckford, a legacy of $15,000. According to my understanding of the law, which I have since learned was erroneous, I believed she would get $200,000 if no will was found. I therefore decided to steal the will and have Mr. White assassinated. Four days before the murder I was in Mr. White’s chamber and procuring the key to his iron chest, I took his will and carried it home, burning it several days later. My brother Frank negotiated with Richard Crowninshield who agreed to do the deed for $1000. The night of April 6th was finally decided upon and I persuaded my mother-in-law to spend a few days with my wife at Wenham. On the 6th I visited Mr. White’s home, to which I always had access, and unfastened the window at the back of the rear parlor. That day Crowninshield showed me the bludgeon and dagger with which the murder was to be committed. Crowninshield and my brother Frank met at 10 o’clock that night by appointment and proceeded to a spot where they could observe the movements in White’s mansion. It was a beautiful moonlight night.

Crowninshield requested Frank to go home. He left, but soon returned. During his absence the lights in the mansion were extinguished and shortly afterward the hired assassin placed a plank against the house, entered the window and crept upstairs to White’s sleeping chamber. The moon was shining through the window on to the old man’s face. Crowninshield swung his bludgeon and struck White on the left temple, probably killing him instantly. But, to be certain, he lowered the bed clothes and stabbed him repeatedly in the region of the heart. He then felt his pulse and being satisfied that the job was well done, he departed. He met Frank on a side street and explained in detail what he had done. After hiding the bludgeon under the steps of a meeting-house on Howard Street, he returned to Danvers. I was at home in Wenham on this night. A few days later, Crowninshield, accompanied by my brother Frank, called on me at my home in Wenham and demanded his money. I was only able to pay him one hundred five-franc pieces. He related to me all the details of the assassination and I informed him that our work had been all in vain; that the will I stole was not the last one, and even if it had been, my object would not have been accomplished because of my misunderstanding of the law. The story my brother and I told the Vigilance Committee on April 27th in regard to the alleged robbery was a sheer fabrication. It was I who wrote the two anonymous letters."

Knapp Jr. hadn't realized that the will he stole and destroyed was an old will. A more current will had been written. So this was all for nought anyway. When Richard Crowninshield heard about Knapp's confession, he collapsed. Now there was this rule at the time that it was necessary to convict the principal of a crime before an accessory could be tried. Richard wanted to save his brother, so he committed suicide by hanging himself from the bars of his cell with a handkerchief. It didn't do any good because John Knapp was indicted as the principal and Joseph Knapp, Jr., and George Crowninshield as accessories. The trial for John began in Salem on August 20th, 1830 with Daniel Webster as the Prosecutor. Yes, THAT Daniel Webster who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in Congress and was also a Secretary of State under three Presidents. He argued over 200 cases before SCOTUS. Joseph was promised immunity if he would testify for the prosecution. He agreed, but when called to the stand, he refused. 

Here are some of the closing remarks from Daniel Webster to the jury, "Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects, it has hardly a precedent anywhere ; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all “hire and salary, not revenge.’ It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood.

“An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butchery murder, for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon ; a picture in repose, rather than in action ; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend, in the ordinary display and development of his• character.

“The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a strug-gle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! It is the assassin’s purpose to make sure work; and he plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poinard ! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse ! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer ! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe !

...“It is said, that ‘laws are made, not for the punishment of the guilty, but for the protection of the innocent’ This is not quite accurate, perhaps, but if so, we hope they will be so administered as to give that protection. But who are the innocent whom the law would protect? Gentlemen, Joseph White was innocent. They are innocent who, having lived in the fear of God through the day, wish to sleep in His peace through the night, in their own beds. The law is established that those who live quietly may sleep quietly; that they who do no harm may feel none. The gentleman can think of none that are innocent except the prisoner at the bar, not yet convicted. Is a proved conspirator to murder innocent? Are the Crowninshields and the Knapps innocent? What is innocence? How deep stained with blood, how reckless in crime, how deep in depravity may it be, and yet retain innocence? The law is made, if we would speak with entire accuracy, to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty. But there are those innocent out of court, as well as innocent prisoners at the bar...Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the Court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner’s life; but then, it is to save other lives. If the prisoner’s guilt has been shown and proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot presume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless, we would all judge him in mercy. Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law and the oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty." 

The defendant, John Knapp, was found guilty as charged. His brother was then tried and convicted and the two brothers were hanged from the same scaffold. George Crowninshield managed to prove he an alibi and was acquitted. But the story doesn't stop there. With such a bloody and brutal crime, it is no wonder that there are hauntings connected to this crime. The Peabody Essex museum in Salem now owns the Gardner Pingree House and also the Crowninshield Bentley House. And a little fun fact about the Crowninshield house is that there can be no doubt that it was the model for the old Crowninshield House in H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Thing on the Doorstep." Visitors to the Crowninshield Bentley House say that every so often they catch a shadow of a man hanging. That kind of makes sense. Even though Richard hanged himself in jail, he was very tied to that house. People have passed out in the house and some claim to have chest pains. There have even been a couple of heart attacks inside. Is this connected to something paranormal. Who knows, but it is strange. 

The main haunting activity at the Gardner Pingree House comes from the second floor and Captain White's former room. If you are standing outside, facing the house, the window on the second floor right-hand side is the window to that room. In that window, many people have seen the screaming face of Captain White and captured it in pictures. His white nightshirt is often seen in the images as well. Disembodied steps have been heard in the house, especially on the stairs as if someone wearing boots is walking on them. Staff have been inside and heard the footsteps and called out "Hello, whose there?" and they get no response and find no one on the stairs. Doors slam shut on their own and on a certain night in April, there are people who claim who can hear the sounds of a residual murder, with the pounding of a club onto human flesh and the ghostly groans of a murder victim.

As for Poe being inspired, it wasn't just that this had been a brutal murder, but it was the words of Webster that really caught his attention. Poe was not just a writer, but also an editor and publisher and he would've published a pamphlet with Daniel Webster's closing argument. The part about "the secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him … it overcomes him. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master." Yep, that totally sounds like it inspired "The Tell Tale Heart."

The murder of Captain White was brutal. He did eventually get justice, so his spirit should be at rest. And perhaps it is, but the crime was just so violent and horrifying that it imprinted on the ether and now continues to play out over and over again. That is just as paranormal as a human ghost. Is there haunting activity connected to the murder of Captain White? That is for you to decide!