This was the region of his nativity and former pastorate, which he had left about eleven years previously, with an unblemished external character, and sharing, to an uncommon degree, the entire confidence of the public as a Christian man and a minister. Nothing had occurred, to their knowledge, to disturb this confidence in his present integrity as an honest reporter, and the entire community credited his testimony as perfectly reliable, in his entire misrepresentations of the facts in the case, and the character of the trial. His view was the only view the community were allowed to hear, so far as it was in his power to prevent it. The press also lent him its aid, as his organ of communication. He met also his old associates in the ministry, and by his artfully arranged web of lies, and his cunning sophistries, he deluded them also into a belief of his views, so that they, unanimously, gave him their certificate of confidence and fraternal sympathy. Yea, even my own father and brothers became victims also of his sophisms and misrepresentations, so that they honestly believed me to be insane, and that the Westerners had really interfered with Mr. Packard’s rights and kind intents towards his wife, in intercepting as they had, his plans to keep her incarcerated for life.
Thus this one-sided view of the facts in the case so moulded public sentiment in this conservative part of New England, that he even obtained a certificate from my own dear father, a retired orthodox clergyman in Sunderland, Massachusetts, that, so far as he knew, he had treated his daughter generally with propriety!! This certificate served as a passport to the confidence of Sunderland people in Mr. Packard as a man and a minister, and procured for him a call to become their minister in holy things. He was accordingly hired, as stated supply, and paid fifteen dollars a Sabbath for one year and a half, and was boarded by my father in his family, part of the time, free of charge.
The condition in which Mr. Packard left me I will now give in the language of another, by inserting here a quotation from one of the many Chicago papers which published an account of this trial with editorial remarks accompanying it. The following is a part of one of these Editorial Articles, which appeared under the caption:—
“A HEARTLESS CLERGYMAN.”
Chicago, March 6, 1864.
“We recently gave an extended account of the melancholy case of Mrs. Packard, of Manteno, Ill., and showed how she was persecuted by her husband, Rev. Theophilus Packard, a bigoted Presbyterian minister of Manteno. Mrs. Packard became liberal in her views, in fact, avowed Universalist sentiments; and as her husband was unable to answer her arguments, he thought he could silence her tongue, by calling her insane, and having her incarcerated in the Insane Asylum at Jacksonville, Illinois. He finally succeeded in finding one or two orthodox physicians, as bigoted as himself, ready to aid him in his nefarious work, and she was confined in the asylum, under the charge (?) of Dr. McFarland, who kept her there three years. She at last succeeded in having a jury trial, and was pronounced sane. Previous, however, to the termination of the trial, this persecutor of his wife, mortgaged his property, took away his children from the mother, and left her penniless and homeless, without a cent to buy food, or a place where to lay her head! And yet he pretended to believe that she was insane! Is this the way to treat an insane wife! Abandon her, turn her out upon the world without a morsel of bread, and no home? Her husband calls her insane. Before the case is decided by the jury, he starts for parts unknown. Was there ever such a case of heartlessness? If Mr. Packard believed his wife to be hopelessly insane, why did he abandon her? Is this the way to treat a companion afflicted with insanity? If he believed his own story, he should, like a devoted husband, have watched over her with tenderness, his heart full of love should have gone out towards the poor, afflicted woman, and he should have bent over her and soothed her, and spent the last penny he had, for her recovery! But instead of this, he gathers in his funds, “packs up his duds,” and leaves his poor, insane wife, as he calls her, in the court room, without food or shelter. He abandons her, leaving her penniless, homeless and childless!
“Mrs. Packard is now residing with Mr. Z. Handford, of Manteno, who writes to the Kankakee Gazette as follows:
“In the first place, Mrs. Packard is now penniless. After having aided her husband for twenty-one years, by her most indefatigable exertions, to secure for themselves a home, with all its clustering comforts, he, with no cause, except a difference in religious opinions, exiled her from her home, by forcing her into Jacksonville Insane Asylum, where he hoped to immure her for life, or until she would abandon what he calls her ‘insane notions.’
“But in the overruling providence of a just God, her case has been ventilated, at last, by a jury trial, the account of which is already before the public.
“From the time of her banishment into exile, now more than three and a half years, he has not allowed her the control of one dollar of their personal property. And she has had nothing to do with their real estate, within that time, excepting to sign one deed for the transfer of some of their real estate in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, which she did at her husband’s earnest solicitations, and his promise to let her have her ‘defense,’ long enough to copy, which document he had robbed her of three years before, by means of Dr. McFarland as agent. Her signature, thus obtained, was acknowledged as a valid act, and the deed was presented to the purchaser as a valid instrument, even after Mr. Packard had just before taken an oath that his wife was an insane woman!