Henry More Smith: The Mysterious Stranger

by Walter Bates

After hearing him talk in this manner for some time, I left him till the next day at noon, when I went to the gaol again, and gave him a good dinner, and read his pardon to him. When he saw the paper, he said, “That looks like the paper which I dreamed I saw, with two angels and a ship on it, with something that looked like snakes.” When I read his pardon he paid not the least attention to the nature of it, but asked questions as foreign to the nature of the subject as possible; only he said he wished I would give him that paper; he dreamed it was coming. I told him as soon as I would get him some clothes made, I would give him the paper; and that I would help him away with his show in a box, and that he might not be driven to the necessity of stealing; and in the evening I went with a tailor to take his measure for a coat.

When he saw the tailor with his measure, he said, “I wish you would give me that ribbon in your hand.” “It is no ribbon,” said the tailor, “but a measure to measure you for a new coat; come stand up.” “What!” said he, “do you think you are tailor enough to make me a coat!” “Yes.” “But you do not look like it; let me look at your hands and fingers,” and upon seeing them, he added, “you are no tailor, you look more like blacksmith, you shall never make a coat for me,” and would not be measured, but he said he would make it better himself, and wished I would give him a candle to work by, and he would make himself a waistcoat.

He said I need not be afraid of his doing any harm with the candle, he would put it in the middle of the floor, and take care that his straw and chips did not take fire and burn up his family, which he could not live without, as he could not labor for his living. Besides, he said, if he were so disposed, he could burn up the house without a candle; for, said he, I can make fire in one hour at any time. “When I was a boy,” continued he, “every one took notice of me as a very forward boy, and I obtained a license for shooting when I was but fifteen. One day when shooting I killed a rabbit on a farmer’s land where I had no right. The old farmer came after me, and I told him if he would come near me I would knock him down, but he caught me, and tied me fast to a large stack of faggots, and sent for a constable. While he was gone I made fire, and burned up the whole stack, and got off clear; but the old farmer never knew how the faggots took fire. You do not use faggots in this country—they are little sticks tied up in bundles, and sold to boil the tea-kettle with; and if I would give him a candle, he would make a fire to light it. Accordingly I provided materials for his clothes, and a lighted candle to work by. He continued to sew by the light of the candle but a short time and put it away from him, and said he could see better without it; he completed his waistcoat in the neatest manner, and occasionally attended to the improvement of his family.”

August 29th, at evening, many persons came to see his performance, as was usual, and when they were all gone out, he told me that he had carved a new figure of Bonaparte; that the first he had made after his own image and likeness, for he was the man after his own heart, but he had fallen. God, he said, made man out of the dust of the earth, but he had made man out of the wood of the earth.

He had now been in my custody more than a year, and almost every day developed some new feature of his character, or produced some fresh effort of his genius. I had had much trouble with him, and my patience often severely tried; but now I viewed him rather as an object of commiseration, and I could not think of turning him out of the gaol naked, destitute and friendless. In such a situation he must starve or steal, so that his pardon and release must become rather a curse than a blessing. I represented these things as feelingly as I could to him, gave him a box to put his family in, and told him he must be ready to leave the Province on Tuesday morning, and I would procure him a passage either to Nova Scotia or the United States. To all this he gave no attention, but asked some frivolous questions about Mohawks and snakes, and acted the fool, so that I began to conclude that I would now have much more trouble to get him out of gaol than I formerly had to keep him in it.

The next day Judge Pickett and Judge Micheau attended at the court house, to take the recognizances required of him to appear and plead his pardon when called upon to do so. After divesting him of his irons, and furnishing him with decent clothing, it was with much difficulty I could prevail on him to leave the gaol. However, he finally took one of his family in one hand, and a pair of scissors in the other, and with much effort we got him up into one of the jury rooms, when Judge Micheau read his pardon to him, and explained all the circumstances which united to produce it, to which, as usual, he gave no attention, but looked about the room and talked of something else.

Judge Pickett required his recognizance, and informed him that if he did not leave the Province immediately he would be taken and tried on two indictments in the county of York. He took no notice of what was said, but talked and danced about the room, told the judge he looked like a tailor, and asked him to give him his shoe string. His pardon, lying on the table, he caught hold of, and before it could be recovered from him, he clipped off the seal with the scissors; he said he wanted the ship that was on it to carry him away with his family. He tore the collar off his coat, and cut it in pieces with the scissors. Finding that nothing else could be done with him, I returned him again into prison, when he said to us that for our using him so kindly, he would, for one shilling, show us all his performance with his family. Upon which Judge Micheau gave him half a dollar, and told him to return a quarter dollar change, and then he would have more than a shilling. He took it, and said it was a nice piece of money, and put it in his pocket, but the judge could not make him understand the meaning of change.

He then performed the exhibition in fine style, but when we were leaving him he seemed out of humor with Judge Pickett, and told him that he had thrown stones at him, that he would burn his house, and that this place would be in flames before morning. He could make a fire in half an hour, and wanted a fire, and would have a fire, and I should see that he could make fire. Upon which we left him, without apprehending anything from his threats more than usual.

But the next day, the 29th, when entering the gaol for the purpose of preparing for his removal, I perceived that there was much smoke in the hall, which I supposed had come from the gaoler’s room, but he said that no smoke had been caused that morning, but that it proceeded from the prison door. I immediately opened the door, and found Smith sitting quite unconcerned before a fire which he had made with the chips of his carved work, and other materials. He observed to me that fire was very comfortable, that he had not seen any before for a long time, that he had made the fire with his own hands, and that he could make it again in ten minutes; that he could not do without one. I immediately extinguished the fire, and shut him up in the suffocating smoke, which did not seem to give him the least inconvenience. The account of his having made the fire excited the neighbors, who came in to see the feat. I ordered him to put his family into his box immediately; he took no notice of my orders. I hastily took down one of them, and laid it in his box, at which he seemed pleased, and said he would put them all in that box, and began to take them down very actively, observing that he did not want assistance from any one, but leave him with the light and he would have them all ready in half an hour.

We left him with the candle, and returning in about an hour, found him walking the floor, and every thing he had packed up in the box very neatly. It was remarkable to see with what skill and ingenuity he had packed them up. I gave him a pair of new shoes and with the box on his shoulders, he marched off to the boat that I had prepared for his conveyance, and with three men in the boat we set out with him for the city of Saint John. On the way he told the gaoler, if he would give him but one dollar he would teach him the way to make fire on any occasion. Receiving no reply from the gaoler, he commenced preaching, praying, and singing hymns, and sometimes acting as if crazy, during the passage down. We made no stop by the way, and reached Saint John about 8 o’clock in the evening.