Henry More Smith: The Mysterious Stranger

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <h1 class='c001'>HENRY MORE SMITH<br/> <span class='xlarge'>The Mysterious Stranger</span></h1> <span class='large'>By WALTER BATES, Esquire</span> <h2>BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION</h2> <p class='c008'>Sometime in the month of July, 1812, nearly a hundred years ago now, a well dressed, smooth spoken man, less than thirty years of age, made his appearance at Windsor, Nova Scotia. He was looking for employment, but gave those who enquired about his antecedents but little satisfaction, further than he had recently come from England, and could do almost anything in a mechanical way, and was familiar also with farm work. He was engaged under the name of Frederick Henry More by a farmer named Bond, who resided in the village of Rawden, and remained there about a year without attracting unusual attention, except for his piety. Elizabeth, the daughter of his employer, became enamored with the stranger More and on March 12, 1813, they were married, much against the will of her parents and friends.</p> <p>After his marriage More took up the occupations of pedlar and tailor, which gave him an opportunity to travel about the country and to make frequent excursions to Halifax, where he appears first to have turned his remarkable talent as a thief and burglar to profitable account for upwards of a year before he was detected. He escaped the clutches of the law in Nova Scotia and reached St. John in July, 1814. Less fortunate in his operations in New Brunswick than he had been in Nova Scotia, he was arrested and lodged in Kingston gaol on July 24, 1814 on a charge of horse stealing, which in those days was punishable by death. Here he gave the name of Henry More Smith. Walter Bates was then Sheriff of Kings county, and it is to him that the public is indebted for the story of this many-sided man, who was beyond all question the most remarkable person ever confined in a New Brunswick prison.</p> <p>Before he could be placed on trial Smith effected his escape by an assumed illness, which deceived even the doctor in attendance. Supposed to be dying, he was left alone for a short while, jumped from his supposed death bed and ran from the prison, eluding his captors for nearly two months before he was again landed in prison. On his return to gaol he broke the chains, with which he was secured, removed an iron collar which had been rivetted about his neck and while loaded with chains almost escaped by sawing the iron gratings on the windows of his cell. All these performances are vouched for by Sheriff Bates and Gaoler Dibble, in whose custody he was, and attested by many of the most prominent residents of Kingston a century ago.</p> <p>The marionettes he made while feigning insanity, after he had been sentenced to death, were the wonder of hundreds who not only saw them, but were present in his cell when he made them perform. It was not so much the puppet show, which caused astonishment, as that the puppets could be made by a man whose only materials at hand were the straw in his bed and strips torn from his clothing; all made while he was handcuffed and chained to the floor of his cell by heavy ox-chains.</p> <p>Although convicted and sentenced to death Smith was pardoned and escorted to St. John by Sheriff Bates and placed on a schooner bound for Windsor, his former home. This was on August 30, 1815, more than a year after his arrest. Although he was within a few miles of the residence of his wife it does not appear that he even visited her, but after a short stay in Nova Scotia left the province and made his appearance in Maine. Occasional glimpses of his life in the United States are given by Sheriff Bates in his narrative, the most interesting of which occurred in Connecticut, where he gave the authorities about as much trouble as he did those of New Brunswick. During his career he was heard of at points so widely divergent as the Southern States and Upper Canada. The last information of him was in what is now the Province of Ontario nearly twenty years after he had quitted Kingston, where he was still plying his trade of theft.</p> <p>The story as told in subsequent pages by Sheriff Bates is unique in criminal annals and is worthy of careful perusal.</p> <p>THE PUBLISHER.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />