Chapter III: Part 3

"On the 20th October, 1811, Capt. Chillingsworth Foster, jun.,
Æt. about 41 years, departed this life; on the same day
Benjamin Bangs, Esq., of Harwich, with one Mr. Scotto Berry, of
the same place, called at the house of the deceased for payment
of a sum of about one hundred and thirty dollars, due said
Bangs, and requested the father of the deceased to give him his
security, said Bangs well knowing the parent to be in low
circumstances, and about seventy-five years old, and the mother
about the same age. The father refused to comply, stating
his inability to answer so great a demand without suffering
immediate distress. The said Bangs then declared that if he did
not comply, it was in his power to arrest the body of the
deceased. The father still refused, and Bangs left the house;
and a most distressed one it was, this being the last son out
of three, left these aged parents, the other two being lost at
sea, or died.

"The Monday following was appointed to have the deceased
buried, when Col. Jonathan Snow appeared as Sheriff, with a
writ to serve on the body. Here the melancholy scene commenced,
a part of the relations being assembled, with the aged parents
convulsed in sorrow; no one can paint their feelings but those
who have children and are denied them the right of Christian
burial. The usual ceremonies on such occasions were however
performed, and an appropriate prayer was delivered by the Rev.
John Simpkins, and the funeral procession formed and proceeded
with the corpse about one and a half mile, and very near to the
spot of the grave, when the said Sheriff arrested the coffin,
without any service on the body, and it was set down in the
middle of the highway nearly abreast of said Bangs' dwelling
house, and forbid proceeding any further. A large company who
followed, with the mourners, soon after retired, and left the
officer in charge of the body. After lying in this situation
for some time, one of the Grand Jurors ordered it out of the
high road; this was complied with by the Sheriff, by placing it
under the window of the said Bangs, and about sunset still
further removed it into Bangs' dwelling-house. By this inhuman
proceeding the aged parents were deprived of seeing their last
and only son buried, as were the widow of the deceased and five
children. So distressing a scene never was witnessed in this
place, and perhaps not in the most barbarous nations. Between
seven and eight of the clock, the same evening, the body was
buried by a few individuals, and by the consent of said
Benjamin Bangs, Esq., after he had inflicted all the wounds he
could on the feelings of the poor grey-headed parents and their
relations."

The barbarity and illegality of this conduct of B. Bangs, Esq.
(an influential democrat of that day), were viewed with
indignation from all quarters. The statute of Feb., 1812, on this
subject was not passed to render _illegal_ the arrest of a dead
body of a debtor, for that was _always_ illegal, but its object
was to fix the punishment, instead of leaving it to the
discretion of the Courts. Many undoubtedly recollect the instance
at Portland several years before, in which a debtor who was on
the limits was suddenly taken sick and carried out of the limits,
where he died. It was then decided to be the law that the
debtor's bond was not broken unless his body was out of the
limits by his own agency and will.

So disinterring dead bodies of men was always a misdemeanor, but
in 1815 a law was passed by our General Court to fix the
penalties.

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The case of Stephen Merrill Clark is remembered by many people in Salem and its vicinity.

_Supreme Judicial Court._

At the present term of this Court in Salem, Andrew Dunlap,
John Foster, and Solomon Whipple, Esqrs. were admitted
Counsellors, and Asa W. Wildes, Esq. an attorney of said Court.

_Capital Trial_.--On Tuesday Stephen Merrill Clark, a lad about
15 years of age, was indicted for the crime of ARSON alleged to
have been committed in Newburyport, was arraigned the same day,
and pleaded _not guilty_. The day for his trial is not yet
fixed.--The Court assigned him Leverett Saltonstall and John G.
King, Esquires, for his counsel on his trial.

_Salem Observer_, Nov. 4, 1820.

Clark was subsequently convicted of the crime for which he was tried, and executed upon Salem Neck in 1821. He had made a confession of his guilt; but considering his youth, and the circumstances of his having been instigated by others, as was believed, to the commission of the crime, many humane people thought there should have been some mitigation of the punishment.