The Lockwood Concern (8 page)
months and years." "Well, he wants me dead." "And you know what that can be, wishing someone would die, but unable to hasten the event." "I consider that insulting and ungrateful. I'd hoped you and I could discuss some plan for George." "Nobody's listening to you, George. The effect is lost." "Perhaps so, Agnes. But you always talk as though you were absolutely sure that God is taking down every word. In the long run maybe we're both cowards. Both of us." "Please go," she said. Agnes Lockwood survived the winter, was sustained through the spring by the letters from her son and daughter, but could not endure the heat of August. She was not helped by the last few letters from her son, which came at irregular intervals and contained over-casual references to a girl called Rita and descriptions of the San Luis Obispo County weather. Rita had no last name; George seemed to have proceeded on the notion that he had fully identified her in an earlier letter. As to the California weather, the heat was continually of such intensity that only the nearness of the Pacific Ocean made it bearable. "Occasionally Rita and I seize the opportunity to go for a swim." Agnes Lockwood would hint for more information about Rita, but it was not forthcoming. "She sounds Spanish," said Ernestine Lockwood. "There are a lot of people of Spanish descent in California." "I wouldn't want him to marry a Catholic," said Agnes. "Well, I'm only guessing. And he hasn't said anything that makes me think he wants to marry her." "She may want to marry him." "She'd be crazy if she didn't, but he'd let you know, Mother." The girl watched her mother's struggles with the lowland heat of the dog-days. Agnes could not sleep with the electric fans humming, but she could not breathe unless the air was circulated, and one Friday evening late in August she simply dropped her chin on her chest and her life was at its end. Ernestine Lockwood sent her brother a telegram: MOTHER DIED FUNERAL MONDAY LOVE ERNESTINE. A week later a telegram came from her brother: HAVE BEEN AWAY TELEGRAM RECEIVED TODAY PLEASE WRITE LOVE GEORGE. She wrote him at length, and in two weeks she had his reply.
Sept.20, 1921
Dear Tina: You have been very sweet to write and I also appreciate your sending the newspaper clippings concerning Mother's death and funeral. It was expected but when it finally came I discovered that I was not prepared for it. It must have been a dreadful experience for you but we can console ourselves with the thought that she could not have suffered very much. Most of her suffering was in being an invalid, confined to her room and I sincerely believe that she preferred dying to another year of that. I have some other news for you of a more pleasant nature. The reason I did not get your telegram sooner was that I was taking a few days off to go on a honeymoon. Yes, I was married on the 18th of August to Rita Collier. I mentioned her several times in letters to Mother so it would not have been a complete surprise to her (or to you either, I guess). She is a fine girl, one year younger than I am, graduated from Mills College cum laude (unlike her husband). Taught school near here. Her father and mother are Mr. and Mrs. David B. Collier, who live in Los Angeles. Mr. Collier is a chemist with the San Ysidro Petroleum Corporation. Originally came from Cleveland, Ohio, and is a graduate of Western Reserve University (Phi Beta Kappa). Mrs. Collier is also from Cleveland. Her maiden name was Ethel Van Meter. She was also a Phi Beta at Western Reserve. So you see I married into an intellectual family. I told them why I was kicked out of Princeton but they had already written to a friend of theirs on the Princeton faculty when they saw that Rita and I were getting serious. So they knew, but were willing to let us be engaged until I could support a wife. That has now happened. I did not want Mother to worry but the work I am doing is not ranching. Mr. King is in the oil business. His ranch, which I gave as my address, is a hobby. The first two months I was here I drove a truck, carrying pipe, etc., then was promoted to stock clerk. I am on the payroll of the San Marcos Petroleum Company, Mr. King's company. I have been living in boarding-house in San Luis Obispo but we have rented small house. Address above. I received a cash bonus for introducing a new system of checking on supplies so that anyone can find out immediately how many drills, etc., are on hand and where "out" tools are located. Mr. King was the only person here who knew I had any other income until I told Rita and her parents. My next promotion will probably take me out in the field to really learn something about the oil business. Mr. Collier has recommended several books on the subject, which I bought, but they are hard going. Rita helps me with my "home work" but I confess that I often fall asleep in the middle of a sentence. Don't know when I will see you again unless you get out this way on a trip, but I hope you will meet Rita before long. I enclose several snapshots. Please write and let us know what you are doing. Love, George
Also enclose check. Please have the florist put flowers on Mother's grave on her birthday, Oct .22. No name. Perhaps she will know.
"Of course she'll know," said the girl.
An American family history customarily has two beginnings: the one, not always so easily determinable as the other, has to do with the earliest progenitor and his arrival on this soil; the other, about which there are no doubts, has to do with the first member of the clan to distinguish himself. So many family records were destroyed by fire or the plow that guesswork has been a considerable factor in most family histories that go back beyond the War of the Revolution. Few family Bibles, tax rolls, church records of pre-Revolutionary times survived the numerous fires. An overturned candle, a glowing ember from the hearth would start a fire, and there was nothing to stop it; nearly everything in a household or a church was highly flammable, and only the lucky citizens got out alive, with their lives and nothing else. They, and their neighbors if they had any, could stand outside and watch the burning of their possessions. The farmer with his plow and the surveyor with his transit were unsentimental about disturbing buried bones and their identifying headstones; furrows had to be straight, roads had to be built where they had to be built and the road-builder would make a curve around a solid rock but not around a long-dead citizen's remains. The materials used in building and furnishing jails were more effectively fire-resistant than those thought suitable for the private residence, but prison records were often inaccurate and in any event not sought after by the descendants of the men and women recorded. Thus it was that flame and cast iron obliterated the provable line between many an early ancestor and his living, proudly curious namesake. George Bingham Lockwood and his brother Penrose were agreed that while the Robert Lockwood who emigrated to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1630 and later settled in Fairfield, Connecticut, was in all probability their first American ancestor, their claim could be disputed by numerous other bearers of the name whose connection was, in a manner of speaking, fireproof. They had better reason to believe that their Eighteenth Century ancestor worked on the Conestoga wagon and was slain by Indians or other hostile persons. They had evidence to show that a Lockwood worked on the Conestoga wagon, lost his life in violent fashion in Central Pennsylvania, and was survived by several sons. Presumably, and almost logically, at least one of those sons settled in Nesquehela County, and when George Bingham Lockwood and his brother Penrose claimed descent from the Nesquehela County Lockwoods, they were on safe ground. Their father, Abraham Lockwood, was the son of Moses Lockwood, who was born in Nesquehela County, and there were many family Bibles, church records, and gravestones to support that claim. Actually there were, in the brothers' childhood, many living residents of Swedish Haven who had known Moses Lockwood when he arrived from Nesquehela County, and Moses Lockwood was almost surely the grandson of John Lockwood, who was born in 1761 and miraculously escaped death at the hands of the Indians who killed his father. George and Penrose Lockwood readily conceded that the 1630 Watertown Lockwood might not be their kin; and they privately admitted that the 1761-Indian-murder John Lockwood was not incontrovertibly proven to have been their grandfather's grandfather. But Moses Lockwood was certainly their grandfather - unfortunately born in 1811 rather than in the previous century - and the first to gain distinction, which he did by making a great deal of money. When he died he left a fortune of more than $200,000 in Swedish Haven real estate, coal-dredging operations, farm mortgages, a distillery, and bank stock. He left every penny to his son Abraham, who was already well on the way to a considerable fortune of his own. Thus in two successive generations the richest man in Swedish Haven was a Lockwood, and the validity of the next generation's claim on New England origins was a topic of family conversation only. In Swedish Haven thrift was a word that was pronounced as reverently as the name Jesus, and the ability to accumulate so much money conferred its own distinction. And not without reason, especially when the second moneyed generation had inherited the ability. The citizens of Swedish Haven, who had made Moses Lockwood rich, took pride in the fact that he lived in their town; and their pride was in no small measure due to the fact that Moses bad intended to settle in Gibbsville, the county seat and metropolis, which they hated. Moses, according to the legend, was on his way from Fort Penn to Gibbsville on horseback, and was only four miles away from his destination when a cloudburst fell and he was compelled to take refuge in the Five Points Tavern, the only inn in Swedish Haven. During the night he awoke to hear someone moving about in his room, and when he challenged the intruder, a man rushed at him with a dagger. But Moses Lockwood had drawn his pistol from beneath his pillow, and he shot the man dead. The man was a known ne'er-do-well, a brawler, frequenter of taverns, card-player and native of Gibbsville. The would-be thief was in his stocking feet, the dagger was recognized as belonging to him, and he had no right to be in Moses Lockwood's room at three o'clock in the morning. There was no need for a trial; the chief burgess made a notation in his journal - "blotter" - and so many citizens congratulated Moses Lockwood on his narrow escape and his brave dispatching of the criminal that he decided to remain in Swedish Haven an extra day. He never left. The dead man was said to have several vindictive brothers in Gibbsville, who had publicly sworn to avenge his death, and Moses Lockwood was urged to stay away from the county seat. He continued to postpone his departure, but his money was running low and he told his new friends that he had to find employment, which he was more likely to do in the larger town. He had made so favorable an impression in Swedish Haven that he was offered, and accepted, the post of roundsman. The pay was not much, but the borough provided lodging in the borough hall, and the Five Points Tavern fed him at the common table with its other guests. Moses Lockwood had no experience in police work, but he had proven himself courageous and cool in a crisis, and a dead shot with the pistol. He had accepted the job gratefully, but conditionally, it being understood that when a more attractive proposition came along, he would take it. In the next election he opposed the chief burgess, who, more than anyone else, had been influential in getting him the job. Moses Lockwood won the election on the single issue of economy; he could do the chief burgess's job and be the roundsman for the chief burgess's pay, plus fees. It had not escaped his notice that the office of chief burgess paid a miserably small salary, but that the fees were an attractive proposition, partly because his predecessor had made them so. As chief burgess, Moses Lockwood, following precedent, charged fees for all the customary services of notary public and justice of the peace, and now charged extra fees as rent collector, process server, and collector of delinquent taxes. He also raised court costs for hearings conducted in his office, which he pocketed, and for writing legal letters for citizens who felt they could not afford attorneys. He then married the younger daughter of the chief burgess, and Moses Lockwood and his father-in-law soon had a monopoly on real estate transactions, fire insurance, and borough government, alternating as chief burgess every second year. They established the first stage line between Swedish Haven and Richterville, eleven miles to the west, and they built a whiskey distillery on the river bank. They contracted to feed and house the workers on the new Philadelphia-Gibbsville canal, and when the work was finished, converted the barracks into two tenement blocks. Moses Lockwood did not proceed unopposed, and in 1848, through a business quarrel, he shot and killed a second man. It was then brought out that he had not left Fort Penn of his own accord, and although his lawyer objected and the objection was sustained, Moses Lockwood was forced to listen as the district attorney attempted to show that the earlier fatal shooting of the sneak thief in the Five Points Tavern was in fact a deliberate murder. According to the district attorney, Moses Lockwood had known the thief was planning a robbery in Gibbsville. The witness was one of the dead thief's brothers, and Moses Lockwood's attorney succeeded in having most of his testimony stricken from the record and discrediting most of what was allowed. Nevertheless the spectators in the courtroom were treated to the makings of a scandal. The second fatal shooting, for which Moses Lockwood had to stand trial, took place in daylight on Dock Street, Swedish Haven. Calvin Lichtmann, a Richter Valley farmer, on whose farm Moses Lockwood and his father-in-law had threatened to foreclose a mortgage, was walking a few steps behind Lockwood on Dock Street, and carrying an old rifle. He called out a few words to Lockwood, who knew very little Pennsylvania Dutch. Lockwood turned, saw the rifle, drew his pistol and shot Lichtmarm in the chest. Some Dutch-speaking pedestrians who heard the dying man's words swore that he wondered aloud why Lockwood had shot him, that he had meant no harm. It developed that Lichtmann had brought the rifle to Swedish Haven for repairs to the firing-pin and had no intention of harming Lockwood. It was claimed for Lockwood that in the circumstances - the rifle, the threat of foreclosure, the suddenness of Lichtmann's calling to him - he had reason to believe he was being attacked. Moses Lockwood was acquitted of manslaughter, but the judge, while finding no fault with the verdict, delivered himself of a few hundred sardonic words on the subject of men who go armed with a concealed weapon in the ordinary course of business. He then permitted Lockwood's attorney to say, for the record, that Moses Lockwood was a peace officer as well as a business man, since he was also chief burgess of the thriving Nesquehela County community of Swedish Haven. "The court trusts," said the judge, "that the peace-loving community of Swedish Haven will continue to thrive, and if the learned counsel has concluded, I declare this court now closed." He rose and ignored Moses Lockwood's outstretched hand. Moses Lockwood was now thirty-seven years old, father of two daughters and a son, Abraham Lockwood. He did not again run for public office, and instead of soliciting business as had been his practice, he handled his affairs in a one story, two-room building. He stayed in the back room, which opened on an alleyway. He kept the door key on his person at all times and as an extra precaution the door was bolted. From his desk he had a view of the front room and beyond it, through a large multi-paned window, of the passersby. In spite of the judge's remarks, he continued to go armed. He built another house; this one a square red brick dwelling in the center of an acre of ground, and all around the property he put up a brick wall, eight feet high, with spikes embedded along the top. It was said that the wall had cost more money than the house, and older citizens recalled that the original Swedish Haven settlement had been wiped out in an Eighteenth Century massacre by the Lenni Lenape tribe. Plainly, Moses Lockwood would be ready if the Indians ever came again. The most obtuse citizens could guess the reasons behind Moses Lockwood's zeal for self-protection: the Bundy brothers, three in number, were only four miles away and they unanimously glowered at mention of the name Lockwood. The threat of a perjury charge against Josiah Bundy for his testimony in the Lockwood manslaughter trial had reactivated the brother's animosity, and citizens remarked that regardless of how much truth there was or was not in Josiah Bundy's accusation, the brothers now firmly believed - or convincingly pretended to believe - that Moses Lockwood had lured their brother to his room and murdered him. They were violent men, ever in and out of trouble with the Gibbsville constables; and to give substance to Moses Lockwood's story of the shooting of their brother was the family reputation for preying on drunken men. In so far as the Swedish Haven citizens were concerned, Moses Lockwood was given the benefit of the doubt; but a doubt had been created, and not everyone in the town believed that Moses Lockwood's anxiety for safety emanated from a clear conscience. There was the matter of his departure from Fort Penn, the capital of the Commonwealth and one of its larger cities. Swedish Haven, in 1833, when Moses Lockwood first arrived in the town, was still very much a town in the wilderness. True, there was farming to the west and the south, and only four miles to the northwest lay Gibbsville, with a population of more than 8,000. Gibbsville was reachable by highway, railway, and the canal, but these transportation lanes had been cut through a dense forest; snake, panther, and wildcat country, and on occasion, bear. Strange men, of whom no questions were asked, went from town to town, and these floaters were quite sensibly blamed for the fairly frequent highway robberies and senseless killings that occurred in the area. Moses Lockwood had said he was on his way to Gibbsville when the cloudburst detained him at the Five Points Tavern; but he never told anyone why he was going to Gibbsville. Citizens had to supply their own answers to the questions, and they could invent the answers out of what they knew of Moses Lockwood after the manslaughter trial. The district attorney had called a witness, who was sworn and gave his name, Adam Yoder, Fort Penn. Immediately Moses Lockwood snatched his attorney's arm and whispered to him, but before the attorney could get his objections sustained, Adam Yoder was able to say, in response to the district attorney's opening question, "Yes sir, I arrested Lockwood back in 1833." The defense attorney shouted his objections so that the next words of Adam Yoder were not audible, but it was thereafter common knowledge that Moses Lockwood at least once had been charged with a misdemeanor or a felony. Several business men of Swedish Haven and Gibbsville then went to the trouble of ascertaining by correspondence the nature of the young Lockwood's offense. It was burglary. Specifically, it was the theft of a cash box from a tavern of dubious reputation in Fort Penn. Moses Lockwood was arrested and put in the lockup, but the tavern keeper changed his mind about pressing charges and Lockwood was released. Informally, however, he was ordered to leave town, never to return. This information came too late in Moses Lockwood's career to be of value to his business competitors. His rise had been rapid, and men who had been on an equal footing with him during