Grace Brown and Chester Gillette [Laws F7]

DESCRIPTION: Gillette is awaiting execution for drowning his sweetheart on a boating excursion. The singer mentions the grief of the mothers
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thompson-BodyBootsAndBritches-NewYorkStateFolktales)
KEYWORDS: homicide execution grief
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
July 11, 1906 - Murder of Grace Brown
Mar 30, 1908 - Execution of Chester Gillette for the murder of Brown
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Laws F7, "Grace Brown and Chester Gillette"
Thompson-BodyBootsAndBritches-NewYorkStateFolktales, pp. 444-445, "The Ballad of Grace Broen and Chester Gillette" (1 text)
Burt-AmericanMurderBallads, pp. 32-34, "The Murder of Grace Brown" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-AmericanFolkSongsARegionalEncyclopedia1, pp. 119-121, "The Ballad of Grace Brown and Chester Gillette" (1 text)
DT 809, GRACBRWN
ADDITIONAL: Joseph W. Brownell and Patricia A. Wawrzaszek, _Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906_, Heart of the Lake Publishing, 1906, p. 145, "(no title)" (1 excerpt, of the end, significant only because it includes a verse not found in Thompson's version)
Craig Brandon, _Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited_, North Country Books, 1986 (I use the sixth paperback printing on 1995), pp. 326-327, "The Ballad of Grace Brown and Chester Gillette" (1 text)
Roud #2256
NOTES [7928 words]: This murder provided the model for Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. The movie "A Place in the Sun" is also reported to be based on it. I have not seen it. There is also a novel, Joseph W Brownell, Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906. I haven't even tried to see that. Chester Gillette was born in Wickes, Montana Territorry, on August 9, 1883, fhe oldest child of Frank and Louise Gillette (Sherman/Brandon, p. 11). He would eventually have two sisters and a brother (there is a very poor reproduction of a family photo on p. 25 of Brandon and p. 31 of Sherman/Brandon). The family moved to Seattle when Chester was three (Sherman/Brandon, p. 12); three years later, in 1894, Frank joined the Salvation Army and brought the whole family with him (Sherman/Brandon, p. 12; Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 43).
Possibly the restrictions of family life bothered Chester; certainly he was a problem child, stealing things from his classmates, lying about his behavior, and frequently running away from home (Sherman/Brandon, p. 12; Brandon, p. 19, says that he showed these problems as early as first grade!). When he was arrested for murder, his mother's first thought (upon hearing of his arrest but not knowing the reason) was that he was again stealing things (Brandon, p. 166, quoting a letter she wrote to Chester). He eventually rejected his family's Salvation Army membership (Sherman/Brandon, pp. 12-13). There don't seem to have been reports of violence in his records as a boy. His handful of later letters to Grace and to his mother "reveal... a person who could only be described as flippant, immature, and self-centered. They confirmed the opinion generally held at the time -- formed chiefly as a result of his demeanor during the trial -- that Chester Gillette was insensitive, shallow, and unintelligent" (Sherman/Brandon, p. 22). Yet his academic performance proved that he was not stupid. When he first attended Oberlin Academy, he earned good grades (Brandon, p. 33). And he became a voracious reader in prison, adding book reviews to his diary (Sherman/Brandon, p. 24). What he lacked was not pure intelligence but the ability and willingness to imagine the effects of his actions. There is a very high association of his known childhood traits (which today might result in a diagnosis of Conduct Disorder) and illegal behavior as an adult.
Chester also seems to have had an inability to recognize that his actions had consequences and that bad things could happen to him -- even while on death row, he tended to deny that he could ever be executed (Sherman/Brandon, p. 89). In a diary entry written two days before his execution, when he was finally preparing to die, he wrote in his diary that he "usually" acted on impulse rather than thinking things through (Sherman/Brandon, p. 135). When he did finally start thinking about death, he compared it to having a new experience such as taking a balloon ride (which he had never gotten to do), and concluded, "It will be a condition much different, and I am sure interesting, tho (sic.) I may not realize that. It will be a change, a development and advance. Although I do not want to die, I haven't the fear of it that one expects to have" (Sherman/Brandon, p. 123. This sounds very like the statements of many criminals with antisocial personality disorder).
When he was in prison, he was not allowed a knife or fork, for fear of suicide attempts (Brandon, p. 171), but this might have been more a matter of routine than anything about Chester's behavior.
Grace's sister would later say that he had a "shifty eye" and didn't look directly at people (Brandon, p. 72). The source is suspect, but it's an interesting fact if true. So is the fact that his facial expressions during his court case were so impassive that it attracted comment in the newspapers (Sherman/Brandon, p. 128; Brandon, p. 191, mentions that he was the only person in the courtroom who didn't dissolve in tears when Grace Brown's letters were read) -- it sounds as if he either wasn't having normal emotional responses or his emotional responses were not reflected in his face.
In an attempt to preclude an insanity defense during his trial, the prosecution arranged for a test of his mental competence. He was found sane (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 133-134). The nature of the testing was ridiculous -- but the result is clearly right; people with antisocial personality disorder are perfect sane, they just don't care about other people and don't accept responsibility for their actions.
Gillette seems to have had a curious affection for people who were not quite psychologically normal -- another hint that he might have been abnormal himself. The pastor who Chester grew close to while in prison, Henry M(a)cIlravy, had a "bizarre personality" (Sherman/Brandon, p. 30), suffered a nervous breakdown in 1907 (Sherman/Brandon, p. 51), and was put in an asylum in 1909 (Sherman/Brandon, pp. 29-30); it sounds as if he also had a delusion that he had earned a law degree (cf. Sherman/Brandon, p. 80). Florence Ferrin, the sister of his friend Bernice Ferrin, drowned herself in 1908 (Sherman/Brandon, p. 42). Several of his family members were clearly odd. It sounds as if the father had a few slightly loose screws. Chester's sister Hazel (based on Sherman/Brandon, p. 28) sounds a little peculiar, too, although there certainly isn't anything diagnosable in the short summary of her life.
After the Salvation Army, the family would join what amounts to a cult (Sherman/Brandon, p. 14; Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 50). This was the group led by John Alexander Dowie, which is known by several names but is typically called something like the "Christian Catholic Church" or the "Christian Apostolic Church in Zion." Mead/Hill, p. 71, say it was formally organized in 1896. Dowie grew up in Scotland and was ordained in Australia. In 1901 the church made its base in what it called "Zion City," Illinois, north of Chicago. Dowie had some progressive ideas -- he was against racism, e.g. -- but he also opposed the press and the medical profession, substituting Dowie's faith-healing powers for the latter (Chester's mother claimed that he had healed her, her husband, and one daughter; Brandon, p. 37). The sect was an evangelical Protestant type which believed in triune baptism, the Second Coming, tithing, and the supremacy of Scripture. Dowie eventually gave out that he was the prophet Elijah returned. The sect actually deposed him in 1906! Christie-Murray, p. 219, describes it as "Fundamentalist, pre-Millenialist, completely Pentecostal, emphasizing faith-healing and worshipped... with wild, enthusiastic spontaneity." Green, p. 318, says it "forbade alcohol, tobacco, and pork" -- a strange mix of Jewish and Christian ideas. It still exists, though it is small, but Zion City is no longer closed to outsiders, and it is closer to a mainstream Pentecostal sect. The Gillettes, however, joined when it was patently wacko (and quit soon after Dowie was set aside; at the time of Chester's trial, the Gillettes were out on their own trying to make a living with no resources and few skills -- Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 106). It didn't appeal to Chester, who generally stayed away from his family after they joined (Brandon, p. 37).
The family had bounced around a lot because of their Salvation Army work, and possibly put Chester in a boarding school for part of that time (Brandon, p. 27, though no one can even identify the school); the father was eventually appointed head of the Salvation Army mission in Hilo, though he had to give up the job because of ill health (Sherman/Brandon, p. 13). The family eventually tried to resolve their problems with Chester by sending him to Oberlin Academy, a pre-college branch of Oberlin College. (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 48, don't mention any family problems; they suggest his parents sent him to Oberlin because their constant moves for the Salvation Army had affected his education. They also suggest his parents wanted him to go to college. This seems unlikely; going to college was a rare thing in the years around 1900! And even if they wanted to send him to boarding school, why such a remote one? I have no proof, but I suspect Sherman/Brandon have it right.) He was enrolled as a sophomore even though, as an eighteen-year-old, he was as old as a senior (Brandon, p. 32).
Brandon, pp. 57-58, describes him as five feet seven inches tall, 150 pounds, athletic, and handsome. He is said to have made friends easily. But he also liked to smoke and play cards. And he lived lavishly and was constantly in debt (Brandon, p. 58).
I wonder if it was a mistake to send him to a co-ed school. (Even he eventually admitted that he was too fond of young women; Brandon, pp. 58-59.) His result there, as we have seen, were initially good. But it didn't last. In his second year, he started cutting classes and ceased to earn good results; he took only three real classes in the fall, and two in the spring, while limiting his exposure to the Bible classes that his family probably wanted him to take (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 50). His landlady reported that he had become a "very rough boisterous fellow" (Sherman/Brandon, p. 14).
Eventually the school told his family that there was no point in him being in school; he gave up his education in 1903. He then worked odd jobs such as traveling book salesman (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 51), as well as train brakeman, got in trouble for not paying a hotel bill (Brandon, p. 38; it would not be the last time he did this), and spent at least some time in jail (Sherman/Brandon, p. 14).
After a couple of years of that, in 1905 (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 53), he went to work with his uncle in Cortland, New York (so most sources; Sherman/Brandon, in what I can only think is a typo says Cortland, Illinois), at the Gillette Skirt Factory (there is a photo of the building on p. 28 of Brownell/Wawrzaszek; p. 29 shows the boss, Chester's uncle N. Horace Gillette. The building is still standing, although it later became L. Werninck & Sons [Furniture] Supply Co. The company has shut down, but you can see the building in Google Maps; it is at 32 Miller St, Cortland, NY 13045, very little changed, at least from what it looked like when Brownell/Wawrzaszek took their photo in 1986 or earlier).
Chester was also getting involved with a lot of women (Sherman/Brandon, p. 14); no doubt his athletic prowess (which was very real) helped there.
One of those women he met was Grace Brown, who was then nineteen, who worked in another part of the skirt factory in Cortland, New York (so most sources; Sherman/Brandon says Cortland, Illinois) where Chester was then employed. She was known by the nickname "Billy" (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 33; she even signed some of her letters "The Kid," as in "Billy the Kid"; see e.g. Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 74). The nickname is said to have come from the song, "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home?" -- Grace (who was fond of music and dancing) sang it so much that people supposedly called her after it (Brandon, p. 51). I can't help but note the irony that she took her name from a song about a lowlife, and ended up being killed by an even lower lowlife.
Brown came from a farm family, and the farm was not particularly prosperous; it was too far from the railroads to be a good place to raise cash crops (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 39-40), and her father had mis-managed his mortgage. One wonders if she might have suffered slightly from childhood malnutrition; she was only five feet tall (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 56), or perhaps five feet two inches (Brandon, p. 55). As a middle daughter in a large family which had financial difficulties, she had little hope for inheritance. So when her older sister Ada married and moved to Cortland, Grace went to live with them. While there she went to work for the Gillette Skirt Company. And then... Ada and her husband lost their baby son Robert, and rather than live with the memories, they left the area (Brandon, p. 68). Grace stayed and continued to work at the factory (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 41).
There is disagreement about whether or not she attractive (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 56, say she wasn't; Brandon, p. 54, say she was. Of the photos I've seen, there is only one in which she looked at all pretty to me, but it's the one you always see printed); it's not clear what drew Chester to her. But he visited her a lot at work sneaking away from his stockroom job to do it (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 58; Brandon, p. 66). Not that it kept him from seeing other girls.
He also visited her at home quite a bit, but apparently they never did anything together -- they just sat and talked (Brandon, p. 67). It was a strange relationship.
Apparently co-workers warned Grace about Chester's involvement with other women, but somehow that didn't stop her. Some time around the beginning of 1906, he apparently talked her into sleeping with him (Sherman/Brandon, p. 15; Brandon, p. 67, suggests that that was the purpose of all those long conversations; on p. 205, Brandon tells of Chester recounting during his trial that she repeatedly resisted his advances before finally giving in. Clearly, for Chester, "No" did not mean "No").
Did Gillette ever feel real affection for Brown? He did sometimes sign letters to her "with love" (Brandon, p. 70) -- but in a diary entry written three days before his execution, he wrote, "I have never been in love" (Sherman/Brandon, p. 131). Sherman/Brandon never mention any instances where he actually seemed to show love for Grace, and on several occasions (e.g. p. 39 n. 6) they suggest that, if he had romantic feelings toward anyone, it was Bernice Ferrin, a slightly older woman who was a friend of his family in Zion City, Illinois -- who gave him much support while in prison but in the same period but also became engaged to someone else in this period (Sherman/Brandon, p. 30. It is clear from the diary that Chester really liked Ferrin; whether the feeling was romantic we simply have no way to tell). Chester only once mentions Grace in his diary, and that very obliquely, in a reference to friends of hers (Sherman/Brandon, pp. 72, 74).
In May 1906, Grace realized she was pregnant (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 61), and presumably tried to get Chester to marry her. He clearly refused -- at the trial, he said that he never promised to marry her (Brandon, p. 81). From this point, the story gets vague. Grace went back to her family's home in South Otselic, New York, and kept writing to Chester about her situation (between bouts of morning sickness that she tried to conceal from her family). Chester's responses indicate that he had no intention of doing anything about her problem -- until she threatened to return to Cortland and tell her story (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 68-70).
It is important, in assessing what follows, to know that Grace was showing signs of depression. "She cried much of the time" and "her letters turned dark and morose" (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 71). At least twice, she told people at work that she wanted to die (Brandon, p. 80; Brandon, p. 213, says that four witnesses at Chester's trial reported hearing her say that). Even though she was pregnant, she had lost a lot of weight (Brandon, p. 82). She rarely engaged in the activities, such as picking berries and flowers, that she used to share with her family. The problem was so severe that her family almost called a doctor (Brandon, p. 83).
One of her letters to Chester is shocking. In part, it read, "If I could only die. I know how you feel about this affair, and I wish for your sake you need not be troubled. If I die I hope you can be happy. I hope I can die" (Brandon, p. 88).
Her very last letter is also frightening: "This is the last letter I can write dear.... [My parents] think I am just going out there to DeRuyter for a visit.... I have been bidding goodbye to some places today.... I know I shall never see any of them again. And Mama! ... If I come back dead, perhaps, if she does not know, she won't be angry with me. I will never be happy again, dear" (Brandon, pp. 108-109). She begs Chester to give her just one evening.
Clearly she needed help -- though the sorts of help available in 1906 probably wouldn't have done much for her. When they were read during Chester's trial, they brought the courtroom down in tears (Brandon, p. 190).
Chester came up with a plan, though it is likely that what he told Grace and what he intended to do were different. It is noteworthy that, before he set out to deal with Grace, he tried to scrape up all the money he could, including asking his uncle for a loan which was never to be repaid (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 75). Chester was still dating other girls even as he set out on this "vacation" with Grace (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 72-73).
Was he already planning murder? We can't know. The attorney who prosecuted him suggested so, but Brandon, p. 113, thinks he hadn't made up his mind. What is, I think, certain is that he intended to be rid of Grace one way or another.
If Grace thought she was never coming back, Chester pretty clearely intended to come back to Cortland after meeting her, since he made arrangements for others to cover his duties at his church (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 76; according to Brandon, p. 58, he was heavily involved in Cortland's First Presbyterian Church) and he left many of his possessions behind.
On July 8, Chester set out for DeRuyter, New York, where he had arranged to meet Grace; when he registered at the Tabor House, he did something he would repeat several times during the trip: He signed in under an assumed name that used his initials "C. G." (probably to match his monogrammed luggage); in this case, the name was "Charles George." He would later claim that he used false names to protect Grace's reputation (Brandon, p. 115).
Grace came to DeRuyter by stage on July 9. Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 79, says that she knew the wife of the Tabor House's owner and talked to her. Chester and Grace met at about 10:00, and an hour later they were on a train to somewhere called Canastota. They sat separately -- and Chester spent time with two women he knew from Cortland (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 79). If Chester was trying to keep his presence secret, he was doing a lousy job.
They then headed by train for Utica, and took a room as a married couple under assumed names; this time, it was "Charles Gordon and Wife" (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 80). They never checked out or paid their bill. Then they headed for a resort called Tupper Lake, again using assumed names (Sherman/Brandon, pp. 16-17). The one time Chester used his own name was when he took some clothes to a laundry and asked that they be directed to him (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 80); this would eventually help to trace him.
On July 11, there was one last round of train trips. (On which, curiously, a witness claimed they were "spooning" -- Brandon, p. 121 -- which seems pretty unlikely at this stage!) Grace checked her bag for Old Forge, New York, but they continued past it and got off at Tupper Lake. Chester bullied his way into getting a room, this time signing as "Charles George and Wife." The landlord reported that he and Grace were arguing (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 84); another witness said that Grace was crying bitterly when they left -- though her last message to her family claimed "Am having a lovely time" and "am glad we are here" (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 86). One cannot but suspect that she was still trying to conceal her ruin from her family.
It was almost their last stop. They headed bad down the railroad to Big Moose Station and went to the Glenmore Hotel on Big Moose Lake (Sherman/Brandon, pp. 17-18; there is a map of all this on pp. 82-83 of Brownell/Wawrzaszek) -- even though Grace's trunk was on its way to Old Forge. Grace signed in (or was signed in by Chester) under her own name; Chester signed as "Carl Grahm" of Albany. They rented a boat (a 17-foot "Adirondack skiff," according to Brandon, p. 132) and went out on the lake. Grace left her hat behind, but Chester, interestingly, took his suitcase and all his possessions with him (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 88-89. His claim was that he took their lunch in the suitcase; Brandon, p. 132. But unless he was willing to leave the crackers loose to crumble into his clothing, he must have had a bag or something for the lunch that he could have taken out. Like most of Chester's explanations, it's barely possible in isolation, but there were just too many "barely possibles" in his story). They were seen by the people in another boat late in the afternoon (Brandon, p. 134), but those in the other boat could not give much information about what they were doing -- at that moment, they were just drifting.
We can't know what they said to each other in the boat; we don't even have witnesses who saw the ending. But, around 6:00, Grace died, with her body ending up at the bottom of the lake. Chester went off with his suitcase toward the town of Eagle Bay.
At first no one suspected anything wrong; the first searchers, Robert Morrison and two young relatives, went out to try to get their boat back (Brandon, p. 1). They eventually found the boat overturned in an unpopulated cove. Some hair that was identified as Grace's was found on the oarlock of the boat (Brandon, p. 153). Morrison took the two boats back and convinced a man with a steamboat to go search for the missing couple (Brandon, p. 4). They eventually found a woman's body on the bottom of the bay (Brandon, pp. 6-7). It was, of course, the body of Grace. The body of "Carl Grahm" was not to be found (Brandon, p. 8, Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 90. On p. 91, they have a copy of her death certificate, dated July 11, though large parts of the photo are so dark as to be almost unreadable.
It is important to note that the coroner's report, although it obviously notes that Grace was in the water, also mentions signs of injury on her head: a "sight contusion over the right eye and a bruise on the lower lip" (Brandon, p. 142). The coroner tentatively suggested that she had been the victim of violence (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 92. He would later claim in public that she had been "badly beaten," but this was not his initial report; Brandon, p. 151). She also had a torn garter (Brandon, p. 194), which, it was suggested, was torn during her final struggle -- but it could surely have been torn as they pulled her out of the water or for some other reason.
The district attorney had promptly sent a request for a detailed autopsy, even sending a list of doctors he wanted involved. It was too late; the coroner had given the body to the undertaker (Brandon, p. 148). The undertaker also noticed signs of violence, but nonetheless proceeded to embalm her, making further forensic examination difficult (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 130-131; Brandon, p. 195). But doctors who looked at the body thought the head trauma, not drowning, the probable cause of death (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 131). They did remove Grace's unborn fetus; the prosecution tried to introduce this into evidence at Chester's trial; rather than let it be shown, Chester's defense was forced to admit that Grace was pregnant and that Chester knew it (and was the presumed father). This came after a prolonged courtroom argument (Brandon, p. 197) that showed what a circus the trial had become.
Chester had made no attempt, after Grace's death, to seek help for her. Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 93, based on what they claim is Chester's own testimony, say he went ashore, picked up the suitcase he had left there, changed clothes, and headed off to the south. He turned up at the Arrowhead Hotel, across the lake from Glenmore. There is a map of this on p. 128 of Brandon; Chester had about a five mile walk to make, most of which was by road, which should have been easy for an athletic young man. This time, when he registered, it was in his own name. It had to be; he had asked someone at work to wire him money there (Brandon, p. 136).
Once word got out of Grace's death, Herkimer Country Attorney George W. Ward moved quickly to pursue the case -- and had the incredible stroke of luck, while on his way to investigate, of meeting someone who knew both Grace and Chester. And he had a postcard from Chester showing that Chester was in the Adirondacks (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 97-99) -- this Bert Gross had apparently set out to help Chester, given the evidence that he was in trouble (Brandon, p. 144. The story was corroborated when a newspaper (based apparently upon calling the factory; Brandon, p. 143) reported that Gillette had been Grace's boyfriend. (I wonder what Gross was thinking during all this -- he would later raise money for Gillette's clemency application; Sherman/Brandon, p. 106. He clearly talked too much; one suspects he wasn't too bright) They also found a package of laundry addressed to Gillette with instructions to forward it to Arrowhead. All Ward and his helpers had to do was track Chester down -- and there was so much evidence that two different parties traced him to the Arrowhead Hotel separately (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 100). On July 14, Herkimer County Attorney George Ward arrested Chester and placed in the Herkimer County Jail (Sherman/Brandon, p. 18).
Ward's ambitions really did influence what happened -- he was running for judge, and wanted a big case to help him win. (This is, in retrospect, rather scary, since Ward would use the flimsiest of evidence in his cases. He should *not* have been a judge. But anyway....) So he talked up his case to the newspapers even though it was likely to spoil public opinion, and later pressed for a special court term that would let Chester be prosecuted early -- if he waited for the regular term, the case would last past the election and probably past his term as D.A.; (Brandon, pp. 154-155.) Not that the press needed any help in exaggerating the story; there were so many reporters covering the case that they often resorted to lies or tricks, e.g. a bunch of them disguised themselves, went to the jail, called for Chester's lynching -- and then wrote stories about the lynch mob! (Brandon, p. 310). And one photographer, unable to locate a photo of Grace, pulled a girl -- who looked nothing like Grace -- out of a drug store, took a photograph of her, and sent it off as a photo of Brown! (Brandon, pp. 310-311).
Chester had not paid for his room and had no more money with him. He was told that anything he said could be used against him, but he did not have a lawyer when initially questioned (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 100). He told so many different stories when initially questioned that the D.A. was convinced that he was lying -- and hence that he had committed the murder (Brandon, pp. 146-147). But he could hardly deny that he and Grace had arrived on the lakes together and that he had left alone. He was promptly identified by many people who had seen him on his travels, both with Grace and after her death. In August, a grand jury handed down an indictment for first degree murder (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 110).
If he wanted to show that he had cared about Grace, he had a funny way of showing it: during his long stay in prison, he decorated his cell with pictures of actresses and other women (Brandon, p. 172),
Chester had no money for an attorney -- which handicapped him; at a time when Ward and the police were soaking up evidence (and putting out statements to prejudice public opinion), no one was doing anything for Chester's defense (Brandon, p. 164). Eventually the court appointed former State Senator Albert M. Mills and, at Mills's request, a younger man, Charles Thomas, to represent him (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 109-110; Brandon, p. 169); the county was supposed to pay them, although apparently they felt they were poorly paid. They perhaps did not give the case their best effort -- for instance, they apparently made no attempt to win a change of venue (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 111, who add that some of Mills's statements reveal an "air of futility." I think they really should have sought the change; newspaper coverage was extensive, somewhat hysterical, and sometimes flagrantly inaccurate; Herkimer County would eventually successfully sue the New York Morning Telegraph and writer Bat Masterson for their false stories; Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 142-144; the case resulted in a plea bargain; Brandon, p. 325).
Ward and the prosecution argued for a trial in October, the defense wanted late December; Judge Devendorf (who was trying his first-ever murder case; Brandon, p. 175) finally compromised on a start date of Monday, November 12 (Browning, p. 169), which at least had the advantage of being after the election.
Jury selection lasted more than a week, and it took three panels for them to find twelve jurors (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 115-117). Browning, p. 180, says that most of them were farmers, and thinks that the fact that several of them had daughters of about Grace's age was bad news for the defense.
The prosecution had more than seventy witnesses and 101 exhibits (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 129) -- including the letters Grace had sent Chester, which were found among his baggage. They were able to document the relationship, and trace Chester's every move until he got to Big Moose Lake, and all his moves after he left the lake. They had clear evidence of his repeated lies (Brandon, p. 195). The only thing they did not have a witness for was Grace's actual death. They had a woman, Marjorie Carey, who thought she had heard a scream, and called it a witness. But since the woman could not say who screamed, and it could not be determined if when Grace died, it could not be known if it happened at the same time (Brandon, p. 184). Non-evidence, sez I. And the prosecution's theory of the case was pretty clearly overblown (e.g. Ward claimed that, when Gillette used aliases while traveling with Grace, he was trying to invent "another boyfriend" for her; Brandon, p. 226. This is clearly going far beyond the facts).
The defense tried to call for a mistrial on the grounds that the prosecution had claimed to have a witness and didn't. That went nowhere.
The defense had to admit all sorts of bad things: That Chester had slept with Grace even as he hung around with other women; that he had taken her to the Adirondacks while using false names, that he had been with her in the rowboat when she died (!), that he had walked away from the death site (without reporting) and then started using his own name again, and that he had tried to scrounge money for the trip (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 134). His only claim was that he hadn't hit or drowned her.
When the defense started its case, it called Chester to tell his story. He agreed with all the events up to the time he and Grace went out on the lake. He claimed that only then did they try to decide what to do, with Chester arguing they should tell Grace's parents and Grace afraid to do so. He claimed that, as they argued, Grace jumped over the side. (Given her depression, this might be plausible -- but, given her desperate hope that he would help her, Brandon, p. 135, is probably correct in saying that that still would imply that Gillette said something to her so cutting that it caused her to despair. Even if he didn't kill her directly -- which leaves the problem of why she had head trauma -- it still says he was abusing her emotionally. And Grace's mother, at the time of the trial, made the interesting comment that, even if Grace killed herself, she wouldn't have done it in such a way as to implicate Chester; she loved him too much; Brandon, p. 177. This doesn't really apply to impulsive suicide, but it does argue that she wasn't *planning* to kill herself.)
Chester said he overturned the boat as he tried to save her. Grace could not swim (others testified to the truth of this), and she never surfaced. He panicked and left the scene (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 136).
That was effectively the end of the defense case. They had promised a doctor who would disagree with the coroner's report, but they never called one. They called a few character witnesses, but that was it (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 137).
The prosecution also spent much more time summing up than did the defense. All the defense had was a few inconsistencies in the prosecution case and the lack of a direct witness to the murder (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 138).
The jury received the case late on Tuesday, December 4. According to what jurors said later, the result on the first ballot was unanimous, but they waited a few hours to make it appear that they had carefully deliberated (Brandon, p. 235. How they thought people would believe this when they later admitted the truth defeats me.) Even with that delay, they returned before midnight. The jury convicted him of first degree murder (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p.139). On December 10, the judge sentenced Gillette to the electric chair, with the sentence to be carried out during the week of December 28 (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 139).
A few days later, Chester was transferred from Herkimer Country to the prison at Auburn, New York, where executions were undertaken. Since his lawyers quickly filed an appeal, the execution was postponed. Gillette would spend the rest of his life -- 474 days -- at Auburn (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 144). He was immediately placed on Death Row, which meant the loss of several privileges -- he was allowed fewer visitors, and there were no windows; the lights were electric and never turned off; the food was worse and the guards distant; there were restrictions on what he could read and write, and his letters were examined (Brandon, p. 258). Frankly, it sounds almost like the purpose was to get the prisoners to want to be dead.... For the most part, the only people he saw were his sisters (who took turns living in Auburn to visit him) and various ministers, including MacIlravy.
There were some grotesquely humorous notes in the aftermath. The case had been expensive, and got more expensive when the six doctors who had examined Grace's body tried to claim their services were worth $600 each. The county would only pay half of that (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 145. Even that was clearly more than their work was worth).
Gillette's family tried to raise money for an appeal; his mother staged a mostly-unsuccessful lecture tour (Sherman/Brandon, p. 29; Brandon, p. 262, says that there were people willing to hear her in some places, but it was very hard for the mother of a convicted murdered to gain access to affordable venues such as churches; the pastors wanted no part of her. And when she did manage to speak, her arguments were not well-received, since, rather than try to raise reasonable doubts, she attacked the doctors who did the autopsy and went after the character of Grace Brown; Brandon, pp. 265-266). After a couple of weeks, she gave up (Brandon, p. 267). Still, the appeal went forward. On a massive scale, in fact; the official record for the case was 3000 pages, and newspapers claimed it was the longest court record ever created to that time (Brandon, p. 272).
Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 149, list five basic grounds on which Chester's lawyers appealed. Several of them -- e.g. that the evidence was circumstantial, and that the court met at an irregular date -- are ridiculous. The claim that the prosecutor had made false statements in his summing-up seems more significant, but the court turned it back. Probably the major claim was that Grace's private letters should not have been taken into evidence (which sounds as if it might have been valid, given that Chester's lawyers said they had been obtained without a warrant; Brandon, pp. 190, 273). The New York Court of Appeals did not consider this grounds for overturning the verdict, nor did they have any use for Chester's claim that Grace committed impulsive suicide, and did not take up the case -- something which shocked Chester (Sherman/Brandon, p. 89). In essence, the appeals court rejected the appeal on the grounds that none of these trifling little details changed the fact that Gillette was the man on the spot when Grace died (Brandon, p. 274). Which I think is true, though I also think there was prosecutorial misconduct.
With the appeal rejected, the execution was re-scheduled for the week of March 30, 1908 (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 150).
With no other choice available, his family then began seeking a commutation of his sentence from the governor. Astoundingly, Chester seems to have thought he should get a full pardon, not just commutation (Sherman/Brandon, p. 98). But governor Charles Evans Hughes did not act on the request. (I would note that most requests for pardon require the guilty party to admit guilt, and Chester resisted that.) The family tried to gather signatures and testimonies (Brandon, p. 279), but Hughes -- who of course was a rigid conservative when he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court -- never paid much attention to such petitions (Brandon, p. 276).
Finally, five days before the execution, friends and relatives of Gillette tried to claim Grace was epileptic, and that explained her death, so Chester should get off (Sherman/Brandon, p. 127). This of course contradicts Chester's own testimony, as well as the testimony of Grace's own doctor (Brandon, p. 291), and was treated with all the respect it deserved: none whatsoever. (The whole story of people trying to defend Gillette has a horrid smell of blaming it all on Grace. Grace was very foolish to be taken in by a jerk like Chester, but that doesn't change the fact that she was exploited!)
There were hopes for a confession. If Chester confessed, though, it was never released to the public. There was a statement from one of the ministers that was interpreted as a confession (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 158), but it wasn't really -- and the minister probably exaggerated anyway.
Gillette was electrocuted on March 30, 1908 at 10:18 a.m. (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 156; Sherman/Brandon, p. 19). The witnesses consistently reported that he went to his death more calmly than anyone they had ever seen, and was cooperative with the executioners (Brandon, pp. 293-294).
The family having no money to take his body back to their home, after he was autopsied and his brain remove for study in Philadelphia, the rest of his body was buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery for the indigent in Auburn (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 158-159. No one knows what eventually became of the brain; Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 195).
Gillette did not start his diary until he was already in custody, so it gives us no insight into the events surrounding the death of Grace Brown, but it does give us more insight into his personality. Notably, the diary never says that he killed Grace but never denies it either. There were newspaper reports shortly after his death that he had confessed to the murder, but it appears that he simply told his spiritual advisors that there was "no legal mistake" in his trial. (Sherman/Brandon, p. 25). That merely means the procedure was correct, not that the verdict was. It appears that he never actually confessed.
Sherman/Brandon, p. 26, think that Gillette's diary show a man who reformed and turned to religion (p. 27: "Ultimately, the diary is the compelling story of a man who -- gradually, but triumphantly -- found redemption"). Dunno. After all, he was trying for a commutation; what did he have to lose? Keep in mind that the authorities read his letters and may have (at least, they had the legal right to) read the diary (Sherman/Brandon, p. 30).
The song is correct in saying that Gillette spent his final months in Auburn Prison; he was transferred there in December 1906 (Sherman/Brandon, p. 6). It was there that he began his diary in late 1907, while he was trying for an appeal or pardon.
To this day there are those who wonder if Chester actually committed the murder. The last words of Brownell/Wawrzaszek, on p. 201, are "No one really knows" -- a statement which they base on the fact that all the evidence against Chester is circumstantial (apparently not realizing that circumstantial evidence is known to be reliable and eyewitness testimony is almost certain to be unreliable.) We obviously can't prove it one way or the other. And Ward's case against Chester was unnecessarily full of hot air; he surely had plenty of facts on his side, but he played to the newspapers to help his political position.
All that being true, it's worth noting what is certain: Gillette was a known repeat petty criminal. He got Grace Brown pregnant and refused to marry her. When she became depressed, he offered no help whatsoever. He was clearly hiding something when he traveled with her, since he never signed his own name. When she died, he at minimum did not report it and fled the death site. There might be enough doubt that I'd have given him life in prison rather than the death penalty, but I really doubt he should have been allowed back into the community. There is no doubt that he was at least guilty of criminal mistreatment of Grace.
There is a memorial sign to Grace in South Otselic -- in fact, as of May 20201, it's the first photo Google Maps shows if you look up the town. (The second is of her tombstone.) The sign mentions Dreiser's book but not much else.
Dreiser's novel, although it is considered his best and most famous, is by no means close to the actual history. (So far from it, in fact, that some people apparently thought he had rung in the tragedy of Naomi Wise; Wellman, p. 103.) The name "American Tragedy" came about because Dreiser believed (not entirely accurately, I think) that a certain type of murder was typical of the United States, where social climbing was a norm (Brandon, pp. 333-334). The Gillette case was closest to what Dreiser wanted, but he still altered the plot to give it more characteristics of what he thought of as this Standard American Murder. In addition to a lot of changes to increase the drama and pathos, and the addition of a love triangle, Chester become "Clyde Griffiths" and Grace is called "Roberta Alden." Brownell/Wawrzaszek, pp. 171-174, have a table showing the equivalences between real life and the book; it contains more than fifty names, which I assume is evidence for how closely Dreiser followed some details of the case, despite creating the love triangle.
Some of his errors weren't his fault, since he got most of his information from the papers (especially the New York World, according to scholars; Brandon, p. 337), and they frequently made things up to sell copy.
Incidentally, he didn't really have a choice about changing some of the names, precisely because of the love triangle. Harriet Benedict, the alleged "other woman" -- and the daughter of a lawyer -- had put out an official statement threatening a libel suit against anyone misrepresenting her (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 124) -- which, in this context, meant perpetuating the idea of a love triangle. She stated in court that she had been on a few dates with Chester, but no more, and there is good reason to think this true. Chester hadn't settled down to chasing just one girl, although the roll of film in his camera when he was apprehended showed some photos of a date with Benedict (two of which -- of Gillette, not Benedict -- are shown on p. 89 of Brandon).
The first movie based on Dreiser's novel, also called "An American Tragedy," was not very noteworthy -- and so angered Dreiser with it changes that he tried to have it suppressed (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 180). "A Place in the Sun," the 1951 movie adaption, with Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Shelley Winters, and Raymond Burr," changed things even more (all the names were changed again, e.g., probably in part to avoid the legal challenges that had come with the first movie; Brandon, p. 360) -- but Dreiser was off the scene by then and couldn't complain as much. Still, by the time Hollywood rewrote Dreiser who rewrote history, there wasn't much of Gillette or Brown in "A Place in the Sun."
The first attempt at a non-fiction book on the topic was Death was the Bridegroom by Charles Samuels, from 1955. But Samuels relied on the trial transcript and newspaper accounts, and was written for a low-quality True Crimes series; it really didn't add much to the record (Brandon, pp. 361-362). It certainly would tempt readers to a wrong conclusion, since the cover illustration shows a blonde woman with a 1950s hair style wearing very short shorts being threatened by a somewhat deformed-looking left hand. I have not read it, but I doubt it's worth seeking out. If it had any real effect, it was to inspire more serious researchers to see what they could find out.
There was at least one other contemporary (i.e. pre-Dreiser) song written about the case, "Entreating" by Maude E. Gould (Brownell/Wawrzaszek, p. 146 and p. 210 reference for note 13; Brandon, p. 328, has the text). It was published in 1907 with a picture of Grace on the cover. There is no hint that it went into oral tradition; library searches indicate that sheet music copies are rare, and I can't find references to it being sung. Looking at the text in Brandon, I don't think Gould's arrangement of the words is as heart-rending as the actual letters were.
There have also been reports of the ghosts of Chester and/or Grace at various places (Brandon, pp. 328-329). If so, they definitely haven't done anything to clarify the story.
Brownell/Wawrzaszek have quite a few photos of places and people associated with the story -- the Gillette Skirt Factory on pp. 28-29; the Brown family house on p. 35; Grace and school classmates on p. 36; a page from Grace's diary on p. 38; Chester's residence house at Oberlin on p. 49; Chester with his basketball team on p. 52; Grace's and Chester's residences in Cortland on pp. 54-55; places the two met on their final journey on pp. 76-77, 87-89, 99, 188-189; places associated with Chester's trial and execution on pp. 109, 114, 140, 144, 155; Grace's death certificate on p. 91; the defense lawyer on p. 135; Chester's mother on p. 148. But they note starting on p. 187 how many of the building have changed or been torn down. And that was in 1986; even more have disappeared since.
The song as we have it is mostly accurate although it offers little "inside information." Brandon, p. 326, suggests that it was composed after Chester was convicted but before his execution, and this is probably right; I would guess it was written before the appeal was filed. It correctly states that:
- A jury convicted Chester
- That two mothers were both deeply involved. Louisa Gillette was heavily involved in the trial and post-trial actions. Minerva Brown was not, but she and her husband were present for almost all of the court case and almost certainly were in contact with the prosecutor (Brandon, p. 196).
- The audience was indeed "wondering what Gillette would say" when he was on the witness stand, since he was the only one who knew exactly what happened and he was the only substantial defense witness.
- Gillette was indeed transferred to Auburn Prison after his conviction.
- Grace did indeed gather lilies on the water on her last boat trip; some of them were found with her. She had put some in her coat pocket and pinned one to her lapel (Brandon, p. 134).
- Grace died on Big Moose Lake, in the region known as South Bay.
- No one was ever found who knew exactly what happened except Gillette.- RBW
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