RECALLS SEGREGATION AT THE WENTWORTH
I don't recall the particulars now, but I had quite collegial business relations with the Smiths -- particularly Jim -- 11 years after the story you tell here. My shock at hearing him say something clearly racist has stayed with me all these years later.

The only two things I recall about that incident was how Jim's face hardened as his usual geniality was replaced by racism rising from its well-hidden grave. He noticed my silent shock at what he'd just said, but gave me a steely look that precluded my ever allowing that topic to surface again between us.
Name Withheld on Request

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DOVER
What do you know about the "place" or structure on the banks of the Bellamy known as the Ten Commandments? My attention was first drawn to it when I noticed the strange appellation in the Universal Atlas of Southern NH while helping my son, who relocated to Dover last year, find an apartment. I later learned from a guide at the Woodman Institute that the Ten Commandments is ten wooden frame row houses on Mill St., Dover, adjacent to the Sawyer Mill Apartments.

The Woodman Institute, as you must know, has a small area dedicated to the movie, Whistle at Easton Falls, wherein appears a movie theater poster depicting these row houses in the background. I asked the guide about the houses because my son's apartment at Sawyer Mills overlooks these very same houses. My son and I inquired about vacancies and actually got to view one of the apartments. They are attractive from the outside but in need of refurbishing inside. The units have two bedroom but all the rooms, especially the living rooms are very small. The Sawyer Mill Apartments are located just across from exit 7 of the Spaulding Tpk in Dover on Mill St. Mill St. horseshoes around the main entrance and becomes a dead end - that is where you will find the Ten Commandments.
Jack Goterch

EDITOR’S REPLY: You know as much as we know. According to Thom Hindle, Dover historian, the name comes simply from the 10 doors in a row and has been called that since the late 19^th century. According to Thom, "It’s like stepping back in time as the only difference to that area since Jonathan Sawyer is a paved road instead of dirt. The lower mill -- now a condo/apt complex -- was once home to the DOVER FILM COMPANY. The area around the TEN COMMANDMENTS was the site of the mill strike/mob scene in THE WHISTLE at EATON FALLS. People used to joke in the 50s and 60s that at least one of the commandments was broken there every day."

GREENLAND KUDOS
SeacoastNH – your e-mail has arrived like a breath – albeit a faint one – of spring!! Thank you for taking so much interest in local history and keeping us all so well-informed with your articles and expertise. You are a jewel in the historical crown we call home.
Rich Gilston in Greenland.

MORE ON JPJ
Dear Sir or Madam: I am an eighth grader in Florida. Recently, my paper on John Paul Jones was selected to go to state competition, and as I am revising it I am interested in communicating with someone knowledgeable on John Paul Jones and the history surrounding him. I look forward to your reply and am willing to communicate via email or phone.
Jackson Thomas

EDITOR’S REPLY: Ask away. Our focus is on JPJ during his 18 months in NH, but we’ve got a pretty large library of JPJ info and may be able to help or direct you to smarter people who can.

REALLY MAD ABOUT AGAMENTICUS
I just finished reading you poorly constructed,ignorant brainwashed christian white man opinion,how do the put such ignorance on line.My best friend{who is now in the summerland,blessed be James} was one of two sons of the mountain,and at one time owned from the Wells town line to the base of Third hill,before you voice your worthless,brainwashed christian opinion perhaps you should spend the night on the ountain,alone,meditate and open yourself to all around you,ahh,i see,you are capable of such metaphysical harmony,after all,you are a ignorant waste of the human flesh and form,go back to where you came from,probobly New York, thank you,Steven Dark Wolf. P.S. Be carefull of the words that ooze from your inferior being,

EDITOR’S REPLY: We love this letter and printed it exactly as it arrived in our mailbox. We have written to the author asking if he might clarify. We don’t know what article he was reading or what he is talking about, but clearly something hit a nerve. Hopefully, we will get a more cogent response from this superior being and be able to publish that with a link to the article in question.

WAS LUCY HALE THE JODI FOSTER OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH?
Dennis do you really feel that thre is a similarity between Jwb+Lucy and Hinkley and Jodi Foster?I have wondered that for some time now.I am a retired history teacher and a civil war author. Please respond.
Herb Swingle, Fairport,NY

EDITOR’S REPLY: The more I read about their relationship -- and there is info if you dig -- the more confused I get. My current sense, and it changes frequently, is that Booth was largely "playing" Lucy to get access to the Inauguration tickets and perhaps to rattle her father. Booth hated Abolitionists, and Sen. JP Hale was among the most famous white advocate of abolition. But in notes to his family, including his mother, JWB seems sincere about his engagement. Perhaps he was playing them as well. More likely he had some sort of plan, or many plans, and Lucy was among them. Perhaps he intended to contact her after fleeing to the South in the same way he was having his luggage sent there. Perhaps he really fell for her, and did not want to involve her in the crime. My guess, remains, however, that he was hoping to throw potential investigators off the track by showing a connection that might confuse detectives and maybe even get the Hale family in hot water the way he attempted to do with others. Lucy, however, seems to have been wildly loyal and, according to at least one report, was the only civilian to see his body before it was temporarily buried. Most amazing of all is the way she was never questioned when hundreds of others who knew little or nothing were grilled by police.

But no, I don't think JWB killed Lincoln to impress his girlfriend. Hinckley was a nobody with delusions of grandeur. Booth was among the most famous men in America and had no need to impress a woman who was already clearly infatuated with her finance, even if she was of a higher social status. Booth in many ways is similar to Lee Harvey Oswald, since he is motivated politically to remove the man he sees as a tyrant who is attempting to destroy his image of Southern honor, largely by emasculating the southern gentleman who status, honor and way of life depends on his ability to enslave others. Like LHO he planned the event, or at least the kidnapping, for a long time, and then jumped into action when he suddenly discovered that the president was about to come within firing range.

The key to the JWB / Lucy relationship is also, I think, deeply tied to his relationship with his father Juniue Brutus Booth (Read: MODERN PROMETHEUS) who was hugely famous and died when JWB was 13. The family was humiliated and largely in denial of the fact that their father had 10 children by a woman to whom he was not legally married and had abandoned his first wife in England. Junius Jr., Wilkes brother, did much the same thing with his first wife, and brother Edwin was guilt ridden for being drunk and out of town as his first wife lay dying. Perhaps JWB was driven to find a woman of high society (most of his girlfriends were actresses or prostitutes) only to bring her down later. Maybe he felt that hanging out with Lucy (even the night of the assassination) was, as he imagined the deed itself, an honorable thing to do. The fact that her father was a key white abolitionist, however, always gives me pause.

PORTSMOUTH IN THE CIVIL WAR
Sirs, I am still holding you to your promise to write about NH in the Civil War and Portsmouth involvement in shipbuilding during the Civil War. Hint! Hint!

In F. C. & L.
Don Wilt, PCC
Graves Registration Officer
General George Wright Camp 22
Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War
Sacramento/Elk Grove, CA
Lt./Adjutant, Co. B, 8th Regiment, California Infantry, SVR.

FROM THE EDITOR: Thanks. It's on the list, tho, I admit, nowhere near the top. Scores (actually over 250 topics in the queue) of topics and two books are ahead. I tend to do the articles first in which readers supply the research and last when there is already tons of material already available in print. That type of article, and a great topic, is at least a month's work, and would come directly from an excellent pre-existing source. What you really need is a copy of the only book on the topic: Constructing Munitions of War: The Portsmouth Navy Yard Confronts the Confederacy 1861- 1865, by Richard E. Winslow, III. If not copies still available from the Portsmouth Marine Society (See link) check with Bookfinder.com. Anything I know would come directly from reading Dick’s book. All the best -- JDR

FROSTY FLEET LINK
I have been a subscriber for awhile and have enjoyed your articles regarding the seacoast. I am part of a fleet of winter sailboat racers based out of New Castle, NH. Checkout our website and let me know if there maybe a story hidden in the fleet that may be interesting to your readers.
Kevin Orff, Commodore Frosty Fleet 9

RUTH BLAY & DEATH PENALTY
I am not one of those who stands with lit candle and denounces the death Penalty as inhumane. On the contrary I believe that the punishment should fit the crime. But in earlier days (the days of Ruth Blay) any death administered by the state or Fed was so designed to send a message (break the law and this is what is waiting for you.) Hanging as I understand it, and read about it was something of an art form practiced by men/women and yes there were women who hung folks too, that was handed down through families, and administered by those with a certain practiced degree of upper cranial, and clavical anatomy. In other words they knew what they were doing. The knot was tied a certain way, and the noose was placed in a specific location on the neck of the condemned. There by assuring that the neck would be broken immediately. Thus the long drop was a necessity. Last week I was participating in a vintage rifle match in upstate NY while practicing I looked through my sights at a target approximately 100 yards away. Thinking back about it now I think about the state of Utah where firing squad is still in use. Now I am an excellent shot, but can I guarantee that I could put a round dead center in a persons heart at say 50 feet thus killing them immediately? I just don't know.

My knowledge of rifles is quite extensive, and I'll be honest with you I wouldn't want that responsibility. In today’s world we tend to shy away from the death penalty as cruel and inhuman, yet we do not consider the pain and suffering of murder victims. Ruth Blay lived in a time when her crime was considered as such. Today’s society reflects differently. Lethal injection is said to be humane. Massive doses of Sodium thio pentol [sic] knocks them out, Sodium chloride stops respiration, and Panacurium bromide stops their heart. They go to sleep and never wake up. Dr Charles Mudd the man who treated John Wilkes Booth escaped the gallows, but wound up in a Devil’s Island environment A military prison in which he was tortured and beaten by soldiers stationed there. While he survived, and was released he ultimately died of the wounds inflicted on him while a prisoner. Each of us has our own views of the death penalty, as well as our own answer to the problem of mans inhumanity to his fellow man. Respectfully
Paul McDermott SFC US Army Retired

EDITOR’S REPONSE: Thanks for your great note. Three points you may be missing: (1) researchers generally disagree that the short drop hanging process led to a quick death. They believe in many cases that led to an agonizing, slow strangulation, especially with women who were lighter and might survive much longer: (2) Ruth was very likely not a murder at all. She was hanged for "concealment" and experts believe it is very likely her child was stillborn, not murdered, as may have been the case with all three women hanged in NH. The "message" being sent had largely to do with a patriarchal society that covered up for males who had illegitimate children (including most of the Founding Fathers who apparently fathered more than a dozen children out of wedlock while drafting the Constitution) and disenfranchised, imprisoned or hanged women who did the same. This was certainly political theatre, but following an era when our Puritan "founders" used capital punishment for a wide variety of crimes including the possibility of death to a child who contradicted his parents. Theatre yes, justice no; (3) Increasingly, lethal injection is being removed from the "humane" list, as was the gas chamber in recent years. What is not humane at any level, is a crime that applies only to women, and has nothing to do with murder. The crime is "not reporting" or covering up the death of an illegitimate child. Thanks again.