John White Webster

BA, Harvard University MD, Harvard University Harvard University Professor

He was born to a Boston Brahmin^* family in 1793, so naturally he went to Harvard. His father was an apothecary, which was almost the same as being a doctor, so naturally he went to what was then called the Massachusetts Medical College of Harvard University. He traveled to London to continue his medical studies and get some practical experience as a doctor, then to the island of São Miguel in the Azores, where he practiced medicine, married the daughter of an official at the American consulate, and made copious notes toward a travel and geological guide,^* all, in his words, within “several months… in the years 1817–18.” A smart, interesting, busy guy.

Back in Boston, Webster set up a medical practice. Unfortunately, his income as a doctor didn’t meet his expectations—nor did the bequest he was left in his father’s will—especially since he and his wife anticipated having a family. (They eventually had four daughters.) Soon he switched careers, becoming a lecturer and then a professor of geology, chemistry, and mineralogy at his alma mater.

As a teacher, Webster was a “character.” He favored pyrotechnic displays in his lab (literally—he was called “Sky-Rocket Jack” by his students), and at least once was warned by the president of Harvard to lay off the fireworks. He could also be a live wire, if an occasionally ghoulish one, in his private life. Fellow professor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow told of how Webster once entertained his fellow guests at a dinner party by dimming the lights in the room, fitting a noose around his neck, starting a chemical fire in a bowl on the table, and, by the eerie glow of the flaming bowl, hanging his tongue out and making like a dying hanged man. A spectacle you would never forget had you been there—especially if you followed Webster’s story to the bitter end.

For all his reported charm (ghoulish or otherwise) and intelligence, Webster had a serious problem: he couldn’t figure out how to spend less than he earned. While he did make an effort to cut back—at one point selling his mansion in Cambridge and leasing a less grand place for his brood—he was still constantly in the hole. Aside from his desire to keep his ladies extravagantly outfitted, he was responsible for buying his classroom supplies, including the dramatic chemicals; he also bought an expensive mastodon skeleton, which Harvard still owns.

Webster’s truly stupid solution was to borrow money from his friends. Enter Dr. George Parkman, another Boston Brahmin (although one who was actually rich) and Harvard-trained MD who no longer practiced medicine but had become a financier, moneylender, real estate developer, and slumlord.* Parkman and Webster had known each other since childhood and were Harvard classmates, so when Webster requested a loan Parkman—although notably thrifty—didn’t hesitate. He was unaware that Webster was running a sort of Ponzi for Dummies scheme, borrowing from one friend to pay off another.

On November 23, 1849, Parkman visited Webster in his office at Harvard to collect on his debt. The historian Simon Schama, in his book Dead Certainties: Unwarranted Speculations, theorizes that it infuriated Parkman to learn that Webster had pledged the same item of collateral to him and another friend,* the two argued, and… Parkman was never seen alive again.

Boston was abuzz with the case of the missing Brahmin. A week into the buzzing, the only witness to have seen Parkman enter Webster’s office, a Harvard janitor, decided to take matters into his own hands. He broke into Webster’s office and dug around until he found a deeply buried human pelvis and a couple of chunks of leg. (How, you ask, do you bury something in an office? You bury something in an office if it’s a crappy little suite in the basement of the medical college, just next door to the janitor’s crappy quarters. In ye crappie olde days, basements had, like, dirt floors or something. That’s how.) The janitor promptly reported his discovery and Webster was arrested.

Boston went into shock. The trial was a sensation, covered by the national and even international press,^* and 60,000 spectators flocked to the courthouse. CSI fans will be pleased to note that this was the first trial in which forensic evidence was used to identify a victim: a dentist testified that he had made a piece of dental work that was found in the furnace in which Webster had incinerated most of the rest of Parkman.

At first Webster proclaimed his innocence. In the face of the evidence, however, as well as a pitiful bid for clemency, he said it was self-defense: Parkman, his story went, had violently attacked him over the collateral screw-up, causing Webster to grab a stick and bat Parkman upside the head, killing him instantly. Then, out of “terrible and desperate necessity,” Webster had to dismember the corpse and yackety-yak-yak. If he’d set out to kill Parkman, he said, of course he wouldn’t have done it within the sacred precincts of Harvard. The jury was unsympathetic and sentenced him to death.

On August 30, 1850, Dr. John White Webster was—yes—hanged.