On November 19, 1806, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts declared the matrimonial bonds of Elizabeth Derby West and Nathaniel West to be dissolved on grounds of Nathaniel’s adulterous activities. Elizabeth charged these acts took place both before and after the new divorce law passed on March 7, 1806. The court disagreed, ruling that evidence for West’s adulterous activities after that date was not satisfactory.

The remaining issue was one of property. If the new law only applied to offenses after it became law, West only owed his wife one-third of her property. But, if it applied to offenses before the law was passed, he owed her much more compensation.

Elizabeth’s lawyers argued the new law was a continuation of existing law, which meant she was entitled to more than one-third of her property. Nathaniel’s lawyers contended the new law had no bearing on the case, because Nathaniel’s misconduct predated it. The Court ruled the 1806 law applied to divorces granted after the law took effect, regardless of when the adultery occurred. Elizabeth was two for two when the parties negotiated a private settlement.

Elizabeth West received the farm of Oak Hill in Danvers, $3000 per year in alimony, plus funds to provide for the children still at home. The older children may have chosen to live with their father. In 1806, Martha was nineteen years old. Nathaniel, Jr., age eighteen, attended Harvard, and was involved in his father’s business. Elizabeth was sixteen years old. The two younger children, Edward, age twelve, and Sarah, age nine, initially remained with their mother.

The court of public opinion ruled against Elizabeth West. According to William Bentley, most people thought “the court laid too much stress upon an affair upon which [her] father laid none & which the wife did not resent for twenty years. That the wife has proved herself capable of the utmost malignity, that Gen. Derby [her brother] has contrived a law & aided a malicious prosecution to gratify his enmity to West & to possess & injure his property, & that although West is blameworthy, yet, that his behavior has been so much more honorable than of his opposers that he finds new testimonies of public favor.”

On March 10, 1814 at the age of 52, Elizabeth Derby West died at Oak Hill. Bentley noted that at her funeral the next day “The body was brought from her farm in Danvers in the Danvers hearse, followed by seven coaches & chaises. No one but the relatives attended excepting a minister” One wonders who traveled in the seven coaches.

In her will, Elizabeth provided for her eldest son, gave various specific items to named recipients, and divided Oak Hill between her three daughters, “and it is my express will that in no case they transfer the said estate to their father, Capt. Nathaniel West.”

So, what happened to Oak Hill?

Three months after Elizabeth’s death, on June 25th, Nathaniel West married Julia Houghton. The couple had a son, Richard, in 1818.

In 1819, Nathaniel’s youngest daughter Sarah died of consumption. She bequeathed her share of Oak Hill to her father. In December 1820, Nathaniel arranged to cut four rooms off the mansion and move them by ox-drawn sleds from the farm in Danvers to his house at 34 Chestnut Street in Salem. Nathaniel made the new rooms the core of a new Federal-style mansion. The work was completed in 1824.

Nathaniel’s middle daughter Elizabeth married Capt. Edward Lander in 1813. Perhaps following her sister’s example, Elizabeth, through her husband, deeded her interest in Oak Hill to her father in 1826. In 1840, Martha deeded the last third of the estate to Nathaniel.

In 1850, Nathaniel sold Oak Hill to Elizabeth Leavitt Pickman Rogers. In 1922 the Rogers family sold the property. Mrs. Jacob Crowninshield Rogers donated the dining room, a bedroom, and the parlor from Oak Hill to the Boston Fine Arts Museum. The restored collection is now on display in the museum’s Art of the America’s Wing.

Captain Nathaniel West put the events of 1806 behind him. He continued his successful career as an investor and merchant, and died at the age of 96 on December 19, 1851 with an estate was valued at $168,248, the equivalent of several million dollars today. 

Nathaniel’s obituary as quoted in The Ships & Sailors of Old Salem describes a man who successfully transitioned from the age of merchant ships and privateers to one of railroad investments. 

His age so nearly approximated a hundred years that we may say he flourished during four generations of his race, in the most active and enterprising walks of life. In person, Capt West was of a fine figure, and majestic mien and gait. He never forgot the dignity which belonged to his years and station. He was a gentleman of the old school in manners and dress and adhered with scrupulous tenacity to the costume of his early years. His physical powers were so little impaired, even in his extreme old age, that he was frequently seen driving along in his gig, or walking with vigorous and elastic step, until a very short time before his death … he united in himself personal frugality, economy, and untiring industry; and his favorite maxim was “without these none can be rich, and with these few would be poor.”

Illustrations

Elizabeth Derby West

Oak Hill

Hauptfriedhof Karlsruhe; Engelsskulptur von Fidel Binz by Axel Mauruszat.

Oak Hill Parlor

Nathaniel West

Oak Hill Parlor, Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

West v. West. Superior Judicial Court of Massachusetts. EWS.SJC.1806. West

Phillips House (1821) Historic New England.

Dudley Atkins Tying, Esq. Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, vol II, from March 1806 to June 1807. Boston: Little Brown & Company. 1853. Pp 223-226

Jim McAllister. “Essex County Chronicles: Rooms from the Peabody Estate a Signature Feature of new MFA Wing.” The Salem News. Apr 18, 2011.

Harry Irwin West. Descendants of Henry West.

The post West v.West:The Salem Scandal of 1806,Part 3 first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

On May 23, 1783, Elizabeth Derby married Nathaniel West. As noted in last week’s blog, Betsey, as she was known, was the eldest daughter of the richest man in Salem, Massachusetts. Betsey was 21 years old, free to marry the man of her choice.

Nathaniel West, five years older than his bride, had been sailing ships for Elias Hasket Derby since 1777 and accumulated sufficient funds to support a family.

In 1785 Betsey gave birth to her first child, a son named Henry. Sources say this child spent his entire life in custodial care, though no direct reason is given.

Coincidentally, sources indicate that in 1785 Nathaniel West was in business as Nathaniel West & Company on the Boston Long Wharf. West continued to invest in voyages but no longer went to sea.

While the family was in Boston, two children, Martha (born 1787) and Nathaniel, Jr. (born 1788) joined the household. In 1791, the West family moved back to Salem. Three more children joined the family: Elizabeth (born 1790), Edward (1794), and Sarah (born 1797).

Last week, we noted that when Betsey’s father Elias Hasket Derby died in 1799, he didn’t bequeath her the recently completed family mansion. Instead, a disappointed Betsey received a very nice property called Oak Hill which she renovated from top to bottom, making it a showplace.

In 1803, four years after her father’s death, Elizabeth Derby West left her husband. Though initially she took up lodgings in town, perhaps for dramatic effect, Betsey must have returned to Oak Hill. In January 1805, diarist William Bentley noted “the bitter quarrel between the eldest daughter of the late E. H. Derby and her husband has been the subject of serious thought. It is now extending itself in consequence of some impudent resentments the husband has shown to visits paid his wife, while living at the farm separated from him.”

Divorce Law

Divorce law in Massachusetts was fairly straightforward. At the time of marriage, a wife’s property became her husband’s, and he was responsible for maintaining his wife. Divorce on grounds of adultery wasn’t unknown, but seldom occurred. After a divorce, any property once owned by the wife remained with her husband, who was only obligated to provide his wife with a “widow’s third,” or one-third of his estate.

Mr. and Mrs. West were among the wealthiest couples in Salem, more so as a result of their inheritance from Elias Hasket Derby. And Elizabeth Derby West had no intention of losing any of her inheritance. The situation changed in March 1806 when the Massachusetts Legislature approved a change in divorce law. In addition to her widow’s share, a divorced wife was entitled to any land her husband held in his wife’s name, and much of her own inheritance, IF she could prove her husband committed adultery. Here was an exit strategy Elizabeth West could use.

Elizabeth West Goes to Court

In May 1806, Bentley recorded that “in conversation with Mr. Martin I learnt the desperate attempts to ruin the reputation of Mr. West in order to procure a divorce.”

The hearing before the Supreme Judicial Court in Salem began on November 11, 1806. In court documents, Elizabeth charged “the said Nathaniel her said husband regardless of his duty and marriage vows, on divers days and times since their intermarriage as aforesaid has committed the crime of adultery with one Mary Taylor Sukey Appleton…Fanny Garrison and divers other lewd women whose names are at present to your libellant unknown, but which she trusts she shall prove to the court.”

West v. West generated a great deal of interest, both due to the parties involved, and also because it was the first divorce case since the new law came into effect. The decision would set a precedent by defining if the law applied only to adultery taking place after March 1806, or if it applied to the life of the marriage.

In court, Elizabeth produced a statement by a woman who claimed Nathaniel had fathered her two children, and a letter in which Nathaniel made financial arrangements for a child, though it wouldn’t carry “West” for a surname. Elizabeth also recruited, according to Bentley, “all the sweepings of the brothels in Boston, and all the wretches of Salem, Marblehead, Cape Ann” to testify against her husband.

Nathaniel produced evidence that Elizabeth offered local women money, if they would claim he fathered their children. On November 13th, in his closing statement, Nathaniel’s attorney contrasted Nathaniel’s former position as a respected merchant with his present situation, the base character of the witnesses testifying against him, and the “shameful pains with which Mrs. West had waded in every filth and the virulence of the whole persecution.”

That evening, Elizabeth’s brother Elias Hasket Derby, Jr., invited Judges Sedgewick, Sewall, and Parker to dine with him. Bentley noted that under the circumstances, there was “no doubt that they had formed a judgment at the expense of Capt. West. The public indignation was aroused, but the judges are the jury.” The next day, “the judges pretend not to put any value upon the rogues employed. They say nothing of the suborned witnesses, of the infamous wretches that have been displayed before them.”

The Verdict

On November 15th, Bentley notes that in the court of public opinion, “it is indeed the same among all the citizens. That the court laid too much stress upon an affair upon which the father laid none, & which the wife did not resent for 20 years. That the wife has proved herself capable of the utmost malignity, that Gen. Derby has contrived a law & aided a malicious prosecution to gratify his enmity to West, and to possess & injure his property, & that although West is blameworthy, his behavior has been so much more honorable than of his opposers that he finds new testimonies of public favor.”

The divorce became official on November 19, 1806 with these notes in the official record: “the court are of the opinion that the material facts alleged in the libel aforesaid to sustain the charge of adultery are satisfactorily proved. It is therefore considered and decreed by the court here that the Bonds of Matrimony heretofore entered into between the said Elizabeth West and Nathaniel West for the adultery of the said Nathaniel be and hereby are dissolved.“

Dissolved, but not complete. What was Betsey’s Settlement? Did she seek further retribution? Did Nathaniel recover his reputation? Answers next week.

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Illustrations

Elizabeth Derby West

Nathaniel West

Derby Mansion 1799

Oak Hill

William Bentley 1759-1819

Salem Court House

West v. West. Superior Judicial Court of Massachusetts. EWS.SJC.1806. West

William Bentley. Diary of William Bentley.

Harry Irwin West. Descendants of Henry West.

The post West v.West:The Salem Scandal of 1806, Part 2 first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.