Murder in Mount Holly

Epilogue

There is a painting called The Spirit of ’76 (but better known as “Yankee Doodle”) that hangs in the Town Fathers’ meeting-room in Abbot Hall in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is well known throughout the length and breadth of the United States. The thought of this picture alone is enough to reduce your average American to helpless saluting.

This painting, executed by A. M. Willard, depicts a battlefield strewn with the rubbish of war, a broken wagon-wheel, some pieces of charred skin, a blackened keg. The sky churns with the fresh soot of recently exploded bombs. In the midst of all this rubbish are three figures marching abreast: a sturdy fellow, his head swathed in a bloody bandage, his lips pursed on a flute, marches on the right; a clean little boy in a blue tri-corner hat and beating a drum struts on the left. In the center, wearing a remarkably clean shirt, his head a riot of white hair, a very old man marches. He is prognathic and he is tapping a big drum. At the lower right a wounded soldier raises his trunk out of the quagmire to wave his filthy cap at the musicians and the tattered flag seen fluttering just beyond their heads.

Although nearly three thousand miles from Marblehead, the citizens of Mount Holly know this painting well. And so it was no accident that the day after the robbery of the Mount Holly Trust Company, in what came to be known as “Herbie’s Parade,” Mrs. Gneiss, Miss Ball, and Mr. Gibbon, marching right, left, and center respectively (Mrs. G. with her head bandaged) and carrying two drums and a flute, and all of them dressed the part, strode through the streets of Mount Holly. It was their wish. Unlike the trio in the famous painting, they did not march in step, for clasped firmly around their ankles were leg-irons. And although it was something they had not bargained on, they had to play their tunes to the clink of their dragging chains.