CONTENTS

Volume I.—No. 7.]—— SATURDAY, JUNE 5, 1858.—— [Price 2 Cents.

STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S
ALLIGATOR.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H. BRANCH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.

c2

Life of Stephen H. Branch.

While pursuing my studies at Andover, I am corresponding with a girl who resides in my native city. There were girls in Providence far more beautiful than her, (and whose parents were more affluent than hers,) from whom I could doubtless have selected a companion for life, but her father had been a boy with my father, and she loved me as a sister her brother, or as a fond mother loves her precious offspring. These truths had their influence with me. Moreover, this girl had pursued me for years, and (to illustrate her devotion) if I went to a ball, she was there. If I took my position in a cotilion, she would soon be opposite, and staring me broadly in the face, and, as we crossed over, she would cast the most tender glances, and press my hand with deep affection. If I proposed to dance with her, her eyes would kindle with the wildest enthusiasm. If I went to church, she would be in the next pew, and enter mine, if it were not full. If I turned a corner, I often would meet her. If I looked behind, while promenading Westminster, (the Broadway of Providence,) she would often be prancing towards me like an Arabian courser. She would address letters to herself through the Post Office, and call for them when I was at the letter delivery. If I went to a party, she would contrive to get an invitation, and a day seldom passed, when I did not see her. Juliet never loved Romeo more fervently than she loved me. And because I knew she loved me as no virgin ever loved, I resolved to have her. All her kindred favored our union, and before I went to Andover, her father came, on summer evenings, to the Post Office, and conversed with me in the most friendly tones. So, in the Autumn of 1836, I bade adieu to Andover, forever, and repaired to Providence, and married her at her father’s. The wedding was large and magnificent. My father obtained me a clerkship in the Rhode Island Cloth Hall, but manufactures were long depressed, and its directors resolved to close its affairs, which deprived me of a situation. The commercial desolation of 1837 was in embryo, and merchants were curtailing, and extensive failures transpired, and clerks and mechanics were discharged throughout the country, and my father could obtain no lucrative employment for me, and dared not establish me in business in such a frightful panic. Myself and wife resided at her father’s. I made several journeys to Boston and New York for a clerkship, but I could obtain none. The Spring of 1837 arrived. I was proud and ambitious. Heartless comments were made, all over Providence, about my idleness, and my prolonged residence with the parents of my wife. I got uneasy, and was mortified beyond expression and endurance. I made a final passage to New York, and resolved, if I obtained no employment, to have a crisis. I could procure no situation, and went to Philadelphia, where I was also unsuccessful. I saw an advertisement for a clerk in Westchester, Pennsylvania, whither I repaired, but a clerk had been obtained. My means were nearly exhausted, and I strove to sell a diamond ring and gold pencil case to the barkeeper, and was suspected as a thief, and arrested, and my trunks examined in the presence of a large crowd, who came to the Hotel from every part of the town. I was honorably acquitted, and instantly left for Philadelphia, where I sold my ring and pencil case, and proceeded to New York, where I sold my watch. I now became desperate, and resolved to bring matters to an immediate consummation. I wrote a letter to father, and told him that I was almost deranged, and besought him to save me. The banks suspended specie payment on the day I wrote to my father, and the whole country was a commercial ruin. Father wrote me, that he had spent thousands of dollars for my education,—had recently paid my debts in Andover and Providence, amounting to a thousand dollars,—had let me have large sums since my marriage,—was not worth over twenty thousand dollars,—feared he might soon be compelled to assign his property, and could obtain no clerkship for me while the money panic raged. I proceeded to New Haven, and wrote to him again, and he responded that he would see my father-in-law, and pledge himself to meet him half-way in any proposition he might make to save me, if he sacrificed his last dollar. I went to Norwich, and wrote him again, and he informed me that he had seen my father-in-law, who declined to aid me to the extent of a penny, and said that I must effect my salvation in my own way. Although my father-in-law was worth several hundred thousand dollars, he had let me have but twenty-five dollars before or since my marriage, and when he placed this amount in my hand, he sneeringly exclaimed: “I always like to help the unfortunate.” In view of all this, I loathed my father-in-law, and loved my father, and wrote a fearful letter to both, (superscribing it to the former,) threatening to visit Providence, and tear their hearts out if they did not instantly relieve me. I included my father in this awful letter, so that my father-in-law could not be the sole complainant against me, as I feared he would consign me to prison for years, if possible. And I was fortunate in including my beloved father in my dreadful letter, as the sequel will show. I then advanced to Scituate, about ten miles from Providence, and wrote another letter to my father and father-in-law, threatening to come to Providence on the following day, and take their lives, if they did not rescue me from my horrible dilemma. Two constables, named Gould and Potter, came to Scituate, and arrested me at the Hotel of Dr. Battey, (from which I had dated my letter,) and took me to Providence in a carriage, and put me in jail as a debtor, on a debt of five hundred dollars, created for the occasion by the wisdom of my father. My father-in-law desired to imprison me as a criminal, (as I had anticipated,) but my father’s counsels