Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

10 страница из 83

The killing of James Schoolcraft requires some elaboration, for it is that crime that put Tanner under a cloud. True, he was unsocial and often violent and had been locked up in jail to recover from his fits of temper, but he had not committed a felony. He had threatened Doctor James for writing things that made people ridicule him, but no printed record appears that he ever tried to implement the threat, though Thomas W. Field flatly says Tanner tried to kill Doctor James (this seems to be on the authority of Henry Schoolcraft, who does not say that; he says Tanner “threatened” to kill the doctor). Field’s is a strong statement, especially so since in the same sentence Field says Tanner “actually murdered” James Schoolcraft. A murder, of course, is a legal conviction, and it does not seem reasonable that Tanner was ever tried in court, for he was never found. Further, the army officer, Lieutenant Tilden, is said by two writers to have confessed years later to the killing of Schoolcraft, and even the people of Sault Ste. Marie seem to have lost their strong conviction of Tanner’s guilt in this matter after a few years.