Chapter 3 - Putting On the White Gloves

"We’ll have to put on the white gloves for this one." said Assistant Director Melissa Josefiak.

Melissa had looked through the usually productive sources on census, property ownership, and births with no success. Now she was going through an index of material in the vault and found an indication that something about Thomas Hickey was contained in the financial accounts of Samuel Hanmer, a local merchant. She went into the secured storage room and came out with an original document that was created in a time when the Internet was comprised of the Olde Towne Crier and the closest thing to "Google" was what some people mistakenly called the gang of geese that many families raised on their property.

The cover was leather - aged and stained by several years of day-to-day usage followed by a few centuries of family passing down and utilization as an historical resource. The paper was brown, brittle and terrifying to touch. And the handwriting, ornate and studied in the style of the time, was difficult to decipher - sometimes due to its faintness but mostly because the shapes of the letters which, while presumably of the same alphabet, nonetheless were unfamiliar to my modern eye.

"Writing in colonial America was also a predominantly male skill, tied strongly to occupation and class. Lawyers and their clerks, scholars, physicians, clergy, and business people needed to be able to write

"Different hands were considered proper and appropriate according to style, class, gender, and occupation. For example, 18th century females used the Italianate hand, which was considered easier to learn and more feminine in appearance. Men in commerce were expected to use a hand that inspired confidence and demonstrated self-assurance." (http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/writing.html)

Using a pile of white computer paper, Melissa constructed a prop onto which the book could be opened, and instructed me to lightly grasp each page at the upper right hand corner and turn gently. The first two sheets were a chronological index of customers with accompanying page numbers pointing to their accounts. We both made several passes over the list of names before I spotted something that looked like it said "Thomas Hickey". Melissa affirmed my interpretation and I leafed excitedly, but slowly, up to page fifty-three where, after several uncomprehending visual trips up and down the page, I found:

"February 25 1775
Then settled all just accounts with Mister Thomas Hickey as written our hand
Thomas Hickey
Samuel Hanmer"

I began tracing backwards, slowly turning each page from the its mattress of modern vellum to an uneven placement on its aging original bed, looking for a mention of what "all just accounts" were being settled but found nothing.

Melissa speculated that Thomas Hickey may have been apprenticed to someone in whose name the account would have been, but her search in the records of apprenticeships of that time showed nothing about him. Nor does it seem likely that Samuel Hanmer, being a successful businessman and apparently an accurate bookkeeper would have omitted such a third party name from his statement of settlement.

Nonetheless, touching the paper and seeing the signature of possibly the convicted attempted kidnapper of our first President made me feel as if we had made substantial progress in our investigation.

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