![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI did not make it to my third concert in eight nights. Even though it was the closest and earliest of them, it came after a long workday the day after an extreme workout.
Yet I still expect to get the experience of it. The last time I saw Carbon Leaf was with Emily, Cameron and two Buffalo friends of mine at an outdoor concert in Rochester in July of 2013, opening for Great Big Sea. In between shows, their sound guys had the entire show downloaded onto flash drives (with a piece on the other end that doubled as a beer bottle opener) that could be walked off with for 10 bucks. It remains on my phone, and remains one of my favorite shows ever.
After we ate and watched a couple of Broad City episodes Tuesday night, I thought about heading to the venue just to see if they still had the flash drive deal going. Before going all that way, though? I checked their site- and yes! You can get the full .mp3 of any of their recent shows for that same pre-OMGINFLATION price of a Hamilton.
Just not this one. Yet.
I'm on the list to get it as soon as it comes out, though.
----
As for those preceding events:
The extreme workout Monday was the first of four that our gym does every late October as part of a program lovingly called Hell Week. Originally, you needed to do six in eight calendar days to earn the t-shirt and the admiration of your peers. They've now reduced that to only having to do four of them, but what they lack in quantity they've made up for in intensity. Monday's, no big deal: just row row row your ass in increasing increments of 400 and 700 meters before heading back down to a final 400, in between running close to a mile (in my case) and doing a variety of weight and body-weight exercises. Yesterday's was my second of the four, fewer increments but overall close to a 5K of rowing plus over a mile on the treadmill.
Their app now keeps track of the total number of classes you've attended since signing up- all types, all locations, even one I did in East Meadow four summers ago is counted in there- and through yesterday's this is where I stand-
- which means, if I get in the remaining two for the tee by Monday, I'll end Hell Week with exactly 666.
----
The long workday, the afternoon after the first of those and before the unattended show, was mainly on account of returning to an actual bankruptcy courtroom for the first time in well over 2½ years.
Up until now, all hearings with judges in both Western New York cities, and with trustees formerly visited in venues from Niagara Falls to Watkins Glen, have been by phone. Documents are sent in through secure portals ahead of time, and it's a much more convenient and usually expedited way to handle these. Our one remaining active Buffalo judge has announced that, as of next week, court appearances can be either by the phone system or in person, unless there's a specific rule for in-person-only appearance at one. (Trustee hearings remain virtual, with rare exceptions.)
But one case rose ahead of that curve. My opponent asked how I felt about doing an argument on a significant motion from the courtroom, and before I could even answer the Court answered it for me: YALL ARE SHOWING UP.
So that meant things virtually (heh) unheard of in my life these past few years. Full fancy dress complete with tie, and getting there ahead of time to park and clear security. Parking wasn't an issue, since few other businesses have yet to return to full-on activity in person. I chose a spot right across from the courthouse- the legendary former flagship of the Statler Hotel chain, once the fanciest schmanciest in all of this part of the country. Largely forgotten when Statler met Hilton and sailed their flagship elsewhere in the 1950s, downtown Buffalo's Statler went through decades of decline and bad karma. Its once ultra-modern rooms got shoehorned into offices, that fell from Class A to Class Z-minus with only a few lawyers and the King of Diamonds holding out till the end. After winding up in bankruptcy for a number of years and losing a potential savior developer to a plane crash in 2020, it is now finally being brought back to its once luster by a guy named Jemal who has restored a number of other historic properties. I'd been by the building for concerts and rare errands in the time away from court, but this is the first time I saw the historic photos Jemal must have just recently put in the Delaware Avenue windows of the joint: past glory-
- a bit of infamy-
- and a tribute to Ellsworth Statler, who also left a working hotel to remember him by on the Cornell campus-
----
Going in across the street was a weird but familiar experience. Took me a few minutes to find my federal attorney ID which allows us to bring electronics into the building. The hearing took close to two hours; I resisted the urge at one point to quote Ghostbusters in my presentation. Care to guess which line?
Which quote from the 1984 original film?
There is no crossclaim, only Zuul.
0 (0.0%)
I make it a rule never to get involved with possessed people. Actually, it’s more of a guideline than a rule.
1 (100.0%)
I collect spores, molds, and fungus.
0 (0.0%)
Don't cross the streams. Peter. It would be bad.
0 (0.0%)
The one I almost used was the last one; the hearing involved two tracks of hearings going on in state and bankruptcy court and how difficult it is to coordinate them and prevent inconsistent results- hence, don't cross the streams. I was afraid the Judge might think I meant something other than Ghostbusters so I went with a Shatner-as-Denny-Crane reference instead. (The "guidelines" one was actually used ON me by another bankruptcy judge a few years back in a formal written decision when he wanted to tell me I hadn't complied with a rule.)
We have to answer one post-argument question of his by the end of next week and then we'll get a decision. Which I don't think I'll have to travel to.
----
Finally, speaking of East Meadow, I discovered last week that I had ordered, for myself and my sister, only one of two books that a friend from there has put out in the past week. This was an updating of his 2016 history, which told the town's story mostly in photos.
Hidden History, the one released all-new last week and the subject of his presentation at my former hometown library*, dishes much more of the brushy-plain dirty of the movers, shakers and occasional murderers of the longago common where farmers would take their "cowes" to the "East Meadowes."
Yes, murderers. Recent residents knew all about one of my former classmates, but even Joel had nothing on the love triangulators of the century before even us; the author told the story in a published predecessor to his new book:
For much of the 19th century, the Brower (or Brewer) Family lived near the intersection of Newbridge and North Jerusalem roads, with another farm a block away at Newbridge Avenue. Parmenus and Jane (Carman) Brower’s son Lewis married Sarah Ann Raynor around 1848 and took over operation of the family property with his parents. Lewis struck up a romantic relationship with Mary Jane Baldwin, who had been married twice and was previously known as Mrs. Samuel Lewis and Mrs. David Waring. Mary Jane was a younger woman who lived about a mile away on Bellmore Road in North Bellmore, across from brother DeWitt Clinton Baldwin and her mother Charity Southard’s family. She became known as Lewis’s “morganatic wife” who seemingly had free use of his farm’s bounties. As Lewis became increasingly enamored with Mary Jane, he moved livestock and household goods to her cottage, neglecting his sickly wife (with whom he had children and grandchildren).
Sarah Ann, sensing her husband’s growing estrangement, told her friend and neighbor (Mary) Elizabeth Spates that she might be murdered one night, as she was always alone. Elizabeth’s husband was Navy Captain Richard Nelson Spates, an adventurous and heroic Civil War veteran. Unfortunately, Sarah Ann had good precognition.
In the early morning hours of Saturday, September 10, 1887, Sarah Ann was axed in the head and suffered grave injuries. Lewis claimed to have been in bed, awakened by his wife’s cry. The community, knowing of the Brower-Baldwin affair, rendered swift moral judgment and failed to believe his story. Lewis Brower and Mary Jane Baldwin were both arrested for the “braining” and held in the Jamaica Town Hall. Lewis said he went a mile away to his grandson rather than going to Powers, his nearest neighbor, because he was frightened. Barney Powers, a respected farmer, said he saw Lewis washing blood off the ax. He went to the house with three sons, armed and ready to defend their neighbors. When they arrived, a dreadful sight met them. After searching in vain for “thieves,” Lewis claimed that $342 in cash had been stolen from the house. The furniture had been disturbed in a way that the Powers might believe a burglar had searched for the money. Neighbors knew, however, that Brower was in significant farm debt and wouldn’t have that kind of money in the house. Mrs. Spates found the weapon the following day, which had been suspiciously cleaned. Baldwin had seemingly fled to the Bellmore train station but was located. The coroner, Philip Cronin, was waiting to see if Sarah succumbed from her injuries before questioning the accused. Medical and legal professionals believed death was imminent.
After several comatose days, Sarah Ann awoke and was able to recall some of the incident. On the night of the crime, she had gone to bed with Lewis at 9:30 or 10:00 P.M. She gave a lengthy deathbed statement to authorities alleging that Mary Jane Baldwin likely struck her, before alleging that Lewis tried to kill her. Even if she were not partially paralyzed, the statement needed to be oral, as Mrs. Brower was illiterate.
On December 29, a coroner’s jury found evidence enough to move forward with the case. They believed Mr. Brower was responsible for his wife’s injuries and held Mrs. Baldwin as a witness. The trial for attempted murder was held in Freeport’s Euterpean or Union Hall. Mary Jane Lewis testified that she had not seen Brower since December 7. John Brower, Lewis’s grandson, thought his grandmother did not receive medical care in a timely fashion: Dr. William Rhame was not called until late Saturday morning, at which time Sarah Ann had no pulse. Two surgeons from Hempstead, Dr. Searing and Dr. Handford attended to Sarah Ann that night, almost an entire day after the attack. Dr. Rhame testified that after seeing her the next day, he did not think she would recover. She had a compound compressed skull fracture. Other wounds on her body were not made by the same axe.
Sarah Ann said that Lewis refused to come to bed that night. She was afraid to say who hit her, for fear that it would happen again, but said, “Well, I think Jane Baldwin struck the blows and father looked on and let her.” Sarah Ann’s daughter-in-law claimed the she saw an axe or iron bar at Mary Jane’s house. The bar had been kept for self-defense since the 1885 Rugg incident.
Phebe Merritt, Lewis Brower’s daughter, testified that she ran home when she heard about her mother. Her father said that two men, thought to be thieves, entered the room. They swung at him but missed and hit his wife. Lewis chased them naked into the street and then hid in a woodshed for half an hour. He then went to find his grandson, George Merritt. After arriving home, neighbor George Powers was there. Lewis said that thieves chased him into the kitchen – the location of Sarah Ann’s bed – and tried to hit him as well. He claimed to have followed footprints two miles to a Black family and re-entered the house through a garret window. Deputy Sheriff Solomon Allen debunked Lewis’s story, reporting that the window was covered with cobwebs and clearly not opened for a long time.
The crime was sensational by local standards and the trial was filled with East Meadow spectators. Even before the verdict, the general sentiment was that Brower was guilty as charged. Inquiries from jail about the condition of his livestock – but not his injured wife – did not help Brower’s case.
While on trial for attempting to kill his wife, Brower was sued by John Southard, the local undertaker, for failure to pay $37.50 toward his mother-in-law’s funeral expenses. Mrs. Baldwin sued her husband for divorce, of course. In one disturbing incident, Brower took his lover to the Queens County Fair and made sure to ride by his wife, laughing at her expense.
Lewis was convicted and served four years at Sing Sing Prison. Following her miraculous physical recovery, Sarah lost much of her memory and went to live in Westbury with her daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Isaac Wilson. After his release from prison, Lewis Brower lived a reclusive life back in East Meadow before dying in 1901.
It gets more complicated and more disturbing. Lewis Brower’s son, Parmenus married Mary Alice Bedell around 1872 but, sticking to the family tradition, fell in love with another woman named Kate Smith, née Baldwin – Mary Jane’s sister. Yes, you read that correctly. The younger Brower fell in love with the sister of his father’s lover. The key problem is that Kate was married to Valentine Smith, who caught his wife eloping in a wagon with Parmenus. Smith chased the pair, but Brower shot him and was convicted of second-degree assault in September 1887. Lewis served prison time with his son in Sing Sing.
But there’s more. Parmenus and Mary were living in the Ridgewood (Wantagh) area with Mary’s mother Maria Bedell, who made headlines for a high-profile late-in-life marriage-for-money arrangement with Solomon Southard, which quickly went south when neither partner held up his or her bargain to die quickly and leave their estate to the other. Parmenus and Mary’s 14-year-old son Harry was an inmate in a juvenile reformatory, the New York House of Refuge.
In an unscrupulous move, lawyer George Mott assured payment for legal services by obtaining power of attorney from Lewis while he was incarcerated. While Sarah Ann was still living there, Mott sold off their livestock and property and ended up owning the farm by February, though he gave Sarah Ann ten acres and a home. He continued to counsel Brower in prison who, upon release, persuaded Mott to pay more for the property.
Perhaps the old residents of Hogshead – descendants of the earliest town settlers – did indeed live up to the community’s reputation.
That's but one of the sordid tales of the place of my upbringing. I ordered the book from Amazon, and have had more trouble over paying for a $2.99 Kindle download than we have with negotiating the sale of any of our three homes. Meanwhile, I ordered another paper copy direct from the author to be sent to my sister, so she can enjoy the tales of intrigue.
And it won't even cost her $6.66;)
* In a final oddity of the crossing-the-streams that is my life, Scott's book shows the original temporary home of the East Meadow Public Library was in a storefront in what I would later remember as being the A&P plaza at the far end of Prospect Avenue. The library's history page notes that temporary address as 2306 Hempstead Turnpike. Almost 70 years later? The Orangetheory studio in East Meadow that I attended on my last overnight stay there in 2019, causing the high school gym a block away to sink into the ground out of sheer shock? ITS address is 2310 Hempstead Turnpike. In the same plaza.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-28 12:18 am (UTC)Ah, just when a "little pandemic" managed to drag the courts forward out of the 18th (15th?) century, judges manage to drag them back.