Series 13 - Gerald Toole gallows memoir (Kerby A. Miller's notes)

3pp

Photocopy of Kerby A. Miller’s notes of An Autobiography of Gerald Toole, the State's Prison Convict, Who Murdered Daniel Webster, Warden of the Conn, State Prison, on the 27th of March, 1862 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Co.). The full memoir is located at P155/19/1.
Gerald Toole was born in 1838 in Country Leitrim. After serving as an apprentice in a tea and wine shop in Dublin, Toole emigrated to New Haven, Connecticut in 1858, where his sister lived, and where he held several jobs as a clerk in stores, and as a waiter in the New Haven Hotel, from which he was discharged for reportedly drawing a knife upon a fellow employer during a quarrel - a charge which Toole denied. After 6 months, he bought a small 'grocery' or saloon of his own in New Haven, which he insured for one year against fire, fearing that its wooden structure would tempt an arsonist. In April 1860, his saloon was indeed partially burned. Toole was arrested on a charge of arson, and, despite witnesses who saw him leave the building for home early in the evening, was convicted on what seemed to be highly circumstantial, if not perjured evidence, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Connecticut State Prison. Toole did not do well in prison, where the prisoners were forced to perform contract labour making boots. He was frequently beaten for not making quota, eventually leading to his stabbing a prison warden for which he was sentenced to death. Toole was executed by hanging in May 1862, 9 days short of his 24th birthday.