His first published work was a treatise on decorative handwriting. His second, a discussion of accounts.
But this new book was different. “A collection of poetry,” Colt happily explained to anyone who would listen.
For the pleasure of seeing his latest typeset, Colt had made financial arrangement with Mr. Adams in order for him to print the thin volume. And, indeed, the purpose of Mr. Adams’ visit that morning of the crime pertained to that very agreement, and certain accounts still outstanding for Adams’ printing and publishing services rendered.
Of only slightly less consideration to the money owed apparently was the quality and craft of Mr. Colt’s work. Evidently, in printer Adams’ estimation, the author’s poetical dabbling contained no meritable quality, and no craft. In no uncertain terms, Adams questioned the mettle of the poet, the honesty, integrity, and frankly, when a poem showed promise, the very authorship. Word had reached Adams that the best poems signed “Colt” were actually penned by the critic and poet Edgar Poe, commissioned for pennies from the rightful author owing to that man’s purported financial difficulties. Adams had apparently lent ear to rumors of scandal. He had heard Poe might even now be revoking his arrangement, decrying Colt for plagiarizing his work, and planning an exposé in the public prints.
Colt rose daily at midday. His coffee and an Anderson aromatic segar in light green wrapper were brought to him in bed each noon along with that morning’s newspapers and a single red rose in a glass vase.
Adams’ note, sealed in an envelope smudged with black, inky fingerprints, was tucked under the linen napkin. Looking at it, Colt first took a sip of coffee before slitting the envelope.
He read the note and jumped up, spilling both coffee and vase.
Crying for Dillback, the manservant, he demanded his horse and carriage be readied immediately. He dressed and ran from his home into the street even as his mistress, Caroline Henshaw, tried to calm him.
His carriage pulled up, but apparently Colt now had second thoughts.
“Mayhem may very well have been at play on my mind,” he admitted in writing, “because I now declined to enter the vehicle. Instead, I dismissed coach and driver and headed east on foot from my home, skirting Washington Square before cutting south on the Broadway, with every intention of confronting Mr. Adams at his printing house offices on Nassau Street. Halfway downtown, however, I thought better of it, and again altered my plans.”
Colt maintained a second-floor office and studio at the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway. He now repaired there, and was sitting at his desk when, some hours later, Adams burst in, very much flushed with excitement and the exertion of running up the stairs. The irksome printer rushed across the room and waved his bill for services directly in Colt’s face.
Colt said he pushed him away, demanding, “What is the meaning of this?”
Adams shouted he wanted his money. He then plunged into what Colt called a spew of “gossipy gibberish,” slanders he had apparently heard from certain well-oiled lips, such as that Edgar Poe was the rightful author of more than a few of the poems included in Colt’s prospective book, and not he, Colt. A lawsuit had been threatened, and Adams shouted he wanted no part of it.
Colt admitted in writing the charge made him somewhat nervous, knowing the temperament of Poe. Yet he claimed all the verses were his, that if anything, Poe was an admirer, and that all charges were ridiculous, the result of petty jealousies.
“Pay me or I’ll expose you!” Adams threatened. He drew out an example of work considered suspect, slammed it hard on the desk, and shoved it across to Colt. Colt lowered his eyes in order to read. The bit of doggerel had appeared unsigned in an 1841 volume of the Police Gazette, but Colt claimed authorship.
In this Christian age,
’Tis strange, you’ll engage
When everyone’s doing high crimes to assuage,
That the direst offenses continue to rage;
That fibbing and fobbing
And thieving and robbing,
The foulest maltreating,
And forging and lifting,
And wickedly shifting
The goods that belong to another away,
Are the dark misdemeanors of every day.
And then too, the scrapes of seductions and rapes,
And the foulest of crimes in the foulest of shapes.
Colt claimed he was nothing less than abashed.
“Have you lost your mind, man?” he swore he cried at Adams. “This is mine by all that lives and breathes. I wrote it.”
“I think not!” Adams countered, according to Colt. “And even if it is yours, I tell you I want my money! What you call your work is nothing more than the tragic waste of an innocent tree of the forest!”
Colt said he chose to remain calm in the face of this humiliation. With no gentlemanly course save to stand up straight, take the high road, as it were, and protest no more, he said he deemed to defend oneself against such slur unseemly.
Still Adams refused to back down or apologize in any shape, manner, or form, the printer finally stating without further equivocation, reiterating, that he would not, under any circumstances, print the work he had previously contracted, referring to it now with utter deprecation as “work of this genre and quality.”
“What genre and quality is that, sir?” Colt, by his own admission, raged.
“Nebulous genre. Lewd, melodramatic, exceedingly poor quality,” shot back Adams. “Does that encapsulate it for you, sir?”
Colt said he reluctantly resigned himself to Adams’ disparaging and mocking onslaught. He claimed again to having attempted reason with Adams, assuring this man that some of the foremost literary talents of the day admired his work. He again mentioned Poe specifically, saying, even as they spoke, the poet and critic was petitioning the Reverend Rufus Griswold, literary editor of Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, for his inclusion in his forthcoming definitive tome, The Poets and Poetry of America.
Adams, Colt said, laughed in his face.
“From here one thing led to another in rapid succession,” he further admitted, as angry sentiments, including the phrase “You lie!” were exchanged.
Before he knew it, Colt further submitted, words finally came to blows. With no further provocation or warning, Adams was suddenly on him, the printer in an irrational state.
In his own defense, Colt said, once physically drawn into the melee, he did not believe he could properly protect himself. He quickly came to realize he was at serious disadvantage and without proper weapon. He emphasized that day he was not carrying one of his brother’s
