Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1878 — WILLIAM M. TWEED. [ARTICLE]

WILLIAM M. TWEED.

iMt Hours of the Greatest Convicted Thief of Modern Times-Hi* Dying Words. [From the New York Times.] Tweed knew he was going to die, but did not seem discomposed, except by the terrible pain he was enduring. Frequently he pressed his hands to his heart, 'saying, “ Oh, it is terrible, terrible!” and “lam very bad. My heart is paining me terribly I” Dr. Carnochan saw no aid could be given, and no more remedies were administered. At 11:30 o’clock it was evident the end was drawing near. Tweed beckoned Dr. Carnochan to his side, and said, in an unrisually weak voice, “ I have tried to do some good. If I have not had good luck, lam not afraid to die. I believe the guardian angels will protect me. ” Dr. Camochan waa so much impressed by the words that he immediately wrote them and read them to the other persons in the room. Immediately after saying these words, Tweed fell into a sort of stupor, laying his head back upon his pillow. In a few moments, however, he partially aroused himself, and said to Mr. Edelstein some incoherent words about the confinement affecting his health, and, mentioning some names in an almost inaudible voice, said: “They will be satisfied now.” After that he again lapsed into a stupor, which was not a comatose condition, but merely a deadening of the senses. At a minute or two before 12 o’clock he moved his hand upon the counterpane, as if searching for some one’s hand for a farewell. A moment later, as the jail-bells were ringing the noon signal, William M. Tweed fell back upon bis pillow, dead. The room in which Tweed died, and in which he spent the last years of his life, was handsomely but quietly furnished. In his last hours he lay upon a plain but comfortable bed, on which his body remained after death, clad in a plain white night-dress. There was scarcely a change in the face, except in the color of the hair and whiskers, which had whitened very much. The great size of his body had rather increased than diminished. Word was at once sent to the Sheriff’s office that Tweed was dead; also to the Coroner’s office, the law requiring that an inquest be held over the bodies of all persons who die while undergoing imprisonment. The corridor of the jail was soon filled with the friends of Tweed and the representatives of the press, and the front door was besieged by persons who could not gain admittance to the building. No one was admitted to the room in which the body lay except officers of the jail, relatives and friends, and the Coroner and his men. Tweed said, a few minutes before his death : ‘ ‘ Tilden and Fairchild—l guess they’ve killed me at last. I have tried to do the best I could latterly, but they wouldn’t let me. They will probably be satisfied when 1 am carried out of here to-morrow.” Tweed’s last appearance outside the walls of Ludlow Street jail was on March 26, when he was summoned to testify in the suit of Waterbury against the city, before Judge Potter, in the Supreme Court. He took the witnessstand when his narre was called, and read a paper, saying the city had not kept its promise of restoring him to lit erty, alter the giving of his previous testimony, and that, by advice of his counsel, he declined to testify further till the promise wns fulfilled. No effort was made to compel him to answer, and he was taken back to jail. Coroner Waltman arrived at the jail about 1 o’clock, and at once began the inquest. It was determined that an autopsy was not necessary. Dr. Carnochan testified that death, in his opinion, was caused by pericarditis, with effusion and heart clot, complicated with bronchitis, pneumonia and chronic congestion of the kidneys. The verdict was to that effect, and the body was put into the hands of an undertaker, and at 3 o’clock taken to the residence of Tweed’s son-in-law, J. W. Douglass. Tweed’s wife and two sons are in Europe. Foster T. Dewey said to a Times rev porter that the words published as the last words spoken by Tweed were by no means correct. There were present at Tweed’s bedside when he died, Dr. Carnochan, Tweed’s son-in-law, Douglass, Mr. Edelstein, law partner of William M. Tweed, Jr., and Mr. Dewey. “ Mr. Tweed’s last words,” said Mr. Dewey, “as nearly as I can recall them, were these: ‘I have tried to right some great wrongs. I have been forbearing with those who did not deserve it, I forgive all those who have ever done wrong to me, and I want all those who have ever been harmed by me to forgive me.’ He said nothing about guardian angels. Nobody who knew him would ever suppose he could talk that way. What I have told you he said was said by him in answer to my question, whether he didn’t want to say something, for I knew he was going. He died as calmly and resignedly as John Wesley did, and with as much absence of fear or bitterness. He had long wished to die, and has said to me 500 times, if once, since his return from Spain, that he would be glad to go. Mr. Tweed made no will. He had nothing to leave to anybody. He didn’t even have any personal property worth making a will for. People say he has not accounted for all his property. He has accounted for all the property he had left, but people don’t know how much money he has disposed of in the last five years. If he had to account for what he paid out there would be a good many people who would feel badly to have the public know what they have got out of the old man. He was the greatest wreck the world eVer saw, politically, socially, morally. He was extremely sensitive about his death—as to what people would say. Yesterday he remarked to me, ‘This is a moral lesson to the world.’ He seemed to think that, after he was gone, they would preach sermons abont him, and use him as ‘ an awful example.’ He felt very sensitive about that. Tweed’s family are all scattered. At present not one of his four sons are in the city, William M., and Richard M., his oldest son, are in Europe. He has two daughters and two sons-in-law in New Orleans. His daughter Josephine is the only one in the city. His two youngest sons, boys of 12 and 14 years, are at a private educational establishment in New England. They have not seen their father since he went to the penitentiary in 1873.”