Daniel McFarland Trial: 1870

The defense set out to prove McFarland's insanity. A daughter of his first cousin described her own father's 18 months of "fits of crying and melancholy" followed by attempted suicide and, ultimately, commitment in an asylum. An attorney colleague recalled McFarland as "not in his right mind."

Altogether, more than 40 defense witnesses testified with similar observations on the frantic, nervous, and obsessive aspects of McFarland's mental condition. And then Mary Mason, landlady of a boarding house where Richardson had had a front room while the McFarland family occupied the same floor to the rear, testified, "I saw Mr. Richardson and Mrs. McFarland going in and out a great deal together, often when Mr. McFarland was away." A domestic servant and a 16-year-old waiter added similar recollections, with the waiter concluding, "You ask if I have seen Mr. Richardson take 'liberties' with Mrs. McFarland. Yes, I have. I've seen them shake hands together many times." The courtroom exploded with laughter.

The defense interrogated Dr. William A. Hammond, a well-known professor of neuro-surgery, on tests he had recently conducted on McFarland. "I can observe," he said, "many phenomena that he could not feign. There can be no doubt that his state was such as to render him entirely irresponsible for his acts."

The prosecution's first rebuttal witness was famed editor Horace Greeley, whose Tribune had rebuked McFarland. He failed to add condemning testimony but, when cross-examined about letters of recommendation he had written on McFarland's behalf, remarked caustically, "Those letters were as true as such letters usually are."

Tribune publisher Samuel Sinclair, in whose home Abby stayed after separating from McFarland in 1867, gave stronger evidence, citing McFarland's drunken brutality toward his wife. And the editor of a competitive paper recalled how McFarland—apparently hoping to embarrass the Tribune—offered to sell him, for $100, his wife's personal letters.

In its fifth week, the trial drew ever-larger crowds. They brought basket lunches. Those unseated framed the courtroom, shoulder to shoulder along its walls. They heard more rebuttal witnesses testify on the defendant's drunken and abusive behavior and on Abby Sage's decision to leave him.