Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-05-25
From 1te Ne'oark Advertiser.
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Our whole community was startled last
evening by the brief announcement of the
melancholy suicide of Mr.. Henry William
Herbert, late of this city. which came to us
just as our paper was going to press. A Sc
cret hope was felt that there was some mistake
about it, but the full and saddening details,
which came a few hours latter, confirmed the
announcement-deve the most affecting
tragedy our people have ever felt an interest
in. The act was evidently committed under
the influence of long protracted melancholy
amounting almost to frantic despair; this was
the consequence of a domestic difficulty
operating upon an exquisitely sensitive mind,
which unfortunately ran to extremes of Joy
or sorrow, all through his unhappy life. In
deed, those who have only seen the occasional
results of his uncomfortable impetuosity of
feeling, and looked upon his unusually stall
wart fran, have never given him credit for the
better nature which overwhelmed him in sor-
row at the reaction.
The incidents more Immediately affecting his
mind commenced with his second marriage,
which occurred at the House of Prayer in this
city on the 18th of February last. the rector.
the Rev. Mr.. Shackleford, performing the cere-
mony. The bride was Miss Adelia r. Budlong.
young lady from Rhode Island with
whom Herbert had formed sudden and
romantic attachment during a visit she was
n.
own statement to the writer of this about the
time of the occurrence. that he relieved her
from the assault of some ruffian in one of the
New York avenues, and accompanied her to
her hotel correspondence followed, and
resulted in the wedding, which was compare
lively private. only four gentlemen of this
city being present by invitation, with two
from New York, in addition to the brides
mother and brother. They came from New
Il froSr .xynf 0h Anla
by an accident for about an hour on the way,
and it was late in the afternoon when the ce-
remOny was performed.
The parties proceeded Immediately to Mr.
Herbert's cottage at ''The Cedars," about two
miles above the center of this city ON the Pas
sale river, and for time they were perfectly
happy in each others society. Some six weeks
after this ceremony, the reptile spirit of ca
lumny crawled into his quiet home ; it is al
legged that some one, represented to be lady.
took occasion, probably without any idea of
the tragic result, and poured into his wife's
mind a recital of the worst features of his life
in the usual exaggerated gossip, and on his re
turn he found her alone and melancholy.
She told him what had passed, but refused
to reveal the person. This fired Herbert's in
fiammable temperament, and in the heat of his
impetuosty. he threatened to destroy himself
if she did dot reveal the name. She in turn
became frantically alarmed, and ruptured
small blood-vessel, or produced hemmorrhage
of the lungs. This in turn alarmed Herbert,
who did all he could to restore her health and
relieve her mind; but from that moment she
determined to leave him, and did SO during
his absence in New York.
According to his representations. he passed
out of his back gate, which leads into the ce-
metery, and she accompanied him to the
fence. bidding him an affectionate adieu, with
a In hn ha1 nd ha
full gush of desolation and despair unbalanced
his sensitive mind. He strove in vain to bring
her back, and thinking it would promote the
object, he left his cottage, which he thought
might have been too lonely for her, and took
apartments at the Stevens House, New York
(late Delmonico's,) near the Bowling-Green.
Here he used every effort of his ingenuity to
recover his wife, but she steadily refused to
meet him, and finally instructed her attorney
to inform him that she would receive no fur
Their communications from him. This last
drop overfowed the cup of his bitterness; the
future seemed all hopeless, and he then medi-
tated his own destruction.