Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-01-04
1S YEARS IN PRISON.
MAN AND WIFE IMPRISONED FOR THIRTEEN YEARS

On Charges of Insanity and Arson, Long : After the Real Culprits Had Been Dis
 eovered-A Story of Shame and Horror. Released at Last.
 NASHUA, N. H., Jan. 3-The commission appointed by Governor Sawyer to investi. gate tho condition of Richard Woodham and Hannah E. Woodham, his wife, who have been confined in the asylum for the insane at Concord thirteen years this month, have decided that they should be released.
 The citizens of Nashua, where they lived, have long held the opinion that they never were insane. and it is dark page in the his tory of the state that they shoull have been confined in an insane asylum for deeds com mitted by others, one of whom is now serv- ing long sentence in the state prison at Concord, and another of whom committed suicide in jail from remorse
 The story of how they got there brings back the old days of the ''reign of terror" here. MT. Woodham and his wife and daugh- ter at that time resided on Tyler street, in little white cottage which he had bought and partly paid for. MT. Woodham was an Englishman. He was a quiet. law abiding citizen, and, if his wife was rather inclined to dispute with her neighbors, no one inn aginei her out of her head.
 The beginning of the trouble came about through the mortgage on the Tyler street house. A payment which was past due and which had not been indorsed on the mort gage Mrs Woodham declared she had paid. The holder denied it. She stuck to her decla- ration and would neither move nor pay. Then City Marshal Murdough, in his capacity as deputy sheriff, evicted them from the house. They refused to remove their furni- Al-- nY The police afterward took the goods to the city hall, where they were stored on the bare ground in the basement until w. o. Clough was city marshal, when, as they had grown moldy and worthless, he had them inventoried and destroyed. The w oodhams appeared before Police Justice Col. B. F. 9Enerson, but would not pay, persisting that the money had been paid and not put down on the mortgage, and the matter was tempo rarily dropped.
 A little later the farmhouse of Col. Elmer son, on the Lowell road, was burned to the ground. His beautiful granite monument in the Hollis street cemetery was badly broken and covered with tar a short time afterward. Then the barn of Capt. E. P. Banks, at that time city marshal, was burned down. It had evidently been set by the same persons, and in tumult of ex- citenent the Woodhams were charged with the crime and arrested. They had often ex- pessed spite against all these people on &C., count of their eviction from their own house. On the purely circumstantial evidence of knowing them to be enemies to the ones whose property was destroyed, they were tried on the 2Oth of January, 1875, the last papers were made out and they were sent to the asylum for the insane at Concord.
 The incarceration of the Woodhams did ~,nkc ck< <h2 liorx, Eroc H,t contrary, they seemed to increase. Finally one morning the citizens were startled to hear that Fatty" Parker and Miles Wilson had been arrested, charged with setting the many fires. The evidence poured ill against them, and they were held for trial by the supreme court Parker one of the best known characters in town. He ran a job train and employed helper, Miles Wilson, who was Hercules in strength and s.ze. Parker was blind, had been regarded as ex- ceptionally honest and was trusted every where. When his house and barn were searched after his arrest they were found filled with the many articles he had stolen.
 In the jail the men were placed near each otter and got to talking, and it was found out that they were the persons who defaced the Emerson monument and set the fires charged to the Woodhams.
 Parker committed suicide in his cell Then Wilson was tried, found guilty of all the crimes charged to the Woodlands, and sen- fenced to a long term in the state prison at Concord, where he now is.
 That was years ago, but not until now have the Woodhams been released. Their daughter, grown from the little child of those days, has married and settled in a little town just above here, but has been un- tiring in her efforts to have them released. The state gives them $200 year for SUD- port. Woodham is 60 years old and his wife five years younger.
 The unhappy couple would have been prisoners for years to come had it not been for the efforts in their behalf by Capt H. B. Atherton, of this city, author of the famed Atherton railroad bill before the state legis- lature last summer. He introduced a bill in the house of representatives to have them set free at once. It passed the house, but the senate tackled on an amendment to in- vestigate. A commission was appointed and the investigation has just been com pleted.