In September 1841 John C Colt, the brother of renown gunsmith and industrialist Samuel, found himself in the unenviable position of being choked to death with his own cravat. In fairness to the elegant neck wear it was not responsible for the attempt on its wearers life, rather Samuel Adams, a printer of text books who had been employed by Colt, was using the cravat as an improvised garrote. This was over the matter of $1.35, an inconsiderable sum even in 1841 to motivate an attempted murder by neckwear, one would think.

In fear for his life, John began reaching out for anything he could use to fend off his attacker and his hand came to rest on what he assumed was the handle of a hammer. In the event it proved to be a small hatchet, and after he struck Adams several times with it the textbook printer fell to the floor and bled out. Luckily once the cravat was readjusted it proved none the worse for the experience, though it did sorely need an ironing, but even with sartorial elegance repaired Colt was faced with as problem. There was a body on the printing room floor, and he was still owed $1.35.

Luckily a ship somewhat perversely named for the land locked Michigan city of Kalamazoo was due to sail for New Orleans on the morning tide, a large shipping crate was in the print works, and several hundred weight of salt. So Colt clean up the blood, packed Adams in the crate, covered him in salt and got a cart driver called Barstow to drop the crate off at the docks. But not before Colt helped himself to the printers engraved gold watch. He was owed $1.35 after all…

It was then events conspired against the gunsmiths brother, a storm blew down the coast from Maine and what started out as little more than a squall built into a full blown gale. The Captain of the Kalamazoo, a cautious man, kept her in port an extra day, and the body was discovered due to an unfortunate smell, just before the Police arrived with a search warrant. Armed with little more than circumstantial evidence, and a few witness statements that placed Colt in proximity of the crime the police arrested him, and found he still had the gold watch he had taken in leu of the debt owe him.

While in prison awaiting either a retrial of his execution Colt dined expensive meals brought in from high end hotels in New York. These included quail on toast, game pates, and ortolans… If you are remember ortolans from way back when we discussed The Duc de L’Omelette and how they are traditionally prepared for the table, any semblance of sympathy you may have held for John C Colt has probably flown out the window…

The woeful tale of John C Colt, who killed himself in prison before his execution* inspired our own Dear Edgar to write The Oblong Box, a story about a man shipping his dead wife’s corpse north to New York so she could be buried in the family plot, in a wooden crate, which his friend, our narrator, mistakenly assumes contains a copy of Leonardo De Vinci’s last supper…

*or possibly did not as at least one conspiracy theory, and there are several, suggests he escapes, having killed another prisoner of similar bult to himself, and started a fire to disguise the body before hightailing it to California where he lived large on accountancy text book money for another fourteen years with the wife he wed in prison…

The box in question is been shipped not in the hold but in a third stateroom. This is a ploy we, the reader, is unaware of until the end. The ships captain, to ally superstitions, does not want the body in the hold, and neither does the widower. So the captain agree to placing it in a stateroom, for a price no doubt, and to avoid suspicion a homely maid agrees to pretend to be the wife for the extent of the journey. Hence the narrators initial confusing, having never previously met ‘the wife’ but having been told she is a renown beauty.

The widower, due to the lack of context for the narrator, seems to be acting strangely, and spends time weeping by the, obviously coffin shaped, box, which the narrator puts down to his love of art… Then there is a storm the ship is going to capsize and the captain orders everyone to abandon ship. The widower refuses to leave the box and is washed out to sea never to be seen again. The narrator then learns the truth some time after on a chance meeting with the captain of the lost ship.

Poe’s story is a good story, it is well written, because of course it is, the suspense is well handled and the strangeness of the narrators friends actions hold your interest. Even the pay off at the end is well weighted if slightly mundane after all the strangeness that precedes it. But that’s all it is. It doesn’t hold the attention and take root in your mind the way stories like The Pit and the Pendulum, or The Fall of the House of Usher do, or indeed the story of John C Colt that inspired it.

Now, of course, the story of John C Colt was mainly of interest and captured the public mind at the time because of the legend of big brother Samuel and the gun that won the west… John was an accountant who made his living with speaking engagements of double entry book keeping, and text-books on the same. If it wasn’t for Samuel Colt’s revolver, the New York public would not have cared less about the case. Instead, because of Samuels fame, it filled column inches, and hence came to our Dear Edgars attention and the Oblong Box was written a year or two after it had all been forgotten.

Here though is the crux, Poe’s story is perfectly fine, but I would argue that it is the story of John C Colt’s oblong box that remain easily the most compelling of the two.

THREE RAVENS WHO ALL FIND THE STORY OF JOHN C COLT MORE COMPELLING.

Should you read it: Despite all I have said… probably.

Bluffers fact: To go back to John C Colt, it is interesting to note that the police could only identify the body of Adams because of his gold ring, which Colt did not take but cause the watch covered the $1.35 he was owed. Had he taken the ring, identifying Adams would have been impossible and had the state been unable to prove the body was Adams could have caused the case to collapse. So if only the debt had been $2.35 Colt might have been spared the guilty verdict…