Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts by Rachel Faugno

Author:Rachel Faugno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

ANOTHER SUICIDE

Albert lived with his wife, Hattie (Preston) Nichols, and their five children in East Brookfield. The son of Austin and Josephine (Bond) Nichols, Albert was a bookkeeper at Aaron Hammond’s cold storage plant. His managerial skills were such that Hammond left much of the management of the facility in his capable hands.

Albert was eight years older than Henry and had formed a close bond with the younger man. When Henry died, he was “almost prostrated with the news.” Time did not heal the wound. He frequently spoke of his friendship with Henry, often weeping as he did so.

In the months prior to his death, Albert’s depression had deepened. Some attributed it to health problems, citing a particularly severe bout of hay fever the previous summer or a vaccination he had received. His doctors were puzzled and dismissed the notion that his deteriorating health was in any way related to the inoculation.

Three weeks before his suicide, he had been unable to go to work. He spent days in bed, incapacitated by despondence. Friends recommended that he go to his parents’ home to rest in quiet, away from his young children. He took their advice, moving into his childhood home on Main Street in East Brookfield, just east of Gleason Avenue. But his depression continued to deepen. He stayed in his room, where his parents frequently found him crying inconsolably.

On the evening of April 10, 1902, a little more than three years after Henry’s suicide, his mother heard him fall in a first-floor room off the dining room. She hurried through the house and found her son lying facedown on the floor. Blood gushed from a wound on his neck. He had taken a straight razor from a bureau drawer and, standing in front of a mirror, slashed his throat. His windpipe and jugular vein were severed.

Dr. William F. Hayward was quickly summoned and pronounced him dead. Dr. Norwood, the medical examiner, arrived soon after. He declared the death a suicide.

Albert Nichols was the final victim in the tragedy that began in January 1899. The survivors carried on with their lives as best they could. The Hammonds and the Proutys were occasionally mentioned in the local press. Aaron Hammond and Lewis T. Bemis made a tour of the West in September 1900. In 1904, the Hammonds spent Christmas with relatives in Charlton. Aaron Hammond died while working in his barn in 1911. His wife passed away in 1917. Their mansion was torn down in 1919, and a new house erected on the lot. Like their son, the Hammonds were laid to rest at Hope Cemetery.

William Prouty moved to Boston soon after his wife’s death and sold the house on Ash Street in 1903. His daughter Louise became a librarian at the Harvard Library and lived with him until his death in 1910. Iris lived with him for a while before embarking on a notable career in education.

She received teacher training at Columbia and New York Universities and was affiliated with the

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