23: Hattie Swain (update)

Grave of Hattie Swain

Update on April 28, 2015: Ancestry.com has just made records from Sing Sing Prison available online. Below is a transcription of Henry Vail's admission record:

Dec. 21, 1872. Henry Vail
Received from Westchester, Born in Somerstown, Westchester Co. Age 49. Wife at New Castle. Resided in Yorktown this Co. owns a place there. Stature 5.7 1/4. Wt 139. Complexion florid, hair dark brown, eyes blue.
Diagonal scar across last joint of right thumb. Third finger left hand amputated at last joint and second finger stiff. Can R[ead] & W[rite]. Quaker. Farmer.
Verdict Perjury and sentenced Dec. 19. 72 for Ten Years (10) by Grifford.

Update on April 23, 2013: Below you can find updated information about the death of Henry Vail's child in 1868.

Yesterday I cleaned the grave of Hattie Swain, who was 22 when she died on September 4, 1884. You can barely read it on the stone, but from the transcription I can tell that her parents were Henry and Phebe Hester Vail, and her husband was Charles Swain.

Hattie's father Henry had quite a reputation, apparently, and ultimately died in Sing Sing Prison. This is a description of him from a court case that was made years after his death:

(source)

I found the announcement of Henry's imprisonment in the Putnam County Courier, December 28, 1872:

The Daily Register sheds more light on the crimes committed by Vail - "a hero of horrible atrocities":

In case you can't read that last paragraph, it says: "Vail has long been a terror to his neighbors, having, as is currently reported, during his career shot and killed his brother; thrown his little daughter into the fire, whereby she was fatally burned; and cut out the tongue of his sister, who shortly afterwards carried the secret of her brother's fiendish malignity to a premature grave."

In investigating these accusations against Henry Vail, I found a tiny notice in the New York Daily Tribune, Vol. XXVIII, Issue 8585 (October 14, 1868): p. 8. It reads:

YORKTOWN - A son of Mr Henry Vail, aged 4 years, was burned to a crisp, near Croton Dam, on Wednesday last, by its clothes taking fire, while alone in its father's house.

Obviously, the allegation that Henry Vail burned his child alive has some truth behind it, but whether Vail was actually responsible for the burning is unknown. There also seems to be some confusion about the gender of the child. The Daily Register says "his little daughter," while the Daily Tribune says "a son." The Tribune also says that the child was alone in the house, which, if true, means that Vail couldn't have killed him, although perhaps he was responsible for leaving the child alone. It's hard to know which account to believe - the Tribune account, which was published less than a week after the child's death and portrays it as a tragic accident, or the Register account, which was published some years later and portrays it as a brutal murder.

The first census in which Hattie, or Harriet Vail, appears is the 1870 census. She and her brother Lewis and sister Josephine lived with their infamous father in Yorktown. Phebe Vail is not listed.

1870 US Federal Census

Ten years later, Harriet was living with her mother, brother, and sister near the cemetery. Strangely, it is not Lewis Vail but Benjamin Vail who is Harriet's brother in this census. It's strange because Lewis and Benjamin would have been around the same age - are they the same person (sometimes a person went by his first name in one census and by his middle name in another)? Or twins? Or simply brothers who are very close in age? Whoever Benjamin Vail was, he was employed in my favorite optical factory. Henry Vail had long since died in prison.

Phebe Vail must have had a very difficult life. As tough as it must have been to face the shame of her husband's imprisonment and the challenge of managing the household by herself, I can only imagine that things must have been worse before Henry was jailed. If he really was as brutal as the stories allege, it might have been a relief for the family to have him out of the picture.

1880 US Federal Census

Four years later, Hattie had married and died. Since she doesn't appear with her husband in any census, it's difficult for me to identify him.

In 1900, 60-year-old Phebe Vail was working as a washerwoman and living on her own. The 1910 census states that she was the mother of four children, two of whom were living. She died in 1913 and is buried in the cemetery.

Grave of Phebe Hester Vail (source)

I haven't been able to identify which of Phebe's children were living in 1910. Unfortunately, due to his criminal record, Henry Vail is the most prominent member of the family in this post. Hopefully in the future I'll have a chance to investigate the other family members more.

1. Henry Vail (1825-1875) m. Phebe Hester (1840-1913)
1. Lewis Vail (1858-)
2. Benjamin B. Vail (1859-)
3. Josephine Vail (1860-)
4. Hattie Vail (1862-1884) m. Charles Swain
5. Unknown Child (1864-1868)