Georgy Wythe (Image courtesy The Valentine, Cook Collection)
One June morning in the waning days of spring, George Wythe — signer of the Declaration of Independence, America’s first law professor, mentor to Thomas Jefferson — propped himself up in bed. His 80-year-old frame, weakened by a recent onslaught of vomiting, diarrhea and cramps, managed to utter these chilling words: “I am murdered.”
A pall had been cast over the high chancellor’s Shockoe Hill home. On May 25, 1806, all members of the household were mysteriously taken ill. All except one. Fourteen days later, the Founding Father would be dead.
The trouble with detecting arsenic poisoning in early 19th-century America was twofold: The substance was common and prevalent in household items, undermining its nefariousness, and its symptoms could be attributed to other forms of illness. The trouble with miscreant and potentially murderous relatives, as Wythe learned, are many.
The year prior, a teenage George Wythe Sweeney robbed his great-uncle of valuable books and sold them to pay gambling debts so bottomless that Sweeney began forging checks from his notable namesake — as many as six times — made out for as much as $100. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Sweeney was well aware that he was listed as a beneficiary in Wythe’s will, as was Michael Brown — a 16-year-old freedman taken under Wythe’s wing. Sweeney was also aware of a recent update stating that Brown’s inheritance would transfer to Sweeney should Brown die.
On the morning of May 25, Sweeney made his way from his room to the kitchen, where he found Lydia Broadnax, a former slave and Wythe’s longtime maid and cook.He requested some toast and coffee, but said he could not stay for a full meal. Before leaving, Broadnax caught him lingering near and fiddling with the coffeepot, then tossing a piece of paper into the fire. Minutes after drinking the coffee, Brown, Broadnax and Wythe became violently ill.
Authorities arrested Sweeney on forgery charges June 2. When Sweeney sent a note to his ailing relative, requesting he pay the $1,000 bail, Wythe refused. The house-wide sickness was originally attributed to cholera, which presumably had infected the three by way of overripe strawberries consumed the evening of May 24. As the days wore on, Wythe insisted otherwise. Sweeney’s incarceration — coupled with reports of his attempts to source arsenic-laden rat poisoning, the discovery of arsenic in his room, traces of it on an axe in the toolshed, possible traces on the strawberries and a package of the stuff that likely had been tossed over the wall of the jail — painted a picture of murder. But it was too late for Brown, who died June 1, just as it was for Wythe, who remarked, “I shall not be far behind,” and altered his will one final time, striking Sweeney’s name from it. On June 8, Wythe expired.
On June 23, Sweeney was charged with two counts of murder. All eyes fell upon the trial, but what was expected to end in a hanging ended instead in a not-guilty verdict; while autopsies found possible evidence of poisoning in both bodies, none was damning, and prosecutors could provide no medical proof of it. Broadnax, the chief witness, was not allowed to testify against a white man. Sweeney fled the state and disappeared from records shortly thereafter.
On the day of Wythe’s funeral 210 years ago, thousands gathered along Main Street to see his body brought to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where he is still interred today. “George Wythe, one of the oldest and best of those venerable fathers of their country,” spoke William Munford, a former student, “has now followed Washington, Franklin, Samuel Adams, and many others, who are indeed removed from this troublesome world, and at rest from their labors, but whose fame shall live forever in the hearts of their fellow-citizens.”
By contrast, Sweeney’s name is nothing but a footnote.
