Seth Wyman, Jr.

Background

Seth Wyman, Jr. was born on March 4, 1784, in Goffstown, New Hampshire, the son of Seth and Sarah (Atwood) Wyman.

Career

Wyman, Jr. was a thief almost from infancy, stealing a silver dollar from a house to which his mother took him, and accounting for his possession of it by pretending to find it on the way home. While still a child he stole tobacco for the use of his mother, who "chewed, smoked, and snuffed. " Continuous thieving and malicious mischief caused him to be suspected and accused of many crimes, but he was nearly twenty before he was forced to confess his guilt and pay for what he had stolen. After this his house was frequently searched unsuccessfully for stolen goods, but he was twice committed to the county jail in Amherst to await trial. He claims to have made daring attempts to escape that required great strength and fortitude, and to have brutally beaten a fellow prisoner much larger than himself, but as he calls himself tall. He tells also of intermittent vagabondage, incessant thieving, occasional amatory escapades, burglaries alone or in association with others, passing counterfeit money, and of sometimes deviating into honest or semi-honest employment by farming or manufacturing sleighs with stolen tools and from stolen material. In June 1817 he was convicted of larceny in Augusta, Maine (then Augusta, Massachussets), and committed to the state prison in Charlestown for three years, but he was pardoned in August 1818. There was no belief in his reformation by the pardoning authorities, for the statement that he was "duly sensible of the moral evil and fatal tendency of his past faults" was crossed out on the official document, and his release was recommended in order to shift to his native New Hampshire the cost of maintaining his wife and children, then inmates of the Boston almshouse. On April 20, 1820, he was committed to the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord for stealing cloth, and he served every day of his three years' sentence.

In 1843, Wyman, Jr. published his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Seth Wyman, Embodying the Principal Events of a Life Spent in Robbery, Theft, Gambling, Passing Counterfeit Money.

After the committal to prison, Wyman, Jr. returned to Goffstown, where he died on April 2, 1843, his last years being rendered inactive by the approach of age and a fall from a building on which he was working that seriously injured his back.

Achievements

• Seth Wyman, Jr. was an audacious and incorrigible thief and swindler, whose prominence was more literary than criminal, as his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Seth Wyman, Embodying the Principal Events of a Life Spent in Robbery, Theft, Gambling, Passing Counterfeit Money, which received more notice than most accounts of criminal careers.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Life And Adventures Of Seth Wyman: Embodying The Principal Events Of A Life Spent In Robbery, Theft, Gambling, Passing Counterfeit Money, &c., &c

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Connections

On December 18, 1808, in Boston, Seth Wyman, Jr. married Welthy Chandler (Loomis), divorced wife of Nathaniel Chandler, they had six children.

Father:

Seth Wyman, Sr.

Mother:

Sarah Wyman (Atwood)

Sister:

Elizabeth Wyman

Wife:

Welthy Chandler (Loomis)

Brother:

Joseph Belknap Wyman

Brother:

John Wyman

Brother:

James Wyman