Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight

9 From Courtroom to Activisim

9 From Courtroom to Activism Test imony in Pa ck a r d’s trial began on 12 January 1864 and caused an immediate sensation. A noisy crowd packed the courtroom, and it was clear the predominantly female assemblage favored Packard as the heroine of the drama unfolding before them. Theophilus hired attorneys Thomas P. Bonfield, Mason B. Loomis, and C. A. Lake to represent him. Bonfield, a well-known Kankakee County pioneer , wrote later that he was astonished that the case was not immediately dismissed. He objected to a jury trial and pointed out that it was customary for the judge to rule in habeas corpus cases. He believed, too, that it would be impossible to seat an impartial jury. When those motions were denied, he decided not to bother requesting a change of venue, which he understood would also be refused.1 Figure 5. Judge Charles R. Starr. Source: Portrait and Biographical Record of Kankakee County, Illinois (1893), 209. Bonfield later pointed to sectarian strife in the community as the cause of the sentiment against Theophilus. However, the partisanship of the principals in the case was mixed. Bonfield was a Universalist, although he was also a liberal contributor to the Episcopal church that his wife attended.2 The judge, Charles R. Starr, was a member of the Congregational church in Kankakee, but his wife was previously Unitarian and they were married in a Unitarian ceremony.3 Five of the twelve jurymen were Presbyterians, though not members of Theophilus’s church.4 To present her case, Elizabeth hired Stephen R. Moore, John Orr, and Harrison Loring. Moore, a Methodist, was ranked as “one of the foremost lawyers of the state.”5 His account would become the unofficial record of Packard’s trial after the official documents were lost in a courthouse fire. Moore argued that Theophilus, not Elizabeth, carried their “differences of opinion” over religious matters “from fireside to the pulpit” and made them “a matter of inquiry by the church.” This, he said, “resulted in open warfare” in which her views were “misrepresented . . . from the pulpit” and she was made “the subject of unjust criticism.”6 As one might suspect, Moore’s version of the proceedings received injured criticism from Theophilus and his supporters. Even Elizabeth admitted that Moore purposely left out some testimony, explaining that her brother-in-law and deacon Josephus Smith from her husband’s church “perjured themselves openly . . . [in] manufactured testimony against my moral character, which, when tested by cross-examination, would not hold together.”7 Theophilus’s attorneys called as witnesses three doctors, two members of his church, and his sister and brother-in-law. Each of the doctors had examined Packard at her husband’s request prior to her incarceration. Christopher Knott of Kankakee stated that he met with Packard on two occasions for thirty minutes each, after which he signed a certificate saying she was a monomaniac “partially deranged on religious matters.” Under cross-examination, Knott suggested that she was insane as was “three-fourths of the religious community ” and named as comparable examples Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Greeley, “and like persons.”8 Dr. J. W. Brown cited multiple reasons for his judgment that Packard was insane, including her claim that she was “in advance of the age thirty or forty years” and her objection to being called insane. Part of Brown’s testimony was delivered in multisyllabic terms that apparently evoked uproarious laughter from onlookers. Moore recounted that it took several minutes to restore order in the court. Packard later wrote, disdainfully, that Brown was a wheelwright who had “studied medicine just long enough” to believe “his From Courtroom to Activism 105 opinions would be entitled to infallibility, especially if given in the highflown language of an expert.”9 The third doctor, Joseph H. Way of Kankakee, testified that he had at first believed Packard was “somewhat deranged or excited” in matters relating to religion. But, conceding that he was “not much posted on disputed points in theology,” he admitted that he had since found other (presumably sane) people who held ideas similar to those of Packard.10 Abijah Dole, Theophilus Packard’s brother-in-law, testified that in frequent visits to the Packard home he had on several occasions found Packard “in an excited state of mind.” In tearful testimony, Dole seemed to hint of witchcraft. He recounted that he had been called to the house early...