Hidden Americans

Shoemaker with a Soul—George F. Johnson (1857–1948) could be called the Don Quixote of labor relations. He believed that workers and managers could get along fine if they just treated each other like family. He put that belief into practice in the first half of the twentieth century at Upstate New York’s Endicott Johnson Corporation, the largest shoe manufacturer in the United States at one time. Johnson called his way of doing business the Square Deal. As long as his workers did their job well, he promised to treat them right—a paternalistic outlook that seems downright quaint today, when companies dispassionately ship jobs overseas to add a few points to their profit margins. Johnson always kept his workers’ interests in mind. He provided them with generous medical coverage and subsidized housing, along with parks, playgrounds, a golf course, and a theater. He even refused to lay anyone off in the depths of the Great Depression. However, he was firmly opposed to unions. When a vote was held to unionize the company in 1940, 80 percent of his employees voted against it. Johnson’s death in 1948, along with growing imports of cheap foreign-made shoes, spelled the end of this kinder, gentler way of doing business.

The Unregenerate—Seth Wyman (1784–1843) could easily have lived an upright life—his wealthy father offered to set him up with his own farm—but Wyman preferred the pursuit of roguery. He summed up his career in the lengthy title of his posthumously published autobiography: The Life and Adventures of Seth Wyman, Embodying the Principal Events of a Life Spent in Robbery, Theft, Gambling, Passing Counterfeit Money, &c., &c. Wyman seemed to enjoy being bad, even as a youth. As he grew older, he ranged from his home state of New Hampshire into Maine and Massachusetts. Shoplifting was one of his steady capers, which sounds like a petty affair, although Wyman elevated it to an art, carrying off valuable items in his long cloak. He later specialized in passing counterfeit currency produced in Canada. Always on the move, Wyman frittered away his gains on booze, gambling, and women—fathering six children with one of his paramours. Frequently incarcerated for his crimes, Wyman never mended his ways until slowed by advancing age and injury (he took a fall at a building site during one of his rare attempts to earn an honest living). Before his death, he claimed to have undergone a religious conversion, perhaps hedging his final bet as aging people are known to do.

Modern Medicine Man—Yavapai Indian Carlos Montezuma (ca. 1866–1923) became one of the first Native Americans to earn a medical degree, although his path to becoming a physician was anything but smooth. Born in Arizona, Montezuma was kidnapped by Pima Indians when he was five and sold for $30 to a visiting photographer, who took the boy home to Chicago. The youngster eventually went to live with a minister in Urbana, Illinois. Always an adept student, Montezuma earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1884, followed five years later by a medical degree from the Chicago Medical College. While working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Montezuma came to believe that the agency exercised too much control over Native Americans, denying them freedom of speech and religion in an effort to stamp out their traditions. After a 1901 visit with his Yavapai relatives, he began campaigning for Native American rights. In 1911, he helped to found the Society of American Indians, a group dedicated to advancing Native American education, health care, and economic opportunities. During his final years, Montezuma fought for tribal land and water rights, along with citizenship for all Native Americans.

King Killer—Trained as a silk weaver in his native Italy, Gaetano Bresci (1869–1901) rebelled against the stern rule of King Umberto I as a youth. In his twenties, he was imprisoned for over a year for helping to organize a strike. Frustrated with Italy’s political and economic situation, he immigrated to the United States in 1897, landing a job in the silk industry in Paterson, New Jersey. Bresci prospered in America, although he kept his ties with the Italian anarchist movement. When soldiers in Milan massacred scores of protestors during bread riots in 1898, Bresci became furious. He returned to Europe in the spring of 1900. On July 29, he intercepted the carriage of Umberto I in the city of Monza. Bresci shot the monarch three times, immediately killing him. Captured and brought to trial, Bresci admitted to the murder, blaming it on the king’s repression of the people. In just one day, Bresci was convicted of regicide and sentenced to life in prison. He was found hanging in his cell a few months later. No one knows if he committed suicide or was done in by supporters of the monarchy. Bresci’s act of violence contributed to a wave of political assassinations and set off reprisals against anarchists and socialists in Europe and the United States.

I Scream, You Scream—One homespun device on the list of ingenious American inventions is the old-fashioned hand-cranked ice cream freezer. Few innovations have given so much pleasure to so many people as this nifty little machine. Barefoot children eagerly taking turns at the handle of an ice cream freezer is a rite of summer worthy of a Norman Rockwell painting. Those who cherish such scenes should take a moment to thank Nancy M. Johnson (1794–1890) of Philadelphia, the lady who invented the hand-cranked ice cream freezer in 1843. Before Johnson patented her “Artificial Freezer,” homemade ice cream was a luxury not many families could enjoy. Johnson simplified the labor-intensive process by placing the ingredients in a container that sat in a bucket filled with ice and salt (salt helped speed the freezing of the ice cream mixture). Turning the hand crank spun a paddle inside the fixed container, stirring the mixture until it was uniformly frozen. In some models today, the container spins around a fixed paddle, and motorized versions have taken much of the work—and fun—out of the whole procedure. But ever since 1843, the moment of glory has still come when the paddle is lifted out for that first taste of frozen bliss.

The Diamond and the Divas—In 1957, Vera Krupp (1909–1967) had enough money from her divorce settlement to do anything she desired. The beautiful German actress and naturalized U.S. citizen also had the flawless 33-carat Krupp Diamond, a gaudy bauble mounted on a ring that she wore everywhere. Vera had received the diamond from her former husband, Alfried Krupp, a German industrialist who’d supplied Adolf Hitler with weapons of war. After returning to the U.S., Vera purchased the Spring Mountain Ranch, a sprawling estate outside Las Vegas. There, on the evening of April 10, 1959, thieves forced their way into Krupp’s house and tore the ring containing the $275,000 diamond from her finger. The thieves also stole $700,000 in cash. Immediately after the heist, the FBI launched a nationwide manhunt. Agents soon arrested the thieves and recovered the diamond. Vera Krupp continued to wear the ring until her death. In 1968, actor Richard Burton paid $305,000 for the Krupp Diamond, which he gave to his then wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. After Taylor’s death in 2011, a South Korean group paid $8.8 million for the gem. Some say the lofty price had as much to do with the diamond’s association with the glamorous movie star as its inherent value. By then, many had forgotten that the glittering stone originally resided on Vera Krupp’s finger.

Golden State Moneybags—Wily old Sam Brannan (1819-1889) knew how to look out for number one, a skill that would make him California’s first millionaire. Born in Maine, Brannan moved to Kirtland, Ohio, as a teenager. Converting to Mormonism in 1842, he relocated to New York to publish church literature. After Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s murder in 1844, the sect’s leaders decided to head west. Brannan transported more than 200 Mormons by sea to California. He tried to establish a colony beyond San Francisco Bay, but when he learned that Brigham Young had chosen Utah as the church’s new homeland, he gave up the Mormon cause and concentrated on his own business affairs. He opened a general store near Sutter’s Fort on the Sacramento River. When gold was discovered there in 1848, Brannan sent word around the country, setting off the 1849 gold rush. The storekeeper made a fortune selling supplies to the flood of prospectors. For the next two decades, he lived the high life, gallivanting around San Francisco, opening banks and a flurry of companies, buying up huge swaths of land, and creating the Calistoga hot springs resort. But booze, a bad temper, and lawsuits did him in, and he died a pauper, buried in an unmarked grave.

Man of “Fiew” Scruples—Dashing, handsome Monroe Edwards (1808–1847) might have fared better if his spelling had been up to snuff. Born in Kentucky, Edwards made a bundle from an 1832 slave-trading voyage, which he used to buy a plantation in Texas. In 1836, he and a partner smuggled 170 Cuban slaves onto the plantation, but when Edwards tried to bilk the partner out of his share of the profits from the venture, he ended up being sued and losing everything. He then set out to swindle abolitionist groups by getting them to fund a phony plan to free his former slaves. When that plan faltered, Edwards turned to a bigger con. Pretending to be a wealthy cotton planter wanting to buy more slaves and equipment, he forged several letters that persuaded two New York brokers to advance him $50,000 ($1.8 million today). When the scam was discovered, prosecutors at the resulting trial produced bankers who identified Edwards as the man who’d cashed the illegally obtained brokers’ drafts. The most damning evidence, however, was the forged letters. Supposedly written by different people, they all had a similar misspelling—Edwards had consistently written “fiew” for “few.” Convicted and given a ten-year sentence, the dapper duper died in Sing Sing prison in 1847.

Start Your Engines—In the early 1890s, land transportation in America still consisted of trains and horse-drawn vehicles, but change was on the way. Steam-powered automobiles had been around for some time, and in 1885, Germany’s Karl Benz introduced the first practical gas-powered vehicle, a three-wheeler steered with a tiller. In 1893, two brothers in Massachusetts, Charles and Frank Duryea (1861–1938; 1869–1967), converted a secondhand carriage into a gasoline-powered car. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company became the first to build and sell gas-powered automobiles in the U.S. The company only made a limited number of vehicles, which were too expensive for the general public to afford. Many people scoffed at the horseless carriage, but in 1895, an automobile race from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back helped publicize the new mode of transportation. The Duryea entry, driven by Frank, tore along at an average of 7.3 miles per hour—taking home the $2,000 prize. The Chicago Times-Herald, the race’s sponsor, said that “persons who are inclined to decry the development of the horseless carriage will be forced to recognize it as an admitted mechanical achievement, highly adapted to some of the most urgent needs of our civilization.”

King of the Oklahoma Outlaws—Bill Doolin (1858–1896) did a serious about-face at age thirty-three. Born in Arkansas, the lanky farm boy left home in his early twenties, heading for the Oklahoma Territory, where he earned an honorable reputation as a ranch hand. Then in 1891, he and some friends decided to celebrate the Fourth of July in Coffeyville, Kansas. When local lawmen tried to take away their booze, the drunken cowboys shot the officers. Doolin fled town and joined the notorious Dalton Gang. The next year, the gang tried to hold up two banks in Coffeyville. Locals fought back, killing most of the robbers. Afterward, Doolin formed his own gang, the Wild Bunch. Over the next three years, Doolin preyed on stagecoaches, trains, and banks—and killed at least six men. In September 1893, lawmen descended on his hideout in Ingalls, Oklahoma. Following a bloody gunfight, Doolin escaped. He hid out until aches and pains drove him to seek relief in the mineral baths of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Deputy U.S. Marshal Bill Tilghman arrested him at the resort in January 1896, but Doolin broke out of jail while awaiting trial in Guthrie, Oklahoma. An informant later revealed he was hiding near Lawson, and in August 1896, a federal posse gunned him down.

Woman of Courage—Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) didn’t give up easily. Born to a family of Mississippi sharecroppers, she overcame every manner of insult and injury—from being forced to pick cotton as a child to being sterilized without her knowledge as a young woman. In 1962, she became deeply involved in the civil rights movement, a cause to which she dedicated the rest of her life. As a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, she helped register black voters. On the way home from a citizenship training course in 1963, she was arrested and savagely beaten while in police custody, leaving her with kidney damage and a limp. In 1964, she faced down party leaders at the Democratic National Convention, arguing that Mississippi’s white, anti-civil rights delegation didn’t represent all the people of the state. At the party’s 1968 convention, Hamer was named an official delegate. Although she lost a bid for a seat in the Mississippi Senate in 1971, Hamer continued to campaign for voting rights, economic opportunities, equal education, and social services for African Americans. When she died in 1977, Andrew Young, America’s ambassador to the United Nations, gave her eulogy.

Colonial Ogre—Patriot Samuel Adams called British Loyalist Ebenezer Richardson (1718–ca. 1780) “a detestable person.” Samuel’s second cousin John Adams characterized Richardson as “the most abandoned wretch in America.” Working for the British customs service, Richardson stirred deep hatreds by informing on American merchants who imported goods without paying duties to the crown. In 1766, he fingered Capt. Daniel Malcom for smuggling untaxed wines. Malcom threatened to shoot the customs collectors, who showed up at his house, and Richardson had to flee a crowd of colonists who discovered he was behind the raid. In February 1770, Richardson’s zeal got completely out of hand. When a crowd gathered to protest merchant Theophilus Lillie’s violation of a colonial agreement to boycott imported English goods, Richardson fired at the “damned Yankees,” killing eleven-year-old Christopher Seider. Barely escaping a lynch mob, Richardson was arrested and held for trial. Only two weeks later, British soldiers fired into a crowd during the infamous Boston Massacre. With colonial passions running high, Richardson was found guilty of murder. Saved by a royal pardon, he slithered his way down to Philadelphia and continued his role in the British customs service.

Mr. Everything—Jerome Lemelson (1923–1997) must have caused his wife to have trouble sleeping. That’s because Lemelson—one of the most prolific inventors ever—turned on the light several times each night to make notes about the latest innovation he’d dreamed up. With more than 600 patents to his credit in widely divergent fields—everything from medical devices to toys—Lemelson just couldn’t stop noodling. Born in New York, he earned degrees in aeronautical and industrial engineering, knowledge he put to use in government and business positions before becoming an independent inventor. Everyday products and technologies we owe entirely or in part to Lemelson include VCRs, camcorders, portable tape players, bar code scanners, and fax transmissions. One landmark creation was “machine vision”—a technology using video cameras and computers to guide industrial robots so they can assemble and move products and perform quality control checks. The technology underlies the automated precision manufacturing found in today’s electronics and automotive industries. Before his death, the fabulously wealthy Lemelson enhanced his legacy by funding a major program at MIT to recognize and encourage innovation.

A Grave Offense—Most people’s troubles end when they’re dead and buried, although things turned out differently for multimillionaire Alexander T. Stewart (1803–1876). When the New York department store mogul passed away, his widow laid him to rest in the family vault at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. Two years later, on November 7, 1878, church officials discovered that the grave had been broken into and Stewart’s remains stolen. In that era, recently buried bodies were often dug up and sold to medical schools for dissections. The thieves who robbed Stewart’s grave, however, had something else in mind. Led by a man calling himself Henry G. Romaine, the thieves held Stewart’s remains for ransom, a novel crime. Romaine sent a letter demanding $250,000 from Stewart’s wife for the return of her husband’s remains. After lengthy wrangling, Romaine finally agreed to settle for $20,000. A grandnephew of Mrs. Stewart delivered the ransom to a lonely country road in Westchester County, where he swapped it for a satchel of bones, along with a section of cloth from Stewart’s casket to prove their authenticity. The remains were reinterred at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City. The thieves who disturbed Stewart’s rest were never caught.

Faster Than Light—James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell (1903–1991) might have set all sorts of records in major league baseball had he not played before the color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson in 1946. As it was, Bell became one of the all-time greats of the old Negro Leagues. Bell starred on a number of teams, most notably the Pittsburgh Crawfords, regarded as one of the best squads ever assembled. Among Bell’s teammates were future National Baseball Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Judy Johnson, Josh Gibson, and Oscar Charleston. Bell began his career as a pitcher, but because of his amazing speed he was shifted to the outfield. Once timed zipping around the bags in twelve seconds, Bell recalled stealing 173 bases in 1933 (the modern era single season record is 130, set by Rickey Henderson in 1982). Satchel Paige said Bell was so speedy he could turn off the light in his room and be in bed before it was dark. Others claimed that Bell once hit a grounder up the middle and made it to second before the ball got there. One startling feat that is true is that he scored from first on a bunt in an all-star game. Bell, who turned down a major league contract in 1951—at age forty-eight!—was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974.

Pistol-Packin’ Nellie—Nellie Madison (1895–1953) had an affinity for the number six—six slugs in her pistol and six husbands to her credit, one of whom she would blast to kingdom come. Born Nellie May Mooney, Madison grew up on a Montana sheep ranch. At thirteen, she eloped with a local cowboy, although her parents had the marriage annulled. By 1930, the fast-living Madison had wed and divorced three more times. In 1933, she married Eric Madison, who turned out to be a wife-beater. The new Mrs. Madison ended that behavior in their Burbank, California, apartment on March 24, 1934, when she put her husband on a strict lead diet. Arrested and charged with first-degree murder, the tall, attractive widow was portrayed by the news media as the type of femme fatale that would become popular in noir fiction. On June 23, 1934, Madison was found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged—the first woman in California to face the death penalty. After a year on death row, she admitted to the killing, citing her husband’s abuse. When a previous wife of Eric Madison corroborated his abuse, Nellie Madison’s sentence was reduced to life in prison. In March 1943, she was set free. After one last marriage, she died in July 1953.

The Bee’s Knees—Lorenzo Langstroth (1810–1895) had three main interests—the ministry, teaching, and bees. Born in Philadelphia, Langstroth launched his career in religion and education after graduating from Yale. For several years, he alternated between preaching and teaching in Andover and Greenfield, Massachusetts. In 1848, he became the principal of a girls’ school in Philadelphia. During his spare time, Langstroth pursued his third passion: beekeeping. For centuries, bees had been kept in domed straw hives called skeps, which had certain drawbacks. For one thing, the closed hives made it hard to examine the bees for parasites or disease. A bigger problem was that the bees had to be driven off or killed in order to collect their honey, since the combs were attached to the inside walls of the skeps. To overcome these disadvantages, Langstroth designed a wooden beehive that opened at the top and featured removable frames, permitting inspection of the hive and extraction of the honeycombs without harming the bees. Created in 1851, the Langstroth hive is now used by three-fourths of the world’s beekeepers, but patent infringements in his lifetime kept “the father of modern beekeeping” from making much money from his invention.

A Wasted Life—Growing up in an impoverished California family in the 1920s and ’30s, Caryl Chessman (1921–1960) turned to petty thievery as a youngster. During high school, he ran with a crowd involved in burglary and car theft. In 1937, he was busted for stealing from a merchant’s till, and he was in and out of reform school for other crimes committed as a juvenile. He received his first prison sentence—five years to life in San Quentin—for robbing a gas station soon after being paroled from a work camp in 1940. In 1943, he was transferred to a minimum-security prison but promptly escaped, earning him a return to San Quentin. Paroled in 1947, he was arrested for robbery, kidnapping, and rape less than two months later. A jury didn’t believe his claims of innocence, and he was given the death penalty. While spending the next twelve years on death row, Chessman wrote four books. The autobiographical Cell 2455, Death Rowbecame an international bestseller and was made into a movie in 1955. Although Chessman won broad support from opponents of the death penalty, he was executed on May 2, 1960. Whether guilty or innocent of the deeds for which he died, there’s little doubt that he squandered his life and his obvious talents through crime.

Publishing Visionary—Hugo Gernsback (1884–1967) loved peering into the future. As the publisher of America’s first science fiction magazine, he helped popularize stories combining “scientific fact and prophetic vision.” Contributors complained about slow or nonexistent payments, but Gernsback’s status is reflected in the name of the top honor for sci-fi writers—the Hugo Awards. Immigrating to New York City from Luxembourg in 1904, Gernsback got his start selling parts and equipment to amateur radio operators. In 1908, he launched a parts catalog/magazine called Modern Electrics.In 1911, he began serializing a science fiction novel he’d written called Ralph 124C 41+. The story proved popular, leading Gernsback to publish other science fiction pieces. In 1926, he launched Amazing Stories, the first English-language magazine devoted exclusively to science fiction. Amazing Stories went bankrupt after three years, but Gernsback followed it with several similar magazines. While none of his science fiction titles thrived, Gernsback had success with his more mainstream magazines, including Science and Invention, which merged with Popular Mechanicsin 1931. A talented inventor, he also pioneered radio and television broadcasting in New York.

Monetizing the Dead—During the late nineteenth century’s explosion of interest in Spiritualism, phony mediums filled theaters and drawing rooms throughout America and Europe, gulling willing dupes out of whatever they could. Even prominent figures such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mary Todd Lincoln believed in the hocus-pocus. Among prominent Spiritualists, few were more brazen in their fakery than Ann O’Delia Diss Debar (ca. 1849–1911). Magician Harry Houdini—who did much to expose Spiritualism’s chicanery—noted that Diss Debar was “one of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known.” Claiming to be the daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the Kentucky-born trickster swindled a wealthy New York lawyer out of a valuable townhouse—earning six months in jail in 1888. Despite several other stints in the slammer, Diss Debar always bounced back, reinventing herself as Laura Horos, Vera Ava, or any of another half dozen aliases. In 1901, she was sentenced to seven years in an English prison for property fraud and sexual offenses. She ran cons in Baltimore, Chicago, and New Orleans during her career, and in 1909, she popped up in Cincinnati before finally disappearing.

Anonymous Benefactor—People tend to take the modern porta-potty for granted—if they give it any thought at all. But most of us can probably recall times when one of these outdoor conveniences has saved the day. The person who came up with the idea for today’s portable toilet remains nameless. The moveable outhouses are said to have originated in the 1940s, when workers at the Long Beach, California, shipyards were provided with onboard wooden johns so they wouldn’t waste time by traipsing back to the docks whenever Mother Nature called. Eventually, the primitive wooden toilets were replaced with fiberglass models, and today most porta-potties are made of polyethylene. One of the first companies to produce rental porta-potties was started in the 1950s by a chap named Andy Gump, whose Southern California company is still in business. Rental companies usually recommend one unit for every fifty persons at public gatherings—a ratio that might persuade some folks that they’d rather stay at home. At one appearance by the Pope in Germany, a mind-boggling 8,000 portable toilets were assembled. Now that’s something to think about…or not.

Both Hands in the Till—State legislator and ward boss George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) wasn’t your average politician. Oh, he was just as scheming and avaricious as the next officeholder, but unlike most of the prevaricating polecats with the audacity to call themselves public servants, Plunkitt didn’t hide his malfeasance. A leader in the legendary Tammany Hall political machine, which had a lock on New York City’s government from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, Plunkitt made a fortune by capitalizing on insider knowledge about public works projects. He called such profits “honest graft,” blithely excusing his corruption with the immortal phrase, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.” Machines like Tammany Hall once existed in nearly every big city in America. They were usually run on the principle that government exists primarily to fatten the bank accounts of the bosses and their pals—the familiar “spoils system,” with its flagrant patronage appointments and shadowy backroom deals. However, when it came to whitewashing their dishonesty, few of the old political bosses could match G. W. Plunkitt, a man who thought that abusing a position of trust was just good business.

The Black Edison—Even Thomas Edison had to tip his hat to Granville T. Woods (1856–1910), a black inventor who patented dozens of creations, selling many to giants such as General Electric, Westinghouse, and Bell Telephone. Woods managed to accomplish this in an era when African Americans had few chances for advancement. Born in Ohio, Woods quit school when he was ten to learn the skills of a machinist and blacksmith. He got much of his education on the job, in machine shops and steel mills, but he also attended night school and private classes. He worked his way up from railroad fireman to engineer, and by 1880 he’d become chief engineer on a British steamship, a position he gave up to establish his own research company in Cincinnati. His first patent was for an improved steam boiler furnace. Electrical innovations that he developed sped the rise of urban rail systems. One of his greatest inventions was the multiplex telegraph, which enabled communication between train stations and moving trains for the first time, improving efficiency and reducing accidents. The innovation was so successful that Edison tried to horn in on Woods’s patents. After losing his lawsuits, Edison tried to hire Woods, but the black inventor turned him down.

Pirate in Petticoats—Rachel Schmidt (ca. 1760–1789) may have had a biblical given name, but she was an unholy terror. Said to be the first female American pirate, she took part in the murders of some two dozen sailors in the early 1780s. Born on a farm near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Schmidt chafed under the discipline of her devout Presbyterian parents. She escaped by eloping with a veteran of the Revolutionary War, an iffy sort named George Wall. The couple settled in Boston, where Rachel found work as a maid while George went to sea on a fishing schooner. In 1781, George Wall came up with a devilish scheme that involved his wife and five of his friends. The gang pretended to be fishermen whose vessel had been disabled by a storm. Rachel’s job was to play the damsel in distress, calling out to any passing ship for help. When a rescuer came near, the pirates swarmed aboard, killing the crew, seizing their cargo, and sinking their ship. George Wall drowned at sea in 1782, leaving Rachel to continue her life of crime in Boston. In 1789, she was arrested for robbing a young woman. Confessing to acts of piracy, she made her final appearance at the end of a rope, the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts.