DOCKS, custom house and town had all vanished from sight when the revenue cutter rounded Whitehead Point and, at once, the south beach came into view, its carbonate sands sparkling in the light of a bright April morning. Soon the whole island would drop below the horizon, as the cutter Marion made its way gently over the reef into Hawk Channel and the broad Florida Strait.1
The welfare of the island engaged the cutter’s lone passenger for most of his journey, first by sea to Charleston, then by land to Washington and points further north.2 But it would be half a year before William A. Whitehead laid eyes once more on Key West.
Much had changed at the custom house in the fifteen months since Whitehead took charge as collector. In January 1831 he’d found, besides a boat’s crew of four men, only Thomas Eastin, “a man twice my age,” holding the position of inspector. With “both the business of the office and my own comfort” in mind, Whitehead gave priority to the immediate appointment of a deputy.3 During his long sojourn in the North, his choice to fill that position turned out to be of greater moment than he could have foreseen.
David Coffin Pinkham is thought to have been a Massachusetts native, very possibly from Nantucket, but the earliest definite record shows him practicing law in Louisville. Like many of his class and generation, Pinkham didn’t limit himself to one professional pursuit, but also entered the political arena and its confederate trades of newspaper publishing and printing.4 In 1825, he left Kentucky for Pensacola, where he restarted his legal practice and was twice elected to Florida’s territorial legislature. Three years later he quit the Panhandle for Key West, one of an influx of lawyers drawn to the Keys after Congress authorized a Superior Court for the south of the peninsula.5
Pinkham had probably entered his late 30s or early 40s when Whitehead named him deputy collector of the customs.6 Although “a man of gentlemanly bearing and fair education” he had, the collector admitted, no prior commercial experience. He “wrote an indifferent hand, and knew nothing of business forms or accounts.” Whitehead professed some surprise “that under these circumstances we should have harmonized so well,” but he’d no doubt settled on Pinkham as someone who, although a good deal older (Whitehead was just 21), would respect his expertise and acknowledge his authority. A faithful lieutenant would be indispensable, especially during an absence as long as Whitehead’s in 1832.
Once in the North, at a remove of a thousand miles or more, Whitehead could keep tabs only by means of sporadic correspondence from his deputy and others on Key West, or scraps of news reprinted in northern papers. That spring and summer were not a quiet time in the Keys, but the opening of Judge James Webb’s court in May settled at least one protracted controversy, the salvage case of the ill-starred brig Halcyon. Whitehead’s deputy, still a practicing attorney, had argued the case on behalf of the salvors, the notorious wrecking captain Jacob Housman at their head. An initial award for their services, 56.25% of the proceeds from sale of the vessel–held up as emblematic of the corrupt proceedings for which the wrecking economy of the Keys was widely known–was knocked down on appeal to just 25%.7
In response to the worldwide cholera epidemic of that year, Key West city fathers imposed a quarantine in April on vessels arriving from ports known to be affected. Then, in July, they made the restrictions much tighter: quarantine and a steep fine were required of anyone boarding or leaving an incoming vessel before inspection by the health officer of the port.8 This prohibition complicated the enforcement of the revenue laws with which Pinkham was entrusted, and for which Whitehead ultimately was responsible. And the deputy’s task was made more difficult still by the authorities’ declining to require health inspections after sunset. This exposed the port to a different sort of epidemic, one of after-hours smuggling.
Pinkham promised to cooperate with the city insofar as possible, even allowing the port physician use of the revenue boat. But if a vessel entered with a foreign cargo when this officer was not on hand, its goods could easily be offloaded and delivered without paying duty. One night in August, Pinkham learned that such a vessel had arrived from Havana and was anchored about 20 yards from the wharf. The health inspector being at home about a mile away, a customs inspector (Pinkham or another) approached in a small boat: “having ascertained that there was no sickness on board he proceeded to discharge his duty.” The next day, the authorities charged this officer with violating the ordinance, and fined him $300.9
On the 13th and 14th of August, a fierce gale battered the Keys. “We apprehend,” announced the next day’s Key West Gazette, “that many vessels have been wrecked or injured by it.”10 Wrecking captains were thus alerted to the prospect of profitable work relieving disabled craft and recovering their cargoes. Whitehead, though far away, knew well that the harbor would bustle with schooners, sloops and fishing smacks striking out for the Reef and returning with cargo and articles to be sorted, entered, appraised and charged duty. Such a flurry of activity would entail long days for his deputy and for the inspectors, weighers and gaugers working under him.
Clearly there would be much to catch up on when Whitehead set foot again in the custom house. But nothing could have prepared the collector for the document awaiting him when he returned to his desk in October:
We the undersigned beg leave to represent that during your absence, those who have been obligated to transact business at the Customs House, have with very few exceptions, been subjected to great inconvenience and unpleasant feelings in consequence of the arrogance and insolence of D. C. Pinkham your Deputy.
Every species of petty tyranny has been manifested in the discharge of his official duties, indicative of a bad heart, and a weak head.
He has neither the integrity, patience or temper, talent for or knowledge of business, so indispensably necessary for a public officer.
He has suffered himself invariably to be actuated and guided in the transactions of his official duties by his personal feelings and private concerns.
We are prepared to set forth these facts by the evidence of numerous witnesses.
Subscribing to this manifesto were four Key West citizens whom Whitehead knew well. And while the four went on to assure him of their personal esteem, and their confidence in his “willingness to do Justice to the feelings and for the injuries of those who have been aggrieved,” they attached a promise that, “should this means fail,” they wouldn’t hesitate to apply for Pinkham’s removal to the Secretary of the Treasury, Whitehead’s superior.11
With their presentment they submitted names of a half dozen distinguished gentlemen, Judge Webb’s at the top of the list, who they said were prepared to speak of “the public opinion, feeling and sentiment” regarding the deputy’s conduct during his superior’s six-month absence. Whitehead obligingly wrote to all six, to learn particularly the feelings of “those persons who have business in my office. The investigation,” he declared, “however painful it may be, is a duty which I conceive I owe to myself and to all parties concerned.”12
The quartet of David Pinkham’s accusers were all prominent if not universally respected figures in the island’s early development. Thomas Eastin, lone inspector of the customs when Whitehead arrived in 1831, had something of a checkered past. Once the editor of Key West’s first newspaper, he’d made an unsuccessful bid for the collector’s job, and gotten into a row with a previous deputy collector. At the time of Whitehead’s return from the North, Eastin had just quit the inspector’s position for that of U.S. marshal.13 Henry S. Waterhouse, a bookish, eccentric physician and druggist and the island’s first postmaster, also worked now and then as temporary inspector of the customs, as well as weigher, gauger and measurer of imported articles.14 Oliver O’Hara, Key West’s first mayor, served mercantile houses both foreign and domestic as a commission agent, and was Great Britain’s vice consul on the island. O’Hara and Pinkham had been on opposite sides in the Halcyon case. Finally there was Benjamin B. Strobel, another doctor; he launched and operated the island’s second newspaper, the Gazette, alongside his duties as surgeon to the army post, town health officer and port physician. As had O’Hara, Strobel found David Pinkham his adversary in a suit at law, a case more delicate and personal, and apparently still pending: Strobel sued Jacob Housman and his wife for alleging that he revealed the identity of an unmarried patient on whom he’d performed an abortion. Pinkham was the attorney for the defense.15
If the reputations of these four men preceded them, the nature of their grievances seemed to Whitehead at first general and rather opaque. He got little clarity, at least in writing, from the six leading citizens he consulted. Three of them conceded that Pinkham was a very unpopular figure in the community, but on what basis they couldn’t say.16
The four complainants, meanwhile, began assembling evidence in the form of affidavits to place before Whitehead. In his capacity as justice of the peace, Henry Waterhouse took one sworn statement from O’Hara and two from Strobel. According to O’Hara’s statement, the deputy had improperly denied him a bond for duties on certain imported goods.17 One of Strobel’s affidavits accused Pinkham of speaking to him in a “haughty, overbearing and insolent manner” about replacing a recently deceased lighthouse keeper. Strobel’s other statement complained of the peremptory discharge of a sailor, until then in Strobel’s care, on the pretext that the hospital fund for sick and disabled mariners administered by the collector had been exhausted.18
The statements of the other two accusers had more directly to do with their employment under Pinkham. Thomas Eastin cited three specific altercations–including one over his boarding an arriving vessel with the health inspector in a boat–and claimed the deputy had used violent or ungentlemanly language toward him at each of these times.19 The charges leveled by Henry Waterhouse were filled with passion, rhetorical flourish and prolixity, but so devoid of details that Whitehead had to insist on specifics:
What duties has he called upon you to perform, for which he has not furnished you with proper data?
In what manner has he illtreated and abused you for not having performed such duties?
In what manner has he as Deputy Collector attempted to villify [sic] your character as a “subordinate agent of the Customs”?
How have you been prevented from obtaining a “just remuneration” for duties performed, from Mr. Pinkhams failing in his “promises” & what were those promises?
Towards whom has he conducted himself in your presence in his capacity of Deputy Collector “in a haughty, tyrannical, overbearing and abusive manner”? Please to specify names and time.20
Oliver O’Hara’s complaint, a part of Eastin’s and the entirety of Waterhouse’s were rooted in the aftermath of the violent storm that August. Transatlantic commerce had suffered, much as Strobel’s Gazette predicted, relegating large shipments of foreign goods to the wharves and warehouses of the Keys. The American ship Shepard, making its way from Havana to Hamburg laden with some 2,400 boxes of sugar, had gone ashore in the upper Keys, while a British vessel, Eliza Plummer, headed from Kingston to Liverpool with Jamaican rum, sugar and Madeira wine, foundered in sight of the many watchful eyes onshore at Key West.21
Deputy Pinkham, facing not only this incoming cargo but chains, cables, anchors and furniture from the lost Eliza Plummer, much of it having to be weighed and all of it subject to duty prior to its imminent sale, pressed Thomas Eastin and Henry Waterhouse into service. According to the affidavit of the latter, when Pinkham discovered him weighing items not requiring it, he was berated “for not knowing which parcels were and which were not to be weighed.” The deputy also withheld from him appraisers’ returns needed to calculate damage. And by stopping him in the middle of his work, Pinkham had made it plain, without actually saying so, that he considered Waterhouse incompetent or untrustworthy. “If this was not plainly & incontrovertibly on his part an ‘attempt to villify my character’,” said the temporary inspector, “I do not either understand the meaning of a plain action, or the import of terms.”22
Waterhouse and Eastin further accused Pinkham of denying them a “just remuneration” for their services, having first promised them the weighing of Shepard’s entire cargo of sugar, then trusting them only with the few boxes that were damaged, assigning the bulk of it to others. Eastin wound up his deposition by saying that Pinkham was “obnoxious” to many in Key West, and that he’d heard “general complaints” of the deputy collector’s “tyranny and hauteur” from the seafaring population.23
Whitehead was not long in digesting these and other charges before he presented them to his deputy for a response. Pinkham, preliminary to giving an answer, chose to address the matter of his alleged unpopularity by gathering testimonials to his professionalism and willing service to merchants and ship masters. They were of one mind in their satisfaction with Pinkham’s performance, regarding any differences of opinion as resulting from his strict compliance with the law. Some even vouched for the propriety with which he treated his subordinate officers.24
In a lengthy letter to Whitehead, Pinkham then addressed the complaints of each of his accusers in turn. He had stricken the injured sailor from the hospital rolls based on Benjamin Strobel’s admission that he no longer needed care but was kept on because he had no other means of support. It was “to correct the cupidity of Doctors & nurses” that Pinkham monitored the state of marine hospital patients. The sailor in question was, in fact, returned to the rolls when Pinkham judged that he wasn’t yet recovered, and eventually received paid passage off the island.
Appointed agent for Eliza Plummer and its cargo, Oliver O’Hara had already given bonds for nearly $18,000 in duties when he declared he would sell the ship’s entire cargo at auction. When he presented another bond for $205, and would not postpone the sale until Whitehead’s return, Pinkham insisted those duties be paid in cash, which O’Hara would not do. Pinkham stood by his judgment: “had I taken his bond, the charge of partiality and personal feeling would have been much more applicable to me than at present.”25
The more elaborate complaints of his sometime assistants the deputy collector was compelled to treat at considerable length. But the substance of his defense came down to the one man’s inattention, the other’s duplicity, and the insubordination of both. On Eastin’s watch, “a great deal of petty smuggling was carried on” in which at times he seemed to be complicit, and he openly defied an order of Pinkham’s, leading to his suspension from the inspector’s job. Found weighing articles that he knew didn’t need to be weighed, Waterhouse was certainly trying, “by trick and artifice,” to increase his fees, and he declined to follow directions in the weighing of the sugar, producing returns that Pinkham regarded as “worse than useless.” To the charge of attempting to “vilify his character as a subordinate agent of the Customs,” Pinkham stated that he must plead guilty if it was done in the course of preventing Waterhouse from illegally enlarging his income.
In a summation such as one would expect from a defense attorney, Pinkham adverted to the ill-will and baseness of his attackers. During most of the time the collector was absent, leaving his deputy “a very difficult and arduous duty to discharge,” they had operated to injure and discredit him. In what he wryly termed this “honorable employment” of theirs, “Dr. Strobel was the principal actor, and Waterhouse the willing instrument….” The former, having no other knowledge of custom house business than what he was paid for hospital patients, seemed annoyed mainly “that I did not keep them there as long as he wished.” Waterhouse had proved to be a man “full of low cunning,” and recently had been indicted for theft. Eastin’s “gross negligence & incapacity,” he predicted, would surely manifest itself in his new position as marshal. And O’Hara was “a man vain, proud & overbearing in his private character, entirely ignorant of the most ordinary knowledge or duties of a merchant, & with vanity equal to his ignorance.”26
The deputy collector’s job was no doubt a coveted position. When Whitehead first advertised it, there had been eight applications in the first twenty-four hours. Upon David Pinkham’s selection, it was recalled, there was “great uneasiness” in the community, “particularly the commercial & mercantile part of it,” which only increased when it became known that Whitehead would be leaving on a visit to the North.27 It’s curious, therefore, that among the nearly 20,000 words about Pinkham’s case filling 85 foolscap pages in the National Archives, most of them laboriously transcribed from originals by Whitehead and by Pinkham’s successor Stephen Mallory, there’s hardly a whisper from anyone taking the side of Pinkham’s accusers. It’s difficult to know how to regard this near unanimity of satisfaction with a man who was thought so unpopular. But William Whitehead had chosen him, and would stand by him. The high esteem in which Whitehead was held may have done much to mitigate the perceived defects of his deputy.
Indeed, Whitehead saw the complaints of Pinkham’s accusers for what they were. “I have not been unmindful that two of you,” he wrote, “have repeatedly & openly expressed to me the personal dislike & enmity that you have felt towards him, long before any of the acts now complained of occurred.” Eastin and Waterhouse, in the collector’s absence and at the instigation probably of Strobel, if not of O’Hara as well, had allowed their personal hostility to Pinkham to be transformed into something more malignant. Whitehead fully endorsed his deputy’s actions concerning hospital patients, supported his ruling on the custom house bond, and agreed with the censure of his subordinates. If any of the complainants wished to continue seeking redress for their grievances, he felt the right course would be “to apply to the party from whom the injuries have been received.”28
One detail in Henry Waterhouse’s charges, however, remained to be clarified: a mention of “perquisites” he and Eastin expected from gauging the rum and wine saved from the ship Eliza Plummer. It appeared Waterhouse and others were claiming the right to set aside some of the imported liquors for their own consumption, or to sell. Pinkham had questioned this right, he said, only relenting once he was informed by certain reputable merchants that it was customary at Key West and elsewhere.29 But Whitehead notified both Waterhouse and Pinkham of his “unqualified disapprobation” of the practice, regretting that in his absence “it was done so openly and as if it was a right possessed by the officers.” This prompted his deputy to prepare a further statement to the effect that he had received no liquor other than samples of wine for revenue purposes.30
It would fall to Whitehead to report that his deputy left this statement unsworn, for much more had to be resolved than a minor question of embezzled liquor. Pinkham was restored to his post, but Benjamin Strobel, who had shut down the Key West Gazette and closed his medical practice, remained a presence on the island and an annoyance to the deputy collector.31 “The Doctor, whose complaints were least in consequence if at all,” so persisted in his abuse of Pinkham that “nothing would do but he must seek redress by standing up to be shot”: Pinkham, who knew nothing of firearms, challenged Strobel to a duel.32
This turn of events can be variously explained, but it’s very likely that Strobel, dissatisfied with Whitehead’s refusal to dismiss his deputy, had gone over his head and complained to Washington. Otherwise the Treasury Department would have known little of the affair.33
The doctor and the deputy met by appointment before daybreak on 23 March 1833, on the south beach, Key West’s usual “field of honor.” It wasn’t long before Pinkham collapsed with a ball lodged in his breast. His friends carried him home, where he lingered for almost three weeks before expiring.34
On the day of Pinkham’s death, Whitehead received a letter from Treasury concerning the charges against him. He replied with the news that Pinkham was no more, forwarding his deputy’s answer and his own settlement of the matter, with the wish that, “as a satisfaction to his friends and to myself,” the department would indicate whether he had proceeded appropriately. In June, the department fully affirmed his decision, and notified him that none of the complainants should be employed by the custom house in future.35
Benjamin Strobel left the island soon after the duel, it is believed for good, so it seems strange to find from him anything like a posthumous vindication of his enemy. Yet here is what he wrote in a Charleston paper that summer:
… great antipathies will exist against public officers, among those, whom it is their duty to bring to justice. This hostility has been repeatedly manifested by charges preferred to the heads of department at Washington. In many cases these charges are secretly preferred, and it is not at all times in the power of an officer to meet them as they should be met. … My object is to urge the importance and necessity (whether an Officer be right or wrong) of affording him a fair chance of vindication. More especially, when the peculiar difficulties of his situation are taken into consideration. Where such causes exist, a ready pretext will be found in the most trifling incident upon which to ground the most serious charges, and an efficient Officer might be dismissed on account of animosities created by a faithful discharge of his duties.36
Whitehead would have had good cause to doubt Strobel’s sincerity here, but the opinion of custom house work offered to Pinkham by another Key West figure–a complicated character in his own right–harmonized well enough with Whitehead’s own that he chose to repeat its final line:
One thing I am certain of, that any man in the same office as yourself who is strictly correct in all its details, can not fail to be unpopular for a time with some part of the community, but in the end he will become more popular when it is seen that he acts only from a sense of duty to his government.
Popularity among officers of the Customs is what I have never seen in any country, & I apprehend that our Government will always prefer to have strict, faithful & correct Custom house officers to popular ones.37
Copyright © 2026 Gregory J. Guderian
Last updated 2026.10.21
[1] The log book of Marion records the beginning of this journey on Saturday, 7 April 1832: “at 8 AM got under weigh at 10 crosst the reef with the Collector of the port of Key West on board….” Marion, vol. 1: Jan. 1832–Mar. 1835, Logs of Revenue Cutters and Coast Guard Vessels, 1819–1941, Record Group 26, Records of the United States Coast Guard, National Archives and Records Administration.
[2] Whitehead spent sixteen days in the capital in April and May. His lobbying there for Key West’s commercial interests is treated in a previous post, 100–Last dance. His travels that summer reached at least as far as New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he discussed development of the Key West salt ponds with John W. C. Fleeming, a co-owner of the island: see my post 038–White gold.
[3] “Childhood & youth of W. A. Whitehead 1810–1830,” a manuscript volume at the Florida Keys History Center, Monroe County Library, Key West, Florida (hereafter “Whitehead, ‘Childhood & youth’”), transcription page 29.
[4] “David C. Pinkham,” Louisville (Ky.) public advertiser 21 February 1821 4:4. Another former Louisville jurist, Algernon S. Thruston, was Whitehead’s immediate predecessor as collector at Key West: “Attornies and Counsellors at Law,” Morning post and commercial advertiser (Louisville, Ky.) 16 July 1824 4:5. Pinkham sold his interest in the Morning Post in 1824: Morning post and commercial advertiser 28 September 1824 3:1, 26 November 1824 4:3. A Massachusetts nativity is mentioned in the report of Pinkham’s death printed by The evening post (New York, N.Y.) 25 April 1833 2:7, but not in The Charleston (S.C.) courier 24 April 1833 2:3.
[5] Pensacola (Fla.) gazette and West Florida advertiser 4 June 1825 3:5, 29 July 1826 3:2, 6 October 1826 2:1, 20 July 1827 3:3; Pensacola (Fla.) gazette and Florida advertiser 10 June 1828 3:4. Whitehead’s portrayals of Pinkham include the description in Whitehead, “Childhood & youth,” and the details published in his “Reminiscences of Key West No. 9,” in Key of the Gulf (Key West, Fla.) May or June 1877 (hereafter “Whitehead, ‘Reminiscences No. 9’”). This column with others in the series was reprinted by Thelma Peters, “William Adee Whitehead’s Reminiscences of Key West,” Tequesta: the journal of the Historical Association of Florida 1:25 (1965) (3-42) 27-30; references to Peters’s text appear in parentheses thus: (Peters 27).
[6] Pinkham “was between thirty-five and forty years of age” when he came to the island in 1828: Whitehead, “Reminiscences No. 9” (Peters 27).
[7] On the Halcyon case and its resolution see W. Randy Miller, “The case of the brig Halcyon: a study in old Key West admiralty law,” Journal of maritime law and commerce 27:2 (April 1996) 311-322; Key West (Fla.) gazette 30 November 1831 1:2-3, 16 May 1832 3:1, 23 May 1832 1:1-4. Benjamin B. Strobel denounced the arbitration system that made the original award in the case, in “Sketches of Florida–No. 9. Key West,” The Charleston (S.C.) Mercury 13 July 1833 2:3, quoted in E. A. Hammond, ed. “Wreckers and wrecking on the Florida Reef, 1829–1832,” The Florida historical quarterly 41:3 (January 1963) (239-273) 248 note 18; cf. ibid. 271.
[8] “Ordinance–No. 5,” Key West gazette 9 May 1832 1:2; “An ordinance establishing quarantine regulations for the Port of Key West,” Key West gazette 25 July 1832 1:1-2.
[9] A 1799 Act of Congress, “Respecting Quarantine and Health Laws,” ordered federal officers to cooperate with the health laws “of any state,” and in July 1832 Congress approved use of revenue boats and officers to enforce local quarantine laws. The August incident, however, led both Pinkham and Whitehead to ask the Treasury Department for clarification. The Secretary answered Whitehead that such laws “are not to prevent these [revenue] officers from performing their respective duties,” and that the Act of 1799 applied only to the laws of states, not of territories such as Florida. D. C. Pinkham, Key West 14 August 1832, to Louis McLane; William A. Whitehead, Perth Amboy 29 August 1832, to Louis McLane; Louis McLane, Treasury Department 17 September 1832, to William A. Whitehead: copies in “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West, Dec. 13, 1826 to Mar. 29, 1833,” Correspondence of the Secretary of the Treasury with Collectors of Customs, 1789–1833, Record Group 56, General Records of the Department of the Treasury, National Archives and Records Administration, Microcopy 178, Roll 38 (Washington 1956; hereafter “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West”), 116, 81, 80. (McLane’s reply is also copied in Letters sent by the Secretary of the Treasury to Collectors of Customs at all ports (1789–1847) and at small ports (1847–78), Record Group 56, General Records of the Department of the Treasury, National Archives and Records Administration, Microcopy no. 175 (Washington 1965; hereafter “Letters sent to Collectors”), vol. F, 454-455.
[10] The Charleston courier 28 August 1832 2:6 (cf. 2:3) and The Charleston Mercury 28 August 1832 3:2, reprinting an item from the (apparently lost) Key West gazette of 15 August 1832.
[11] H. S. Waterhouse et al., Key West 13 October 1832, to William A. Whitehead, copied in Letters Received Relating to Charges Against Customs Officers, 1833–61, Record Group 56, General Records of the Department of the Treasury, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter “Charges against Customs Officers”) 4:106. The correspondence and other documentation in this series consist mainly of copies supplied by Whitehead to the Treasury Department; original letters are so indicated below.
[12] W. A. Whitehead, Key West 22 October 1832, to James Webb et al., Charges against Customs Officers 4:111. Besides Webb, the accusers referred Whitehead to Edward Chandler, Lt. Francis D. Newcomb, Alexander H. Day, Pardon C. Greene and Fielding A. Browne. For their responses, see Charges against Customs Officers 4:112-114. Waterhouse on 20 November wrote to some if not all of these men directly, apparently not knowing or trusting that Whitehead had contacted them: see Edward Chandler, Key West 30 November 1832, to Henry S. Waterhouse (original letter), and James Webb, 12 December 1832, to Henry S. Waterhouse (original letter), Charges against Customs Officers 4:109, 108.
[13] For Thomas Eastin’s career in printing and publishing, see my previous post 018–Imprints. Eastin pinned his hopes of replacing collector Algernon S. Thruston, “who has become obnoxious to a large portion of the Population of the Island,” on his unwavering devotion to the party of Andrew Jackson; yet it was to Thruston that he owed his appointment as inspector. Shortly before Whitehead took office, Eastin found it necessary to defend himself against unspecified charges by the deputy collector (probably A. B. Fontaine, whom Thruston left in command during long periods of absence). Thomas Eastin, Key West 14 April 1829 and Tallahassee 29 November 1830, to Andrew J. Donelson, in Andrew Jackson Donelson Papers, Library of Congress, Box 2 Reel 2; S. D. Ingham, Treasury Department 25 August 1829, to A. S. Thruston, in Letters sent to Collectors, vol. E, 227. Eastin’s commission as marshal of the Southern District of Florida is recorded on two different dates, 22 September and 20 December 1832: Clarence Edwin Carter, ed. The territorial papers of the United States. Volume XXIV. The Territory of Florida 1828–1834 (Washington 1959) 736-737, 767.
[14] Whitehead’s description of Waterhouse, on which I drew in my previous post 017–Talk not to me of doctors, was published as “Reminiscences of Key West, No. 4,” Key of the Gulf 23 April 1877, and reprinted by Thelma Peters, “William Adee Whitehead’s Reminiscences of Key West,” Tequesta: the journal of the Historical Association of Florida 1:25 (1965) (3-42) 13-16. See also the vignette of Waterhouse in “Sketches of Florida. By Dr. B. B. Strobel. No. XI,” The Charleston courier 19 May 1837 2:3 (“The medical consultation”).
[15] A certain Captain Hitchcock, master of the brig Enterprise, was recorded as leaving the island to avoid arraignment for slander, having stated that he’d had sexual intercourse with one “Miss H. Foote a companion of Mrs Pinkham….” Harriett Newel Foote is thought to have been Strobel’s patient. William R. Hackley, Diary, in Goulding Collection, Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, MSS 0-128, entry of 25 March 1831. Later that spring, “Miss Foot” sailed for New York with the Pinkhams and John Whitehead: Key West gazette 8 June 1831 3:3.
[16] “I will candidly say that Mr. Pinkham is exceedingly unpopular; but from what causes I do not know of my own knowledge: All the information that I have upon this subject, depending entirely upon hearsay.” Edward Chandler, Key West 25 October 1832, to William A. Whitehead. “In regard … to the general sentiments of the community towards Mr. P. I must needs say, they operate at this time very much to his prejudice, and I have heard repeated accusations made against him of the nature of the charges preferred.” F. A. Browne, Key West 27 October 1832, to William A. Whitehead. Summarizing his reply to Whitehead for Dr. Waterhouse, Judge Webb added in conclusion, “Mr. Pinkham I believe is unpopular generally, but whether it is owing principally to his official or personal deportment, I am not prepared to say.” James Webb, Key West 12 December 1832, to Henry S. Waterhouse (original letter). Charges against Customs Officers 4:114, 112, 108.
[17] Affidavit of O. O’Hara, 13 October 1832, Charges against Customs Officers 4:107.
[18] Affidavits of B. B. Strobel, 13 and 15 October 1832, Charges against Customs Officers 4:106. Supporting the second statement were two more from the injured sailor and a witness, together with a statement from O’Hara, obtained by Strobel five months earlier, suggesting that he’d been building his case against Pinkham for some time. Affidavits of William Russell and George Lehman, 19 and 20 May 1832, O. O’Hara, Key West 21 May 1832, to Dr. Strobel, Charges against Customs Officers 4:106-107. Ships’ captains deducted hospital money from seamen’s monthly wages and paid it through custom houses to the Treasury Department; it was then redistributed to custom houses for disbursement. There being no hospital in Key West, sick and disabled seamen were cared for in boarding houses, but the amount in the fund fluctuated depending on the volume of trade: in 1831 the amount of hospital money collected at Key West was nearly double expenses, whereas 1832 expenditures were more than twice the amount taken in. Contracts, payments, &c.–Treasury Department. Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, transmitting statements of contracts authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury… (22d Cong., 2d Sess. H. Rept. 108) 14-15, (23d Cong., 1st Sess. H. Rept. 124) 12-13. While in Washington in May, Whitehead had appealed to the Secretary of the Treasury, both personally and in writing, for an increase in the hospital fund’s “altogether inadequate” allowance in ports south of the Potomac (the Treasury capped expenses at $3 weekly for board and nursing, 25¢ daily for the attendance of a physician, and $6 for burial), but his efforts were unavailing. He also proposed provision of a dormitory for convalescing mariners, as an alternative to boarding houses. William A. Whitehead, Washington 9 May 1832, to Louis McLane; Louis McLane, Treasury Department 10 May 1832, to William A. Whitehead: “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 114, 78. (McLane’s reply is also copied in Letters sent to Collectors, vol. F, 396-397.) The deputy of Whitehead’s predecessor had likewise complained that it was impossible to find aid at the prices stipulated: A. B. Fontaine, Key West 8 September 1830, to Samuel D. Ingham, “Letters to and from the Collector, Key West,” 93.
[19] Deposition of Thomas Eastin, 14 November 1832, Charges against Customs Officers 4:107.
[20] Affidavit of Henry S. Waterhouse, 14 November 1832; W. A. Whitehead, 18 November 1832, to H. S. Waterhouse: Charges against Customs Officers 4:107.
[21] The Charleston courier 22 August 1832 2:6; “The wrecks,” Key West gazette 29 August 1832 1:4-2:1; “From Key West,” The Charleston courier 24 September 1832 2:2. The custom house entries of cargo and other items from the two wrecks were recorded, with later adjustments by Whitehead, in a surviving Key West impost book, part of Impost Books 1831–1887, Collection District of Key West, Florida, Record Group 36, Records of the U.S. Customs Service, National Archives and Records Administration.
[22] Affidavit of Henry S. Waterhouse, 14 November 1832; H. S. Waterhouse, Key West 19 November 1832, to W. A. Whitehead: Charges against Customs Officers 4:107.
[23] Deposition of Thomas Eastin, 14 November 1832, Charges against Customs Officers 4:107.
[24] From 21 November 1832 to 12 January 1833, no fewer than sixteen merchants and ships’ captains signed letters or affidavits testifying to Pinkham’s faithful exercise of his duties and respectful conduct during the length of Whitehead’s absence; copies are found in Charges against Customs Officers 4:113, 117, 118, 120. These statements, “voluntarily furnished” according to Pinkham by “more than seven eighths of the persons who ever have occasion to do business at the Custom House,” proved that the charge of unpopularity was grounded in “Malice and falsehood.” D. C. Pinkham, undated, to William A. Whitehead, Charges against Customs Officers 4:[115?].
[25] D. C. Pinkham, undated, to William A. Whitehead, Charges against Customs Officers 4:[115?].
[26] D. C. Pinkham, undated, to William A. Whitehead, Charges against Customs Officers 4:[115?].
[27] Whitehead, “Childhood & youth” 29; Edward Chandler, Key West 30 November 1832, to Henry S. Waterhouse, Charges against Customs Officers 4:109 (original letter).
[28] Before explaining how he arrived at his conclusions, Whitehead delivered the crushing verdict: “The investigation of such portions of the charges as required my examination has eventuated in a firm persuasion, that the quantity of vituperation & abuse contained in your first communication (written by H. S. Waterhouse) is uncalled for, & that I do not consider D. C. Pinkham Deputy Collector as meriting the dismissal from office you request.” W. A. Whitehead, 26 January 1833, to O. O’Hara et al., Charges against Customs Officers 4:121.
[29] “The Affidavit of D. C. Pinkham Deputy Coll. in relation to the Gauging of the Wines & Spirits of the Eliza Plummer’s Cargo,” Charges against Customs Officers 4:121. Waterhouse, according to one prominent merchant, put aside 40-50 gallons of rum from Eliza Plummer, “which he sold without paying duty on. I spoke to him frequently about it & he said it was a perquisite allowed to all Gaugers.” Richard Fitzpatrick, 5 January 1833, to D. C. Pinkham, Charges against Customs Officers 4:[116?].
[30] W. A. Whitehead, Key West 26 January 1833, to O. O’Hara et al.; W. A. Whitehead, Key West 30 January 1833, to H. S. Waterhouse; W. A. Whitehead, undated, to D. C. Pinkham; “The Affidavit of D. C. Pinkham Deputy Coll. in relation to the Gauging of the Wines & Spirits of the Eliza Plummer’s Cargo”: Charges against Customs Officers 4:121.
[31] Although Strobel didn’t make good on his avowed intention to leave Key West permanently before the following spring, he used the pages of the Gazette to announce his retirement “from his practice in this city” and, in what would be the newspaper’s final issue, the closing of his “Editorial career.” The newspaper’s last issue also communicated with outrage a report that the crews of two wrecking smacks “and certain boats” had plundered the private property on the wrecked Eliza Plummer belonging to the captain and passengers. Whatever the robbers didn’t ruin or consume (“About 36 dozen bottles of wine, ale and porter, the private stores of the Captain, were thus destroyed!”) they claimed as salvage and sold at auction. The deputy collector then charged duties on the loot, “as he stated … however much against his will,” to satisfy what the Gazette called “the voracity of Uncle Sam….” Unknown persons subsequently set fire to the British ship, presumably to get at cargo in the hold and the copper cladding of its hull; Oliver O’Hara offered a reward for information leading to the conviction of the culprits. Judge Webb reduced the salvage awards decreed to the two smacks involved, to compensate for property improperly taken or destroyed by their crews. “A note,” Key West gazette 29 August 1832 2:1; “Look at this,” Key West gazette 5/8 September 1832 2:1-2; “Outrageous,” Key West gazette 5/8 September 1832 2:2; B. B. Strobel, “To the public,” Key West gazette 5/8 September 1832 2:2-3; “$100 reward,” Key West gazette 5/8 September 1832 2:3; The Charleston Mercury 17 October 1832 2:3-4. None of these incidents was mentioned in the charges lodged with Whitehead against Pinkham.
[32] Whitehead, “Reminiscences No. 9” (Peters 28). One of Strobel’s affidavits of the previous October stated that their enmity was unrelated to the deputy’s official conduct: “he believes the illfeeling exhibited to him by the said Pinkham, grew out of a private and personal pique–in no ways connected with the Custom House.” Affidavit of B. B. Strobel , 13 October 1832, Charges against Customs Officers 4:106.
[33] Whitehead informed the Treasury that, before the fateful meeting on the beach, he’d “particularly examined” the charges and made known his verdict to Pinkham’s accusers. He regretted that the Department had been “troubled with an investigation of the matter,” which had “resulted contrary to my wishes….” W. A. Whitehead, Key West 13 April 1833, to Louis McLane, Charges against Customs Officers 4:105 (original letter).
[34] According to Whitehead Pinkham “fell at the first fire,” but his retelling in Key of the Gulf of an event more than 40 years in the past, at which he was surely not present, may be treated with skepticism. Newspapers around the country (which incidentally rechristened David Coffin Pinkham as Daniel) gave the melancholy notice: “At the second fire, Mr. Pinkham received a ball from his antagonist; which entered the right side near the breast. It was apprehended that the wound would prove fatal.” See, e.g., The national gazette and literary register (Philadelphia, Pa.) 15 April 1833 2:2. A paper in Strobel’s hometown, however, stated that the victim was expected to recover: The Charleston courier 10 April 1833 2:5. Pinkham died on the 11th, “his honor satisfied,” as Whitehead later would put it, “and his wife left defenceless among strangers. He was buried in the burial-ground then used and a marble slab subsequently placed over his grave, and his wife was sent to her friends in Kentucky. Thus were two homes broken up through the irritation caused by senseless disputations. ‘The tongue is an unruly member full of deadly poison.’” Whitehead, “Reminiscences No. 9”(Peters 28), using a popular misremembering of Scripture: see Herman Cohen, “Misquotation,” Literature published by The Times 8:181 (6 April 1901) (258-260) 259.
[35] W. A. Whitehead, Key West 13 April 1833, to Louis McLane, Charges against Customs Officers 4:105 (original letter); William J. Duane, Treasury Department 5 June 1833, to William A. Whitehead, Letters sent to Collectors 1:63. Shortly after Pinkham’s death, Whitehead gave John W. Simonton three letters “found by me among the papers of a Gentleman who lately died at this place,” to be delivered to President Andrew Jackson in Washington. W. A. Whitehead, Key West 20 April 1833, to Andrew Jackson, Andrew Jackson Papers, 1775–1874, Library of Congress, MSS 27532, Series 1, General Correspondence and Related Items, 1775–1885, Vol. 83, Reel 42. Whitehead became administrator of his late deputy’s estate: “Notice,” Pensacola (Fla.) gazette 21 August 1833 3:1.
[36] “Sketches of Florida–No. 11. Revenue officers,” The Charleston Mercury 26 July 1833 2:3. The public officers with whom Strobel was ostensibly concerned were attached to revenue cutters. This column was reprinted as “Sketches of Florida. By Dr. B. B. Strobel–No. XVI. Revenue officers,” The Charleston courier 26 May 1837 2:2-3.
[37] Richard Fitzpatrick, 5 January 1833, to D. C. Pinkham, Charges against Customs Officers 4:[116?]; W. A. Whitehead, Key West 26 January 1833, to O. O’Hara et al., Charges against Customs Officers 4:121. As Whitehead, decades later, summed up Pinkham’s acquittal, “‘popularity’ in those days not always being in accordance with the more essential qualification, fidelity to the government, he was not dismissed.” Whitehead, “Reminiscences No. 9” (Peters 28).