Ted Reinstein - Wicked Pissed: New Englands Most Famous Feuds

WICKED PISSED

Globe

Pequot

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2016 by Rowman & Littlefield

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-1-4930-0887-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-4930-2332-5 (e-book)

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/ NISO Z39.48-1992.

For Anne-Marie, Kyra, and Daisy For Your Continued Love and Support

(C AN T W E A LL J UST G ET A LONG ?)

In Massachusetts, lawyers and judges still marvel at the most expensive civil suit in the states history.

It spanned decades, cost hundreds of millions, and had a cast of characters like a Russian novel. No one was killed or injured. No product was at fault. The plaintiffs were, in fact, very well-acquainted with each other. After all, they were family. It was business. And nothing will split up a family faster than a wayward blade that seems to be carving up the profits unfairly. The legal marathon was merely the outward, public manifestation of a seething, bitter, relentless family feud that would ultimately snare twenty-five thousand others in the middle of it, bring a booming and successful business to its knees, and make international news.

In Vermont, they still have the striking home that Rudyard Kipling built high on a hill. Theyd rather have had a long line of Kipling descendants still calling the Green Mountains home. Alas, when Kipling left Vermont, he was never to come back. A very ugly, very public dispute with a brother-in-law will do that.

Only one state in America doesnt automatically answer the Wright brothers to the question, Who was first in flight? And in Connecticut, they will be happy to take it upas they have for decadeswith North Carolina, the Smithsonian, and anyone else whod care to listen to their side of whats become a serious spat about who deserves aviations greatest honor.

Lets face it: Feuds fascinate. They always have. As long as theyre not ours.

The Bible is full of feuds. (Cain and Abel, anyone?) The perpetually warring city-states of antiquity were rife with them. (Athens and Sparta ring a bell?) Consider just the literature that feuds have inspired. Without them, Shakespeare would have had half the material to work with. With them, we have Hamlet, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet . Not to mention the unending feud between those who think that Shakespeare actually wrote those plays and those who dont.

World history and relations between nations have forever hinged (and become unhinged) because of feuds. England versus France. Spain versus England. Russia versus everyone.

Our own American history is no exception, with bitter and festering feuds from the start. And in the case of Native Americans and the European newcomers, its never really ended.

Consider that Americas very first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, incensed by a longtime rival, was shot and killed in a duel , for goodness sake. (That must have made for a somewhat subdued subsequent cabinet meeting.)

What was the American Revolution, after all, if not the nations founding feud? And less than a century afterward, what was the American Civil War, if not the most horrific of family feuds? Indeed, it was the Civil War that later gave rise to a bitter feud between two actual families on either side of the border dividing Kentucky and West Virginia. Today, like the Hatfields and McCoys has entered the American lexicon to describe fierce feuding of any kind.

The early days of the American West spawned some legendary feuds. (It wasnt a cookout at the OK Corral.) The rise of the railroads, cattle, land, oil barons, unions, Hollywood, the whole sweep of American politicsfilled with feuds.

Then theres New England.

Too far north to be a flashpoint for returning Civil War vets nursing murderous grudges against their neighbors (the original DNA of the Hatfield/McCoy feud). No oil, and too small for the land battles or cattle wars of the wide-open west. Fierce feuds between fading stars and upstart ingnues? Thats for Tinseltown, not Tilton, Topsham, or Tunbridge.

No, New Englands famous feuds and disputed claims have been different: older, often rooted in history, as colorful, varied, and unique as the regions diverse people and landscape itself, and as surprising and changeable as the regions famously unpredictable weather.

From the rugged woods of the Canadian border, to Connecticuts bedroom communities for Manhattan, from the mountains to its islands offshore, New Englands feuds have peppered the regions life for centuries. From sports to politics, food to finance, aviation to engineering, to bitter disputes over simple boundaries themselves, New England has seen feuds pitting people from every walk of life imaginable against each other. Sure, New England has produced nation founders, marvels of invention, magnificent universities and medical institutions, as well as masters of music, art, and literature. But it sure has produced some memorable feuds, too.

Nor have New Englanders been shy about feuding across state (and regional) lines. Consider Connecticuts nasty spat with North Carolina over the Wright brothers legacy. Ask them in Holliston, Massachusetts, where the real Mudville of Casey at the Bat fame is. Then mention Stockton, California. And stand back. Even green and crunchy, its all good VermontNew Englands most laidback, live-and-let-live statehas managed to find itself in a silly, snarky snit with Arizona , of all places. Go figure, dude.

Theyve been raw and rowdy, sometimes high-minded and humorous, and in a place renowned for its deep sense of history, often long-running and legendary. There are feuds in New England that will undoubtedly outlast the regions ancient low stone walls.

In New England nothing says fightin mad like being wicked pissed.

And nothing sums up being wicked pissed like the stories of New Englands feuds.

So there.

In the Beginning

ON NOVEMBER 11, 1620, ONE OF HISTORYS MOST FAMOUS SHIPS lay at anchor off of what is now Provincetown at the outermost tip of Cape Cod. Onboard, the Pilgrims (the adult, male Pilgrims, that is) gathered below deck to sign the Mayflower Compact. The document was meant to lay out the settlers collective concerns, allow for majority rule, and help ensure order and survival in establishing a new, permanent settlement.

It may have been the last act of amity in the New World.

Onshore, members of the areas native Wampanoag tribe must have surely had different thoughts as they regarded the strange sailing ship suddenly sitting in their midst. Unlike the Pilgrims Compact, no document exists of the natives first reactions and concerns. But were free to speculate. The late, legendary folksinger Pete Seeger did. He imagined Chief Massasoit, gazing anxiously out at the Mayflower , observing ruefully, Well, there goes the neighborhood.

And indeed, there it went.

The point is not that cooperation didnt exist or happen between the European newcomers and the natives they encountered. It did. (Though it usually involved native helping newcomer.) Indeed, one of the most enduring elements of the Pilgrims narrative is that of bonding with their new neighbors. What American school-child isnt familiar with textbook images that depict Thanksgiving scenes of Pilgrims and natives enjoying a bountiful, outdoor meal together beneath the hanging autumn leaves and harvest sky?