Joel Jervis is my 3rd great-grandfather and was a Justice of the Peace on Long Island for many years. He was the judge in a very interesting assault case. I transcribed 2 of the articles which were publish long after the original court case. The case, said one article I read, occurred in 1840 when Walt Whitman was about 18, before his career took off.
The Brooklyn Daily Times
Brooklyn, New York
Sat, Feb 16, 1901 ·Page 24
Part of an article titled:
IN THE DAYS OF WALT WHITMAN.
HOW HE APPEARED AS A YOUNG MAN IN HUNTINGTON
An Experience at Babylon and the Peculiar Verdict of the Jury With a Scotch Foreman.
HUNTINGTON, Feb 14.--
…The budding poet decided to go to his father’s home in Babylon, He was in Babylon, as in Huntington, a popular favorite among both sexes, and many jolly yarns are told of those days, that the great poet must have recalled with pleasure during later years.
One of the stories told here is that of the arrest of the young poet for an assault upon a young man named Benjamin Carman. The Carman farm adjoined the Whitman place, just west of Babylon village. A trout pond formed the boundary. In this pond Whitman delighted to fish.
On a certain day, while he was sitting in his boat angling, young Carman conceived the idea of annoying him. He first threw stones so as to disturb the water near the fisherman. Seeing no effect upon the stolid Whitman, he got into his own boat and commenced leisurely rowing around in the vicinity of the poet, to the total destruction of the fishing. Even this annoyance failed to call forth any reproof or remonstrance, and Whitman fished on as though nothing was annoying him. At first Carman was careful to keep beyond reach of the fishing pole, but finally, his suspicions being quieted by the manner of the fisherman, who in a casual sort of way plied him with various questions, asking if he were not the namesake of Benjamin Franklin, and engaged him in cheerful conversation. The boy edged nearer and nearer, until, coming within the swing of Whitman’s fish-pole, the poet caught him unawares, and thrashed him unmercifully, breaking the pole, and inflicting quite severe injuries upon the boy, dismissing him with the admonition that the next time he refrain from interfering with his fishing.
This was not destined to be the last of the matter. The elder Carman, in rage at the castigation of his son, swore out a warrant for Whitman’s arrest before Justice Joel Jervis, of the town. The news spread like wildfire through the quiet village, and when the constable produced his prisoner before the magistrate, the little court room was crowded. Gen. Richard Udall, at that time a prominent citizen of the county–he was afterwards member of Assembly–appeared as attorney for Carman, while Whitman pleaded his own case. The jury was made up of men who thought more of common sense than of law. The foreman was one John Edwards, an Englishman, who was full of stubborn persistence, and most always prepared to have his own way.
The progress of the trial was not devoid of niterest [sic], in fact, the case of “The People against Walt Whitman” was for years talked of as one of the most celebrated in the town. Gen. Udall, for Carman, made a clear case. The evidence was not disputed. Whitman had no witnesses. He arose and summed up his defense. He told the jury all the facts in the case. He admitted that he had trounced the boy, but pleaded in justification that Carman had interfered with his vested rights, and had made himself a nuisance, and that in whipping him he did it simply to abate a nuisance. That was all Whitman said. The jury filed out. They were gone but a few minutes, and returned to court.
Justice Jervis resettled his steel-bowed spectacles, so that he could more readily look over them, and asked: “Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?”
“We ‘ave,” said Foreman Edwards.
“What is it?” asked His Honor.
“We find ‘e did not ‘it ‘im ‘ard enough,” said the foreman.
The uproarious laughter which greeted this verdict, the Justice was unable to quell, and in his righteous indignation shattered his spectacle in his endeavor to sufficiently express his disapproval. When the quiet was restored, he explained to the jury that they must find the verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty,” when the spectators were again convulsed by the answer of the Yorkshire gentleman, who stubbornly insisted that the only verdict of the jury was that “Whitman ‘ad not ‘it ‘im ‘ard enough,” and after repeated attempts to get matters right, the prisoner was discharged, and the verdict stands to-day that the plaintiff was not hit hard enough.
From Brooklyn Eagle (Brooklyn, New York) · Sat, May 31, 1919 · Page 22
WHITMAN AS LAWYER WON HIS OWN CASE
A Part of Walt Whitman’s young manhood was spent at Babylon, L. I., where his father owned a farm facing the south country road about two miles west of the village. It is the property referred to by the poet in his writings as “My Fancy.” The name was retained by the late Malcolm W. Ford, of Brooklyn, who owned the farm at a subsequent period. The property is now owned by William G. Gilmore of Brooklyn.
When the elder Whitman was the owner, the lake on the west was controlled jointly by him and a neighbor. The latter had a son slightly Walt’s junior. The lake abounded in trout, and fishing was one of Walt’s favorite pastimes.
One day he was out in his boat indulging in the sport, when the neighbor’s son put out in another and began rowing about, splashing with his oars and making a commotion that scared the fish from Walt’s bait.
Whitman had a quick temper, and it soon reached the boiling point. But he dissembled his rage, and giving no hint of his wrath, chatted pleasantly with the boy as he circled about him and finally succeeded in getting him to approach near enough to enable him to lay hands on his annoyer.
The result was the pestiferous youth got a thorough beating, and Walt was haled before Esquire Joel Jervis, the local magistrate. When the day for his trial came, Whitman appeared as his own lawyer and demanded a jury trial. The defendant told a frank story in answer to the charge of assault and battery, and the jury was duly charged and retired.
The jury filed into court in a short time, headed by the foreman, John Edwards, a Yorkshire Englishman.
“Have you agreed on your verdict, gentlemen?” asked the Court.
“We ‘ave, your ’onor,” said the foreman.
“State it.”
“We find, your ‘onor,” said doughty Edwards, “that ‘e didn’t it ‘im ‘ard h’enough.”
The foreman was assured that the verdict was not in proper form; it must be guilty or not guilty.
Edwards, however, was obstinate. He explained that the jurymen were of one mind–the neighbor’s boy had annoyed Whitman without provocation, and deserved all he got, and more–in other words, “‘e didn’t ‘it ‘im ‘ard h’enough.”
Finally he yielded, after a brief consultation with his colleagues, and a verdict of “not guilty” was returned.
Whitman left the court room a free man, and was never again annoyed by the young complainant.
At the ending of an article about moving the Whitman house to Amityville is this bit:
Brooklyn, New York
Mon, Feb 25, 1935 ·Page 17
“‘E didn’t ‘it ‘im ‘ard enough.”
But it was not his own phraseology. It was put into the record as announced by John Edwards, foreman of the jury. The verdict caused such a storm of laughter in the court that in his attempt to suppress the uproar, Justice Jervis broke his eyeglasses. He insisted on different language from the foreman, but Edwards was stubborn and would not recant.
