by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 21, 2024.
Nothing seemed amiss at the wedding. At least, as far as anyone could tell. Mary Rust Hardy, married Henry H. Folsom, on a beautiful September day in 1898. Henry was a lawyer with family ties to Newmarket. Mary grew up in Dover, graduated from Smith College just two years prior to their marriage and it seemed like their’s would be a happy pairing. They set up housekeeping in Somerville, Massachusetts where Henry had a reputation as a solid citizen. His legal practice was doing well.
Two years later, at the time of the 1900 census, the couple had a home on Hudson Street and Mary had a domestic servant to help her with the household – a household that consisted of just herself and Henry. They were still there ten years later, when the next census was taken. Typically, the enumerator would arrive on the doorstep to interview whoever was home. At the Folsom home, whoever was interviewed informed the census taker that Henry and his wife Mary were residents. But Mary was most likely not at home. Just a week earlier, a census taker had arrived at the McLean Hospital in Brockton to record the inpatients. Mary R. Folsom is listed on the lengthy form. Something was amiss, it seems.
Mental health issues are nothing new. People have had challenges as long as there have been people. The McLean Hospital – earlier called the McLean Asylum – had a reputation as a excellent place to treat people who were struggling with their health. Sure, it could be pricey, but the care and environment were considered very modern and humane. This wasn’t a place where people were maltreated. The grounds were laid out by famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead to provide a restful and bucolic environment.
It is unknown just what was troubling Mary. Her health deteriorated to such a degree that she was treated at McLean on and off for the next four years. Later descriptions used words like “erratic behavior” and “subject to hallucinations.” By 1912, she had become an inpatient, but made considerable improvements. Henry continued to work in Boston while living in Somerville. He purchased a small farm in Newmarket to spend the summer months. Meanwhile, he joined the Masons and became the chairman of the Somerville School Committee. Mary made progress. In early June, she was released and travelled to the farm in Newmarket with a friend, Ellen Smith. Henry planned to join them there. In an odd coincidence, he wrote his will on June 14th, leaving a few small bequests to friends, but ensuring that his beloved wife, Mary, would be well maintained should he die before her. He trusted her enough to designate her as executrix of his estate.
The Exeter News-Letter called what happened next a “shocking tragedy.” On Saturday afternoon, Henry arrived at the Exeter depot and was met by Mary, who was driving a small buggy called a democrat carriage. She seemed upbeat, according to an article in the New York Times, “she laughed and chatted with him and playfully tugged him by the sleeve.” But during the drive, about one mile outside of town on the Newmarket Road (today called Newfields Road), Mrs. Folsom took out a revolver she’d purchased that morning at a local hardware store and emptied the chambers into her unsuspecting husband’s head and neck. The Times reported, “Mrs. Folsom calmly reloaded the revolver and proceeded with cool deliberation to pour five more bullets into his body.”
A driving party of three men arrived on the scene to find Mary, still brandishing the revolver, shrieking, “I will shoot any man that touches me!” They rushed her, disarming her in the process. She admitted killing him, according to the Times, declaring “I was jealous of him. He had no business to go around with other women.” Exeter’s chief of police, S.I. Davis, was quickly summoned to take her into custody. After a quick hearing in front of Judge Edward Mayer, she was sent to county hospital for the insane at Concord. Not everyone thought that Mary was doing well. Ellen Smith had fled the house after Mary arrived home with the gun. She told the Times that Mary had turned to her at the dinner table saying, “I have two tremendous desires. The first is to kill some one and the second is to burn a building to the ground.” Miss Smith hitched up her horse and fled.
After she was committed to the state hospital, Mary’s story didn’t end. She escaped twice. The first time, in 1915, she was quickly apprehended not far away, wearing a men’s suit, tired and hungry. Her second escape lasted nine years. Quietly leaving the hospital in 1918, she made her way to Troy, New York where she worked as a domestic for a few years. She was able to open a bakery called The Mixing Bowl going by the name of Mary Rust. Things went well until 1927, when her mental health began to decline again. A neighbor recalled her acting erratic on August 6th, repeating “August 6th, August 6th, August 6th” with no explanation. Others reported that Mary was perfectly fine, baking in her shop with her usual vigor. On October 5th, she returned to Concord saying that debts and loneliness brought her to surrender.
She was released in 1930 into the custody of Dwight Hall, a former collector of the port at Portsmouth. After living in New Durham for a while, she returned to the state hospital where she died in 1945 and was buried with her family in Dover.
Image: Mary Rust (Hardy) Folsom
Barbara Rimkunas is the curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org