The unique—and perhaps exceptional—Elizabeth Wetherbee Reed was remembered on the pages of The Berkshire Hills. It was a popular periodical that ran an equally popular column: “Well-known Berkshire County Personages.” Wetherbee-Reed was one of the very few women ever profiled in that column.
Her father, Abel Wetherbee, Esq. was a member of the House of Representatives, postmaster at North Adams, and “a most estimable citizen.” When he died in 1864, Elizabeth, then 22, did what few women in her generation did: She went to work. With her salary, she supported her mother and herself.
W. H. Phillips was the first editor in Berkshire County to hire women in the newspaper business. Elizabeth was employed as a compositor on the North Adams Transcript. She worked at the paper setting type for 20 years.
In 1885, at the age of 43, Elizabeth married Joseph Reed, a master engraver. They settled in a house in North Adams, and for the next decade, they lived in peace and happiness with one another and with their neighbors. That is, until a night in August 1895.
No doubt about it, it was a crime wave in Berkshire County. For a week in August 1895, it spread from Pittsfield to Dalton to Adams. “Numerous prominent homes broken into … It is fully believed by the police that North Adams will be visited.”
Mr. Reed was out of town, and the women, Elizabeth and her mother, were in the house alone. It was 2 a.m. There was a noise loud enough to wake Elizabeth.
Homes on Centre Street, Cherry Street, Pleasant Street, and East Street were hit. The burglar favored gold and silver coins, gold and silver watches, chains, and folding money. Small and portable, they were easy to snatch and pocket on the run.
The M.O. was the same. Throughout the night, a burglar forced or broke a window and entered house after house. Stealthily, he searched and found the money, coins, and watches. He was swift—gone in minutes without a trace.
The thief was thwarted once by a barking dog, and once by a locked inner door. The locked door was between the pantry and the rest of the house. The bad guy contented himself with raiding the pantry, enjoying a bite to eat, and leaving the way he came.
A unique characteristic of these break-ins was how hungry the burglar seemed to be. Night after night, at many of the houses, he took food and even stopped to eat it. One headline read, “Thief has a repast and leaves.”
Mr. N. B. Wescott’s restaurant on Main Street was broken into. A pot of beans was eaten but the knives and forks were left behind even though they were silver.
Bank books and mortgage papers were taken, although they were non-negotiable. Police expressed the belief that this was a professional because of the number of houses successfully robbed in a single night, but police also thought the thief might be illiterate. “Probably he hastens away with the plunder without examining it, or maybe he can’t read.” A police officer said.
As newspapers and the community grapevine circulated the stories of thievery, the good citizens of Berkshire County became more alarmed. Men and women alike jumped at any sounds in the night, and then hid among the bed clothes. At times, they raised the alarm unnecessarily. At other times, they woke the next morning to find they had been robbed.
It was 2 a.m. when Elizabeth awoke at the sound of the window on the north side of the house being raised. It was a difficult window and made a considerable noise when being forced open. She heard the shears that she had set on the window sill hit the floor.
As quietly as she could, she got out of bed and went to the room down the hall to wake her mother. The women crouched listening. They heard a man’s footsteps: first a thud as feet hit the floor below the window and then quietly walking.
Elizabeth made up her mind – no cowering in the dark. She retrieved a revolver and crept down the stairs. The thieves—yes there were two—were leaving. Boldly, she stood in the bay window, waved the gun, and then took aim at a man whom she could clearly see standing in the drive. He looked at her. She stood her ground, aiming with a steady hand. The man motioned toward the house. A second man appeared and together they ran down the street and disappeared between two neighbors’ houses.
She sat resolutely in a chair in the bay window, gun in hand, until daybreak. The hours dragged on, but she was determined. Only when the sun rose did she slump with relief.
A search of the house revealed that nothing was stolen. Elizabeth was now the only witness to the fact that there were two men working as a team.
Perhaps in answer to Elizabeth’s courage, there were no more burglaries in Berkshire County. At the end of the month, a rash of burglaries broke out in Vermont that had suspiciously familiar characteristics.
Elizabeth died 10 years later, October 1905, at the age of 63. Elizabeth might have been able to identify the burglars. Certainly, a woman who had habitually taken matters in hand would not have shirked her duty to testify, and yet, in the ten years, no one was arrested or even suspected. Elizabeth never testified, and the burglars were never caught.
