Early American Crime

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Tom Cook was a notorious New England thief who happens to have been born in my hometown of Westborough, MA. He called himself “The Leveller” and cultivated a reputation for stealing from the rich and readily sharing his ill-gotten gains with the poor.

Stories of his exploits have been handed down for generations. Alice Morse Earle in Stage-Coach and Tavern Days recounts some of them:

He stole from the rich and well-to-do with the greatest boldness and dexterity, equaled by the kindness and delicacy of feeling shown in the bestowal of booty upon the poor and needy. He stole the dinner from the wealthy farmer’s kitchen and dropped it into the kettle or on the spit in a poor man’s house. He stole meal and grain from passing wagons and gave it away before the drivers’ eyes. A poor neighbor was ill, and her bed was poor. He went to a thrifty farm-house, selected the best feather bed in the house, tied it in a sheet, carried it downstairs and to the front door, and asked if he could leave his bundle there for a few days. The woman recognized him and forbade him to bring it within doors, and he went off with an easy conscience (383-384).

Earle goes on to say, “He was adored by children, and his pockets were ever filled with toys which he had stolen for their amusement” (384).

Tom Cook’s presence in Westborough looms large. Everyone in town knows the blue plaster house on East Main Street where Cook was born on October 6, 1738. Town lore says that after Tom came close to death shortly after his birth, his mother made a deal with the devil to spare his life, which supposedly accounts for his criminal ways later in life. And every year schoolchildren studying our town’s history write reports about New England’s own version of Robin Hood.

Tom Cook, however, may be more like Robin Hood than Robin Hood was himself.

Scholars at a recent academic conference on Robin Hood at the University of Rochester all generally agree that our common notion that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor is an American invention.

“I think he’s more American than British,” Marcus A. J. Smith, a retired English professor who has studied Robin Hood, is quoted as saying in a recent article about the Robin Hood conference in the New York Times.

Stephen Knight, a leading scholar on Robin Hood, also claims in the article, “Americans like the redistribution myth, but it isn’t a medieval part of the story. He isn’t a revolutionary. He’s not interested in regime change.”

Because so little is known about the actual history of Robin Hood, his character has been embellished over the centuries. The ambiguity of his story and the ability of cultures to interpret his actions to fit their particular causes have resulted in the common belief today that Robin Hood was mainly interested in redistributing the wealth of the undeserving nobility to people who needed it more. Robin Hood scholars, though, have traced this embellishment to American culture.

The power of the Robin Hood redistribution myth in American society can easily be seen in the many depictions of him in popular culture, including movies, television shows, and even cartoons. It also is displayed in the way his story is often connected to popular American criminal figures like Tom Cook and Jesse James.

Given that Americans tend to adhere strongly to the spirit of capitalism and individualism, it seems odd that the Robin Hood redistribution myth should figure so prominently in American popular culture. Perhaps the appeal of the myth is rooted instead in a desire to believe in some sense of divine justice: that those at the top who abuse their power and position will eventually fall to those who seek to uphold and protect the moral right, even if it takes a criminal hero to topple them.

Tom Cook’s career of stealing from rich New England farmers came to an end when he succumbed to old age and to an accident that partially crippled his legs. He ended up joining the ranks of those he helped in his youth by landing back in Westborough on Levi Bowman’s poor farm, which was located right down the street from where I currently live. Cook died near the age of ninety, and he is buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave somewhere in town.

Sources

• Allen, Kristina Nilson. On the Beaten Path: Westborough, Massachusetts. Westborough Civic Club and Westborough Historical Society, 1984.
• Applebome, Peter. “A Hero (or Villain) for the Left (or the Right).” The New York Times. New York section. Monday, October 26, 2009, A17.
• Earle, Alice Morse. Stage-Coach and Tavern Days. Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1977. Originally published in 1900 by Macmillan. Online edition.
• Forbes, Harriette Merrifield. The Hundredth Town: Glimpses of Life in Westborough, 1717-1817. Boston: Press of Rockwell and Churchill, 1889. Online edition.
• Johnson, Valerie B. “Robin Hood.” The Robin Hood Project (Website). The University of Rochester, 2008.
• Knight, Stephen and Thomas Ohlgren, eds. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales (Website). 1997.