On the Friday before Thanksgiving, November 23, 1849, Dr. George Parkman, a benefactor of Harvard and one of the richest men in Boston, left his home around noon and was last seen entering the Harvard Medical College. His apparent goal: to collect on some long-overdue notes from his Harvard classmate and friend of fifty years, Dr. John Webster. In thirty years, Parkman had never failed to come home for his 2:00 P.M. lunch—“dinner,” as it was called then—but in this case, his wife sat up all night awaiting his return before calling police to say her husband had disappeared. A week later, after
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