In the early afternoon of August 2, 1849, John S. Wise stopped at the post office in Palmyra, Missouri, and asked whether there were any letters there for his wife, Mary Ann Wise. The postmaster handed over three letters, one addressed to Mary Ann Wise and two addressed to a Mrs. Wallenstein. The postman explained that the same woman, whom he assumed to be Wise's wife, had previously called for letters under both names. Wise seemed shocked by the letters, especially after he opened one of them and glanced at its contents. Assuming the worst, the postmaster asked him whether someone was dead. "No, but there will be soon," Wise replied in a low, threatening voice.
The letters confirmed for Wise what he'd begun to suspect some weeks earlier but had not let himself believe at first. But he now knew his young wife was carrying on a love affair with Thomas Benton Hart, whom the couple had gotten to know in St. Louis the previous year.
In the summer of 1848, the Wises lived in a boardinghouse in St. Louis, and two of Mary Ann's female cousins (her stepfather's nieces) occasionally visited her at the Wise residence. Thomas B. Hart, who was acquainted with the cousins, started accompanying them on their visits, and he became friends with the Wises.
A veteran of Doniphan's expedition to Chihuahua during the Mexican War, Hart was strong and handsome and had a reputation as a ladies' man. Some people called him Lord Byron because of his admiration of the romantic poet and the parallel between Hart and the protagonist of one of Byron's most famous poems, The Pilgrimage of Childe Harold.
In the spring of 1849, Hart, knowing the Wises were not entirely happy with their present living quarters, invited them to move to the Mudge boardinghouse, where Hart lived. After dining with Hart several times at the Mudge place and finding the surroundings pleasant, John Wise agreed to the move, and about the 30th of May he and his wife took up residence in the same building where Thomas Hart lived. Little did Wise suspect that Hart might have had ulterior motives in helping him and Mary Ann find new accommodations, and it's not altogether clear that Hart did have designs on Wise's wife when he first invited the couple to the Mudges's. Suffice it to say, though, that Mary Ann Wise and Thomas Hart quickly became much more than just near neighbors.
There was an outbreak of cholera raging through St. Louis at this time, and in order to get Mary away from the city so that she might not get the disease, John took her in late June to his brother's place in Marion County, not far from Palmyra. After staying a week or ten days, Wise returned to St. Louis but left his wife with his brother. There's also some evidence that Wise, despite his later protestations to the contrary, might have already begun to suspect something more than friendship existed between Mary and Thomas Hart and he wanted to separate the pair. Upon his return to the city, however, he and Hart greeted each other as old friends. And later, when a woman who boarded at the Mudge place told Wise that Hart had gotten into a dispute with some other boarders while Wise was gone and had also offended the landlady, Wise came to Hart's defense. The woman informed Wise that he was taking the side of someone he didn't really know and that Hart would soon ruin him or his wife. The woman also told Wise, who was a clerk at the post office, that, before Mary Ann went to Marion County, she and Hart were in the habit of spending nearly all their time together while Wise was at work.
Not until July 31, when Hart left St. Louis, telling Wise that he was going to Carrolton, Illinois, did Wise begin seriously to suspect an illicit relationship between his wife and Hart. Later that day, Wise intercepted a letter at the St. Louis post office, mailed just prior to Hart's departure, that seemed to confirm the husband's worst fears. It was addressed to H. Sappho of Palmyra, and the oddity of the name caught Wise's attention, because he had previously lived in the Palmyra area for several years and did not know anyone by that name. In addition, he thought he recognized the handwriting as Thomas Hart's. Opening the letter, he learned that it was, in fact, written by Hart and that Hart was going to Quincy, Illinois, just across the river from Palmyra, not to Carrolton, as he'd told Wise. In addition, despite the alias given on the outside of the letter, the content and context of the letter convinced Wise that the intended recipient was his wife.
The next day, Wise armed himself and started for Palmyra to get to the bottom of what appeared him to be a terrible betrayal. On the morning of August 2, during the trip into Palmyra from the Mississippi landing used by steamboat travelers on their way to that town, Wise learned from the hack driver that another man had come up from St. Louis on his way to Palmyra the day before bearing a letter to Wise's wife. Even though the driver's description of the man fit Hart, Wise played dumb, but he was fuming inside.
After calling at the Palmyra post office and obtaining three more incriminating letters, including the two addressed to "Mrs. Wallenstein," Wise walked on into downtown Palmyra, where he saw Thomas Hart sitting in front of the Overton Hotel. Hart's presence in town and the letters Wise had already read was all the proof he needed. Knowing that Hart went armed at all times and that he was much bigger and stronger than he was, Wise immediately walked up to man, drew his pistol, and fired. The bullet struck Hart in the shoulder but only wounded him, and he rose and started fleeing. Pursuing Hart, Wise struck him with his pistol and then pulled a large knife and proceed to cut and stab him until he was beyond help. Hart died a few minutes later.
Wise's preliminary hearing in Marion County in late August turned into a scandalous sensation with big crowds witnessing the proceedings every day. At least eight confiscated love letters between Hart and Mary Ann Wise were read in open court, with many of them containing romantic poems and undying declarations of love. Wise was indicted for murder, but he later received a change of venue to neighboring Monroe County, where he was acquitted at trial in the summer of 1850. His estranged wife, meanwhile, had reportedly moved to San Francisco.
There's much more to this story, but the account given above is a basic outline of what happened.
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