Early last year (2025), I transcribed, edited, and published an 1867 serial novel by Ann Emerson Porter, Jessie Varian’s Secret; or, The First and Last Love of the Notorious ‘Captain Thunderbolt.’ This was originally published by the Vermont Record and Farmer newspaper over a period of months, but was never reprinted in other papers or published as a book. It contains many elements associated with “dime novels,” i.e. cheaply produced, mass-marketed works of fiction. Such works were typified by adventurous or sensational scenes, stilted dialogue, improbable coincidences, and heavy-handed morality.
Without knowing the background of the story, or of Ann E. Porter’s life, modern readers may find this formulaic melodrama predictable and uninteresting. With a bit of context, though, it becomes much more intriguing. Porter took a story based on a piece of Vermont folklore and changed the popular characterization of the man who was the subject of the legend. Moreover, she had a personal connection to that man. Finally, Porter made the focus of her story the ethical choice made by a young woman, a character Porter fabricated for that purpose, having no relation to the original legend. Porter did so purposefully, empowering her character with the ability to make her own moral decisions.
Porter based her highwaymen characters, John Orford and Martin Donohue, on the confession of a real highwayman, Michael Martin, who was hanged in Boston in 1821. In his confession, Martin claimed that he was the junior partner of a nefarious Scottish highwayman, John Doherty, and that the two of them had been notorious in Ireland and Scotland as “Captain Thunderbolt” (Doherty) and “Captain Lightfoot” (Martin).
Martin’s account was so compelling that some readers speculated that John Doherty, aka “Captain Thunderbolt,” outlived his partner and settled in New England, living under an alias. This theory gained traction, and in the years following Martin’s execution, some individuals residing in that part of the country were accused of having been the “notorious Captain Thunderbolt.” The most renowned of these was Dr. John Wilson. For many years before his death, John Wilson of Brattleboro, Vermont, was gossiped about as having been Thunderbolt. Several circumstantial reasons were given: his Scottish heritage, his medical knowledge, his old leg injury, and his physical stature were said to match the description of Doherty in Martin’s confession. When Wilson died in 1847, a Brattleboro publisher came out with a pamphlet pointing to this evidence, which in turn became very popular.
In her own life, Ann Emerson Porter demonstrated “woman’s power to do,” as a writer and educator. Her reworking of the legend of Captain Lightfoot and Captain Thunderbolt transformed a story of adventure and romance into a woman’s act of self-determination: Jessie Varian decided to keep the secret.
A few months after publishing Jessie Varian’s Secret via Amazon, I learned that the Vermont Record and Farmer had published a second original serial novel in 1869, two years after Ann Emerson Palmer’s work. This story also took as its inspiration the story of Dr. John Wilson, but this new story offered no moral nuances; the main character, John Wilson, was a thoroughly evil creature, a seducer of young women, a counterfeiter, and a murderer. It was called by The Recluse, or, A Legend of Brattleboro, by “Mrs. M. Ritchie” (a pen name of Arvilla Tanner.)
Therefore, these two serial novels, published in the same town by the same newspaper, two years apart, present opposing treatments of the local legend of Dr. John Wilson. The contrast in their moral sensibilities is stark. Neither story questions whether Wilson was “Captain Thunderbolt.” That association had already been established in local folklore. These stories deepen that lore, adding new layers to it.
Upon this discovery, I’ve decided to unpublish/archive the Jesse Varian’s Secret title and publish a new combined edition of both novels: TWO THUNDERBOLTS FROM BRATTLEBORO: Novels Inspired by Legends of Dr. John Wilson
Available on Amazon: