Withers Witherspoon served as a combination guard, chauffeur, and handyman on the Swain estate in Galen, Vermont for the children Wilbur and Eliza, to whom he was distantly related. He was the childhood servant Wilbur best remembered. As a soldier, he was one of the few people in the area who had ventured further than ten miles from town. His mother was a Withers, his father a Witherspoon.[1] Due to his experience as a soldier, he was assigned by Dr. Cordelia Swain Cordiner to observe one twin in the ballroom while she tested the other in the diningroom on the far side of the mansion, watching for signs of telepathic communication.[2] He once told a dirty joke to another servant overheard by the twins about "a woman who was wildly responsive during sexual intercourse" and remarked to a stranger with whom she was about have sex: "Keep your hat on, Buster. We may wind up miles from here."[3]