52 Ancestors #40 - Two Murderers - One Gallows

While looking for records relating to my 9th great-grandfather, John Capen, I found a minor notation that he served on the jury in the murder trials of John Williams and and William Schooler. This intrigued me to investigate further and I came across a post by Robert Wilhelm on the blog, Executed Today. 

William Schooler was a man with a checkered past. He was an admitted adulterer who had fled to Holland to escape the law after wounding a man in a duel in England. He came to New England without his wife and lived on the outskirts of the town of Newbury, by the banks of the Merrimack River. 

Mary Scholy was a servant girl who for some unknown reason had come to Newbury from the area called Pascataquack (now Portsmouth, NH) and needed a guide to help her return to her master. 

Google Maps shows that it would be an 8-9 1/2 hour trip walking from Newbury to Portsmouth on modern roads - It would obviously have been more challenging in colonial times. 

When William Schooler heard that Mary needed a guide, he offered his services for fifteen shillings. She accepted without knowing he had never made the trip before. Schooler returned to Newbury suspiciously early with a scratch on his nose that he blamed on walking into some brambles and blood on his hat that he attributed to killing a pigeon. However, there was no evidence to contradict his story so nothing happened until her body was found in the woods north of Newbury by an Agawam Indian. She had been exposed to the elements for several months so not much could be told from her body except that her clothes had been removed and found in a pile nearby. Schooler continued to protest his innocence and refused to confess but in the end was convicted of ravishing and killing Mary Scholy. 

John Williams was a recent immigrant to the colonies who had been imprisoned in Boston for theft. he escaped with another prisoner, John Hoddy. As they traveled near the east end of the Wenham Great Pond, they had a fight that left John Hoddy dead. There are conflicting stories of how this came to be discovered - one blames John Hoddy's dogs for drawing the attention of neighbors and the other says Williams was recognized as a criminal arrested in Ipswich. Either way, the body of John Hoddy was located when a farmer's cows started bellowing and an investigation led to the discovery of Hoddy's naked body covered by stones. Unlike Schooler, Williams confessed to the murder but to protect his rights of due process, his case was tried before a jury and he was sentenced to death. 

Both men were found guilty of murder and hanged together on the same gallows on Boston Common on September 28, 1637. 

Photo by mlhradio/CCBY

For more information see this source: http://www.executedtoday.com/2012/09/28/1637-william-schooler-and-john-williams/ 

John Capen - on jury for both trials

James Capen & Hannah Lawrence

James Capen & Elizabeth Call

James Capen & Sarah Pinson

Thomas Capen & Mary Wyman

Thomas Capen & Mary Abbott

Timothy Capen & Sarah K. Abbott

Edward Abbott Capen & Mary Jane Abbott

Fanny May Capen & Edward Mellen Carter

Thomas Richard Carter - my grandfather

Edward Abbott Capen & Mary Jane Abbott were second cousins - Timothy Capen's sister, Deborah was Mary Jane's grandmother. Deborah married William Ackley - their daughter, Sarah Ackley married John Abbott and they were the parents of Mary Jane. 

Law & Order in Plymouth Colony

This is a reposting of something I wrote in 2012. 
There is nothing more horrifying than the violent death of child. On July 22, 1648, the bloody body of a four year old child was discovered in her Plymouth home...

Alice Martin was married to her second husband, Richard Bishop and had three small children in her home. Abigail & Martha Clark were daughters from her first marriage and she had a daughter, Damaris, with Richard. 



A neighbor, Rachel (Eaton) Ramsden, came by the Bishop home on the morning and saw

Martha sleeping in the loft with no apparent injury. Alice Bishop sent Rachel to fetch some buttermilk from the Winslow home and when Rachel returned she noticed blood at the foot of the ladder and asked Alice about it. Alice pointed to the loft and "bid [Rachel to] look." Frightened that Martha was dead, Rachel ran to tell her parents. When the Plymouth Coroners entered the Bishop home, they saw the blood at the bottom of the ladder and found Martha dressed in her shift and lying on her left side. Her throat has been slashed multiple times, severing her windpipe. There was a knife lying beside the dead child. Alice confessed to the murder of her daughter. She would repeat her confession on August 1st. 

The trial was held in October 1648 and Alice was found guilty of willful murder and sentenced to be hanged. Unfortunately, the records leave many unanswered questions. The obvious question is what motive did Alice have to kill her daughter but I also wonder where the rest of the family was when the murder occurred. Check out this blog for a more thorough treatment of this case. The author has graciously allowed me to base this post off her extensive research. 


Given the relatively small population of Plymouth at the time, estimated between 1500-2000, it is not surprising to find a number of connections between my family and this case. Both the Cotton and the Yates lines have multiple connections to the early Plymouth settlers. 

Cotton: 
Rachel Eaton Ramsden - the neighbor who reported the murder - 10th Great Grandaunt

Members of the Petit Jury
John Howland - 12th Great Grandfather
Giles Rickard - husband of 11th Great Grandaunt
Thomas Pope - husband of another 11th Great Grandaunt 
Francis Billington - 2nd husband of 11th Great Grandmother & Rachel's step-father

Members of the Grand Jury
John Dunham - 10th Great Grandfather
Daniel Cole - 11th Great Grandfather

Yates:
Members of the Petit Jury
James Cole - 10th Great Grandfather
James Hurst - 10th Great Grandfather
John Shaw - 10th Great Grandfather

Members of the Grand Jury
Ephraim Hicks - 10th Great Granduncle
Love Brewster - husband of 10th Great Grandaunt

Sources:
http://alicemartinbishop.com/

Thriller Thursday - Murder in Charlestown

We tend to associate slavery with the Southern colonies  and forget that slavery was legal in all thirteen colonies. The more I research, the more records I find involving slaves in New England. Like this story, they usually do not involve my ancestors but I get caught up in reading the accounts and this story in particular seemed worth sharing. It is shocking in many ways. 

In 1755 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, three of Capt. John Codman's slaves, Mark, Phillis, and Phebe, decided to poison him...although there is no primary record that tells why, it appears that Mark was separated from his family. The deposition, of Phillis, indicates that Mark came up with the idea because he really wanted a different master. The conspirators tried a less direct approach at first - working together Mark and Phillis burned down part of the property, hoping it would force a sale but that didn't happen.  Some secondary accounts say Capt. Codman was a strict taskmaster and a stern disciplinarian who had been violent on occasion.  The mastermind of the plot was Mark and he was able to read the Bible. He came to the conclusion that it was not a sin to kill if it was accomplished without spilling any blood. It might also be harder to detect. Mark was joined by fellow slaves, Phillis and Phebe, who put the poison in the food and drink. Other slaves belonging to other masters were accessories as they helped procure the arsenic and kept quiet about the plot. It did not take long after Capt. Codman's death for the crime to be traced back to Mark and Phillis. 

At the trial, they were both found guilty and sentenced to different, but equally gruesome, deaths. On September 18, 1755, Phillis was burned at the stake. She was one of only two people in colonial Massachusetts to receive this punishment. The other was another female slave, Maria, who in 1681,  tried to kill her master by setting his house on fire. On the same date, Mark was tarred, and gibbeted, or hanged in chains or a cage. Gibbeting involved leaving the body hanging as a warning to others and was most often used with pirates, as seen in this image of the pirate, William Kidd.  

The tarring may have acted as a preservative - read this excerpt from Pirates of the New England Coast.

Nearly twenty years later, Paul Revere even used the spot as a landmark when describing the route he took that fateful night in 1775. "I set off upon a very good Horse; it was then about 11 o'Clock, and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck and go nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I was two men on Horse back, under a Tree. when I got near them, I discovered they were British officers."

Phebe appears to have been sold in the Caribbean - a place notorious for its brutality and others may have also suffered the same fate. 

Some sources for further investigation:
From The Freedom Trail, Celebrate Boston and New England's Hidden History at Boston.com.
Gibbeting in Colonial America
The Trial and Execution for Petit Treason of Mark and Phillis
Pirates of the New England Coast

Thriller Thursday - A Head Full of Drink

Hugh Stone, an immigrant living in Andover, Massachusetts, appears multiple times in the Essex County records for drunkenness. 


"Capt. Nath. Saltonstall, Esq., give in Hugh Stone of Andover fined for being drunk, 10s., to be paid in or as money, and John Page, of Haverhill 20s money for disorderly selling drink." 

"Hugh Stone sentenced at Haverhill, April 6, 1683 to pay 12s. 6d. in money or com. Said Stone apprehending that upon a presentment witnesses would testify that he was drunk at Osburne on the day before the last public Thanksgiving in 1682, he came from Andover and confessed." 


"Hugh Stone of Andover, Sept 24, who acknowledged that he was distempered with drink at his own house in April and seemed very pentitent, was fined." 


Hugh Stone was married to my first cousin 12 times removed, Hannah Foster. They had 7 children and Hannah was pregnant with her eighth child in 1689. On April 20th, Hugh and Hannah argued about selling a piece of land. Hugh, as usual, was drunk. He "barbarously reachid a stroke at her throat, with a sharp knife; and by that one stroke fetchid away the soul of her who had made him a father of several children, and would have yet brought another to him if she had lived a few weeks longer in the world." (Cotton Mather)


Hugh was quickly apprehended and hanged in January 1690.



His statements after the murder include:
"It was Contention in my Family."
"I will tell you that I wish I never had had the opportunity to do such a muder. If you say when a Person has provoked you 'I will kill him,' 'tis a thousand to one but the next time you will do it..."


"When thou hast thy head full of drink, remembrance of God is out of thy heart. I have cause to cry out and be ashamed of it, that I am guilty of it because I gave way to that sin more than any other and then God did leave me to practice wickedness and to murder that dear woman whom I should have taken a great deal of commitment in; which if I had done, I should not have been here to suffer this Death." 


Hannah Foster's mother was Ann Alcock, the sister of John Alcock. 
According to the Stone Family Association, the children went to live with a Nathaniel Stone whose relationship to Hugh is unknown. However, the Nathaniel Stone who raised the orphaned children is my 9th great grandfather. 


John Alcock & Elizabeth
Sarah Alcock & John Giddings
Elizabeth Giddings & Mark Haskell
Mark Haskell & Martha Tuttle
Martha Haskell & John Safford
Ruth Safford & Samuel Haskell
Martha Haskell & Moses Houghton
Sally Houghton & James Dunham
Florilla Dunham & Asa Freeman Ellingwood
Nina Ellingwood & George Gibbs
Annie Gibbs & Ray Everett Cotton
Fern Lyndell Cotton - my grandmother


Nathaniel Stone & Remember Corning
Nathaniel Stone & Mary Balch
Ruth Stone & Luke Morgan
Luke Morgan & Martha Pulcifer
Samuel Morgan & Judith Dennen
Martha Morgan & William Yates
Moses Yates & Martha Whittle
Gilbert Yates & Laura Emmons
Estes Yates & Eva Hayes
Linona Alice Yates - my grandmother


Historical Sketches of Andover - accessed 
http://archive.org/stream/historicalsketch00bail#page/78/mode/2up
Stone Family Association
http://www.stonefamilyassociation.org/index.php?pr=Hugh_Of_Andover_MA

Unsolved Murder

My 10th Great Grandmother was murdered in New Hampshire in May or June of 1648. Her name was Hannah (or Annah) Willix. She was traveling from Dover to Exeter when she was attacked, robbed and her body "flung" into the river. I found a document online called "New Hampshire Homicides 1630-1774" that contains this information: Hannah "was founde in the [Piscataqua] River dead; her necke broken, her tounge black and swollen out of her mouth & the bloud settled in her face, the privy partes swolne &c as if she had been muche abused &c." 

It is not known whether her murderer was ever caught. Her husband Balthasar did file a breach of contract suit against Robert Hithersay "for raising an evil report of his deceased wife, and for breach of promise in carrying his wife to Oyster River in a canoe and not bringing her in a canoe again." Hithersay seems to have been a wandering character whom Balthasar suspected of harming his wife. Hithersay and Balthasar Willix had cross suits for defamation. I could not find any records describing the resolution of this case. The Oyster River is speculation from some who interpreted the O.R. to mean Oyster River.  After her death, Balthasar moved to Salisbury, Massachusetts and married a widow named Mary Hawksworth. He is called a man of "more than ordinary education" by Bell. I will definitely continue looking for information on this crime. 

In 1996 a book was loosely based on this case - The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin by Richard Begiebing. 

Balthasar Willix & Hannah/Annah
Hazelelponi Willix & John Gee
Hannah/Annah Gee & Samuel Hodgkins
Jonathan Hodgkins & Mary Stockbridge
Rachel Hodgkins & William Moody
Elizabeth Moody & Samuel Ackley
William Ackley & Deborah Capen
Sarah Ackley & John Abbott
Mary Jane Abbott & Edward Capen
Fannie Capen & Edward M. Carter
T. Richard Carter & F. Lyndell Cotton

Sources: 
NEHGR Vol. 50 p. 46-47
History of the town of Exeter, New Hampshire by C.H. Bell