1739 - The Mother of the Infant in the Well

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By Dr. Anthony Vaver, whose fine blog on Early American Crime you may find here.

On Saturday morning, August 11, 1739, a female infant was discovered in a well near the outskirts of Portsmouth, NH. Warrants were immediately issued, and a search was conducted to find the mother who presumably had murdered the baby.

By the afternoon, officers focused their attention on Sarah Simpson, a 27 year-old widow. Neighbors believed that Simpson had been carrying a child, but she had hidden the fact well enough to cause some doubt. Now, in light of the infant found in the well, Simpson was arrested and charged with murder, but she steadfastly denied that she was the mother of the baby girl.

To prove the fact, Simpson led the constable out to a bank along the river and pointed to the ground. After a little digging, the body of her own infant was uncovered beneath four inches of dirt. Simpson maintained that the child was stillborn, but she was put in jail nonetheless, and the search for the mother of the baby in the well continued.

The Law

Simpson no doubt tried to hide her out-of-wedlock pregnancy in order to avoid the punishment and public humiliation she would have received if caught. The punishment for committing adultery or bearing a bastard child in early America varied from colony to colony, but it generally included some combination of whipping, fines, wearing an “A” on clothing, and even standing at a gallows with a rope around one’s neck for a specified period of time.

Punishments for bearing bastard children were particularly harsh, because the community would most likely have to take on the added expense of raising the parentless child until around the age of six, or until he or she could be placed in an apprenticeship. Servants who bore bastard children tended to receive harsher punishments than other women.

Simpson certainly had incentive to hide her pregnancy, but by doing so, she was taking on an even greater risk. New Hampshire had earlier passed “An Act to prevent the destroying and murdering of Bastard Children,” which read,

"if any Woman be deliver’d of any Issue of her Body, Male or Female, which if it were born alive, should by Law be a Bastard, and that she endeavour privately, either by drowning or secret burying thereof, or any other Way, either by herself or by the procuring of others so to conceal the Death thereof, that it may not come to Light, whether it were born alive or not, but be conceal’d; in every such Case the Mother so offending shall suffer Death, as in Case of Murder; except such Mother can make Proof, by one Witness at the least, the Child, whose Death was by her so intended to be conceal’d, was born Dead."

So if an unmarried woman who hid her pregnancy happened to deliver a lifeless baby and was later discovered to have done so, she would automatically be charged with murder, which is why Simpson continued to be held in prison despite claiming that her baby was stillborn.

Suspect Number Two

On Sunday, the day after Simpson was put in prison, officers believed they had finally identified the real killer of the infant in the well: Penelope Kenny, a 20 year-old woman who was born in Limerick, Ireland and was a servant to Dr. Joseph Franklin. But Kenny also denied being the mother of the baby in the well, this time on the grounds that she had never delivered a baby.

The justices of the town, though, were unconvinced. They called for "four or five skilful Women" to examine Kenny, and after doing so the panel concluded that Kenny had indeed delivered a child within the past week. Kenny was placed in prison, but she continued to deny that she was the mother of the infant found in the well. After some intense interrogation about what had happened to the baby she did deliver, Kenny eventually hinted that she had done something just as bad as what had happened to the found infant and that “God was now about to bring her to Justice.”

On Monday morning, Kenny summoned the justices to her cell, and she finally owned up to having delivered a live male child last Wednesday morning. After the birth, Kenny said, she placed the baby in a tub in her master’s cellar and left it there until Friday night. When she returned, the baby was dead.

Kenny took the justices to the place where she had gotten rid of the body by placing it in the river, only 60 yards away from where Sarah Simpson had buried her dead baby.

Execution

On Thursday, December 27, 1739, an unusually large crowd gathered for the execution of Sarah Simpson and Penelope Kenny, who were both found guilty of murder. One minister speculated that the crowd was so large because people wanted to witness the first execution to take place in the province of New Hampshire.

The mother of the baby in the well was never located, although some people believed that, despite her claim, Kenny really was its mother.

A brief notice about the execution of the two women appeared in The New England Weekly Journal. In the same article was yet another story that on the Sunday after the execution took place, another woman, Jane Law, was arrested on suspicion of killing her bastard child after it was found dead in a box covered with rye.

Not one of the reports or sermons connected with these cases mentioned any attempt to locate the fathers of these children or even made reference to their responsibility in the matter.

Sources

Mofford, Juliet Haines. “The Devil Made Me Do It!”: Crime and Punishment in Early New England. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2012.

New-England Weekly Journal, January 1, 1740, issue 663, p. 4. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

“Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, August 17.” Boston Post-Boy, August 20, 1739, issue 253, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

Shurtleff, William. The Faith and Prayer of a Dying Malefactor: A Sermon Preach’d December 27, 1739 on Occasion of the Execution of Two Criminals, Namely, Sarah Simpson and Penelope Kenny. Boston: J. Draper, 1740. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

About the guest author:
Anthony Vaver is the author & publisher of EarlyAmericanCrime.com, a website that explores crime, criminals, & punishments from America’s past. He has a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook & an M.L.S. from Rutgers University. He is currently working on a new book about early American criminals. He claims with some certainty that he has never spent a night in jail but was once falsely accused of shoplifting.  His book Bound with an Iron Chain, is here.
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Charity worker Isabella Marshall Graham 1742-1814

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Isabella Marshall Graham, (1742-1814), teacher & early charitable worker, the daughter of John & Janet (Hamilton) Marshall, was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, & grew up on an estate at Eldersley near Paisley. Her father, a landowner, raised Isabella & her brother in comfort, & a legacy from her grandfather, spent at her own request on a “finished education,” enabled her to attend the boarding school of Mrs. Betty Morehead for 7 years. The family was known for piety, in the stern tradition of Scottish Presbyterian Calvinism, & the child early manifested a religious interest. At 17, she became a communicant of the Church of Scotland under the ministry of Dr. John Witherspoon, later president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton).

Isabella Marshal Graham from the Library of Congress

She was married in 1765 to Dr. John Graham of Paisley, a widower & a “gentleman of liberal education, & of respectable standing.” Planning to settle in America, they sailed 2 years later to Canada, where Graham was physician to a British army regiment, the Royal Montreal, & Fort Niagara. They left behind in Scotland an infant son who died within the year; in North America their other 4 children were born: Jessie, (Mrs. Hay Robinson), Joanna Graham Bethune, Isabella (Mrs. Andrew Smith), & John. Mrs. Graham enjoyed life at Fort Niagara raising her babies, although she found the soldiers’ lack of religion appalling. Her own faith enabled her to accept with devout resignation the death of her husband in Antigua, where they had recently been transferred in 1773, just before the birth of their 5th child.

Left almost penniless, Mrs. Graham sailed with her large family back to the security of her father in Scotland, only to find that he, too, was in need. he was not prepared to support himself, much less his daughter I her 5 young children. For 3 years she lived in a thatched cottage at Cartside, in such poverty, that she & her children sometimes had only porridge & potatoes to eat. Unable to support her father & children on her meager widow’s pension, she opened a small school in Paisley. Around 1780, on the invitation of some “friends of religion,” she founded a boarding school for young ladies in Edinburgh. As her situation improved, she was able to indulge in charity, becoming “ingenious in contrivances to do good.” She used some of her income from tuitions to help people in small businesses, taking payment in their manufactured articles; she served as almoner for her friend Lady Glenorchy, a philanthropist & a patron of the school; & she organized a mutual-benefit Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick.

David F. Bloom, ed. Memoirs of Eminently Pious Women of Britain and America (Hartford, 1833), detail

Her desire to return to America, which she thought “the country where the Church of Christ would eventually flourish,” was encouraged by Dr. Witherspoon & “many respectable persons” of New York. In 1789, she came to New York City with her daughters & established a girls’ school that soon had more than 50 students & a distinguished list of patrons. Uniting with the Cedar Street Scotch Presbyterian Church, Mrs. Graham found herself in a congenial religious & social climate. Her daughters all married New York merchants. Once they were comfortably settled, she retired from teaching, lived with one or another of them, & devoted herself to philanthropy.

In 1797, Mrs. Graham joined with her daughter Joanna & her friends Sarah (Ogden) Hoffman (1742-1821) & Elizabeth Bayley Seton, who later became a Saint in the Catholic church, in organizing the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children-one of the earliest charitable associations in the United States & one of the first instances of women taking organized action on their own. Mrs. Graham was chosen “First Directress” of the society supervising its board of managers. Under her frugal management, the society aided 98 widows with 223 children during the winter of 1797-98, & the number increased during the years following. With funds raised by subscription &, after 1802, when the society was given a New York State charter. With money from legislative grants, they purchased food & distributed it to needs widows; & gave direct financial relief. The society also sought employment for the widows. Buying a house for the purpose, Mrs. Graham & her associates took orders for needlework. During the winter of 1807-08, when work was scarce, they gave out flax & spinning wheels, & paid for the products. They employed widows to teach schools in different parts of the city. Some of Mrs. Graham’s former pupils, under her supervision, conducted a school for the widows’ children. The society also opened two Sabbath schools for the instruction of adults, one of which Mrs. Graham herself taught.

When her daughter Joanna Bethune organized the Orphan Asylum Society in 1806, Mrs. Graham presided over the founding meeting & in 1810, became a trustee. With her daughter, she taught for a time at the asylum’s school, & she gave regular religious instruction at the school as well as to children in the public almshouse. She regularly visited needy families, helping them with her own money & with religious encouragement; often she would be away from home all day on various charitable missions. All kinds of destitute & unfortunate women came under her care. She called on female inmates of the Lunatic Asylum & sick women prisoners & served as president of the Ladies Board of the Magdalen Society form its organization in 1811, until her death. In her final year, at 71, she established an adult school for young people working in factories, which met on Sundays, & presided over the organization of her daughter’s society for establishing a female House of Industry to provide employment for needy women.

No longer strong enough for extensive visiting, Mrs. Graham spent much of her last 2 years in prayer & meditation. She died of “cholera morbus” in New York City at the home of her son-in-law Divie Bethune. A biography, The Power of Faith: Exemplified in the Life and Writings of the Late Mrs. Isasbella Graham, of New York (1816), published by the Bethunes, was widely circulated here & in Great Britain, with more than 50,000 copies printed in the United States before 1852 (Sarah J. Hale, Woman’s Record, 2nd ed., 1855, pp. 331-32). The widest circulation was in American Tract Society editions. In the text, her daughter & son-in-law recall her early efforts to encourage industry among the female poor:

“In the winter 1807-8, when the suspension of commerce by the embargo, rendered the situation of the poor more destitute than ever, Mrs. Graham adopted a plan best calculated in her view to detect the idle applicant for charity, & at the same time to furnish employment for the more worthy amongst the female poor. She purchased flax, & lent wheels, where applicants had none. Such as were industrious, took the work with thankfulness, and were paid for it; those who were beggars by profession, never kept their word to return for the flax or the wheel.” (p. 59)

This posting based, in part, on information from Notable American Women edited by Edward T James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S Boyer, The Belknap Press of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1971
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James Monroe's wife Elizabeth Kortright 1768-1830

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On this day in history, January 16, 1786, future President James Monroe married a 17-year-old New York beauty named Elizabeth Kortright (1768-1830). She first caught Monroe's attention in 1785, while he was in New York serving as a member of the Continental Congress.

Detail of a Miniature

The 6 ' tall, 26-year-old Monroe, already a famous revolutionary & a practicing lawyer, married not for money, but for love. Elizabeth's father, once a wealthy privateer, had lost most of his fortune during the Revolutionary War. She was the daughter of Lawrence Kortright, an officer in the British army who had made his fortune privateering during the French & Indian War, & his wife Hannah Aspinwall.

James Monroe

After a brief honeymoon out on Long Island, the newlyweds rode back to New York City to live with her father, until the Continental Congress adjourned. The Monroes returned to Virginia, where he had graduated from the College of William & Mary, & promptly started a family.

Elizabeth & the girls followed Monroe to Paris, when President George Washington appointed him ambassador to France in 1794. There, he & Elizabeth became enthusiastic Francophiles. Elizabeth, with her sophisticated social graces, adapted easily to European society. The French aristocracy referred to her as "la belle americaine."

The violent fallout of the French Revolution marred the Monroes' sojourn in France. Members of the aristocracy whom the Monroes befriended were increasingly falling prey to the rebels' guillotine. In 1795, Elizabeth succeeded in obtaining the prison release of the wife of the Marquis de Lafayette, the dashing Frenchman who had served on Washington's staff during the American Revolution.

Elizabeth Monroe by John Vanderlyn

When Monroe's term as ambassador ended in 1796, he brought his family back to America & settled on the Oak Hill plantation in Virginia. For the next 15 years, he shuttled his family between stints in Virginia political office & the occasional foreign appointment. In 1811, Monroe accepted President James Madison's offer to serve as U.S. secretary of state. Six years later, Monroe himself was elected president from 1817-1825.

During their 1st year in Washington, the Monroes lived in temporary lodgings until the White House, which had been destroyed by the British during the War of 1812, was repaired. As first lady, Elizabeth, usually very social, deferred to her husband's wishes to minimize White House social events. He & Elizabeth both deplored the opulent displays of the previous first lady, Dolley Madison, preferring more private, stately affairs modeled after European society. The White House social life was also curtailed by Elizabeth's declining health. Washingtonians, worrying about being seen with the powerful even back then, mistook the lack of White House social events for snobbery.

James Monroe by Gilbert Stuart

Just after he assumed off, in June 1817, President Monroe embarked on a "Goodwill Tour" of the United States. Paying expenses out of his own pocket, the new president was greeted by cheering crowds & treated to celebratory picnics, dinners, & receptions in every city he visited. After touring New York, Philadelphia, & Baltimore, Monroe stopped in Boston, where a newspaper hailed his visit as the beginning of an “ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS.” Despite this phrase, while in the White House, the Monroes endured the depression called the  Panic of 1819 & a fierce national debate over the admission of the Missouri Territory. Monroe is most noted for his proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which stated that the United States would not tolerate further European intervention in the Americas.

James Monroe, painted by Rembrandt Peale about 1824-1825

To add to James Monroe's woes, his beloved Elizabeth died in 1830, at the age of 62. According to the family, Monroe burned 40 years' worth of their intimate correspondence. Upon Elizabeth's death in 1830, Monroe moved to New York City, to live with his daughter Maria Hester Monroe Gouverneur who had married Samuel L. Gouverneur in the White House.
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Mount Vernon's Hoecakes & Hospitality: Cooking with Martha Washington

Under the Leafless Trees by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Short Break

I wish - its cold here. I have some medical problems to sort out and need a hopefully short break. I can still be found on Facebook as I find that easier to use but will be away from here for a few weeks. Thanks for all your support. Back when I can.

William Knight Keeling - Love's Messenger 1856