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Crime Poems: Robert Young’s True Character

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

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Fifteen year-old Robert Young used his time in Dublin in 1765 to find his true character. He decided that he was “an absolute hater of all sorts of strong liquor,” but he also discovered that he was “much inclined to the company of women.” This inclination moved him to try his hand at seducing one of his master’s maids, who at first resisted his advances until his persistence and the “large promises” he made finally weakened her.

Young’s father had sent his son to Dublin from Carrick, Ireland to work for George Reilly, a wholesale merchant. He had educated Young with the expectation that the boy would eventually follow in his footsteps, and he believed that his son would gain valuable experience in the business world by working for Reilly. But Young came away from his time in Dublin with a worldly education that was not what his father had intended.

Young’s Education

Once Young attained his goal of seducing Reilly’s maid, he used his close connection with the merchant to have her discharged to ensure that the illicit relationship would remain a secret. Young then turned his attentions to “lewd women,” and with their influence he lost any noble spirit he originally possessed and “in a short time learned to drink to excess.”

Reilly soon discovered how Young was spending his time away from the warehouse, and he threatened to tell Young’s parents about it if he did not quit his current lifestyle and apply himself to learning the ways of business. Young responded by leaving Reilly and traveling to Liverpool, England for a two-week vacation. After he returned to Dublin, he enlisted in the army.

Young committed “all manner of debauchery” while in the army, and before he left Dublin with his regiment, he was treated in the hospital for syphilis, his first of many such treatments. As Young moved from place to place as a soldier, he continued to seduce and abandon women along the way. He eventually landed in Canada under General Burgoyne, and as the army wintered in Quebec, he came up with a scheme to supplement his meager earnings. He developed a relationship with a widow, who supplied him with money that he then used to buy liquor and spend time with bad company. When it came time for his regiment to go to Ticonderoga, the widow pleaded with Young to stay behind with her, but in perfect step, he marched on.

Desertion

Young saw action in two battles but came out of both unscathed. After marching with his regiment to Hadley, MA, a woman he met talked him into deserting the army. He took her advice, spent the night with her, and then continued his rakish ways as he traveled around New England.

The Massachusetts Spy, November 11, 1779 (From Early American Newspapers, an Archive of Americana Collection, published by Readex (Readex.com), a division of NewsBank, inc.)

Young landed a job as a schoolteacher in Greenfield, MA, and after two months went back to his “old practices of seducing the young women,” although he never explicitly says whether any of them were his students. One girl in town took a particular fancy to Young, and she often visited him “in private.” Her parents tried to keep the two apart by refusing to allow Young in their house, but their efforts came to no avail. And when Young eventually left Greenfield, the girl continued to slip away to visit him.

Teacher Opening

Young moved around acting as a schoolteacher in several towns, when he learned that there was an opening for a teacher in Brookfield, MA. When he arrived there in 1779, he decided to keep the fact that he had deserted the British army a secret so as to avoid any problems. Young opened a school on the property of Samuel Green, and not surprisingly he soon struck up relations with Green’s daughter, Anne. When Anne’s parents found out about the relationship, they were furious, especially because they knew that Young was having similar contacts with other women in town and on many nights never came home.

But this time was different. Young believed he was truly in love with Anne. He promised to quit his relationships with the other women and offered Anne marriage. He even told her that he belonged to the British army and assured her that he would never go back to it. Anne’s parents and friends tried their best to derail the relationship, but she held firm to her intention to marry Young. Young himself, though, made sure that the marriage would never happen.

On September 3 with their marriage only a few days away, Young got drunk and then raped one of his students, Jane Green, Anne’s eleven year-old sister.

Young was tried at the Superior Court in Worcester, and the Massachussets Spy reported that

the evidence of his crime was clear and striking. The jury found him guilty, and he received sentence of death on Saturday last. It is supposed that greater influences of brutality and barbarity, were never exercised in a crime of this kind, than were exhibited by said Young in the perpetration of this inhuman deed. The circumstances of which decency forbids us to publish in a public news paper.

Before Young was executed on November 11, 1779 at the age of 29, he wrote a poem called, “The Dying Criminal,” although it also offers little detail about what happened on that fateful evening in September.

(Library of Congress)

The Dying CRIMINAL:
A
POEM.

By ROBERT YOUNG, on his own Execution, which was on Thursday last, November 11th, 1779, for a RAPE committed on the Body of Jane Green, a Child eleven Years of Age, at Brookfield, in the County of Worcester, on the 3d Day of September last. Corrected from his own Manuscript.

ATTEND, ye youth! if ye would fain be old,
Take solemn warning when my tale is told;
In blooming life my soul I must resign,
In my full strength, just aged twenty-nine.

But a short time ago, I little thought
That to this shameful end I should be brought;
But the foul fiend, excepting God controuls,
Dresses sin lovely when he baits for souls.

Could you the monster in true colours see,
His subject nor his servant would you be;
His gilded baits would ne’er allure your minds,
For he who serves him bitter anguish finds.

Had I as oft unto my Bible went,
As on vain pleasures I was eager bent,
These lines had never been composed by me,
Nor my vile body hung upon the tree.

Those guilty pleasures that I did pursue,
No more delight—they’re painful to my view;
That monster, Sin, that dwells within my breast,
Tortures my soul and robs me of my rest.

That fatal time I very well remember,
For it was on the third day of September,
I went to Western, thoughtless of my God,
Though worlds do tremble at his awful nod:

With pot-companions did I pass the day,
And then direct to Brookfield bent my way,
The grand-deceiver thought it was his time,
And led me to commit a horrid crime.

When it was dark I met the little fair,
(Great God forgive, and hear my humble pray’r)
And, O! dear Jane, wilt thou forgive me too,
For I most cruelly have used you.

I took advantage of the dark’ning hour,
(For beasts always by night their prey devour)
This little child, eleven years of age,
Then fell a victim to my brutal rage;

Nor could the groans of innocence prevail;
O pity, reader, though I tell the tale;
Drunk with my lust, on cursed purpose bent,
Severely us’d th’unhappy innocent.

Her sister dear was to have been my wife,
But I’ve abus’d her and must lose my life;
Was I but innocent, my heart would bleed
To hear a wretch, like me, had done the deed.

Reader, whoe’er thou art, a warning take,
Be good and just, and all your sins forsake;
May the Almighty God direct your way
To the bright regions of eternal day.

A dying man to you makes this request,
For sure he wishes that you may be blest;
And shortly, reader, thou must follow me,
And drop into a vast eternity!

The paths of lewdness, and these base profane,
Produce keen anguish, sorrow, fear and shame;
Forsake them then, I’ve trod the dreary road,
My crimes are great, I groan beneath the load.

For a long time on sin should you be bent,
You’ll find it hard, like me for to repent;
The more a dangerous wound doth mortify,
The more the surgeon his best skill must try.

These lines I write within a gloomy cell,
I soon shall leave them with a long farewell;
Again I caution all who read the same
And beg they would their wicked lives reclaim.

O THOU, Almight GOD, who gave me breath,
Save me from suffering a second death,
Through faith in thy dear SON may I be free,
And my poor soul ascend to dwell with Thee.

The Massachusetts Spy, November 24, 1779 (From Early American Newspapers, an Archive of Americana Collection, published by Readex (Readex.com), a division of NewsBank, inc.)

Sources

  • “Extract of Another Letter from the Same Place. August 20.” Connecticut Gazette, October 27, 1779, vol. XVII, issue 833, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
  • “Worcester, October 14.” Massachusetts Spy, October 14, 1779, vol. IX, issue 441, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
  • Young, Robert. The Dying Criminal: A Poem. New London, [1779]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
  • —. The Last Words and Dying Speech of Robert Young. New London, [1779]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
  • —. The Last Words and Dying Speech of Robert Young. Worcester, [1779]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
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Places and Events: Old Jails in Maine

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

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I had to duck my head as I passed through the low doorway that led into the dungeon of the Old Gaol in York, ME. The sole electric lamp trying to replicate what the lighting would have been like in the jail cell in the 1700s and the musty smell resulting from a lack of fresh air effectively transported me back in time. As I thought about the criminals who were once held here and tried to imagine what their experience must have been like, my two teenage daughters and their friend were outside sunning themselves on a stone wall before deciding to walk across the street to buy a refreshing drink.

By now, my family is used to me dragging them to historic sites that have connections to America’s criminal past as part of our vacations. But this time we were traveling with another family during our recent trip to Maine. Still, I managed to talk my traveling companions into stopping off to see the Old Gaol as we journeyed up the Maine coast, and as we continued on, we even stumbled onto yet another early American jail. I could not believe my luck.

The Pemaquid Village Jail

The earlier of the two jails we saw dates back to the 17th century and was a serendipitous find after I insisted that we visit the Colonial Pemaquid State Historic Site in Bristol, ME. The jail was part of the Pemaquid Village–which was established between 1625 and 1628–and all that is left of it today are the stone cellar walls that indicate a once small structure divided into two rooms.

The Pemaquid Village Jail

Archaeologists identified the building as a jail when they discovered the charred remains of a stockade that created a penned-in area adjacent to one corner of the building. The jail structure was burned down twice by Native Americans–once in 1676 and then again, with encouragement from the neighboring French to the north, in 1689–and the stockade must have burned down along with it.

The jail is not much to look at today, but the walls outlined by the rubble adequately convey the claustrophobia that its inhabitants must have endured long ago. I know of no other extant jail structure in the U.S. that dates back as far as this one (if you know of one, please share it in the comments), so this find turned out to be quite an historical treat for me, even as my teenage travelers urged me to hurry along so that they could go swimming.

The Old Gaol in York

The Old Gaol, one of the Museums of Old York, was built in 1719 with timbers salvaged from the original York jail constructed in 1656. The dungeon on the main floor is made up of three-foot thick stone walls and is adjacent to the kitchen, which was part of the living quarters of the gaoler and his family. After murdering her master’s grandchild in 1734, Patience Boston was held in this dank and gloomy space, and during her stay she gave birth to her third child. Today, visitors can stand on the same spot at the end of the long and narrow window that leads into the jail cell where Rev.s Samuel and Joseph Moody counseled Boston and helped her embrace Christianity before her execution on July 24, 1735. (See below for links to stories of more criminals who were once held in the Old Gaol.)

The Old Gaol in York, ME

As the population of Maine grew, so did the need for jail space, so the Gaol was expanded and the holding cells were moved to the second floor. While the gaoler and his family received more space and improved living accommodations as a result, they also lost a lot of their privacy. Instead of through the kitchen, prisoners now had to pass through the gaoler’s bedroom to enter the holding cells on the second floor, and all that separated the two spaces was a thin wooden door covering a small interior window through which food could be passed. This arrangement meant that prisoners could hear everything that was going on in the gaoler’s bedroom, and the gaoler and his wife could hear any noise coming from the adjacent cell. The children had it little better. They slept in another bedroom that was connected to the debtor’s cell.

Despite the best efforts by the gaolers to keep the Old Gaol’s prisoners locked up, some of these criminals still managed to escape. A particularly inventive Nathaniel Cole, who in 1819 was being held on the second floor for debt, smeared blood on the saw blades that partly blocked an air vent that led into his cell and then hid up the chimney. When the gaoler later entered the room and saw the bloodied saw blades, he assumed that Cole had wounded himself while escaping down the shaft and immediately ran out to find him. Cole then slipped back down the chimney and walked out the front door.

My teenage traveling companions escaped out of the Old Gaol almost as fast as Cole did after they quickly walked through just enough rooms to justify their entrance fee. Alas, while I cannot say that the girls toured these two historic sites with the same enthusiasm as I did, they did give me enough time to revel in these physical reminders of America’s early criminal past.

Stories of Criminals Held in the Old Gaol in York, ME

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Early American Criminals: The Cuckolded Soldier

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
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Around 1764 or 1765, Bryan Sheehen returned home to his wife in Casco Bay, ME after serving in the regular army for a long six and a half years. But the joy of his homecoming turned into rage when he learned that his wife had remarried during his absence to a Frenchman. Sheehen made preparations to kill the man by sharpening the end of a hanger, but his anger subsided before the two met and cooler heads prevailed when they agreed that their wife should choose which husband she wanted.

She chose Sheehen.

But her choice did not save the marriage. Sheehen could not stomach the thought of the Frenchman’s child living with them, and so even though he had subsequently had three or four children by his wife (all of whom died except one), he abandoned her and moved to Marblehead, MA.

Carelessness and Reluctance

Sheehen was born in Ireland in 1732 to a mixed religious household. His father was Catholic and his mother Anglican, so he and his brothers attended Catholic services and his sisters accompanied their mother to the English church. At the age of 20, he went to Newfoundland to work in the fishing industry before moving to Charlestown, MA to work as a truckman. From there, he bound himself as a servant to the shipbuilder Benjamin Hollowell in Boston.

While Sheehen lived with Hollowell, he was required to attend religious services with the family, and his master occasionally quizzed him on the text of the gospel and the content of the sermon. Since Sheehen was not used to the Protestant service, he performed these duties “with carelessness and reluctance.”

After he finished his term and left Hollowell, he met another person who got him drunk and tricked him into signing yet another indentured servant contract. Sheehen left no details as to who this person was or what work he was required to perform, but after he satisfied the terms of the contract he moved to Casco Bay and got married.

Marblehead

After Sheehen abandoned his family in 1768 and moved to Marblehead, he worked once again in the fishing business as a sailor. But when he was not out at sea, he hung around the streets and developed “the character of a wicked, profligate person.” During the winter of 1770-1771, a shop owner accused Sheehen and another man of planning to burglarize his store when he spotted them loitering in front of his establishment. In response, Sheehen violently threatened and abused the shop owner, and as punishment he was confined to the jail in Salem and then publicly whipped. During his imprisonment, Sheehen learned that his wife had died, which deeply affected him.

That July, Sheehen was in the tavern of a Mrs. Poor when a woman struck his fancy. When she left the room he enquired about her, and when she returned he ordered her a drink. She refused it. He offered her money, but she declined to take that as well. Frustrated, he left Mrs. Poor’s house, and when he returned and asked about her again, he was informed that she was married.

The woman turned out to be Abial Hollowell, wife of Benjamin Hollowell. This Benjamin was not the shipbuilder, Benjamin Hallowell, who had owned Sheehen as an indentured servant back in Boston, but Sheehen must have at least had some recognition that she shared a similar sounding last name as his former master.

Pursuit

The knowledge that Abial Hollowell was married did nothing to detract Sheehen from pursuing her, and the women in town did their best to hide and protect her from his advances. But they could not save her one night when Sheehen broke into her house and entered her room with a lighted candle. When Hollowell woke up and saw Sheehen in her room, she asked him in a fright what he wanted and pleaded for him to leave. Sheehen offered her money, which she again refused. Then he blew out the candle.

Sheehen leaped onto Hollowell’s bed, covered her mouth with his hand, threatened that if she made any noise he would kill her, and raped her. Afterward, in an attempt to prevent her from becoming pregnant, he abused “her with his other hand in so shocking a manner that she had little hope or expectation of her life.” As a result, she was unable to get out of bed without help for 10 days afterward.

Sheehen was arrested on September 13 and charged with the crime. Hollowell testified against him in court, and a physician who examined her corroborated her account. Sheehen, though, claimed that she had consented to lying in bed with him.

Evidence

Rape was a capital offense in Massachusetts at the time, so Sheehan was sentenced to execution. He steadfastly maintained until the end that he was not guilty, and his stubborn refusal to confess the crime garnered sympathy from some members of the public who consequently believed that he should not have been hanged. But the attorney general at his trial asserted “that he had been at a number of trials of the like kind, but never knew one so plain, and the evidence so full against the prisoner.”

Essex Gazette - March 31, 1772 (From Early American Newspapers, an Archive of Americana Collection, published by Readex (Readex.com), a division of NewsBank, inc.)

James Dimon, Pastor of the Second Church in Salem, published the sermon he gave on January 16, 1772, the day of Sheehen’s execution. He also added a brief account of Sheehen’s life at the end of the publication in which he accused Sheehen of committing a similar crime while living in Casco Bay.

In his account, Dimon describes in shocking detail a similar crime suffered by another woman, except that, unlike Hollowell, this woman died. After boasting to his companions what he had done, the man was arrested and held in a private home for lack of a jail, but after 2 or 3 days he escaped. This man fit the description of Sheehen, and the informants who told Dimon about this case were fairly certain that Sheehen was the one who committed the crime. Dimon contends that these events were the real reason Sheehen abandoned his wife and son in Casco Bay.

Postscript

Before his execution, Sheehen sold his body to a Dr. Kast of Salem for dissection, and in his last words he informed the hangman of this fact. But a March report in the Massachusetts Spy assures the public that Kast never obtained Sheehen’s body, because “between thirty and forty persons last Friday se’nnight opened his grave, where they found [Sheehen] lying nearly in the same state he was buried in, the afternoon he was executed.”

Sources

  • An Account of the Life of Bryan Sheehen. [Salem, MA: Samuel and Ebenezer Hall, 1772]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
  • Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
  • Dimon, James. A Sermon Preached at Salem, January 16, 1772. Salem, MA: Samuel and Ebenezer Hall, 1772. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
  • “Extract of a Letter from Chatham, September 15.” Connecticut Courant, November 19, 1771, issue 360, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
  • Kellow, Margaret. “Bryan Sheehan: Servant, Soldier, Fisherman.” The Human Condition in Colonial America. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999.
  • “Salem, March 3.” Massaschusetts Spy, March 5, 1772, vol. II, issue 53, p. 211. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
  • “Salem, September 24.” Boston News-Letter, September 26, 1771, issue 3546, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
  • “Salem, March 3.” Massaschusetts Spy, March 5, 1772, vol. II, issue 53, p. 211. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
  • “Thursday, January 23. Boston.” Massachusetts Spy, January 23, 1771, vol. I, issue 47, p. 187. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
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Crime Poems: “Inhuman Cruelty”

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

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I find some of the crimes committed in colonial America to be too sad or too disturbing to report: our age by no means has a monopoly on shocking cruelty. The following crime could easily fit into this category, so I will let the poem that was sold in broadside form at the scene of the perpetrators’ punishment fill in the details of exactly what happened.

Here is the basic outline of events: On July 9, 1763, Ann Everton of Boston gave birth to a bastard female child, and a few months later she married John Richardson, a laborer who was presumably the father of the girl. After the couple married, they conspired to end the life of their infant daughter, but their attempts to murder her were eventually discovered. Somehow the child survived the ordeal.

John and Ann Richardson were tried and found guilty of contriving to kill and murder their baby through starvation. They were sentenced to stand at the gallows with nooses tied around their necks for one hour, and their punishment took place at Boston Neck on October 4, 1764, almost one year to the day after the two were married.

Because their daughter survived their murderous attempts on her life, the couple was spared from actually hanging from the ropes tied around their necks. But they did not escape harsh punishment. John Rowe, who attended the scene, reported in his diary, “the man behaved in the most audacious manner, so that the mob pelted him, which was what he deserved.”


Inhuman Cruelty:
Or Villany Detected.

Being a true Relation of the most unheard of, cruel and barberous [sic] Intended Murder of a Bastard Child belonging to JOHN and ANN RICHARDSON, of Boston, who confined it in a small Room, with scarce any Victuals, or Cloathing to cover it from the cold or rain, which beat into it, for which Crime they were both of them Sentenc’d to set on the Gallows, with a rope round their Necks, &c.

ADIEU to wanton jests, both false and vain,
To foolish fland’ring tales, and songs profane;
A mournful theme my heart and tongue employs,
Afflicts my mind and flattens all my joys.

I sing the cruel, miserable pair,
Th’ unhappy Man, and the accursed Fair,
Whose base and horrid fact torments my ears,
Distracts my soul, and drowns my eyes in tears.

Then on my muse, let all the vulgar know
The barb’rous cause from whence my sorrows flow
Proclaim the Wretch and his infernal Wife,
Whose wrestless malice sought her Infant’s life.

Who in a wet, a cold and loathsome room
Confin’d her Babe, the off-spring of her womb:
‘Twas there she made the half-starv’d Infant lay,
To sob alone and waste its flesh away.

Nor did the base and cruel Mother feel,
The least remorse—her breast was harden’d steel:
With looks serene, the Tigress could behold
Her panting Infant naked, wet and cold.

Thus she the helpless, tender Infant us’d,
She vex’d its spirits, and its body bruis’d;
And thus you see how John and bloody Ann,
The cruel Mother and unnatural Man.

Invented means to stop this Infants breath,
And sought to kill it by a ling’ring death;
But thanks to GOD, who sits inthron’d on high,
Supream o’er all, dread Sov’reign of the sky.

Who did his rich and wond’rous grace extend,
To save the Child from that untimely end;
How freely does his tender mercies flow,
To rescue Mortals from their depths of woe.

When sore distress’d he mitigates our pain,
Regards our tears, nor lets us cry in vain:
He hears our pray’rs, when we implore his grace,
And loves and pities, while he hides his face.

But as for those whom goodness can’t reclaim,
Who scorn his mercies, and blaspheme his name:
Those rebels soon shall feel his heavy rod,
And know the justice of an angry GOD.

So shall these Felons whose detected crime,
Has mark’d them out the scandal of our time:
This day the Man and his accomplish’d Dame
Are both expos’d to everlasting shame.

Behold him, Sirs, with his inviting Fair,
High on the gallows, see him seated there:
Behold how well the pliant halter suits
These hardn’d monsters, and unnatural brutes.

Behold, I pray, this Female’s brasen face,
Which gives the gallows that becoming grace;
See how she sets without concern or dread,
Bites in her lip, and rears her guilty head.

Behold, ye Swains, how great their guilt has been;
Then stand in awe, and be afraid to sin:—
Ye virgin Nymphs—ye few and virtuous Fair,
The earth’s great joy, and Heav’ns peculiar care.

Be content now, while in your youthful prime;
Abhor this Harlot, and avoid her crime:
Detest this Man, and ev’ry villains face,
Who dare be cruel, impudent or base.

And now that we may have our sins forgiven,
May live at ease, and die in peace with Heav’n;
Let us attend to wisdom’s sacred call,
Who thus concludes with an address to all.

Ye simple mortals, harken to my voice,
And take me now for your eternal choice;
Now let my sayings in your hearts descend,
Receive my law, and to my words attend.

Keep far from passion, cruelty and strife,
And I’ll conduct thee in the paths of life:
Exalt me now and I’ll prolong thy days,
I’ll save thy soul and prosper all thy ways.

Tho’ all forsake thee, I’ll be with thee still,
I’ll be thy guide and keep thee free from ill,
I’ll lead thee here and be thy kind convoy
Safe to the Haven of eternal joy.

Sources

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Early American Criminals: “The Wicked Flee When None Pursue”

Wednesday, May 30, 2012
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The final chapter in the fall of John Ormsby began when he stabbed a man in the chest with a fork in Boston in 1734. In his Last SPEECH and Dying WORDS, Ormsby says that he was hanging around a friend’s shop when some of the boys who worked there persuaded him that a customer “designed to do me a Mischief.” Right after Ormsby grabbed a fork off a table and performed the preemptive act, he ran to the local prison, confessed to committing murder, and was put in a holding cell while the authorities launched a formal investigation.

Ormsby’s trip to prison turned out to be premature, because the fork hit the man’s ribs and did little damage. But, as Ormsby states, “the wicked flee when none pursue,” for while he was in the holding cell, Ormsby committed the crime that would bring him to the gallows.

Early Chapters

Ormsby was born a Protestant in the town of Enniskillen in northern Ireland. He was sent to Dublin to serve an apprenticeship with a barber, but he left his master before he finished out his time. From there, he “went rambling about the Country” and fell in with “bad Company,” but he eventually married and had two children. Without a solid profession, he ran into debt, so in desperation he accepted an offer from a ship captain for a free passage to Philadelphia. When they arrived in America, the captain got Ormsby drunk and tricked him into signing an indentured servant contract.

Under the terms of the contract, Ormsby worked for four years for another barber. He then traveled to Boston with designs to return home, which he was anxious to do since he was unable to say goodbye to his family when he left Ireland and none of his relations knew where he was. But he also wanted to bring money back with him to pay his debts, and when he discovered that he could make a comfortable living buying and selling hair, he ended up staying in Boston.

“With little or no Provocation”

Throughout this time, Ormsby had become a hard drinker, and when his “Intellectual Powers were somewhat impaired” by alcohol, he “committed many Irregularities, with little or no Provocation.” This propensity for violence came into play while he was held in prison during the investigation for stabbing the man with a fork. While Ormsby was settling an account with an acquaintance who had come to see him in prison, the two shared a quart of liquor from a pewter pot. After the man left, Ormsby got into an argument with the two prisoners who shared his cell. The argument heated up and in a rage Ormsby attacked Thomas Bell, who was sitting on the floor by a charcoal fire. Ormsby beat Bell on the head with the pewter pot until he was senseless and then turned to the other man to do the same until the prison keeper intervened and stopped the melee. Several days later, Bell died from the blows to his head.

At the trial for Bell’s murder, Ormsby’s lawyer argued that his client was not guilty by reason of insanity because under the effects of the alcohol he did not know what he was doing and afterwards had no memory of what took place. But the jury found that Ormsby’s behavior both before and after the murder showed that he was “not wholly destitute of the use of reason” and brought in a guilty verdict.

On the day before his execution, Ormsby wrote his Last SPEECH and Dying WORDS “with his own Hand.” In it, he says that he preferred to write out the account of his life and his warnings to impressionable youth “rather than take up my own or the Spectators Time at the Hour of my Death.”

An early map showing Boston Neck, which runs along present-day Washington Street.

Ormsby was executed on Boston Neck on October 17, 1734 next to Matthew Cushing, the celebrity burglar who had broken into the house of a shoemaker at night and stole a few articles of clothing. Cushing’s execution grabbed more of the public’s attention than Ormsby’s did, mostly because Cushing was executed for a crime that was perceived to be much less egregious than the vicious one carried out by Ormsby.

Sources

  • Ormsby, John. The Last Speech and Dying Words of John Ormsby. Boston: Thomas Fleet, 1734. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
  • Rogers, Alan. Murder and the Death Penalty in Massachusetts. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008.
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